Today was our day to battle the Korean hoard as we sailed down the infamous Papar river, featuring category 5 and 6 rapids that have been known to crush the heartiest of crafts and souls.... Or something like that.
The weather has been working out very well in our favour - evening rain and daily sun has been keeping the temperature down and the fun level up! With forecasts next week of over 40 degrees, we couldn't have picked a better week to hang with the Versly clan in Borneo. We are loving the location of our apartment - central to everything with a nice view out the window to boot.
We didn't know what today had in store for us, with few concrete details, we were just kind of going with it (rule #1: don't set expectations (or use Beth's rule #1: set extremely low, often horrific expectations.... Kidding, but you get the idea :-) )) (BTW, I have to make sure I close the right number of opened brackets, which makes it challenging when you're using a "close bracket" to end off a smiling emoji... The kids are being grilled on BEDMAS, so they'll be all over me if I drop a bracket....))). Shit.
We met our guide Cheryl at the front gate and hopped in our van. Cheryl was a pleasant surprise - a local with tribal heritage that Alex and I proceeded to pump for information, as we are wont to do. At the end of the day, we didn't really need Cheryl as a guide, as she really just accompanied us on the ride there and slept like a tourist on the way back, but she was pleasant enough.
We soon figured out why we hadn't really heard of this particular rafting adventure - it turned out to be a Korean operation that catered to Chinese and Korean tourists, with only about 10% of their past clients being westerners. When I heard the lunch would be Korean BBQ, I had a brief Bibimbap-at-Mr-Yummy-with-Probir hunger pang.
We arrived at the ranch style place after about 45 minutes. The host couple, a middle aged Korean couple, were very friendly and hospitable. It seemed a little out of place, making their business in the middle of the jungle in Borneo, so far from home. They had an eclectic mix of "pets" - cats, dogs, (insert inappropriate Korean meal comment here.... Even the river guides were doing it.... But not Alex.... Never!) a monkey (who was chained up, but we were told only when large groups of visitors arrived) and an infant slow loris.
I hadn't heard about the Slow Loris, though Alex had mentioned we had a chance to see them at Mulu and Bako. Dear Pixar and/or Disney: jump on the slow loris bandwagon right now if you haven't already. This is the cutest little animal I have seen, and it is so alien in its movements and behaviour. I'm not sure how it came to be that these transplanted Koreans had one as a pet, but Beth found out that it had come from a vet and was 100% rabies free. What's that you ask? Why did Beth ask if the cute little, non-foaming at the mouth slow Lori had rabies? It took a liking to Robin, and gave her finger a little nip (no skin broken Nana, but don't worry, we have a pencil on hand for all medical emergencies....).
After a quick change in to swim gear, the kids were ready to tackle the beast that was the Papar River!
We bussed it up river about 7km, then got our safety stuff on. Our opponents for the day were three other boats of Koreans who were geared up very much like the middle aged women we'd met at the waterfalls in Luang Prabang. It's on people!
I may have misled the severity of the rapids at the start of this post.... I'm sorry about that. The river was nice and calm, and the only reason anyone got wet was from paddle splashing and taking a dip in the river at a halfway stop. We mostly tackled Cat 0.5 to 0.8 rapids, but it was still fun, and the kids, having not yet experienced rafting the Kali Gandaki or Snake River, had some good thrills ...There WERE two life saving experiences however. I didn't see it, but Beth claims she saved Kim's life on one treacherous wavelet (I think Kim slipped a few inches and Beth steadied her.... Who knows what could have happened if Kim had fully lost her balance???).
I, on the other hand, saved a Korean woman from drowning in three foot deep water. We were swimming at the break point in a wide corner section of the river that caused the water to eddy back upstream where we were swimming. Robin said "umm, Daddy, that woman looks like she's struggling". I turned around and noticed a woman furiously breast stroking her way to the bank, but she was trying to fight the eddy current instead of going with or across it. I asked her if she needed help and she nodded so I grabbed her hand and pulled her over. Now, mind you, I was standing right near her on the soft sand in the river, so I'm not sure why she was trying to swim, but I do feel that she owes me a life debt. Damn, I should have asked her to whip up some Bibimbap.... Doh!
We survived, in the end. We managed to make it down the FULL seven kilometer segment of the river in tact. I felt our boat "won", but without any concrete criteria to measure the victory, it will have go down as a moral victory at best.
A big Korean BBQ lunch buffet was laid out for us - delicious! BBQ pork and rice lettuce wraps, fried fish, kimchi cucumbers, yellow watermelon, Korean pancake-let's. Delist.
It was also great to experience Korean beer and take another odd beer selfie....
Well, what a thrilling half day. I know, it sounds like I'm being sarcastic... That it wasn't so thrilling, not much of a physical exertion. But if that was true, how is it that not ten minutes after getting into the van for the drive home, this happened...
By the way, that pic didn't capture Alex or Cheyl dozing! Luckily I was keeping the driver awake by shifting my knees that were probably jammed into the back of his seat, giving him a free massage chair experience.
When we got home, there was a master plan to get robin some sleep. She'd been up with a cough the night before, and she looked wiped. So Alex, Kim, Beth, Abby, Robin, Matt and Jeffrey all went upstairs for a quick afternoon nap. Robin was down twenty minutes later. Beth and Matt 10 minutes after that. Alex 10 more minutes. We and to wake Abby and Kim up after TWO AND A HALF HOURS! They didn't believe we'd been out shopping for an hour and played cards for another hour. That "Robin" plan did not work.
We went out for dinner at the mall, but When Robin got downstairs, she wasn't feeling that well, so Beth and her went back to the apartment. Kim had been having some lower body reactions to something she ate at some point, so she and Jeffrey went for Pizza Hut (I didn't even know they had these in Asia, I swear), while Abby, Alex, Matt and I went back to the Indian place we'd had take out from a couple of days ago. These guys make the best roti Canai we've had so far, and a great Teh Tarik!
We gesticulated a little on what to do after dinner, just missing out on a repeat performance of Antman. I had to head back with Beth's dinner, so we all ended up going back. Robin was already asleep - she'd brought up her lunch, and I don't mean in a conversational way. She seemed a little worried, but Beth explained to her that sometimes if something doesn't agree with our stomachs, it has to come out one of two ways... Robin said in a little soft voice "I wish we could choose which way". Poor thing. She usually bounces back quickly so I'm hoping she'll be good as new tomorrow.
We capped the night off with seven-person President. Despite a rough start with the killer "last card" rule for Kim, she righted the ship and managed to end the evening in an executive role.
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