Musings of an Idiot

Bamboo Rafting - Day 6

I woke up early this morning with a big smile because the first thing that came to my mind was the word 'Blood Hawk'. I promptly got up and went for a walk in the village taking photographs. The people were obliging – more so because it seemed like I had already played soccer with half the men in the village and they were happy for me to photograph anything within reason. I took a few snaps before I returned back to our accommodation for breakfast. It was toast and scrambled eggs with butter & jam plus the pineapples. Dan was happy because he was longer a squat toilet virgin – he felt that if he could use the squat toilet then he could do anything in the world.

When I was taking the photos earlier I noticed that there were kids in school uniforms, so I asked Chaiya if the school was open and if so if it was possible for me to take a few pics there. He told me to go into the school and take the pics as no one would mind. So I packed my bags up as soon as I finished breakfast and wandered off to the school. Polaroid attracted the attention of kids immediately and they obliged me for a few pics. A few students wanted to have the polaroid photo for themselves, so I took another one and asked them to take one while I kept the other one. That way I wasn't left without a photo as last night and I was quite pleased that I came up with a solution to my dilemma.












By the time I returned to the hut, everyone was already on their bamboo rafts and they were waiting for me. I quickly got onto my raft and we were all set to go soon afterwards. The bamboo rafting experience was surreal and fun. The scenery was absolutely stunning and it took a little while getting used to the bamboo raft. There were a couple of ship captains who were playful and were doing some tricks like running across each other's rafts and also trying to scare us by almost making the raft sink. It was fun for a while but after that it started getting annoying. Chaiya scolded them and they stopped that for a bit. John really took to rafting and was even steering the back of our raft. I got into trouble with Amanda for a bit because I stopped listening to what she was saying whenever we got near some rapids as I was getting worried about John steering the boat. He did well though and he seemed to love it.






We were passing underneath a small walkway across the bridge about an hour into the rafting - I noticed that the guy was hobbling across the bridge. As we got closer, I recognized him from last night's soccer match and he started sharing his war injury with Chaiya, who was on the other raft. Chaiya had injured himself as well during the game and shared his injury with him as well. I had been hobbling around a bit since the morning as I had hurt my left foot during the game. During the game it is such an adrenaline rush that you don't really notice your injuries. It is the day after that is painful. So yeah I had a battle wound as well but couldn't share it with them since I was on a different raft and I couldn't speak their language.

During the ride, when one of the ship captains was messing around on our raft, John walked onto the other raft when the rafts were close to one another to escape the insanity on our raft. But when he tried coming back onto our raft, the distance between the rafts was growing as we were approaching some rapids, he fell into the river. He nearly titled our whole raft over as hung onto the side of it but the ship captains soon pulled him onto the raft. John was a little shaken but escaped without any injuries. When on the raft, some insect bit me and my left arm is half numb from it - maybe I should make a movie called 'My Left Foot & Arm' – it'll be an award winner for sure. :-)





I sat through most of the raft journey and by the time we finished the journey I was soaking wet. We had lunch at a small village and I walked around in the sun for a while to dry up. We said farewell to Yee and Tsong – our guides for the trek at that point. We had to put some money in the tipping kitty and everyone was wondering if we could divide the money between the two. Some just wanted to give money to Tsong but not to Yee since Yee had made life slightly difficult for all of us with his antics especially during the bamboo rafting, but since it was a combined kitty we just contributed for both of them. It was an hour and half drive to Chiang Mai and it was evening by the time we got back to the hotel.




It was a fantastic feeling taking a proper shower after 3 days and even more fascinating watching the amount of dirt getting washed off my body. Dan, Amanda and me went to the same internet cafe to catch up with rest of the world. I hobbled my way through to there and the pain in my left foot seemed to have increased a bit. While walking Amanda asked me if I was fine – when I replied in the affirmative, she gave me a gentle push on the shoulder - which completely threw me off balance – literally, since I was trying not to put too much pressure on my left foot. She found it very amusing seeing me try to regain my balance. After the internet session, we walked back to the hotel to catch up with rest of the group. Alan, Kelly and Joy were keen on going to a pub for some drinks, while Dan, Amanda and me wanted to grab something to eat and also do some more shopping – so we split ways and the 3 of us returned to the same night market as before but we also explored a few more night markets and shops and the one we went to originally was definitely the best of the lot.

Labels: Thailand, Travel

posted by Amit @ 7:09 PM