Mae Hong Son,
Thailand
Sunday, August 24, 2003
After an excellent 2 days rafting down the Pai River I'm now in Mae Hong Son which is a little town near the Burma border. The rafting was great fun. The first day we drove for about an hour before reaching the river, which was a lovely brown colour (a bit like the chocolate river in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, it didn't taste like chocolate though). There were 7 of us in our raft - Hamish and Marcha who I met on the bus to Pai, Ali, Katie and Catherine from England and Sean from USA. There were 6 people in the other raft from France and Spain. We had a really good Thai guide called Chai who'd been rafting for 6 years. We rafted through some amazing scenery - gorges and lush green jungle. We saw water buffalo, iguanas and kingfishers. We stopped along the river for some lunch and then at some hot springs. We also stopped at a little waterfall which we had fun sliding down. We only encountered one really big rapid and Catherine managed to fall out the raft. We stopped at about 3.00pm on our first day at our overnight camp, which was very basic, no toilets or showers! After lots of yummy thai food and lots of puzzling games we headed to bed. We moved tents a few times during the afternoon to try and fit everyone in. I'm glad I wasn't in the tent with Ali, Katie and Catherine as they found a bat, 2 cockroaches and a slug in their tent - I had a good giggle listening to them screaming and throwing stuff about. Luckily I forgot my torch so I couldn't see if there was anything in my tent. We ended up squeezing 4 of us into one tiny tent only to find out the following morning that there was an empty tent next door.
It was a leisurely start the following morning where we encountered quite a few rapids. Thankfully we managed not to fall out the boat going through the rapids, although we had lots of fun pushing each other out the boat. We also swam through some of the rapids which was fun. We finished rafting about 3pm and got a lift into Mae Hong Son. The seven of us found accommodation together. Marsha, Hamish, Sean and I walked up a nearby hill to a temple where there were amazing views over Mae Hong Son. The runway at the airport runs alongside the town - you can actually walk to the airport from your hotel.
We all went out for dinner and then to a little pub for cocktails. I had an excellent nights sleep - the first since I got to Thailand.
It's pouring with rain today so we've not done much. We were going to hire bikes, but it's too wet. I'm catching a flight back to Chiang Mai this afternoon and I'm hoping to sign up for a massage course - I think it's about time I started doing something constructive
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