What a day!! Today myself and a few others had a scary experience that we will not be repeating, white water rafting in Thailand!!! The whole thing was a total sham, and could easily have cost someone their life...

Our guide had only three months experience and was rubbish!!! He kept leading us onto rocks and backwards down rapids, getting us stuck!
We were on the boat with a guy called Jerome from Washington and a girl called Yulanda from Spain. The whole thing started off pretty bad with me coming of the boat (thinking it was just a one off) It was scary as hell but the boat wasn't really moving at this point so I got pulled back on and panic was over.
Next rapids we came across were a struggle, but the ones after both my bother and jerome came off the boat as we were heading for the rapids. My brother got pulled on just in time, but Jerome had been catapulted over my bros head as we hit a rock, so he went down the rapids on his back- hitting everything on the way down!!! He got pulled in further down the river but was not in a good way- he'd hit his foot pretty bad and had bruises up his sides and arms.
We were a bit shaken, and starting to think something was seriously wrong- but we made the next set of rapids with no problems and felt a bit more relieved. The guide was still leading us in the most difficult ways possible- every other boat was sailing through no probs.
Lo and behold- next set of rapids we hit totally wrong and we clash head first with a rock. Myself and jerome both came off the left side of the boat and I thought I was dead! I have no idea how I came off, only that i was heading down the rapids if they didn't get me on the boat! Thankfully the others dragged me on and then preceded to do the same with jerome before he headed down them again. After this little episode I had more than enough, and made the guide pull over and let me off- thankfully the others decided they had had enough aswell, and we walked. Some locals in van picked us up and drove us back to camp, where thankfully the other people agreed that that our guide had led us badly.
At least we lived to tell the tale! And we got pretty drunk to celebrate that fact! The next day we went to Chaing Rai (and the golden triangle) and would strongly advise anyone who is considering a day trip there from Chiang mai NOT to do it. It is roughly 8 hours of travel, for basically a ride on a boat and being coerced into buying things from the long neck tribes without learning a shred of their culture. So in other words, don't waste your time or money.