Volume 04, Number 10
Travel
Serious kayaking adventures in Thailand
By Patrick O'Keeffe of Hokkaido Outdoor Adventures
Thailand is not known for its white water. But when Nate Nash from Matchstick Productions contacted Eric Southwick about the possibility of doing a shoot there for his Focus program, Eric jumped at the chance of trying to find something. So after some thought, Eric contacted me to go and do some research up north in Chiang Mai for a suitable location. After six days, 4,000 km of driving, and hours of jungle bashing we came up with the story line and some great white water.
The story will evolve around Doi Itanon, the highest mountain in Thailand and the last of the mighty Himalayan chain.
We were joined by the film crew, Nate Nash and Scott Lindgren and two of the best kayakers on the planet: Steve Fisher (South Africa) and Ben Brown (New Zealand) to start our journey; an attempt on five first descents.
After getting some great footage on some of the great cultural sights around Chiang Mai, we decided to start the action on a waterfall just south of the city. After checking the 30 ft main drop with a 10 ft drop just above it, Steve said that it could be done. So with the cameras in position in a fast fading evening light Steve paddled the waterfall with just a slight miss on entry at the bottom. Not happy with the first run, he decided to do it again with no worries. Next Ben was called up to run it, but with a bit of hesitation. He was watching both Steve's runs and thought that it could be a little shallow on the bottom drop but took it on nonetheless.
What happened next was any athlete's worst nightmare.
After getting the top part done with no problems, Ben ended up a little further right than Steve and hit bottom. I was filming, so looking through the lens, I realized that something was really wrong when Ben popped to the surface with a broken paddle and slumped forward in his kayak in excruciating pain. I wanted to drop the camera and get out to help Ben who was in quite a bit of distress. After a few of us got ahold of his kayak and pushed him into a safe area, we started firing questions:
"Where's the pain, Ben?"
"In my back."
"On a scale of 1 to 10, how bad is the pain?"
"10!"
"Can you feel your legs?"
"Not really, they are all tingly."
So, instead of just dragging him straight out of his kayak and risking more spinal injury, we scurried through the jungle, found a village hut with three straight boards which had been nailed together and used as a door. We ripped it off the hut and hurried back to Ben, floated him out of the kayak onto the board and strapped him to it. Then all five of us lifted him (all 6'4 and 115 kilos of him) onto our shoulders and bashed our way through the jungle back to the cars 40 minutes away, rushing him back to Chaing Mai hospital to find the best medical treatment available.
It was a well-equipped, up-to-date modern hospital, with all the staff doing their best to make Ben as comfortable as possible.
After lots of X-rays and tests, Ben was diagnosed as just having compressed L2 and L4 in his spine, so not breaking his back—but it was possibly a career-ending injury. Leaving the hospital all of us were wondering what to do next. After making arrangements for Ben to be flown back to New Zealand and making sure that he was in the best care 'till he got home to start the long road to recovery, we decided to still continue with what we had planned Over the next six days we completed four first descents on the creeks and rivers running from the highest mountain in Thailand, getting some great footage, and photos, completing them without any further dramas.
There were some great waterfall runs and some spectacular small volume white water. A couple of runs we didn't complete because the water level was just not quite right. It's great being involved with people who are pushing the limits with all the talent they have, and when problems do occur, seeing the way they react in a totally professional manner with all aspects of safety and first aid. They push the limits to make great DVDs and the bar just gets higher. The younger stars are just pushing things in a way that we didn't think possible when we were kids.
On the upside to this, the segment we shot is a great episode on the Focus series and Ben is now back in his kayak paddling. Although it's going to take a while 'till he can run drops as big as he has done before (80ft) he is back doing what he loves.
The Focus series by Nate Nash is available on DVD and has also been on television in the USA.
Patrick O`Keeffe has been rafting and kayaking all over the world for the past 12 years. He has led and documented numerous first decents throughout the sub asian continent. He is based in Hokkaido Japan with his wife Naomi and daughter Kay.