We almost sank! Huge rapids and an inflatable kayak. 100km down a remote Thai River, North Thailand. 3/3

This blog continues on from my previous post, part 2/3 that tells the story of a very wet first night hammock camping up in the trees. If you would like to read exactly what happened, the link is below:

https://hive.blog/hive-163772/@thinkit/kayaking-hammock-camping-and-torrential-rain-100km-down-a-remote-thai-river-north-thailand-23

Realising that we had both made rookie mistakes on the first night (as told in part 2/3), mine being the way I hung my bags to effectively catch hours worth of rain, drenching everything I had brought and my friends being, the way he strung up his tarp. Our new priority was to find an open river bank, hang out our gear and try to dry it in the midday sun before we had to camp again.

We floated down the center of the river where the current was the fastest but both came to the understanding that we were unlikely to have much sun or find any open river banks due to stormy weather conditions and a very high water level.

Just like the first day, all of the river banks and beaches were under water making any landing and setup difficult.

As we continued to drift downstream we enjoyed the sounds of the jungle. Birds, insects and whatever else lived there could be heard round the clock. We directed the kayak off to one side of the river hoping to notice somewhere to stop in behind the dense foliage.

Luckily after a few kilometers we had found the perfect spot. It was mud free, open to a breeze and was out of the current.

We tied off the kayak, unloaded our bags and unpacked everything we wanted to dry. We cut a few straight branches and bamboo to make a washing line and hung up what we could.

Even though there wasn't much sun and it was still quite damp, we were hopeful that the constant breeze coming downstream would be enough to dry out the material, especially since most of what we had was made out of ultralight ripstop or quick dry fabrics.

The time it took us to boil some water on the gas stove, cook, eat some noodles and have a wander around, most of what we had hung up was dry and ready to repack.

We untied the kayak and started to discuss our game plan for the rapids! We knew exactly where we were and that they would be fast approaching round the next 2 bends roughly 2km up ahead.

As we re-positioned ourselves back in the center of the river we decided that, my friend sat in the front would be responsible for paddling forwards and maintaining speed through the rapids and that I, sat in the back would be responsible for steering and keeping the kayak straight so that we wouldn't hit the rapids side on and capsize.

Nearing the last bend before the rapids my Garmin watch signalled we had arrived. We both stopped paddling and an eerie silence came over us. The sounds of the jungle faded into the background and a roaring rumble grew louder!

The river in front could no longer be seen as is dropped away, the crashing rapids rumbled louder and we felt the speed of our kayak increase.

We had actually brought life jackets to wear through these rough sections since we were not sure how bad they would get. Both my friend and I had our life jackets conveniently wedged between out legs as an extended floor piece but neither of us remembered to put them on until after as we were so focused on what was about to be!

From calm to crazy in a matter of seconds, we were now fighting huge rapids. As our inflatable kayak dipped and rose over the waves we found ourselves seesawing up and down. 1 second, my friend was 4ft above me and the next 4ft below me.

Photos taken with a chest mounted GoPro - Screenshot stills taken from the video.

Although our plan of keep the kayak facing straight and downstream was working it was almost impossible to keep it head on to the waves. Rapids twisted and turned attacking from the front and both sides, water poured in with every wave and we quickly felt ourselves filling up.

Whirlpools formed in the worst places but instead of spinning us round they merely sucked us in and held us back. Some were several meters wide and were, to say the least, fightening! We yelled to each other above the roaring sounds of the rapids to paddle faster and harder to coordinate a rhythm.

Unfortunately we were not able to get any photos of the rapids themselves. Once we had arrived, the flow was too fast and there were no opportunities to stop.

As the waves started to calm we could see flat water ahead and knew we had made it. We continued to paddle as hard and fast as we could as whirlpools continued to open up. We celebrated with adrenaline fueled cheers and looked back at what we had just conquered. From a downstream view looking back up, the rapids looked pretty insane!

At this point we realised we had forgotten to wear life jackets and gave ourselves a telling off!

We then noticed how much water we had taken on and began looking for an immediate stop in case we arrived an the next set of rapids. We wanted to drain all water, re tie our bags and have a quick rest.

The kayak was too heavy to drag out of the water so we had to unload everything before hoisting it up and pulling the drain plug to release the water.

Sitting on the bank talking about what we had just encountered was when we shared just how impressed we were with this secondhand kayak from Decathlon.

We climbed the bank a little higher to look downstream to see what was up next.

As far as we could see and hear, there were more rapids up ahead but by the looks of them from our viewpoint, they were considerably smaller

Excited for more action, we set off again. The speed at which we travelled for the next few kilometers was very fast. We met rapids after rapids and had to stop multiple times to empty water from the kayak.

After the first fill up of water, we became quite conscious of emptying it incase it got too much and caused us to sink.

It became progressively harder to take photos as we became more and more wet and covered in mud. It also started to rain and batteries were running low. My portable 20 watt solar panel was useless with the amount of cloud cover and neither of us dared to bring out our 'non waterproof' power banks!

It came to that time of the day again that we started to look for a camp spot. We were looking for a small eddy of back flow to allow us somewhere easy to stop. We spotted one potential landing spot in the distance but on closer inspection was already occupied by 3 wild buffalo. They were quick to leave the water when they saw us so we decided to leave them be and looked for another spot.

The next couple of days all seemed to be rather alike. The weather was cloudy and drizzled non stop, rapids came and tested our ability and camp spots were basic.

Further downstream, the River Nan began to open up. The banks were wider and flatter in places but since the river fed directly into the Queen Sirikit Dam, the tree line started to retreat. Although the dam was still another 150-200km away.

As the trees started to retreat away from the river banks, the option of camping with hammocks grew harder. Flat land and fields slowly replaced the banks and we started to wish we had brought tents.

We took breaks along some of the grassy river banks and it was at these times we could see just how powerful the river was and just how much water was flowing down.

We could still see ourselves on Google maps with the cached maps but just couldn't load any kind of update as there was no phone service.

Image Source: Google Maps

One of the camp spots we picked downstream was where the treeline was set so far back, we had a fair walk. There were no trees to tie our kayak too so decided it was safest to lug it halfway up the hillside and leave it in the long grass.

We found suitable trees to hang out hammocks and had good views up and down the river.

Since the river was opening up and we started to meet free roaming cattle, a few river boats and floating shacks along the water's edge, we felt less concern and worry for dangerous animals and so on night 4, we camped at ground level. This made setting up much easier.

Light rain in the morning meant neither of us were eager to leave the dry hammocks and so rested a little longer. Fortunealty for my friend, I had a spare tarp for him to borrow after his had ripped on night 1!

When we finally made it back onto the water, we looked back to see out last campsite up on the hillside and as we looked up, the cattle looked out at us.

We knew were were starting to reenter civilization and knew the trip was almost over. The current slowed and we had to paddle harder to keep pace. Since we were not in a rush, we did sit back and watch the forest go by from time to time.

Our destination was near when we saw the local roll on, roll off ferry that connected the 2 local roads on either side of the river.

We had tracked a total of 96 kilometers on GPS since leaving Wiang Sa in the north and had just a few more before arriving at the pier. We stopped at a floating restaurant type shack, had a well deserved meal and made arrangements with a local driver to hitch a ride back up to the main road.

With mostly floating shacks and houses at our end point it seemed like a strange world to re enter upon. It was as if we were walking into their back garden as dogs barked at us and residents came out to silently stare.

Arranging the transport, what we thought was going to be a free ride as agreed by the first person who was already heading in that direction got changed when his friend joined the discussion and turned it into a door to door taxi service!

We were fine with the hitch hike idea and being dropped at junctions at the convenience of the driver to then find another driver and so on and so on but since we had no other way out and also kind of liked the door to door taxi drop off idea we decided to pay the hefty 2000 baht fee that they were not willing to negotiation with! We were stuck unless we paid. To put this into perspective a 150 kilometer private taxi from Pattaya to Bangkok city center would only cost 1200 baht whereas this was a simple 70 kilometers along 1 or 2 roads with no traffic!

After agreeing to the ride, we brought our kayak round to the bank to deflate and pack up instead of carrying it through the restaurant.

Still wet, dirty and smelly, we sat in the bag of the pickup with our gear so as not to spoil the interior. The driver we had spoken to just minutes before had disappeared and a young man came out to take his place. Grinning from ear to ear and walking with a swag he started the engine by revving the hell out of it! We left the small village slowly before being flung back to the rear of the truck as he dropped 2 gears and took off thinking he was straight out of Tokyo Drift! The speed he drove at on blind corners and steep drop offs was beyond dangerous and we had to bang on the side of the truck to tell him to slow down - twice, because the first time didn't work!

Needless to say, we made it back in good time and had completed an epic 100km kayak adventure to remember.

I hope you enjoyed this post and please follow for more like it in the future.

All content is original: the photos (unless stated), the writing and the adventure!