Northern Thailand. Part 1.

Hey everyone - I'm sat in a coffee shop in Chiang Mai in Northern Thailand. We've pretty much set up shop here for the last few days - enjoying the air conditioning, iced coffee and free internet.

-Thailand Chopper-

I got to Thailand on Thursday. Travelling from Uganda with Sam Ward, and hooking up with Josh Neilson in Bangkok airport. We're here for six weeks - exploring white water and searching for waterfalls. We met up with Pete Buick - a friend of ours out here in Thailand and began our travels north. We took the train from Bangkok up to Chiang Mai, and got some rest as we travelled 15 hours overnight.

-Weighing in at Bangkok Train Station-

-Buffalo Carts-

Now in Chiang Mai we've got ourselves a couple of apartments in the North of the city to base ourselves for our adventures. For the last few days we've been studying maps and getting in-touch with friends and Thai paddlers to get all the info we need to set out on some missions. We've got ourselves a cool little Suzuki to take us around, and yesterday we got on the water for the first time.

-Buddhist Temple in Chiang Mai-

We headed out of the city for a couple of hours to paddle the Mae Taeng River. It's a nice grade 3-3+ boulder garden style river. It was a nice little warm up and good fun to get out in the boats and on to a new river. We were on the water for about an hour and a half - and it was an awesome experience to see elephants bathing in the water and thick jungle hanging from the banks.

-The road to the Mae Taeng-

-Sam boofs on the Mae Taeng-

-Local Transport-

After the Mae Taeng we went to check out a couple of local waterfalls we'd spotted on the map. The driving out here is awesome - either solid tar roads, or fun offroad adventuring! So even if we couldn't paddle we had a lot of fun and saw some really cool places. The first waterfall - just 3km from the main road was a local chill-out spot and the perfect place to hang-out for a BBQ but unfortunately unrunnable. The second - called 'Mae Hon Lae' - we renamed the 'invisible hard to find in the bush waterfall'. After an hour of offroading through the jungle and no sign of it we cut our losses and headed home.

-Our Suzuki in the Jungle-

Now we're getting ready to hit the road again, in search of some big waterfalls and some multi-day kayaking. Next stop is the Nan province - North East of here.

Check back for the next update on what we find.

Will Clark

Sam Ward

Josh Neilson