Day 85: Captain Jack (23/04/2011)

Some people call it white water rafting.

I call it sitting in a leaky inflatable boat and deliberately ramming specially sharpened rocks in a swollen river.

Jack was our guide. In a Thai way he had assumed the persona of Captain Jack Sparrow and he was slightly insane; in the good way that wears a spinning bow tie or does animal impressions with a potato; not in a bad way that rams novice paddlers into rocks.....

Oh, now hang on a minute. Isn't that just what happened?

The floating madhouse that was Jack's Black Pearl bucked and heaved over the rapids, filled with water and threatened to flip at any given moment. 'Paddle faster' he yelled. 'And where's all the rum gone'.

We bounced off rocks, both exposed and submerged; dived to the left and right of the boat to lift the trailing edges over obstacles or shake ourselves loose. Jack cackled Thai pirate speak and something akin to 'Shiver me timbers' preceded every bout of hysterical laughter. He bounced around the tiny craft and splashed gallons of water at anything that came near.

Children playing in the water fought back with gusto.

Buddhist monks floating on inflatable inner tubes, orange robes hanging in the riverside trees, took a more enlightened approach and paddled to the shore to avoid Jack's onslaught.

When the boat ahead capsized, he was the model of efficiency, retrieving paddles and bedraggled rafters and setting them on their way.

When we won the rapids race, Jack screamed good natured abuse at our vanquished competitors.

Later on the bamboo rafts, he sunk us, capsized us and saved us in a few hundred metres.

Captain Jack, I salute you!