Whenever we have a chance to get out of Hong Kong for a few days, we always try to strike a balance between down time and activity, culture and nature, fun and educational. Sorry girls, but there’s always going to be some hiking involved. On our recent trip to Borneo, Malaysia, one of our crowd-pleasing activities was to go white-water rafting for the day. I thought we could handle a level 3-4 section of the river, but my wife convinced me that since this was our girls’ first time, the level 2-3 excursion would be wiser.
A ninety-minute van ride, we were at the launch site at the edge of the Kiulu River. Life jackets, helmets, and three minutes worth of instruction and we were ready to go. It was just the four of us and Sham our Malaysian river guide on our inflatable rubber river raft.Sham was a perfect guide. He was funny, informative, and gave a great ride down the river. The girls kept yelling at me because I wasn’t paddling enough and helping to control the raft. What they didn’t realize was that our paddling was superfluous and simply for show. Sham had complete control of the raft. Girls, do you think it was just chance that we gently bumped into that big rock on the right side of the river, spun ninety degrees clockwise, dipped into a swell, got hit by a big slash that doused us on the left side of the raft, felt like we were about to tip –but didn’t- and then popped back out? Sham was in complete control the whole time.
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