Oct 4 - Whitewater rafting & Quadding

Today, Dean and I decided on a different adventure package. (hold on this is a long post)
We needed to be at our guesthouse inbetween 830-900am for a minibus to pick us up and take us to the chok chai tours. I woke up for a breakfast and it was a good one, fried eggs on brown toast. It was proper toast that i'm used to and the eggs where pretty good too. That's one thing i need is an western breakfast.

So the minibus drove for about 20 mins and stopped at an orchid farm. The guide told us that we were stopping for 10-15 mins. I used toilet and went into the butterfly area, looked a little at the orchids but i didn't notice what the time was when we we stopped and didn't want to miss the minivan from driving off without me. So i didn't get to see many variety of orchids or take any photos as my bag was in the minivan. We didn't leave the farm until 25 mins later. Drove another 15 mins to the area and then dropped of some other guests in our minivan to the elephant area and rooftop cable sliding. (can't think of the name right now).

We then ventured up the mountain and the roads were bad and the driver was heavy on the gas and heavy on the brake so we would go real fast then he would break when a gap/pothole was in the road. Dean and I felt dizzy when we finally arrived at the whitewater rafting place. It felt like organized chaos when we were up there. The driver brought us our vest and helmets. Then a Thai man, asked us to gather around him and his raft that was on the ground for some instructions. They lasted about one min as he said "when we say forward you paddle forward, when we say backward you paddle backward. As him and anther guide demonstrated. Then they sorted us into rafts, we were the first raft to take get into the river but we had to wait till the other three rafts were also in the Mae ?? river.

Finally we get moving and right into a rapid this first want was amazing, such a rush and i decided right then and there that next summer i need to gather my friends to go on a trip down to Kicking Horse in AB. The whitewater rafting took about 1 hour in full duration and we had about 5 sort of tough rapids. We ended up all 4 rafts floating down the river at the same time. Lots of placed we just floated along and didn't paddle at all. We had fun splashing the other group, but of course the guides started the waterfight. I have a good photo that was for sale by the tour group with a pic frame, decided why not cause it was only 250baht. They were organized in the fact that 2 different photos were taken of each raft and they had them down at the landing/washing off site for sale, they walky-talkyed up to someone for a copy of the photos that all guests wanted. (like i said organized chaos). Found out later from our travelguide that because the river is low the rapids aren't so much.

Now to lunch buffet - it sucked i have had better thai food. It was tasteless and then our minivan drove off to the waterfall with another one of the guests in our minivan with our bags, i tried to talk to the driver before he left but i don't think he understood english. So as we waited thinking our bags would come back with the minivan the other guide - the english speaking one - was telling us the ATV's are ready and we explained how we need our bags for shoes and shirts (well the boys needed their shirts, no i wasn't topless) They started the ATV's and let dean take one around the little yard for a test. They seemed impressed and amazed when he hit a big waterpuddle and made a big splash. (Dean tells me now that he didn't even see the waterpuddle until he hit it) I got on my ATV and he asked me to test it which i did and i thought it was okay, i realized the brakes were hard to press and didn't seem to work but they just said to push really hard. No instructions on how to drive the ATV and no helmets. Really no helmets, we had them for a not scary whitewater rafting but not for ATV's, guess it makes sense cause not everyone on the bikes here were helmets. Thailand is not regulated for helmets i think. Two guides got on a motorcyle, one with a jerrycan of gas. We were told but the english speaking guide not to pass our ATV guides. So we travelled on the paved road, the ATV guides told us to pass them i was hesitate at first but they insisted so i did, we travelled about 10-15 mins, was fun to open the ATV up. I haven't drive a Quad for a couple years, last time was about 2-4 years ago our Cousin's weekend up at Marie Lake, AB. Then we took another side road and right into a dirt path and the crops on each side of us. Banana trees, marigolds, some even seems like grass and a path in between peoples houses. I soon found out when i tried to round a corner at the bush/tree corner that my brakes didn't work so i needed to downshift to get into lower gears. We hit the puddles hard at that one stretch. Once the guides showed us the square area of trails they told us "now you know the area, be smart, remember your trail and be back at 340". We ended up going on the same 2 or 3 trails hitting the puddles hard. We were soaked head to foot with mud. Dean got some videos not sure if they are posted on fb yet. I should have taken a run at the puddle cause it was pretty lame on my attempt to make big splash. Benny (a german 25yo) and Dean's quad kept stalled so it was Dean that had to keep kickstarting it. My quad idled pretty good and only stopped about 5 times. I got it started myself a couple times. We looked at time and decided one more trail and back to the guides, we ended up getting lost as we took a wrong path. we travelled on a cement road for a while and said this was wrong so we turned around. We opened the ATV's up again as we traveled this road, Dean and Benny were ahead of me. I noticed them stopped ahead at an intersection to a 4 lane highway and i quickly downshift 2 times, grabbed brakes and then i started to panic as i didn't want to rearend Dean's quad, so i steered my quad to the right of his and he ended up hitting my quad in the backend with his quad and that was enough momentum to wake me up and sharp turn to the right into the ditch type are front of a restaurant. I'm so glad for that area. Dean was scared shitless so was i, it was an adventure and i'm thanking the Angels and the Universe for keeping me safe.

Finally made it back to the guides as they took us back to the elephant camp/ATV area. We went up to a round about and because dean was first again he decided to do a spin around a tough of grass. The guide that spoke english in the red shirt wanted to try it and the first time he ended up going up on two wheels and falling off the quad, dean showed him again and the next time the guide did it he did it very well. The quides commented to me "You drive really good" really can't say i'm a great driver but i've driven in my teenager years and know a thing or two.

Now to the ATV camp, i didn't tell you it's a sharp steep hill to get down and me with no brakes that was a challenge. I ended up doing a sharp turn at the end and brought the quad up on two tires. The guides and other guides at the area were impressed. Dean thought for sure i was in the river with the elephant.