Elephants, Crocodiles and Ken, Oh My!

3 weeks ago, my friends and I packed up our rucksacks and flew to Bangkok, Thailand. 4 planes, 3 buses, 2 trains and a countless number of tuk tuks later, not only have we made it (safely) back to Lin'an but we also have (successfully) completed our first backpacking trip! Yay!

I have been thinking and thinking of how to explain these past three weeks in one blog post and then I realized that it's just not going to happen. So, today, when our friend asked us to tell him about our trip, it hit me! Instead of trying to explain the whole thing in one post, I'm just going to share some stories from the three weeks in a few different posts, or as I remember them!

The story that I have picked for this post is one that Carly has told everyone who has asked us about our trip since we got back, so it only seemed appropriate that it would be the first story that I posted about (also, the more times it is told the less embarrassing it becomes so I'm hoping to tell it over and over again until one day I, too, am laughing about it).

During our time in Chiang Mai, we signed ourselves up for one of those day long tours that tourists do. On this tour, we went to a botanical garden and a factory that makes elephant poo into paper, we trekked through the jungle, swam in a waterfall, rode on elephants, floated on bamboo rafts and white water rafted. I would like to make it very clear that I did not pick this tour. One of the girls that I was traveling with loves nature, the outdoors and near-death adventures, so she is the one that picked it. I was really excited for most of the stops. However, I had made a vow to never, ever, ever white water raft ever. (I'm not even that great at kayaking so it just made sense to promise myself that I would never white water raft.) The day was so fun! The elephants were so friendly and cute, the trek was awesome and swimming in the waterfall was the perfect way to cool off after the hike! I had a great time! Until I got to the white water rafting part.

When it came time to put on our life jackets and get in the rafts, I was a mess. Our guide had gone through the rules and the commands that he would use and how everything would work but he did it so fast that I didn't get in the raft super confident that I would be able to keep myself, or my team, in it. I was terrified (because I had only ever heard horror stories about it) and I was nervous because I was certain that I did not have what it took to stay in the raft (and I'm not really a fighter so if I didn't stay in the raft, I was just going to call it game over), so, I was slightly on edge. Our poor tour guide, his name was Ken, had trouble getting us to do what we were supposed to do from the beginning. Our raft consisted of me and my two friends, and two other girls that we had met in a hostel in Bangkok at the beginning of the trip, and none of us were that set on making it all the way down the river. Plus, there were elephants and people fishing and a bunch of other things going on on the banks of the river so there was a lot to look at and paddling sort of took a backseat. Ken kept saying "faster ladies, faster", "paddle, please paddle", and "c'mon we can do this" (by the end of the trip, he stopped cheering for us and just got out of the raft and pushed us to the end).

Due to our lack of enthusiasm for the actual white water rafting sport, I think Ken got a little bored. During one of the slow sections of the river, we heard a big splash behind us and I could feel the water from it on my head and life jacket. I didn't think anything of it until Ken said, "uh oh, ladies, crocodile." Nope. I was not having that. I insisted that he was mistaken. I believe I said something along the lines of "no, please no. no. no. no." and he said "yes. sometimes there are crocodiles here." That was it. I was in full panic mode. Carly calmly turned around and said "ok, so what is the procedure?" but I decided that crying was the answer (again, I'm not a fighter so if a crocodile comes then its just going to be game over for me). Thankfully, it wasn't long before Ken realized what he had done and said "sorry, sorry no! no crocodiles here! me! just me! I splashed!" Although, he can't have felt that bad about it because he continued to make similar jokes about anacondas and other animals that were just as uncalled for.

In the end, though, Ken turned out to be an angel. He did all the paddling when we got too tired or too distracted. There were quite a few times where we got stuck in the rapids and, though we did try to get ourselves out, he had to get out and push the boat free (the water wasn't very deep and it wasn't moving very fast). When other boats would ride by and splash us, he would push us away from them and splash them back while we just took cover from the sudden rain. And when we had made it through all of the rapids and we got to ride on bamboo rafts, Ken is the one who safely guided us down the river and to the shore. So, even though he scared us half to death, he really is the only reason we made it down the river at all.

Even though I had never wanted to white water raft, I am glad I did it! The river was beautiful, the rapids were fast but not too too rapid and the water was pretty shallow, so, about halfway through, I did realize that I didn't need to be as worried as I had been at the beginning which let me relax and actually enjoy it a little bit. So, I'm definitely glad that I can say that I did it but I also never need too do it again.