On Saturday we had our pinnacle tree planting day in the National Park, in the hills above the Hmong hill tribe. I roped in a group of Chiang Mai buddies to help with the 10,000 tree task. We were joined by a lot of other volunteers, some villagers, an army group and a whole circus of journalists from Bangkok. Might have gotten an action shot and some quotes in the national English-speaking paper, we’ll see. Quite a fun day, and without a doubt the best soil I’ve ever planted trees in. Digging the holes was almost a pleasure.
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Language class, aussie volunteer buddies and media at the planting day
And then on Sunday…….. there is absolutely no need for me to embellish this experience (not that I’m in the practice of embellishing my blogs mind you!).
It’s the start of the main white water rafting season and I’ve never gone before. A friend from Bangkok was in town - she’d been a rafting guide in Colorado for 2 years. She swinged an invite for us to tag along for a paddle with a world class rafter from the US and a group of his Bangkok friends on a nearby river called the Mae Teang. I ended up in an inflatable kayak with a local guide, tagging along with the group of solo kayakers. In hindsight my guide and I probably should have stopped BEFORE the grade 4+ rapids. Many of the kayakers did, especially one who dislocated his shoulder on the first one….
However my guide took a “may pen ray” (no worries!) kind of an attitude, who was I to argue the point, and so we continued. We cleared the first rapid fine – “THE MOST EXTREME KAYAKING RAPID IN THAILAND” I found out later, but on the second and much, much longer one we came unstuck (or stuck, I can’t remember) and bounced around in the drink for most of it. Found out there’s not a lot to grab a hold of on an upturned inflatable kayak. Lots of bruises, lots of swallowed water, but I survived. We regrouped. Guide confessed that he really didn’t like that 2nd rapid very much – yeah, thanks for that mate….
There were many more rapids that afternoon, with no more major spills, happily. Again, it was an extreme experience the usual tourist groups don’t get to have. Easily my most terrifying experience in Thailand so far (and, I hope for the rest of the trip) - I’m pretty proud I kept my cool throughout it.
I’m still paying the price for all this fun, in alternatively blue, black, purple, red and yellow splotches.....
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