Tatai Waterfall

My second day at 4 Rivers I went with a couple families to the nearby Tatai Waterfall. We took about an hour-long boat ride to get there.

Some kayakers from the lodge:

Here's the waterfall from the boat. It didn't look like much from afar, but closer up the falls got a bit more impressive.

The waterfalls environs:

Nothing like a dead snake to start your day:

Some of the smaller falls close up:

View from the top:

There were some cool rock formations hanging around:

At the very top there were some shallow pools that we spent some time in. The bottom was very slippery, and everyone was moving very slowly and carefully so as not to fall. There were still several falls.

View from the very top:

These are some of the kids in the families. They were actually there together, having known met each other and become friends in previous travels, and both being families living away from their home countries (Canada and South Africa).

They were kind enough to take some pictures and video of me while we were there. I think these are the only pictures I have of myself for the whole trip. They always had a hard time figuring out my camera.

We had a packed lunch with sandwich, fried rice, and fruit. It was hard not to notice that although the ecolodge packed us silverware instead of disposable plasticware, they put our food in styrofoam containers (two each). One of the kids had been playing this game that involved pointing out all the things that the resort was doing inconsistent with the idea of an ecolodge, which were unfortunately quite a few. I decided to assume that since they were so new, they hadn't been able to finalize every detail, like buying plastic containers for day trips or refillable glass bottles for the guest tents instead of providing two plastic bottles of water every day.

On the way back we saw some really great pollution from the locals.

Upon returning to the resort I wondered how much that little trip would cost me. Although it was a pretty low maintenance excursion, it was also an expensive hotel. Even in Thailand the excursions cost about $50 apiece when booked through the hotel, and this resort was more than double the cost of where we stayed there.

When I received my final bill, though, I found I had not been charged for for the trip at all, which was a great relief.