Dear Steemit friends!
Today I am going to tell you about my adventurous first time doing bamboo rafting in Thailand.
Something I wanted to do for a while was to take a day trip and go bamboo rafting in Chiang Mai’s countryside. I told one of my Thai friends about that dream and he said, sure let´s do it. We told a few people about our plan and everybody wanted to join. On an early Saturday morning, 4 friends and I packed our stuff, took our scooters and started the adventure.
One of the most popular spots to go bamboo rafting in Chiang Mai is the Mae Wang or Wang River, which is about an hour’s drive southeast away from the Old City.
For this drive, you don´t need to have a very good scooter. Just make sure that your scooter is in a good condition. If that is the case, you won´t have any issues to drive this way.
The way to the Wang river is very beautiful. You pass rice and flower fields, elephant camps and a lot of rivers.
On the way, we stopped at a little waterfall and a little village where people made their own products.
Once we arrived, we first went for lunch. Right next to the bamboo rafting place, there was a super nice restaurant which was located on the river. The restaurant was a huge construction made out of wood and people were sitting there on the ground. The food came on a zipline from the kitchen down to the people which looked very interesting. Real Thai style.
The food there was really delicious. We ordered 5 different dishes and each was fantastic. The price per dish was around 100 baht which are around 3 $. We really enjoyed the time at the restaurant. It was such a peaceful place.
We actually expected ways more tourists there but no, we were the only ones.
Once we were done with lunch, we went to a little no-name-store were we had to pay for the bamboo rafting. If you have anything with you which can´t get wet, then you can leave it at the store or you just leave all inside your scooter. Trust me. Everything will get super wet so if you don´t have a waterproof bag then just leave everything at the scooter or store.
From there we hopped into the back of a pickup truck and took a short ride to a big shack in the jungle that housed about a dozen of bamboo rafts.
We were quoted 300 THB (9-10$) for a raft without a Thai guide. If you want to have a Thai guide then it´s 500 THB (around 12-15$). We didn´t need a guide because we wanted to steer the rafts ourselves. Each raft can hold four people, five if the water level in the river is high enough. We decided to take two rafts. So two people had one raft and my other three friends had another raft.
The bamboo rafts were HUGE and around 7 meters long. They were pretty basic and made of several thick bamboo stalks that were bound together with some rope and strips of rubber. We were handed two long skinny poles for each raft to propel ourselves down the river.
The river was very shallow (only a few cm deep in some places) but the water was refreshing and not too cold. The trees and grasses came up to the waterline so we were in the cool shade for most of the time.
You can sit on the bamboo raft or stand. You will anyways get wet so it´s better to put on older clothes which can get dirty. Many people will say now why didn´t we put on our bikinis. As Thailand is a very respectful country, you should always cover yourself. It´s not very respectful to raft in a bikini. So don´t forget to bring dry clothes.
There were several twists and turns in the river and shallow spots that we had to skillfully maneuver around, so we found that it was easier if two people steered the bamboo raft. One person stood in the front and one stood in the back. We all took turns guiding the boat and got a good workout from the challenge.
If you are not so fit and strong in your arms, if you don´t have a good balance or you do this trip with children then I really recommend a guide as it is really hard to steer the raft.
It was a really fun ride but also very hard and our hands hurt after a time.
We passed several rafts which sold beer and it seemed like as Thai people would celebrate and spend time with their friends there. As there were not many tourists, the Thai´s wanted to take pictures with us. So we were very famous.
They invited us as well for a few drinks and of course, we joined them.
It was really nice to see that the people who were drinking, didn´t throw their cans inside the water. It´s very important to keep all clean.
We really had a lot of fun with all the local people. We rafted for about two hours (including our stop at a rock) before passing a series of restaurants and coming to the endpoint. You’ll know you’re done because there will be dozens of other rafts floating in the water and several people hauling them out and onto trucks. Basically, you can’t go any further!
Once we arrived at the end, we walked back to our scooters and drove back to Chiang Mai city.
This activity is offered by many agencies as day tour but we went on an independent trip. I personally would not do this trip with an agency because it´s ways cheaper to do it by yourself and you are independent. So you can do whatever you want. Just plan at least seven hours for this adventure.
All I can say is that it was really worth to do it and we had a lot of fun for less money. I would definitely do it again.
I hope you guys liked my story and I would be very happy about comments, likes or any feedback.
Thank you so much for reading :-)
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG I can not believe that guys. What an amazing start!!! I am here on steemit since 1 week now and I got already 80 $ for my post. I am really really happy about that and I really appreciate that sooooooooooooooo soooooooo much. Thanks a lot :-)
Congrats! Keep up the good work, I am sure you will do great here if you keep delivering content like this 🙂
@leo-tmp - guys if you head through Chonburi/Pattaya, feel free to give us a buzz :) There is enough of us for a SteemFest beer bbq in my garden :)
Ouuu hey sounds good :-)
Wawoo great
Thank you :-)
Wow. What a great adventure. I have been to Cambodia and Laos, but have not made it to Thailand. Looks like fun. Congrats on the nice post.
Hey
Ohh wow cool and I could never make it to Laos or Cambodia but must have been great there :-)
You really need to go to Thailand one day.
Thanks for the comment :-)
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STOPQue wapada de fotos upvote y te sigo
sorry I don´t understand but thank you :-)
@leo-tmp I absolutely love this. Chiang Mai is beautiful and I can't wait to go there one day!
Yes, it really is :-)
Don´t wait too long to go there :-)
Thanks for the comment!
That looks like a lot of fun!
Yes and it really was. Thanks for the comment:-)
Nice, Great.. The best time is to spend time with friends..
Yes I totally agree.
Thanks for your comment!
Seems like you had a lot of fun! Wonderful pictures. I would love to do this someday <3
Thanks for your comment! Yes, you definitely should :-)
Looks fun, nice pics, I live in Thailand, but I'm on the banks of the mighty Mekong river in Mukdahan, a long way from Chiang Mai, Bamboo rafts wouldn't work on the Mekong, it's far to big , deep and fast... have a look at some of my posts if you want.....
Hey, I followed you back. Excited about your stories. I never had to chance to visit the Mekong river but one day I will. Enjoy your time in Thailand :-)
It's my home now, for better or worse, all bridges burned, all I have left in the UK is debt...
Wow but it must be beautiful to leave at the Mekong river. I like the imagination :-)
It is...
Congratulations @leo-tmp!
Your post was mentioned in the hit parade in the following category:
Oh wow I am really happy about that :-)
@leo-tmp did you ever get to visit Pai? I did a 3 day jungle trek there with Mr. Chart and it was incredible. By far, one of my favorite places in Thailand.
And your content is very thorough which is why you got an 80 dollar boost on that post lol. Also, I saw that you ate 'som tam', by far one of my favourite dishes in Thailand. Solid post. I like it so I'm giving this an upvote with full power. Nicely done.
I blog about Southeast Asia with a focus on Vietnam, Cambodia and a little bit about Thailand.
If you like travel, food, writing & photo blogs give mine a peek. If you like what you see give me a follow and I will gladly share the love back! Happy trails!
https://steemit.com/@jakehorn87
Hey Jake thank you so much for your comment, yes I went to Pai and I already did a post about Pai. I loved it. I followed you back so I am excited about your posts as well.
Nice to meet you :-)
no worries @leo-tmp. Im gonna check out that pai post right now. Stay in touch and happy trails!
Fantastic photography! I hope to see more from you.
Thank you :-)
That looks like a lot of fun! But I believe you that it must be a loot of work to steer a 7 meters long raft! Do you push the steering pole into the bottom of the river to steer? Or is it more like paddling? I think I would get stuck on the sides of the river all the time 😁
Smart to do it without a agency if it is a lot cheaper! Many agencies really take advantage of tourists so it is often a good idea to try to do things on your own as long as it's not dangerous.
Oh, and the food you had looks really wonderful! Is it some type of Pad Thai?
I really enjoyed this post, and it was the first time I have heard about bamboo rafting, so thank you for introducing it to me! 😊
Oh sorry for my late reply but I never get a notification or something if somebody new comments.
Anyways thanks for your comment :-)
Yes in Thailand you can actually do everything without agencies and its much better. You should really do bamboo rafting one day and dont worry its not so hard you just need balance :-)
And the food, to be honest, I dont know the name of all the food. But yes we also had Pad Thai.
No problem, that happens a lot to me as well! I am not sure if there maybe is a way to change it somewhere, now I just check 'replies' often. Cool, I will definitely one day when I go to Thailand! Pad Thai is one of my favourites, but I bet Thai food is a lot better there than the variations I have tried in Finland. I wish you a wonderful continuation of your adventure!