Xiamen: Episode 3 - Raft Ahoy!

The thing I enjoy most while travelling and staying in hotels is the buffet breakfast!  There is always such a big spread of breakfast items from bread to congee, noodles to dumplings, pastries to fruits.  The only problem was we didn't have much time to sit down and enjoy it at a leisurely pace because of our tight schedule.  

It would take too long if I were to give an account of each day's travel, so I'm touching only on certain happenings.

It was on  our trip to Mt. Wuyi that we had the greatest thrill of our lives.  We went bamboo rafting on the Jiuquxi River (Nine Curves River) which flows through the gorges.  The raft was made of several lengths of bamboo put together with about 6 bamboo chairs for people to sit on.  It was helmed by two boatmen who each used a long bamboo pole to steer the raft through the water.  The travel brochure said that we should sit back and enjoy the silence and charm of the cool, green surroundings and despite some apprehension though we wore life jackets, we soon relaxed as we wound our way through the gorge with its scenic mountains.   

Then .... disaster struck!  Our raft hit a rock, the boatmen were thrown off balance and we wobbled dangerously from side to side but thank God we didn't overturn! Water started surging in from all sides and we thought we were going to sink!  

Our guide assured us not to worry as the boatmen were very experienced and knew how to get us out of this calamity.  Sure enough one of them contacted someone through his mobile phone (which thankfully didn't fall into the water) and within five minutes, a rescue raft came, we switched over to it and  continued safely on our journey down the river, our shoes soaking wet!  I forgot to mention that when we were floundering in the water, the bamboo pole used by one of the boatmen fell from his hand and landed on my head - fortunately it was quite light otherwise I would have suffered from concussion!  

Later, after we had landed on the other side, I wondered what karma put the three of us (myself, my aunt and our guide) in that particular raft, why it wasn't  someone else?  Were our Xiamen ancestors not pleased with us??  Just a thought that crossed my mind .....

(To be continued)