Mae Hong Song, Chiang Rai

Survived the rafting which was relatively simple as there hasn't been any rain here in the last 2 months... All the same there was a fair bit of adventure in the fact that 2 of the guides only knew the words "go" and "stop". None of your "a little bit more to the left" or "people on the right shift weight slightly to the rear". No siree, "go" meant "paddle", "go go" meant "paddle like f**k" and "go go go" meant "oh shit we are going to hit that rock no matter what we do". Ditto stop, stop stop etc.
What was worth it though was the scenery, which without a word of a lie, was straight out of Jurassic park. You either expected a T-Rex to break out of the jungle or a tribe of pygmies to appear, all firing blowpipes in your general direction. Or else we were doing the Apoclypse Now remake and somewhere around the next bend in the river we expected the Viet Kong with Marlon Brando sitting there grinning.
We all (14 assorted English, Dutch & French) arrived in Mae Hong Song looking like the remnants of the Titanic and proceeded to drink ourselves silly in a bar called Butterfly which had a 50 year old Thai guy performing live music with a funky hat on, he was undoubtedly the Thai LL Cool J.
Chiang Rai today (centre of the golden triangle, i.e. Opium trading post of the world). Not much to do here, so it's probably direction Laos tomorrow.