We are in the middle of rainy season, and that means a lot of water! The rivers are wild, jungles green and waterfalls beautiful. My best friend Gido was visiting me in Chiang Mai and I took him for a rafting trip on the Mae Teang river with my favorite rafting company Khampan Rafting.

We got picked up from PM Guesthouse at 8am drove for about 2 hours to the raft starting point. Halfway we had a short coffee stop at a little local market. The scenic drive took us past elephant camps, like Elephant Nature Park, mountains, villages and stunning jungle.

The guides greeted us and introduced themselves when we arrived. They helped us with the lifejackets and helmets (safety first!) and with attaching my GoPro to the lifejacket. Tip: Do not attach it to your lifejacket, attach it to your helmet instead; I just filmed my knees and the inside of the raft…

Next was the safety instruction. Gido and I had to get in the boat with the instructor and practice all the commands. “Forward! Backward! Stop! Get Inside! Get back! Left! Right!” Wow… I didn’t know rafting would be so tiring and we didn’t even started yet. After this we learned what to do when the boat would get stuck on the rocks or flip over, at all the rapids and difficult points there are lifeguards with ropes ready to save us.

Time to get in the water, finally! At the start of the rafting the river is still quiet and we raft through scenic jungle landscape, we even saw some elephants drinking by the shore. But then we arrived at the first rapid! Backwaaaaard! Left! Get inside! The raft was almost flying through the air!

We survived the first rapid thanks to our amazing guide, he guided our boat past the rocks and through the rapid, because we were just sitting inside the boat, holding on to the edge of the raft, this rafting trip is insane! 13 rapids to go and the river is getting wilder and wilder. We see the first boat flipping over in front of us and the lifeguards have to get in action. I was surprised how professional they are and everybody was back inside the boat within a minute.

After 45 minutes we stopped rafting at a quiet part of the river and went for a relaxing swim. The guides where pulling some people out of the rafts and joking around in a funny not annoying way.

Time to move on to the next few rapids and once again we survived them all thanks to our guide Keaw. But we still not reached the end. “The most difficult part still has to come”, says Keaw.. And he was right! The last rapid was in front of us and it looked very rough! “Forward! Aaaand stop!” We got stuck on a rock in the middle of the rapid. “Move left and bounce!!” We all moved to the left of the raft and bounced up and down to get us back in the water. We made it! What a day, so much fun…

After we all got out of the water safe and sound we went to have lunch, delicious vegetarian Phad Thai. Our next stop is the Prachee Waterfall, where we relaxed and could slide down the waterfall. A very nice end of an exciting and fun day rafting.

Thanks Khampan Rafting for this great day!

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