White Water Rafting? That's a Stretch!

The next morning, I awoke to find Bailey ready to take pictures of the gigantic spider that was mounted just across from the bathroom door. The horrifying thing was that I had passed very near it several times in the dark and had no idea it was there. It was about 6 inches across and had a green body and orange fangs. I have not yet identified what type of spider this is, despite my efforts, but I was told by our guide that it was poisonous. Ya think?!

We were ready to head out, but before we did, the guy who owned the shack we stayed in went ahead of us with a machete. Non told us that we were going to walk through the lair of a king cobra they had seen before, so the other guy would go in front of us just in case. Great. I'm sure if someone were attacked by a king cobra out here it wouldn't even make the news. Worse than that, they decided to inform us when we were entering the area so I was nice and panicked...they couldn't have just let us pass through and told us later that, clearly, we had nothing to worry about.

We walked until we reached a clearing, and to my surprise, a truck was waiting there to pick us up. We got in the back and as we rode (it was unbelievably bumpy), we determined that we must be going to the white water rafting. We backed down a hill and left our things in the car, including our shoes. We were given life jackets (somehow I managed to put mine on inside-out, to the elation of the guides, who had a good laugh over it) and helmets and went down to the water. I left my camera for fear of getting it wet, but I would soon learn that the danger of that happening was extremely minor.

We were held up by every boulder we hit. The water was low, and we were backed up behind five or six other rafts, packed full of 'farangs' on treks that ended here as well. Because they were heavier, they would get hung up on everything, and since the water was hardly flowing fast enough to push us along, we'd get stuck behind them, and just wait. While we would wait in line, hung up on the boulders, we were learning Australian slang and having fun calling the Brits in the other rafts names. We heard only two commands from the raft's "captain" - forward, and stop. He would get quite frustrated with us if we didn't mind his commands, as we were too busy chatting to be much concerned with them. Either way, regardless of his direction, we'd always end up hung up on a raft, having to jump up and down and move side to side to get over it. During the ride, Bailey and I decided that we had reached the point where the magical nature of this trip was fast disappearing, and all we could think about was lunch. At one point, we stopped near a shore and a family of Thais got in the boat. I was shocked, confused at how they were all to fit in with their baskets and bags, and upset that we had no idea why these people were boarding, or how far they would go with us. We ferried them to the other side, and the ones who couldn't fit in just walked. I don't know why they needed to be carried such a short distance, especially because the water was hardly 2 feet deep. Ah, Thailand.

Not long after this, the raft pulled to the middle of the river and parked itself on a sand spit, which had risen from the lacking water. He told us to give him all our jackets and helmets and to get on to a bamboo raft. I had been quite thrilled about this part of the trip and was looking forward to floating down the river with only a long bamboo pole to steer us, but was surprised at the transition. An older Thai man, who accompanied us on our raft ride, kept splashing us. We were very hungry, and he was giggly, like the Mad Hatter (long-term exposure to mercury). We were SO done, but it wasn't over. He tried to pull me in, and I yelled at him in Thai. He just giggled. A girl from a nearby raft motioned for me to stick his head under water, as he was swimming next to us...I seriously considered it. Then, the need to take him out was gone, as the Aussie flew off the raft and took him out, wrestling him under water. He kicked us off after that.

We didn't feel too bad at the loss, and finally got lunch! We changed and headed back to town in the back of a truck (called a "Song Tao" meaning "two rows") and suddenly, before we knew it, we were back in Chiang Mai, standing on the sidewalk. We took a bus that night back to Bangkok, and spent the day with the Quinleys, then left that night after an unbelievable dinner for another all-night bus. I didn't sleep at all, and when we finally walked in the door the next morning at 7 am, we felt ill-equipped to begin our classes for the day...but was it worth it? Oh yeah!