Bahama Rafting

Bali is a popular destination because, in a way, it has so many things people seek in a vacation getaway – adventure, nature, history, culture, and R&R. That’s certainly why we picked it – and we were not disappointed on any of those fronts. I’ll focus on the “adventure” part of our vacation in this post…

Whitewater rafting was an activity suggested by friends in HK and by the staff at Villa Agung Khalia. The staff assured us that it was completely safe and that many of their guests enjoyed it. So, we signed up.

We were picked up one morning by someone from “Bahama Rafting Company” and drove for an hour through the windy roads outside of Ubud, listening to remixed American rock music. Our driver had purplish colored hair, but was nice and was patient as we stopped to take pictures. On this, and other car trips, there were some interesting sights. Such as:

Rice drying in the middle of the street:

An oversized load on a motorcycle:

A roadside “market”:

Chickens in wicker cages:

An unusual “taxi”:




The rafting company was in the middle of nowhere – we never would have found it (or our way back) on our own. There were lots of tourists there and it looked completely reputable. However, I have to admit, as one of the Bahama Rafting staff strapped a helmet on my head I had a “what in-the-world-are-we-doing-going-whitewater-rafting-in-a-third-world-country-with-a-six-year-old?!” moment!

After some additional assurance from staff that we would be completely safe, and Lydia tightly strapped in a life jacket and helmet, we trekked through a tropical forest, down hundreds of stairs, to the water:





When we reached the shore, our guide gave us basic safety instructions, handed us our oars, and we were off! It was a lot more exciting of a trip than our raft/canoe rides on the Li River and in Thailand, but it definitely wasn’t an extreme whitewater rafting adventure. The scenery was stunning though we obviously couldn’t take pictures while we were in motion. We captured this right before we took off:

We stopped did stop a couple of times along the way. First to looked at the rock carvings along the river:

Then for a snack break on a river bank that had black sand (a bit hard to see):
And, at the end of the trip, a company photographer took an action shot of our raft:



Dave, Lydia, and I all agreed that it was incredibly fun and that we’d do it again. It was a great day – one of many!! More to come.