Whitewater-Ho!

On Saturday night, friends of mine and I boarded a train for Hualien in the central part of Taiwan. This was to be my second trip to Hualien, but for a much different reason. The first time, with the squid balls, our primary destination was Taroko Gorge. This time, however, we went for white water rafting.

We began early with a rice porridge breakfast- truly a breakfast for champ- ions. We then descended down the stairs of our hotel and waited patiently for the van to arrive. As we started to file into the van, the driver stopped me deliberately, gave me a crooked smile, and told me to get in the front. Certainly I wasn't about to complain as I was to be afforded the best views there.

We arrived about ninety minutes later at the rafting center and watched an inspirational safety video. As it was in Chinese, we didn't get much out of the video except that we shouldn't jump out of the boat or bring along our digital cameras. With that, we put our cameras back in the van and got a twenty minute demonstration on how to put on our life jackets.


Then, like lemmings, we all made our way down to the river, got on our rafts, and paddled away with a hoard of other people. The day was then broken up into two parts. The first came before lunch and the second, obviously, after lunch. The difference, however, was starker than the Republic of China and the People's Republic of China. The first half was lazy and, quite frankly, mostly paddling along calm water before there was any notice of "rapidy bits". It got to the point where we tied onto a motorboat and were towed along down the river.

For lunch we were given a traditional Taiwanese lunch box set amidst the stunning scenery. My friend and I were delighted to discover that our van was at this location. Therefore, we snuck in, grabbed our cameras, and smuggled them onto the raft to document our voyage along these class one rapids.

To lighten our moods, we decided to pretend we were intrepid adven- turers, and as any good adven- turers must have, we needed a theme song. Therefore, as we approached our first set of rapids, we all built up the anticipation by singing, quite loudly in fact, the Indiana Jones Theme Song. It was no coincidence, either, that as soon as we hit the first rock, we also got stuck on it. Alas, white water rafting subsequently became whitewater walking.

As we started to approach the second set of rapids, our melody was inter- rupted by the loud crash of oncoming thunder. Rain started to drop on our heads and the tension began to mount. At this point, I hit the record button and got on film the most exciting two minutes of our journey. As we approached the oncoming rapids, we were taken by no choice of ours straight for another raft stuck on a rock. Bumping into them, we dislodged their boat from their unfortunate predicament only to realize that we had usurped their thrown and now reigned over this tiny mid-river island.

Our rule was short lived as another boat immedi- ately struck us from behind. But rather than pushing us along, as we are strong rulers, their boat hopped up on top of ours. The rushing of the water at the back of the boat disturbed the weight distribution causing the raft to capsize right on the rapid. The villains trying to take our throne were launched into the water and started floating down stream. Paddles and helmets were lost to the current. Yet, while the rapids were weak, two sailors on the capsized boat were in a dangerous position: they were trapped under the over turned raft with water rushing into the boat. As we scrambled to pull a floating passerby into out raft, another team came along and restored the boat to its original position. All were saved. All was recorded. However, I assure you, the incident was not nearly as exciting as the music makes it out to be.

We were picked up where the river and the ocean meet in a place called Taitung, and were driven back up to Haulien along the most extra- ordinary coast line. Back in Haulien, we stopped for a sojourn at a local tea house before going to a fabulous Haka restaurant with tremendously scrumptious meals.

So, from your Indiana Jones and The Legend of the Whitewater Rafters, Michael.