White water rafting in Bali..

Sunday 11th nov '07
We decided to try out white water rafting, let me tell you it was an amazing experience, especially for two that have never done it before.
The day started early and we were greeted by tropical rainfall. We made our two hour journey in an ac mini bus to our destination in a central hilly part of Bali - the Telagawda River (sp!).

You expect us to go down that?!

We got to our destination in one piece given the washed roads and steep gradients, thankfully our minibus and driver were up to the job.

For our safety we were given life jackets and helmets by our guide Leo. We waited for the heavens to settle as the rainfall had made the river fast and some areas quite dangerous - not that is any real concern to them! We boarded our raft with another older Japanese couple, the guy thought it would be funny to point out I look like Bin Laden! I didnt pursue the matter to educate him.

The next 14km and 2.5 hours of river were like a magnificent and thrilling interactive ride through what looked like the set to the next Indiana Jones movie. the scenery was a mixture of paddy fields, waterfalls, sheer valleys and of course some serious rapids.

We were totally drenched head to toe, thankfully as the weather got better, in fact it got quite hot.

En route we passed many people whos rafts had overturned and were waiting to regroup, we tried to help...well, kind of, as its hardly the easiest thing to stop a raft crashing around in the rapids!

After the rapids, we had to climb 360 steps to get out of the valley and have our lunch of Balinese noodles and rice....yummy!

We couldnt take pics while on the raft, but this trip showed us an amazing and beautiful side of Bali that we didnt know existed.