Whitewater Rafting!

Today, we went whitewater rafting down the Ayung River!

It. Was. Awesome! 

I haven't laughed that hard in a long time (and that's saying something, because my husband makes me laugh quite a bit!)  We left our camera at the hotel and were bummed we weren't gonna have any photos of such a fun experience, but low and behold, there was a photographer who took the next 8 photos and sold them to us for $5 at lunch, which was totally worth it to us to have them as our memory!  They're cheesy, but we love them.

We had the best guide who was full of pranks and always laughing... and the funniest Chinese friends (from Shanghai) on our boat.  Before we headed off down the river, our guide taught us a couple important key phrases. When he said GET DOWN, we had to get on the floor of the boat as fast as we could. When he said BOOM BOOM, we had to put our heads between our legs and hold on for dear life.  As he was telling us these, my heart was beating out of my chest!  Then when he explained that if we didn't follow exactly what he said, the boat could tip over and it would be very dangerous, I almost jumped out and ran back to the taxi!

I'm obviously glad I didn't, because it ended up being one of the best experiences of our entire trip!

As I said before, our guide was a bit of a prankster... all in good fun of course. One of the girls couldn't swim and the guide pushed her out of the boat when it looked like the water was really deep, but it was only about a foot deep!  She was a great sport about it and we all died laughing.

He would steer our boat so that we would be going backwards really fast and ram us into a wall sending us flying backwards into each other's laps!  I know this sounds terrible for some of you, but we all laughed like little kids when it would happen. Or he would push our boat straight into a waterfall and yell "massage time" as it practically drowned us all!   

We rafted down the Ayung River for 2 full and exhilarating hours with stunning views of Indonesia's lushest jungles on either side, blue skies, waterfalls galore, stone carvings on the walls, and hardly anyone else on the river the entire time! Have I mentioned that I love being here during low season? Because I do! 

  

Between narrow ravines, double drops, and whitewater rapids, there were areas where the rocks would clear and it became a calm flowing river.  At those points our guide would let us jump in and float down the river next to the boat.  Thank goodness for those life jackets!

I made it to the end of the 10 kilometer trip with tired arms, sun kissed skin, and a perma-grin on my face!  I can't express how much I loved this trip and would recommend it to anyone heading to Ubud for vacation!

After getting out of the boat, we climbed 400 STEPS through rice terraces, up the side of the ravine, to a busy street where we were handed some water and a towel.  Then we followed our guide a couple minutes more and landed at the Payung Restaurant where we were able to take showers (yes, at the restaurant... weird, but kind of awesome too) and had a buffet Indonesian style lunch together before our taxi driver took us back to our hotel.  

Like I said...

 Today. Was. Awesome!