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..:)