The rafting adventure from Pai to Mae Hong Son was amazing. We had a group of six people: an older French couple, a 30 year old English guy, myself, and two “river captains” to guide us. The night prior to departing involved non stop rain and some fairly epic lightning displays. The rain resulted in the river flowing high and fast, and made for a whole lot of fun. The weather during the trip was great… no rain, lots of sun, and it was nice and warm without being hot.
The route took us along the Middle Pai River, in to the depths of the jungle. The scenery was spectacular… similar to northern Australia in some ways, but very Thai at the same time. The rapids were enjoyable: the most difficult we saw were class 4, which was fun but not all that challenging. We stopped for lunch, and at one point we had to disembark the raft and walk through a mining camp. The guys there were used to stupid white people wandering about, and were full of questions. While we chatted to the miners, the guides navigated the raft to beyond the river ford and to a safe launching spot. There was a lot of debris in the river – thousands of tree limbs and other bits and pieces, but happily there was little man made stuff.
The overnight camp was again in the middle of the jungle and had been established by the French owner of the rafting company some fifteen years previously. A crew of 4 Thai dudes lived there on a rotational basis. They were to cook, clean, and maintain the place. One enterprising young guy had taken to selling warm beer to visitors: 100 baht per can. I think our bill came to about 2500 baht that night, including many beers bought for the Thai guys. There was no electricity and everything there had to be floated in by river, as there was no road access anywhere nearby. After a delicious meal we played lots of card games and told stories, played guitar (how that survived the raft trip I don’t know) and eventually went to bed: a bamboo sleeping platform for each person, with several layers of mosquito nets and some sleeping bags for mattresses. I used my silk inner as a sleeping bag and slept quite happily in the middle of the jungle.
The following day we rafted through some milder rapids for four hours, saw a bunch of fishermen on their bamboo rafts, and ended up in Mae Hong Son. The French guys and I decided to stay at the same bungalows, and spent the evening wandering about the night market eating delicious food and drinking cold beer. Mae Hong Son is a very interesting place. It’s near the Burmese border, and there are a lot of shifty looking white guys with lots of dark clothing and equipment wandering about and doing strange things at night with motorbikes and cars. Make of that what you will. However, the town is very beautiful and is well worth spending a couple of days in.
Two days later we left on a Thai Airways flight to Chiang Mai. The flight was spectacular – we had an evening view of some fairly impressive mountains, jungle, and farmland. It’s well worth doing, event hough it costs significantly more than the 10 hour mountainous bus ride!
In Chiang Mai the French guys and I split up: I was headed for some hostel the Lonely Planet guide had suggested was good, but in reality it was pretty average. It was the type of place that had a sign stating their hourly rates… but other than that it was OK. A little dirty, a little noisy, but well located. The atmosphere was miserable and I couldn’t wait to get out of there.
The following morning, I left for Koh Samui.
