| Six days in Thailand’s Remote North
| Days: |
6 (or create your own 2-to-6 day itinerary selecting the components you like) |
| Location: |
Northern Thailand |
| Activities: |
Kayaking or rafting (Class 2), hiking, camping, village stays. |
| Season: |
This is one of our few summer (rainy-season) trips, beginning in June and running through March, except when water levels are exceptionally high. |
BRIEFLY
The Mae Taeng and the Pai are two of Thailand's longest whitewater rivers.
They flow through a long valley or protected forest, providing a real rainforest experience like families of gibbons singing in the pre-dawn.
The Pai River begins above the town of the same name and leads to Mae Hong Sorn, arguably one of Thailand's most beautiful towns.
This journey combines natural beauty with a bouncy river running through a gorgeous, hilly landscape.
ITINERARY
Day 1
After a morning pick-up from Chiang Mai, drive north to the Mae Taeng River for a short but exciting raft tune-up run that gives us the thrill of our first rapids.
We then drive to Pai to dine and sleep.
Day 2
Breakfast, then drive to the put-in, upstream from Pai town.
Safety instruction, then paddle downstream through the hills.
For the next three days, we'll be using sit-on-tops (see photos).
After a picnic lunch, we paddle for another two hours to a Lahu or Lisu village.
We'll explore it and spend the night here in a homestay or a lodge.
If the river is deep enough we'll spend Days 2 and 3 here.
Day 3
Continue down the upper Pai, but if it is too shallow to permit a long run (May-early July)-or if you'd prefer to do a cave run instead-we'll move to the Lang River and paddle through the beautiful Tham Lod (Lod Cave) with its three huge rooms and amazing limestone formations.
Below it, we'll be back in the rainforest.
Sleep in Pai.
Day 4
After breakfast, choose whether we drive to a elephant camp for a ride and then begin paddling, or put-in at the bridge through Pai town.
In either case, we'll enjoy a beautiful, relaxing day's paddle down the Pai Valley with a picnic lunch along the way.
We'll end just past Muang Paeng where a China-trained acupressure practitioner, Ajarn Sai, has set up an herbal garden, meditation retreat, and clinic.
We'll spend the night in his leaf-roofed bungalows and dine on delicious food from his garden.
Day 5
Today we switch to rafts capable of handling the rapids.
We'll drift through a beautiful forest, pausing for lunch at a beachside hot springs.
More paddling and bumping through rapids takes us to a jungle camp.
Time permitting, we'll use this as a base for a hike, and then spend the night here.
Day 6
A long day of paddling, sliding down a mini-falls, and swimming, moves us to the take-out at Mae Hong Sorn.
This marks the end of our journey.
You can spend a few days in Mae Hong Sorn on your own and fly back to Chiang Mai or ride with us back to Pai.
For more information and prices, e-mail +662 653 9712 and +6681 450 5340
noting your country of departure. |
