White Water Rafting

I finally got to do something I‘ve always wanted to do: White Water Rafting. The River Ayung in Bali offered the perfect opportunity. We were told that the name of the river means “beautiful woman“, so I felt I had no choice but to book a tour on that very river.
As yesterday, it started to rain as soon as I got into the car to be driven to the location. Considering that it is the nature of rafting, getting wet shouldn‘t be a concern. I still maintain we wouldn‘t have gotten completely soaked if our tour guide didn‘t have an absolute blast splashing us with water all the time and leading us under waterfalls whenever he could find one. It was his first day on the job, as he told us. One of the two gentlemen from the Netherlands on the tour with us (5 people + guide) asked him if he was nervous. He confirmed that. Then the other gentleman replied jestingly: “You should be!“ Five out of six people were laughing. Maybe something got lost in translation… After we were equipped with everything, we were shuttled to the river. Suddenly, our tour guide frantically jumped out of the shuttle, yelling, “I quickly buy cigarettes!“ And so we waited. Eventually, we arrived, walked down a lot of stairs again and were about to get thoroughly wet. The anticipation was fantastic. I have attempted to describe the breathtaking nature here before, so just that. Forest scenery, river, to the sides countless plants, the sounds of animals… It makes for a nice change to see healthy forests, I will say that.
The tour lasted for 1.5 hours with a little break in between in which I enjoy my refreshing coconut. I was also asked by the lady running the shop to buy our tour guide something, because that‘s what you do as a lady. I‘ve already been thoroughly annoyed by people constantly asking you to buy their stuff, that was a new level of annoyance. I simply asked, why, and the lady turned around, shaking her head. Back in the boat, our tour guide told all of us that it‘s nice to be married to one wife, but two would be so much better. He kept mentioning that.
The tour was over much to soon. We walked back to the meeting point and got a free meal at the local restaurant. The food was better in contrast to yesterday’s. The two gentlemen from the Netherlands and I chatted about travelling, climate change and politics until we figured we probably can‘t solve all that over lunch.

For dinner, I went back to the restaurant from my first day. Unfortunately, the experience wasn‘t nearly as nice. No complimentary drink and actually, they forgot about me, so it took a while for the food to be served - which, incidentally, also wasn‘t as magical as almost a week ago. It‘s time to have a better experience tomorrow!

By the way, our guide offered to take pictures of us under the waterfall. I wonder at which point he got sceptical… See for yourself. ^^Read more