I’m on a bamboo raft, getting out of here! –By Leigh

Neither of us sleep very well due to the many  cockrells going mental every hour or so.  Little bastards, I fancy chicken for breakfast, but its the usual egg on toast. (They started at 3am and sunrise wasn’t until 6am – little buggers were eager – A)

We needed to pack our bags carefully this morning as we were gong on a bamboo raft.  I.e sealing camera’s and expensive things into plastic bags so they can’t get wet.  Bamboo raft doesn’t sound very stable, and they don’t look it either, so there are not many pictures today.

Here’s a picture I took of another group so you can see how it works…

On our raft as above the guides were on the front and back powering / steering.  Anna was at the back, me middle, Jenny stood at the front holding the tripod which suspended our bags.  The bags are suspended because the raft is always under the water a bit, at least.  So sitting down gives you a cold wet bum!  The journey was three hours in total, I stood for about 30 minutes before sitting in water, by which time the sun was blazing again so not a big deal.  Jenny stood for the whole ride but had the tripod for stability on the faster bits.  Anna was told to sit down for the faster rapids which was very funny.  Especially as the raft would generally go a more under the water at this time!  The wasn’t warm as it is someing down from altitude, so Anna was making some great noises as the water rushed over us! (I wanted to stand the whole way, but didn’t have anything to hold on to so ended up getting quite wet. I think I did pretty well not to fall i though!- A)

The journey started slow, and got progressively faster and more interesting.  At one point the raft nearly flipped and my shoes which were hooked on the tripod, started floating off!  But I skilfully grabbed them in time of course.  Another incident saw us get wedged on a tree truck that was coming out the river at an angle on some fast rapids!  They had to get off and lift us off.  It all helped to break up the three hours with a little excitement!!!

We eventually got to the finish and had our last included lunch and jumped back into the jeep for a bumpy ride back to Chaing Mai.  We were both very happy to be back in civilisation.  All of a sudden the crappy hotel shower which was mounted at waist height, seemed fantastic and brilliant, it was hot water halleluiah!

We had our final dinner with the group and did a little shopping at the Chaing Mai night market before getting into a normal bed and sleeping very well.