After a couple more nights of Sangsong fun we began to feel like an episode of shameless so decided we needed to get out of there! We wanted to get to Mai Hong Son and the nicest way was to go via white water rafting! Two full days of rafting, waterfalls, mud baths, caving, jumping off rocks and camp fire fun!!! Can it get any better?
We set off on our raft after a grueling hour and a half journey across the mountains where I literally felt the urge to regurgitate breakfast! We would be spending the next two days with a couple called Jeff and Vic (a nice pair from Leeds) and our pro rafter guide called V!
For the first day we just drifted down stream watching the jungle pass us and getting to know each other better. It was really relaxing but there was no white water in sight! We passed a hollow tree and V pointed out a python that lived inside. It was huge! We stopped at some waterfalls and had a dip. Then we pressed on to camp. It was a really urm…… authentic? Camp we were literally sleeping under the stars in a mosquito net on a mat. Very stupidly, the conversation before bed was mainly about snakes, spiders and other creepy crawlies so I lay awake for the majority of the night shivering in my boots at everything that made a noise. We were woken up in the middle of the night by a man with a flash light walking through our camp with a shot gun! I thought we were set up and we were all gonna be mugged and killed out here! But it turned out that one of the villagers had gone out hunting a few hours before, and brought back his catch for our breakfast!!! Talk about hospitality. The next morning we were woken by a local 5 year old running around the camp screaming, he was making a fire, playing with his pet chicken on a string, and firing his catapult at a plastic bottle. He was a really cute kid called “Dow” or star (which was the name given to me by woody on our trek!) he picked up English very well! We taught him hello, cool dude, ants! And elephants go bruuuuuuugh! He also already knew 1,2,3,4,5. He was fascinated by our camera and liked to see the pictures of the Taj. We also made some videos of him doing his best elephant impression and he stared in amazement! “is that really me?” we went for a short trek into the jungle to see the tiger cave then set off down river to the hot springs. They were amazing, the water was at least 60 degrees and too hot to bathe in! The mud surrounding is enriched with natural goodness so we were told to cover ourselves! It made our skin real soft! We washed off just in time for a big group of 4 other boats filled with brits and Thais. They joined us for back up in the rapids I suppose… We all set off after having some lunch; our boat was at the back but soon made it to the front just in time for a massive rapid which nearly turned the boat over! Some others fell in but we all managed to stay in our boat, then another then another, people behind us were dropping like flies! It was great fun and we proved that we were the stronger, faster team!
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