The Long & Winding Road

Today we had an easier day than the last 2 days.  We slept in a little bit and then walked for about 2 hours through some more amazing scenery.  We had some delicious pad thai for lunch with fresh pinapple and watermellon.  The irish fellow Gordon we had been trekking with tried some hot chili powder on his and nearly died after the first forkful.  It was hilarious, he was cursing like a real irishman.  He then complained that the only ggod meal anyone can have is chicken and spuds with gravy which is exactly what he ordered for dinner later on.  After lunch we headed to the river to do some bamboo rafting.  I started out with Will and Matheiu , Gordon and Lawrence were together.  We then proceeded to battle each other the whole way down the river.  It was so funny, we were jumping from raft to raft, jousting with the steering poles and we eventually ended up crashing our raft into a giant rock and a tree.  Our raft snapped in a couple places, Will and the guide flew off, leaving me hanging on it while the raft is breaking even more.  I eventually gave up and just started floating toward the tree that the guide and Will were hanging on to.  So our broken raft finally caught up and we continued down the river.  While all this mayhem was going on, other tourists were passing us with their mouths gaping in amazement as we destroyed our raft.  I think I had the record for falling off off the raft which was about 12 times.  It was probably the funnest hour of my life!  When we returned to our guesthouse in Chiang Mai after 3 days of trekking and only one shower, I couldn't wait to clean the filth of my body.  Just kidding, our guesthouse's water and electricity werent working.  So we went for a walk around the neighborhood and luckily it was working again when we got back.  The 5 of us then went to eat at the Riverside Cafe which was the best eating of the trip so far.  Good tunes and an awesome atmoshere right on the river.  After that we took our trekking guide's advice and went to the Roots Rock Reggae bar to see some reggae bands play.  Hotel California reggae style is really cool I might add!  Ping Pong, our guide was there and we danced the rest of the night with everyone in the bar.