We are in Chiang Mai. My friend Daan and me couldn’t sleep anymore. Maybe an after jetlag or something. Or it’s the fault of the birds. They are bad singers! We are kind of tired and don’t realy know what to do. Here in Chiang Mai there are a lot of tourist attractions like: elephant riding, seeing ancient tribes in the mountains and rafting down the river. It’s sounds very nice. But we want something more. Like a real life adventure. So we decide to look on google maps. We spot a picture. It looks like the Grand Canyon but then in Chiang Mai. We rent some bicycles and go for it.
It’s not easy to ride on a bicycle through the traffic hell of Chiang Mai. But we give it a try. First it’s difficult. Motors, cars and scooters riding on the right and the left. Kind of scarry. And yea a little bit dangerous. Sometimes we hear people yelling ‘Farang.’ It means like tourist! We get out of the city of Chiang Mai. The surroundings are beautiful. We see a wide landscape with a lot of rice farming. Far away you can spot some mountains. We go forward to find the Grand Canyon. There is a sign. It tells that we need to go 3 kilometers to the right. So we go.
There are a lot of palms and trees with for us unknown fruit. Nearby a small house of wood we see a big anthill. Red ants are walking in and out of it. We decide to better go and don’t take a sit on this mountain of earth. We ride and ride. Hill up and down. When we are on a flat road, there appears something… It’s the Thai child of the Grand Canyon in USA. It’s just amazing! You see like a body of water with high cliffs surrounding it. At the place we walk into the beauty of the landscape straight forward to the giant cliff.
You need to be careful… When you slip it can cost your life. At the end there is a rope. Take it in your hands and go up.^ There you have it. ”The giant cliff jump”. You can decide to go for the jump or just enjoy the view. At the entrance they said to us not to swim and that a guy from Korea died here. So we are going back. But than we see some ‘farang’ girls jumping from another cliff. It is a bit smaller than the ‘Giant’. We are convinced and want to try the jump too. Some Thai girls from Bangkok want to go with us. They go first with my friend (so I can make a photo). Than it’s my turn!
Am I ready? Not at all! My legs are shaking. The adrenaline rushes inside my body. I asked a guy or there are rocks. Yes Yes, he says. Probably he didn’t understand me. He says go go! I put my bad thoughts out and without thinking I go for the jump. It’s higher than I expected. In my head it takes a decade. Like a bullet I hit the water. It feels like the jump under the water is still going further. Eventually it’s stops. I go up and take a breath. My heart is beating like it would fall out of my chest. I yell out a wild scream of happiness. Im alive!
I swim to my friend and Thai girls. We are all happy. And enjoy the moment. We are so excited that it’s even difficult to swim, because we can’t take good breath. We arrive at the end of the cliff and reach the bottom. Out of the water we need to climb a rope. The holes to place your footsteps are very slippy. Everyone is like struggeling to go up. But nobody falls. And we are all up. Tired and happy at the same time. We take a good photo to remember that day.
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