Today I joined a "trek" called the Amazing Sea Canoe trek. The ultimate destination of this trip was the tidal mangrove rivers on the north-east coast of Phuket island, but along the way we stopped at Bang Pae waterfall, which was quite beautiful.

To get to the waterfall itself, you have to follow a relatively well-made path through the jungle next to the river that flows off the waterfall. The path was generally paved, but there were some fallen trees and rocky bits, and the occasional small waterfall that came from the jungle on the right down over the path to the river on the left.

As with Naa Muang waterfall on Koh Samui, there were lots of local kids swimming in the river at the base of the fall. I walked around over the slippery wet rocks and waded through the more shallow parts of the sandy bottomed river (carrying my digital camera extremely carefully).

Near Bang Pae waterfall is a gibbon sanctuary where gibbons that have been rescued from tourism inspired slavery are nursed back to health and re-taught skills that they need to be able to survive in their natural habitat. Gibbons have the most bizzare range of vocal timbres ranging from soprano opera singer to football hooligan to something that sounds like a distant power drill.

After Bang Pae waterfall, we got back into our minibus to go onto the mangrove rivers. The minibus took us to a small jetty on a canal where we got into a longtail boat. Then we had a 15 minute ride down river to a mussel farm (the Amazing Sea Canoe trek is run as an ecologically friendly side line to the farm). The mussel farm's main building consists of a set of timber pontoons that are anchored to the shore. Stretching away from the farm in both directions along the river is an array of scaffolding that sits just above the surface of the water, from which clumps of mussels the size of basket balls are suspended on lengths of cord. In amongst the mussels are netted off pens that contain fish or crabs.

We hung around the farm for a little while, and then boarded our canoes and set off down stream. Along the way we stopped to take a close look at the mussels hanging from their frames, and to pull up a few drum nets that the fishermen had put down. Some nets contained nothing, but some had various kinds of crabs and fish in them.

The river is very wide where the farm is located, but as we progressed along it, it got very narrow, to the point where the mangrove roots scraped along both sides of the canoes. After about 20 minutes, the guides stopped us in a wide bit of the river, and told us a bit about the mangrove. Apparently there are monkeys that live there, but I didn't see any.

On the way back to the farm we stopped and talked to an old Thai lady who was quietly fishing near where the river enters the Andaman sea. She had just caught a baby ray of some sort, and was trying to get the hook out of it. When we got back to the farm, the cook there served up a delicious buffet of Thai food.

Being a tidal river, as the tide goes up and down, so does the level of the river. The guides left it a little to late to start the trip back upstream to the jetty where our minibus was waiting. The further upstream we went, the shallower the water became. A few times, the driver hit the propeller of the outboard motor on the mud at the bottom of the river. A bit further along, the bow wave of the boat started sucking all the water out from the back of the boat, and we had to stop a couple of times to let the water rush back under the stern of the boat. Eventually with the tail of the boat dragging along the muddy bottom of the river, the guides pulled the boat over to the river bank and we all got out and walked the last hundred metres back to the minibus.

I think that the Amazing Sea Canoes are the most fun thing I've done in Thailand to date. If you are ever in Phuket, I recommend you find the Phuket Sealand travel agency and join the trek.