Riding the Pai rapids

: The brave white water adventurers

26 December….A common question is ‘What do you give someone for birthday if they say they don’t need anything?’. Well, Julie is the master at these situations so when my birthday recently came up she had the perfect answer – a two day adventure white water rafting and camping trip on the Pai River in Northern Thailand. Perfect.

The added twist to this gift is that white water rafting isn’t exactly high on Julie’s list so the whole excursion promised to stretch us a bit as well as give us some great new experiences and see some new parts of Thailand.

Julie doing some Angry Birds Christmas shopping in Pai

Pai (actually pronounced more like Bpai if you can do that) is a town of just a few thousand people north of Chiang Mai near the Myanmar (Burma) border. This is a mountainous thinly populated area which in the old days was mainly inhabited by the Shan and other tribal people and was also known for heroin poppy growing. Even 20 years ago it was sort of a hippy drop out zone for western travelers and still today carries a very relaxed atmosphere with cheap guest houses and a lively night market.

A well deserved rest at sunset in Pai

The Pai River winds its way north (it never seems to be right when rivers flow north) through the mountains, a national park and a wildlife sanctuary before eventually arriving in the small northern town of Mae Hong Son. The district of Mae Hong Son was actually part of English-administrated Burma until 100 years ago when it was somehow traded to become part of Thailand. Local tribal languages dominate the villages in these areas and people sometimes wear their local dress.

We flew to Chiang Mai on the Constitution Day Long Weekend and the next day had a local driver take us on the beautiful three hour windy road up to Pai. We wandered the few streets of the town, caught a local taxi to the Wat Phra That Mae Yen, also called the Temple on the Hill, for great views of the valley, and enjoyed wandering through the night market with the occasional stop for food and refreshments.

A romantic - and slightly blurry - dinner at poolside before our big adventure

The next day we were picked up and met our only rafting companion, a young adventurous French girl named Ben (Benedicte), and our guide, a fascinating guy named Chai who we later found out had been doing these rafting trips for 20 years. An hour’s drive later we were at the drop-in point, put on life jacket and trendy helmet, watched as they inflated our rubber Zodiac-type raft, jumped in and pushed off.

The two brave girls steered us through treacherous waters

At first we floated lazily through farmland mainly growing garlic and passed dozens of pumps which pumped water out of the river to irrigate their fields. But after a beautiful picnic lunch which Chai pulled out from our onboard supplies the mountains started to close in a bit and we hit the occasional rapid section. To be honest, most of the rapids were fairly modest although we did hit a couple of Level 2 rapids on the first day. A good warm up lap.

The closest we came to a group photo

Some of the rafting wasn't that stressful

The thick green jungle came right down to the high water mark but as it was late in the rafting season the water was relatively low and there were often exposed sand banks or rocks along both shores. We saw numerous different birds, especially the colourful Kingfisher which flashed all it’s colours when in flight. And we passed a few lazy water buffaloes with their babies enjoying the shade on a nearby sandbar. We occasionally hit a section where the rapids got a bit wild and had to work hard to stay on course. On a couple of rapids Julie even fell into the raft (which is better than falling out of the raft) but I always had the impression that the maestro Chai sitting behind us had it all under control.

Our jungle camp with fire and cold beer

We arrived at the permanent camp site around 5pm with the sun long disappeared behind the mountains and the temperature lower than I had felt in Thailand for a long time. The company running these trips has a permanent camp site with a live-in cook so we dropped off our bags in the elevated lean-to that would be our home for the night and headed for a seat around the fire and a hot cup of tea (yes, amazing, I drank tea!).

Our cook did his magic on the food we brought and we enjoyed a fantastic meal under the bamboo shelter, complete with cold Chang beer. That night we sat around the campfire, telling stories, practicing our Thai with Chai and the cook and absolutely loving the peace and serenity of this jungle camp in the middle of this remote national park. As Julie and I say to each other at times like this, think about where you are on the map.

Very cosy sleeping area protected by the mossy nets

Our guide Chai and the cook whipping up a taste treat

After a hard day’s paddling we slept like an unconscious baby with the sound of the river in the background. The next morning we rose to brilliant sunshine, a big breakfast, the sound of gibbon monkeys in the trees and the promise of more challenging rapids downstream. On the first day we paddled about 23 kms but on the second we were scheduled for around 42 kms.

He was so worn out we gave him a little rest in the shade

This was an absolutely magic day, going deeper into the remote jungle, more birds, macaque monkeys playing in the trees, even the occasional fish jumping about. The steep mountains sometimes formed cliffs along the sides of the river and we negotiated numerous Level 2 rapids and even a Level 3 rapid (although Chai told us that earlier in the season some rapids can be Level 4 and even Level 5 – good stuff for adrenalin junkies). There was some excitement at one point when Julie lost her paddle but we were able to circle around for it no problem.

Bill, Chai and Benedicte rolling down the river

At other times the water slowed way down and I even jumped in for a swim, floating down with the raft for some distance, very cool. Towards the end of the day the canyon walls closed in on us and formed a long narrow gorge which we raced through. At one stage the rock walls were only three or four metres apart which added to the occasion.

Eventually we arrived in the town of Mae Hong Son and dry land. There were big smiles all around, as well as maybe a few sore arms. We had seen some of the remotest parts of Thailand, enjoyed magnificent jungle-covered scenery, made new friends, had many new experiences and survived all the white water rapids the mighty Pai could throw at us.

Life on the river

We changed clothes and caught a ride to the local airport where we flew back to Chiang Mai and then a late night flight to Bangkok, back to the city and reality. But what a great birthday present I had, super fun, lotsa new stuff, and Julie proved to be quite a good paddler, dispelling all doubt. And maybe the best part is that next year she’ll have to beat this birthday present with something even bigger!