This morning we got up to the refreshing sound of the river down below, where our rafts were waiting for us! After donning our jackets we hopped on the rafts, 4 to a raft, we were with two northerners Gabby and Nathan. We had the most brilliant time. The rafts are literally just that, our bags were attached to 3 poles which suspended them above the water at the front, and water constantly flowed over the surface so we were always partly submerged in water. Our tour leader Jonathon liked to call them half raft half submarine! At first it was a serene ride taking in the idyllic setting of jungle plants and bamboo draped over the river and mountains either side of the gushing water. Yet silliness has to take over whenever waters involved, and soon each raft was against each other racing and trying to capsize the enemy! We got extremely wet as the polers use their poles for spashing us instead of steering, and one cheeky Thai who looked like a pirate crept up behind Liv at one point and before we knew it she was in the river! Hannah grazed her knees along the bamboo trying to save her but to no avail. Though this was war and later, after we'd both been in the river several more times ourselves, we managed to pull him in too- only slightly satisfying as he was already just as wet as us anyway and probably spent most of his life in the river! We rafter through some pretty speedy rapids, grinding over hidden rocks which made for a bumpy ride and the rafts sometimes sank so we had water up round our middles! When we arrived at the end point we were glad to dry off in the midday sun and eat our lunch. We then had a little wait for our songthaews to arrive in which time 2 other groups overtook us, but we eventually arrived back in Chaing mai, 4 ice creams later, at about 3. We spent the afternoon recouperating and went out for a lovely meal in the evening of fried garlic shrimps, sticky rice and our first glasses of white wine, luxury! We then joined the rest of the group in a bar (looking a little wierd with bags full to the brim of cheap dvds from the night bazaar!) and had a really fun night before bundling into a tuk tuk back to the hotel.