Rafting on the Mae Taeng River

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After a day kicking back by the hotel pool after our trekking experience - Ah yes a day of rest... We were back in a minivan and headed for the Mae Taeng River for some Grade 3-4 rapids. While others on the tour indulged in elephant trekking and Bamboo Rafting (been there done that) we kicked back under a shade tree and counted the sweat beads on each others foreheads before Ricko discovered a cane ball and started playing a bit of hacky sack with the local boys.

Given the heat though this was fairly short lived and we were back under the tree eating some strange fruit that grew on nearby trees shortly afterwards. Feeling a little sorry for us our tour guide decided that he'd take us on a walking tour to the larger of the 12 or so rapids we were going to go down - perhaps to watch some of the "other" rafting companies come unstuck.

The rapids had a bloke with a whistle upsteam, another bloke with a whistle downstream, a lifeguard who would throw out a rope in case anyone went overboard and a lady with a video camera & camera slung around her neck to catch all the action.

We stayed for a while before it was our turn to board the minivan and head upstream to our launch destination. Lunch was served including some delicious Thai curries and coconut sticky rice in banana leaves (what was that timeless advice about 1/2 and hour before swimming??). We were kitted out in undersized life jackets (well Ricko at least) paddles and helmets and sent out onto the river in separate boats (in order to take photos of one another on the way downstream) to practice our many 'moves', paddle forwards, paddle backwards, on the job, everyone to the back, everyone to the front, left and right, high five and my favourite "get in the boat and hold on tight".

There were opportunities to have a swim in the river between rapids during which our river guides would try to pull us all out of the boat, but given their size tended to go more for the girls, especially Nunny (ropehead) who made a very attractive target. One of the more active guides in this capacity was thus lined up by Ricko for a flying tackle off the side of the raft (involving a deft move from front to back) and tried to retaliate later in the day with a "look elephant" call pointing to the shore, but made his charge as I turned to look and ended up missing me completely and threw himself in the river.

Check out the photos for more of the action.

The day ended with us climbing ashore in knee deep mud which was very interesting to negotiate and a worn out crew took the trip back to Chiang Mai in silence (aka sleeping).

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Photos

The rafting crew
Ricko and Nunny with some thai sized safety equipment

The rapids
"Get in the raft and hold on"

The rapids
Who put that rock there?

The rapids
High five!

The rapids
the churning white/brown water

The rapids
splash down on the Mae Taeng

The rapids
Under the gaze of the elephant man

The rapids
Where did that raft go?

The rapids
Person overboard!

The end of the rapids
Ricko throwing around the river guides

Comments

[Geri]

hey!!!
hi Michelle, Your adventures look awesome, and you're doing a great job of blogging your photos and tales - it's a fantastic escape for me whilst I am in the office, when I would rather be travelling..!!! Are you thinking of heading into Myanmar? Heather mentioned you were thinking about it... drop me an email if you have any questions about the place, where to go, etc. xx Geri