Row, Row, Row Your Boat...

Stepping into the raft that's floating by the river bank is easy. All you have to do is put one feet on a big boulder, and another in the raft. What comes after that, is conquering your fear. For me, I was imagining the worst.

The fact that it had just rained the night before didn't help to ease my worries. The river water was flowing really fast, gushing down the steep slopes. The river was muddy, murky with bubbly white foams on its surface. As soon as everybody was settled down, I chose my spot, right at the rear end of the raft.

Since it was my first time, I thought that we were going to navigate through the river streams ourselves! and the guides will just watch from the river side. If our raft capsized, they'd just throw a life buoy, or a string to us.

So, imagine my relief when 2 guides climbed into our raft and said with full authority, "Rafting is a serious matter. When I say ' over-left', all of you must move to the left. When I say 'over-right' , all of you must move to the right. If I say 'paddles up', all of you must move to the centre, and put your paddles upright. Now, let's practise. 'overleft!' "the guide shouted and the five of us huddled to the left side of the raft. 'over-right!', and all uf us slided to the right. We practised a few more times by the river bank. Until all of us felt comfortable and confident.

"K. Now paddle front!" d guide commanded. All of us eagerly moved our paddles to the back... creating a forward motion for the raft.

"Wow! This is fun!' I thought! Suddenly, the boat reached a dangerous point. we had reached a boulder which was about 2 and a half meters above the water height of the next bend. "Oh no! How are we going to proceed?" I thought.

"All of you, move to the front. This will create a strong force at the bow, and the raft will just drop down." the guide explained.

"What? Oh no no no no no no.... ! " I thought . "This won't do. I don't want to get wet! Not in this hot and cold, unpredictable weather! Besides, what if d raft overturns? What if d river water is deep?"

Nevertheless, crossing was the only option we had at that time. We couldn't climb the big boulders as others, neither could we jump out of the raft and swim through the river.. So, we had to get through this exercise, no matter what the cost.

True enough, as soon as we hurled ourselves to the front, the raft did indeed dive downwards and landed on its flat end! boy, was I glad! Then, we continued rowing our raft to the front. Not long after, we came across a very, very steep slope ( I suppose that 's what you call it in layman's term.) I was so afraid that our raft will overturn, that when we 'cruised' past it, I screamed my lungs out. I thought I was going to drop down, down , down forever! Fortunately, we were all still sitting upright when the raft once again landed on the bubbling waters!

The following rapids were equally challenging! We had to duck from obstructing branches and sharp leaves. We dropped frequently from a few 'high' rapids. I shouted as long and as hard as I wanted! even though sometimes, the situation did not warrant it. I screamed nevertheless.