Thailand : Chiang Mai : Trekking : Bamboo Rafting

The rafts were in the river backwards - Two had to turn them around. He tried two at once, without even tying them together. The pole broke. the rafts came apart and drifted downstream. The villagers sploshed into the mayhem, falling about and battling with the current.
The trekking company made the raft sound rock solid - two layers of bamboo for withstanding rock hits. When we got on it sank about a foot. Two stood at the front, looking the part in his rice-picker hat and steering with a long bamboo pole. I stood at the back to punt the raft along (a lazy job with the current).
We drifted through beautiful scenery, flanked by steep jungle on either side. Palm trees popped from the hilltops like lollipops.
The rafts were great in the rapids. They simply sank underwater, the water sloshed around our feet. Liv was sitting in the middle of the boat and got soaked. We wiggled and scraped through rocks. Suddenly Jean Pierre cried out - he was knee deep in water, but still on the raft. The part he was standing on had unknotted and simply falled out. We stopped for a while and fiddled with bamboo but were eventually saved by a local with some rope. On one vicious rapid an overturned boat was stuck on the rocks. Liv was sloshed about a bit too much and her camera got wet, putting a bit of a damper on things.
We punted carefully. As the river got calmer, we joked around more, jumping in and splashing people..."A SNAKE! A SNAKE!"
I tried swimming down some rapids. The rocks were very close underwater and I got bashed about.