I’m afraid of water and can’t swim, still I joined rafting at Cisangkuy river in Pengalengan-Bandung. We went to Bandung at 6 am with most of the participants were from my office. I slept on the bus most of the time, since I just arrived home at 2.15 am.
We went through the 11 km rafting route for two hours from 12 pm to 2 pm. The paddy field view from the river is very beautiful and tranquil. The only voice I could hear is the sound of the flowing water, which hit the rocks and create small and big waves on the river. Wait a second, it’s not the only voice that I heard. I also heard the instructor instruct us to “backpaddle!”, “forwardpaddle!”, “to the left!”, “to the right!”, “boom!”, “watch out for tree branches!”, “splash the water to other boats!”. Well, he didn’t need to instruct the last one. It was exciting and became more exciting when the rain started to fall, a light one. We stopped once to have a couple minutes break, and then continued the journey. Getting use of the river wave, at some point I started to enjoy more on the scenery than to keep my eyes on the rocks in front of us.
Suddenly, I was in the water and didn’t know what had happened with the boat. I just remembered that I have to keep my feet and face upside when someone gets into river. Keeping your feet upside was quite easy. But, keeping your face upside and above the surface were more difficult, especially with the wave hit you and the current rolled you upside down, then introduced your skin to the rocks and your throat to the river water directly – up close and personal. Having a faith that there will be someone from rescue team will pull me out of the water made me keep focusing on safety guidelines. When I still hadn’t seen anyone in front of me, then I tried to focus on the rope offering shout. Then I saw one of the rescue team was pulling someone else out of the water. I grabbed his hand, while his other hand holding that someone else. He told me to stand up, but I still focused on keeping my feet up :) How could I stand then? It was after I changed my focus. He kept holding me until I could stand still on the ground and back on the boat. Guess what, I still had my row with me all that time I was in the water, and then continued the journey back …Yippiee!!!!
Five from six people on my boat, including the instructor, fell into the water. It is funny to tell all the fall off stories. Try this: on another boat, all of the people, exclude the instructor, fell because of bamboo tree branches. Someone actually hang on the branch, but then it broke and he finally joined his friends in the water. Another person on another boat also fell then disappeared from the surface. It turned out he was below the boat :) I don’t know the whole stories from this rafting, but it seems it has inspired some of my friends to join the next rafting trip.
I’m still afraid of water and still can’t swim, but I’m afraid I won’t say no to another rafting offer.
Thanks to my colleagues, non-colleagues and Kawalu. It's awesome!
This trip was organized by http://kawalu.multiply.com/
