Adventures in Bali: From Rafting to Scuba

Rafting

In Bali, as with most tourist places, there’s the tourist price and then there’s the locals price. Thanks to our friends Fiona and her brother Steven, Javier and I luck out with the locals price, which can be anywhere from 20%-30% of the tourist price. We take advantage of this by taking a trip to the heart of the island to go white water rafting. As with most things that occur in the middle of the island, we take a hired ride to our destination, a ride which strides through the incredible scenery. More than any tourist trap, just seeing the ordinary life of local villagers fascinates me. There are slender women holding large baskets of various items above their heads, steadily treading along the narrow highways. Or children hawking exotic fruits such as massive rugby-ball shaped jackfruits on makeshift stands. All along the towns and the countryside, one can see 1.5 meter high altars, where the primarily Hindu population makes offerings of little baskets. These little baskets burn with incense and contain small packets of food or woven trinkets. Sometimes these offerings line the busy streets of Legian along the shopping districts, some easily older than a few weeks, their contents scattered and the bright colors faded into the dusty sidewalks.

Along for the ride is a quintet of young Japanese girls, some wearing flowery summer dresses, as well as a few miscellaneous couples looking for adventure. The Japanese girls with the dresses probably don’t realize that we’re about to go rafting in river rapids, not shopping in the Ginza District of Tokyo. We arrive at the river head where we’re outfitted with goofy helmets and faded lifejackets. Thankfully our raft will only contain our party of 3: Me, Fiona, and Javier. Our guide helms the back part of the raft. He’s a plucky fellow with a big smile of rankled teeth and broken English.

Immediately we set off into the turbid water, the flow at a faster pace than we’d like. However, these waters are nothing like the ones in Alaska. The rapids are easily surmountable despite our lack of raft-training. Javier helms the front of the boat, haplessly paddling and more likely just splashing me with water behind him. Before we know it, we’re in both in the business of trying to splash each other with the chilly water than actually progressing down the river. We really don’t need to paddle or maneuver because the current carries us through the shallow stream, where the only interruption might be some larger boulders.

It’s only after about ten minutes or so that I look up and realize the utter beauty around me. The raft travels through deep canyons and ravines, with lush flora arching over the cliffs. On open dales we see emotionless observers perched on a fallen tree or underneath a makeshift tent. On occasion we have to duck backwards against bamboo bridges that span the river, most of which seem to have been made to decapitate eager rafters. They’re flug low, perhaps 4 feet from the river, and some narrowly miss jamming up my nose as I lean back against the raft. Skies range from sunny to cloudy, given different tints to the overweening green marking the landscape. I’m more speechless than anything.



We make a stop about halfway through where a hundred other rafters of differing companies congregate for photos. There’s a waterfall in the distance where the four of us, including our guide, take photos underneath. For refreshment, we get an ice-cold can of Bintang beer, absolutely the perfect beverage to soak in the tropical paradise surrounding us.

Another hour and another 6 kilometers downstream, we’re about to go over the final barrier of the trip, a 4 meter drop down a manmade waterfall. It’s a thrill that I wish could be repeated, but soon we land the raft. We ascend a hidden set of stairs up the hillside to a rest area where we dry up and sit down for a traditional Indonesian meal of fried rice, fried noodles, satay, and fruit. As expected, we round up a bottle of Bintang to wash it all down before heading up another set of stairs for our trip home.

Scuba diving



The next day we made off for a picturesque beach where we planned to do some snorkeling. Snorkeling? That’s for wusses and newbs (yet here we are, newbs at diving). Sans any official certification, we were offered the chance to go diving or specifically scuba diving. I’m quite certain this sort of illicit activity would result in a slew of liability issues, but no such forms are signed in this part of the world. It’s a relief.

Fiona, Javier and I suit up in snappy looking wetsuits, though I swear Javier and I got the same size. That makes me look like a warm-weather penguin whereas Javier’s suit blabbers off him like extra folds of black, fatty skin. Trust me though, he still looks dashing in the seabreeze. We take a slow boat to a reef that’s 500 meters off the beach.



Along the way we get a quick 10 minute lesson on how to use the scuba gear (self-contained underwater breathing apparatus, nifty acronym I recalled from 6th grade). The languid instructor explains how to breath: Breath in using your mouth and lips, not your throat, or else you’ll have water gushing; if water leaks into the mask, tilt your head back and blow our through your nose; don’t breath through your nose or else you’ll have salt water in your mask, thereby necessitating the aforementioned procedure to expunge it; use these traditional hand signals like “OK” and “Not-OK” (a hand wave oscillating the palm).



I forget most of these instructions once I’m in the water, just 5 or 6 feet deep. I put on the scuba mouthpiece and plunge myself underneath the water. It’s unnatural at first, and each breath seems like it’s never enough air. I panic when the exhaled air releases just under my mask. The exhale seems tremendously loud under water. The whole experience seems out-of-body, with the mask creating a zoomed in perspective of the reef below. Our guides grab our backs as if we were helpless blobs and direct us toward the reef, instructing us to take out the packs of white bread we’re bundled in our wetsuit to feed the colorful fish. Even the fish are swarming around us, I’m still gasping for air and getting used to the pressure on my body and lungs. After ten minutes I’m still disoriented, but started to get the hang of it. I notice the murky waters and I can see in a radius of maybe 10 feet around me.



The coral reefs are stunning, the most interesting being the iridescent brain coral that I’ve only seen in National Geographic photos. The fish come so close you could grab them. I manage to nip on in the fin before it swims off at breakneck speed. Scuba diving is a thrill that’s completely worth the money (especially at the local’s price :) . We dive deeper and deeper, the surface barely visible. Javier mumbles out groans and points to a sea serpent underneath us. I’m in awe. I secretly wish for a turtle to cross our paths. Fiona mentioned afterwards that she kept thinking of Jaws, with the horrific musical theme entering our mind before the dive. I am so glad those thoughts did not come to my mind or else I would’ve nearly cried for the fear of Jaws himself coming out of nowhere to bite off my legs.

But the whole experience, the act of going over 20 feet underwater, is simply outstanding. Diving in Bali. Enough said. I pick off a few pieces of dead coral and a few seashells to take back with me. Free souveniers.



The rest of our Bali experience was just about relaxation. We took a trip to a large temple by a rocky shore, some distance from Denpasar. The surf came in at full strength, maybe 15 foot waves. Back at Legian, Kuta beach was crowded. Still, the sunset in the distance was at least five times more stunning than any I’d witnessed in L.A. The air was crisp and clear, the clouds forming a purple-tinted haze hovering over the glassy ocean, which shimmered along the auburn sun. I couldn’t be much happier than in that moment, where reflection bodes one to merely soak in the charm and beauty of Bali.