carried away in Cisangkuy River: Mar'09

I’m afraid of water and can’t swim, still I joined rafting at Cisangkuy river in Pengalengan-Bandung. We went to Bandung at 6 am with most of the participants were from my office. I slept on the bus most of the time, since I just arrived home at 2.15 am.

We went through the 11 km rafting route for two hours from 12 pm to 2 pm. The paddy field view from the river is very beautiful and tranquil. The only voice I could hear is the sound of the flowing water, which hit the rocks and create small and big waves on the river. Wait a second, it’s not the only voice that I heard. I also heard the instructor instruct us to “backpaddle!”, “forwardpaddle!”, “to the left!”, “to the right!”, “boom!”, “watch out for tree branches!”, “splash the water to other boats!”. Well, he didn’t need to instruct the last one. It was exciting and became more exciting when the rain started to fall, a light one. We stopped once to have a couple minutes break, and then continued the journey. Getting use of the river wave, at some point I started to enjoy more on the scenery than to keep my eyes on the rocks in front of us.

Suddenly, I was in the water and didn’t know what had happened with the boat. I just remembered that I have to keep my feet and face upside when someone gets into river. Keeping your feet upside was quite easy. But, keeping your face upside and above the surface were more difficult, especially with the wave hit you and the current rolled you upside down, then introduced your skin to the rocks and your throat to the river water directly – up close and personal. Having a faith that there will be someone from rescue team will pull me out of the water made me keep focusing on safety guidelines. When I still hadn’t seen anyone in front of me, then I tried to focus on the rope offering shout. Then I saw one of the rescue team was pulling someone else out of the water. I grabbed his hand, while his other hand holding that someone else. He told me to stand up, but I still focused on keeping my feet up :) How could I stand then? It was after I changed my focus. He kept holding me until I could stand still on the ground and back on the boat. Guess what, I still had my row with me all that time I was in the water, and then continued the journey back …Yippiee!!!!

Five from six people on my boat, including the instructor, fell into the water. It is funny to tell all the fall off stories. Try this: on another boat, all of the people, exclude the instructor, fell because of bamboo tree branches. Someone actually hang on the branch, but then it broke and he finally joined his friends in the water. Another person on another boat also fell then disappeared from the surface. It turned out he was below the boat :) I don’t know the whole stories from this rafting, but it seems it has inspired some of my friends to join the next rafting trip.

I’m still afraid of water and still can’t swim, but I’m afraid I won’t say no to another rafting offer.

Thanks to my colleagues, non-colleagues and Kawalu. It's awesome!

2009: China

later :)

2008: The End

2008 is a year when I could live my live lighter than in 2007. How good you have planned on something, but at the end you would never know how it’ll end. How reasonable it is to follow your mind or other people mind, but at the end you’ll follow your heart. At least, I do now. At the end, I just hope that it is worth taking the risk of closing a door for another door. Too many 'at the end'. The point is: if you want to buy a house with a lot of doors in suburban area, find a location which has a train route :)

Happy New Year 2009! God forgive me for sometimes assuming that You’re a human mind made only.

2008: Bali

Instead of going to Borneo, I went to Bali. This time the office paid me to go there for a technical analysis training.

We stayed at Wina Holiday hotel in Kuta. I had a day off there and spend the whole day in Starbucks café in Kuta, working on the bonds market story for 2008. As expected, I was more creative on doing the writing there.

At night, I went to Uluwatu for an hour, stopped by at the airport, read a book for 1.5 hours still at the airport, got bored, then went back to the hotel.

The trainer is an old friend of mine and the other participants are dealers. When we had another opportunity to get out of Kuta, we went to Ubud looking for paintings. I bought two paintings there. While the other was searching on more paintings in Ubud traditional market, I just waited for them and continued reading Taleb’s book in a café in front of the market. So far, the book is about how you value the circumstances that do not happened or hasn't happened yet. I’d prefer drowning in Taleb’s mind than dragging myself to see the bargaining process inside the market.

2008: Borneo?

It’s December 2008 and I have my 12 day official leave by now. My friends and I bought tickets to Borneo for the end of the year. We were to go to the lake and forest. But for some reasons, we had to cancel it. My own reason was because I was deleteriously affected by the Twilight movie. The movie is about the Cullen’s family – a vegetarian vampire family. They have a habit to hunt the animal deep inside the forest when they’re hungry. It’s highly recommended for humans not to be in the forest while the vampires were hunting. It’s a very risky one since they could suck your blood till you die. Of course I won’t take that kind of risk. What if those gorgeous American/British vampires decided to stop by in Borneo forest while I was there? This is why I don’t like horror movie or even only close to it.

blood suckers in Mount Halimun-Salak National Park: Oct'08

After 5 hours on the road with a Mitsubishi Colt L-300 drived by the road racer Mr. O, we finally arrived at Mount Halimun National Park. At noon, we started a light trekking to the canopy trail and Cimacan waterfall. The National Park circling the villages and the tea plantation area belongs to PT. Nirmala.

We stayed at one of the villagers’ house: Mr. S. His family is the environmentalist by nature. The villagers work as a tea plantation employee, a farmer or a forest ranger. They even have their own made electricity from a water turbine. When the dusk falling, we played a card game as it was raining out there. I had my first bruise because of a fork during the game.

After the rain had stopped, we went to the front-end of the forest near the Cikaniki research station. The forest at night is absolutely dark, eventhough you’re using a flashlight. As our eyes got used to the darkness, we could see some green spot lights, which came from the glowing fungus among the trees. I don’t remember the fungus scientific name. Then we spend the night inside the forest trying to capture the beautiful dark view with a camera. Well, I was only looking my friends got busy with the camera and the fungus. I felt there’s something wrong on my foot: a leech was sucking my blood. Awesome! It’s my first hole due to a leech. I found the second hole as we took a rest at the research station. The sleeping time was peaceful though.

Getting up in Mr. S’s homestay was a refreshing one. We went up early in the morning to see the sunrise, but Mr. dramatic sunrise Z was still sleeping undisturbed. So we’re heading to the tea plantation area above the village with a flashlight. The road is rocky and slippery.

We’re there for about an hour. We’re climbing it and standing watching the sun rise that slowly came into sight from behind a mountain. Meanwhile the white mist was flowing following the curve of the hills under the morning sunlight, with the forest as the surroundings. As the tea plantation farmers were starting to come and a bee was also starting to feel annoyed with our presence in his territory, we went back to the homestay to have breakfast.

Our schedule today is the jungle trekking to the seven meter Cikudapaeuh waterfall. At first, we’re going to the 25 meter Cipiit waterfall, but the road is too slippery and steep that you have to use thick rope.

We started the trekking on the tea plantation area and the village. At first I thought it would be a mundane four hour trekking through the tea plantation area. But then, we turned to the left side and entered the forest. Since this is a rain forest, there’s no sound as you’re stepping on the falling leaves. It’s muddy and slippery. Often the ranger re-opened the track with his machete and boots. As we got deeper, the forest became ticker. The greenery thicker swathe forest really looks amazing from far away. And it is more amazing when you’re inside it, and absolutely not a boring one.

After a packet of steep ascent and descent, we will have to cross the clear water river to have another packet of steep ascent of descent with the river and so on for six hours to and from the Cikudapaeuh waterfall. Some of the descents and ascents have almost 90 degree slope. I really thought the ranger would take the turn road, if it exist, but he went on with the slope.

Hence, most of the jungle trekking was crawling by holding the tree roots or everything available there and your friends’ hand. Not to mention the leeches. I had 11 small bloody holes on my feet and another hole on my leg due to the leeches. It didn’t include the leeches that hadn’t had a chance to suck my blood as I already threw it away. But the rain forest itself is an exquisite one. Besides the leeches, there are bird nest with the little birds inside it, colorful wild flowers and fungus, civet dirt, Java tiger’s track, Owa Jawa (chimpanzee cousin I guess) playing high above the trees and the beautiful Cikudapaeuh waterfall inside the forest.

The ranger also taught us to eat a tree stem & leaves and drink water inside another tree stem. The trees also make canopies that hindered us from the falling water when the light raining started on our way back. I had never been so happy to see the rice field as we got out from the forest to have our very late lunch on the afternoon at the homestay.

The adventurous journey hadn’t finished yet. It was continuing on our way back to Jakarta. Z and Mr. O, the driver, decided to take another shorter route, maybe because the night was about to come. But the road is slipperier and steeper than the road where we’re coming from. Somehow, the road racer Mr. O had successfully managed the old engine to go through all the difficulties on the road.

At some points of the road, the fog and flood, from a broken dam, slowed the car down. We arrived in Jakarta at 11pm.

It was the first time I entered the forest and it took a few months for me to stop daydreaming to be there again and fully back on the reality. I really hope the area will always be protected. It’s too valuable to be destroyed for economical reason. Those villagers have proved that they could live side by side with the nature. They are rich with the fresh water flow 24 hours straight from the mountain, the fresh air, the delicious food from their backyard, the warm day and the peaceful night. If they want something more sophisticated than that, just join us in the city. Don’t disturb the forest. I just hate the leeches. Why can’t they make an exception on sucking human blood?

2008: Krakatau?

A while after I got out from the hospital, my friends said that they are to go to Krakatau, but they feel sorry that I couldn’t join them, because I am still recuperating. Fuck Krakatau!! I couldn’t get too tired physically, because there’s still a chance of bleeding. But, after a month of the hospital experience, I was ready for the next trip. It was to Mount Halimun National Park, Sukabumi.