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Cold and Wet: Khon Korn Waterfall

Posted by Stuart at 09:59 PM on July 13, 2003

My back and shoulders are a bit sore, thanks to our 200 kilometer motorcycle ride today. But boy, was it fun!

We started off by visiting Khon Korn Waterfall near the city of Chiang Rai. The clouds were threatening rain, but we luckily made it to the waterfall's parking lot without getting wet. But abut 300 meters into the 1 kilometer hike to the falls, it started to rain. I ran back to the motorcycle to drop off my camera, and it is a good thing that I did.

It rained lightly all the way to the falls but once we got there, the real soaking began. The falls are quite tall (claimed to be the tallest in Chiang Rai) and pour into a very narrow gorge, which means that in order to see the falls, you have to stand directly in the spray. By the time we made it down to the river in front of the falls we were quite wet and quite cold so when the skies opened up with a drenching rain, we didn't mind at all.

The walk back to the motorcycle was otherworldly. The sky was dark. Tall thin bright green bamboo stalks shot up on our right side. To our left, the rushing red clay colored river tumbled over black rocks. We could hear the rain hitting the top branches of the trees above our head and could hear it splashing in the puddles at our feet and feel it falling like icy cold barbs on our head and shoulders.

When the rain finally stopped, we hopped back on the motorcycle for a very cold ride to the town of Wiang Pa Pao to visit some friends of No. We met them at the local school where they were playing volleyball. We joined, making two sports in two days that I haven't played in years.