Indonesia Czech Out – part 1

I'm sitting on the floor in the middle of few pieces of clothes, 2 first aids, boat, paddles and paddling gear and wondering how the hell am I gonna fit all of my stuff into 30kgs. It is end of January and we are leaving to Indonesia for a month. To tell the truth, I have no idea what to take with me, but I'm keeping on my mind the advise of my brother: „ Take only half of the stuff that you think you need“. Well, lets divide this pile of things into half and see what happens....

Little hustle at the airport helps us to load 3 overweight kayaks and bag of paddles for no additional price – sweet! The flight to Dubai goes smoothly thanks to never ending supply of rum and coke that we got from a very nice slovakian stewardess – so good to be Slovan!!! The second part of the flight, to Jakarta, is worse, being hung over at the airport and in the plane was not my favourite part of the trip...

Jakarta welcomes us with high temperatures and unbelievable humidity. We are getting a month visa for 25 USD and catching up with Mira and Martina. Quick run and drive to the other terminal to catch the flight to Lampung is followed by long discussion with the airlines staff that refused to take our kayaks on board. Bag of Jerky and 350.000Rp helped there a lot. We are getting used to the fact that we are expected to be unbelievably rich and no words can change this idea that locals have about us.

All the hospitality in Lampung is provided by Delfi and his family. The morning later is also arriving Abdul Halim, local kayaker, originally from Germany, who is going to be a big help for us for the next 4 weeks. Delfi also manages to get the army to secure the transport and security on our with trip – mission planned by Delphi – first decent of the upper part of Way-Semong river. The rafting crew together with the army archive provides a map of the area. But to tell the true, I am more than sure that the river, they marked on the map, was NOT the one we have paddled after. Anyway the first D was succesfull, boys completed it in one day and I took my turn with them the day after. Way Semong is an amazing class IV-V river with some box canyons and must-runs to check your paddling skills. It was probably the most challenging paddling experience for me so far. Also the feeling of being hours of walk through the jungle far from the closest civilization or road is both fascinating and frightening. I would never change the decision of going on this river but I have to say I felt I big relief when I got out of the canyon...

Few more photos in this gallery - stay tuned for the rest..:)

Usteåni - Gorge run

Well right at the start I have to say I still can't tick this river of my list. As I didn't finish it this time. I took a pretty full on swim out of a big hole which totally took down my confidence and i have decided to hike out of the gorge (btw. I'm never doing it again! It was a real torture and about half up the hill I was sure than even running the must-runs and last big drop would be easier, but who knows.)


Here goes a little movie edited by Vojta Hejtmanek Rock and Water production

Sjoa River Festival 2011

It is already more than 3 weeks since Sjoa river festival has happen, so I think the time to write an article about it has come. I was in Dagali only for ten days when I took my first holidays, luckily Serious Fun hasn't been short of guides so it was all fine. Vojta and me packed his silver "Giovanni" and hit the road in the direction of Otta. We didn't miss a single Statoil petrol station on the way there, as we were enjoying the FREE coffee as much as we could.   

We have arrived to Sjoa on Tuesday evening, got the registration and headed down to the unofficial campsite by the Lagen. Well, as usually, it was packed with those that didn't want to pay for camping - that means with Czech and Slovak kayakers. We set of a nice welcome party but went to bed quite early.

photo by Matej Fabianek

There was a Freestyle jam session hold on the Jolgen wave on Wednesday, I have to admit surfing the wave is way more fun than riding the holes. Even thou I still can't stick a solid there I really enjoy the whole session. The qualification for Ula Extreme race and Sweet Rumble took its place on Thursday. As there only 6 girls competing, it wasn't hard to get through, because everyone made it. It was different in men's category. The cut down the number of them from 80 to 40, and it was more than tough to get through. Luckily all Czechs and Slovakians made it through.

Sweet Rumble at Amot

When we have arrived to Ula I was nervous like a kid on its first day at school. I once walked around that river 2 years ago, when Jakub and Lenka went down. Now I knew I want to paddle it. Still not decided if I'm going to compete in the race I went down with the boys. It felt great, little slides, few drops, just fine. Once we got to the big slide heart was probably beating 150 beats per minute! But it was time to go down. I took a deep breath and went for my first ride down the slide. It went nice and smooth and by the time I got down to the waterfall my Ego was so big we hardly fit both in the boat... I didn't hit a perfect line on the waterfall, landed in the right place but didn't lean forward enough. By that time I didn't know it's gonna be my best line on this drop.  I manage to hit faster lines in the completion and ended up 4th ( Lenka Borovickova, also from Czech, ended up 2nd) . The men's category was won by the Czech paddler Honza Lasko.

Waterfall at the end of the race course, photo by Matej Fabianek

We stayed few more days around Sjoa and paddled also other sections and Lagen. Unfortunately I got tendonitis in my right wrist and couldn't paddle since Saturday, even thou we had a great time, good parties and I can tick two more rivers and one section of my wish list. See you next year at Sjoa River Festival 2012.


Here is movie made by Gene 17:

Plattling March 2011

Few photos from this year first paddling!

Nina Halasova

Meg Smith enjoying her well deserved beer after paddling

Tomo Andrassy

few more here

Devils Xtreme race 2010

Straight after our parents came back from their holidays, me and my bro Jakub stole their lovely Transit, fully equipped as a camping caravan and got it back on the road. We arrived at the camping area near the borders with Germany early in the morning. After 2 hours of sleep, you could already find us stepping around the start area. In about an hour, all the competitors were in the paddling gear and the race was already on the fire. Every category started with slalom and then sprint. The race trail was pretty much new for me, as this was my second xtreme race, but first one on this river. 

Lenka,me and Hanka in a good mood

photo by Hanka Bubnikova

Because I hadn't chance to try it before the race I went straight for it in the race. I have ended up on the 4th place thanks to a great instructions given by Palo Andrassy followed by a illustration of what the water is gonna do with my boat as he grabbed me and swept me all  around the bridge as I nearly ended up under the wheels of passing car:)

Me on Alpin start

We were paddling the rest of the Devils in the afternoon. I couldn't believe how good it was! The "window" was just a start of fun as the whole river goes into about 3 meters windows with 2 big rolls on both sides. Then there were few more rapids to keep you in a good mood. I have to say that I always did a portage on "Bloody fingers" as I could see that usually it was not only fingers that ended up bloody on this rapid. But still there were few other rapids that fully satisfied my paddling appetite. Especially "stairs" is a great  rapid with two easy boofs that makes you feel sooo good if you get them right!

Me on Loucovice

Everybody went BIG on Saturday night! I would love to tell more about that night but well, you would have to be there...

Palo Andrassy- the "instructor"!

Sunday started with Kayak X and then Team race. The water run until about 4pm so we were all completely exhausted before going home as we paddled as much as possible.

Unfortunately i didn't make enough photos from this amaying weekend as paddled as much as possible. Cheers to Jana from Slovakia for at least those few she made on my camera Devils 2010.

Also big up to the organizers, you can check out the results here