We rousted
ourselves from the villa’s seductive calm to sightsee. There’s much to do in Bali. We made a compressed round of the handicraft
villages around Ubud, learned about Balinese architecture, and never tired of
hearing a gamelan orchestra play. The
first temple we visited was Gunung Kawi, which dates back to the 11th
century. We can now describe the
differences between barong, legong, and kecak dancing.
When Akemi heard
there was whitewater rafting, she added it with gold stars on our to-do list. She is a rafting enthusiastic, a veteran of
Class IV rapids. I, however, have
previously declined past rafting opportunities – the danger of being bounced
out into currents and onto boulders has not appealed to me. With assurances that these were Class II and
III rapids, at best (“Mom, think ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ meets ‘Grizzly
River Run’”), I resolved to be a sport.
I needn’t have
worried. Our fellow rafters were a
Korean family with two cute young boys.
As it turned out, I out-paddled not only Korean mommy, but also Korean
daddy. The boys started out terrified,
but our guide had them laughing by the end, purposefully propelling us through
waterfalls and spinning us around.
Because they didn’t speak any English, they missed all the guide’s wisecracks
about the “ancient” carvings made a few years ago by the local hotel and his
shouts of “Crocodile!” as he smacked the water with his paddle every now and
then. When he winked at me, I thought,
to continue the Disneyland references, that this was pure “Jungle Cruise.”
For all the
light-heartedness, though, it was an amazing opportunity to see the beauty of
the jungle forest from the river. I was
really glad we did that, and we returned to the villa surprisingly exhilarated.
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