Bamboo rafting

So basically we arrived at a slow-moving river with a bus load of French people...I slathered on some SPF 30 and was escorted onto a flimsy raft made of long bamboo sticks hastily tied together in 3 sections...with 2 French guys, one of whom was wearing a speedo and was fondly referred to as "sexy man" any time we passed Thai people :)

It was interesting to say the least. I spent most of the ride awkwardly squatting down as to not be catapulted as we rode over rocks and such. The water was freezing! I really didn't want to get tossed in...once I got my balance though, I really started to enjoy it. We passed clearings where elephants were just grazing alongside the river...was way cool seeing elephants in the wild. After a while we started passing by these little bamboo huts lining the river bank. They were sectioned off and it looked like it was where the locals come to hang out...

Amazingly I stayed dry the entire ride...It was fun, but was getting a bit old after a while...I could see where we were getting off just up ahead. We started to pass another section of the bamboo huts except there appeared to be a particularly rowdy crowd of Thais drinking and splashing around in the water...and yes, sure enough, they decided to attack us, screaming sexy man the whole time. In the end I was completely drenched from head to toe, just a mere 20 feet from our drop-off point. Ugh.

I changed out of my sopping wet clothes to prepare for the hour ahead in the crammed pickup truck...it was an exhausting day!!! I fell asleep for most of the ride back to Chaing Mai...

That night we ventured to the "Sunday Market" which is even more elaborate that the already elaborate weekday night market. This time we stumbled upon a hidden corner of Thai food vendors...selling all sorts of Thai specialties. I had some deep fried bananas, so delicious, followed by bananas rolled in coconut sweetened sticky rice, then grilled inside banana leaves...even had a chocolate waffle. I decided I was having dessert for dinner :) Why not?

We stopped in a used book store and picked up a few beach reads and basically just wandered around aimlessly for a while. We hopped in a tuk-tuk who drove us back to out guesthouse, after getting lost twice and hesitating to ask for directions (apparently this trait is consistent across cultures)...

Slept poorly on my rock hard bed, but at least I enjoyed a lukewarm shower the following morning...can't really complain as I think our accomodations have been less than $10 USD/night...