Extreme Sports in Chiang Mai

I saw the whitewater rafting advertised when I got to Chiang Mai.  I've always fancied it but always been to chicken to try it.  (Funny...I saw The River Wild the other day with Meryl Streep).  I thought, bugger it, why not!

I'm at the back in the orange vest...

On the morning of, I woke up for breakfast but wasn't hungry.  I was so nervous but excited too.  We headed over to the river an hour and half away and had lunch.  Only had a little bit because my stomach was churning now we were finally here.  I got talking to a couple from Brighton (in their 50's!) and a young couple from Dublin.  After lunch we headed up the river.  The ride was so bumpy that the Brighton guy bounced off his seat at one point and landed on his two veg.  After the green went from his face he joined in the laughter, we were pissing ourselves.

After a demonstration we all ended up on the same raft.  The Dublin couple were at the front, the Brighton couple behind them and then me at the back near the guide.  I thought it was the safest place..oh how wrong I was.  I don't know if you know but the rapids are graded 1-6.  One being the most tame and six being so strong even most experts won't chance them.  The river was low at this time of the year so we were going to hit 1-3's.  As we headed out we practiced the commands...paddle left, paddle right, get down (into the raft ideally crouched not sat to avoid the rocks hitting your ass), over left (everyone to the left), over right (obvious really) and get in (everyone lean into the raft).  We hit the one's and two's and I was loving it.  In fact, I couldn't wait to hit the 3's.

We rounded a corner and spotted the 3's.  The commands were flowing and when he said 'get down' I started in the crouch position and ended up on my ass unable to get back up.  I couldn't stop laughing.  We came upto the next 3 and the guide said 'get in'....which my body, once again, took to be 'land on your ass and flap round like a fish trying to get back up'.  I set off laughing again.  The guide also found it highly amusing that all his commands apart from 'paddle left' and 'paddle right' resulted in me bouncing off the side of the raft and ending up on my backside at his feet.  We went down a few more rapids... forwards, sideways and backwards (resulting from not paddling hard enough and us all forgetting our left from our right when he called 'over left' hahahaha).  

'Over left'....we got it right this time

We came upon another big one and as we hit the first part of the rapid the Irish girl fell back into the raft in the middle of the Brighton couple and was on her back in her life vest unable to get back up.  We were laughing so much!  They tried to pick her up from her impression of a ladybird on its back struggling but laughter weakened them and let her go again.  We hit the next rapid and as predicted I bounced off the side of the raft but this time launched forward past the Brighton couple and nearly landed on the poor ladybird.  I felt this tug on my back and it was the guide.  He'd grabbed the back of my life vest and pulled me back to my seat where I bounced off, from the force, and yet again landed on my dairy aire at his feet.  I was scrambling to get up but my stomach was cramping from laughing so much I stayed put until we cleared the rapid.  He was pissing himself too.  We also got stuck on a couple of rocks on the way down and we had to bounce our way off them....which as you can imagine I did mostly on my ass in bottom the raft.  The end of the rapids were 1's and 2's and calmer but we were all still giggling all the way back.

Only one on my ass as usual lol!

Guess where I am...???

When I got back to the hostel I had a few beers (being on a high) with James and Lars and told them the tale of the wierd Australian couple.  They were shocked.  A few games on Jenga later I went to bed.

Yeah...we so cheated haha!

The next morning I was up early ready for my cooking class.  We all met at the market and had a walk round before catching a train to a small village and cycling to the farm where we were to take our class.  It was so relaxing, quite the opposite from the day before.  We all had 5 courses to cook and 4 dishes to choose from from each course.  It turned out we were cooking and eating from 11am to 3:30pm. 

Chicken Coconut Milk Soup

Thai Green Chicken Curry

Chicken & Cashew Nuts

Do I really have to say.....

Deep Fried Banana in a Coconut Milk & Sesame Seed Batter

I really enjoyed it and I can't wait to try these at home. We were all stuffed.  I'd not eaten this much food in one day in months.  Had a fantastic day.  A great way to finish my trip to Chiang Mai as I was heading back to Bangkok and South Thailand from there.