Wild rafting with 'Scorpions' on Ayung River in Bali

Wild rafting with 'Scorpions' on Ayung River in Bali

By Johannes Simbolon

JAKARTA (JP): Supergroup Scorpions from Germany had never gone white-water rafting before. But they got the chance during the recent "Pacific Music Rainbow" songwriters meeting in Bali.

The Ayung River, which flows from Mount Batur to Sanur beach, was the first river to give them the experience of rafting.

The morning was beautifully clear when the dozens of songwriters from the U.S., Europe, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Malaysia and the Philippines arrived in the village of Begawan, where the trip was to start. The village is in Bali's hinterland and is about one and a half hours by car from Denpasar.

The white-water trip was managed by the Sobek adventure tour company, which is owned by European, Australian and American investors.

The organizing committee arranged it in such a way that each raft carried five composers and one reporter. I joined the group that Scorpions' Klaus Meine and Rudolf Shenker were in. Others in our group were also noted musicians. There were Steven M. McClintock, of Tiffany and who composed the hit If Love is Blind, and Jack Blades of the Damn Yankees, and his wife. None of them had been rafting before, except Mrs. Blades.

After donning life jackets and helmets and grabbing our paddles, we walked down a path to the Ayung River. There, a Sobek employee filled us in on rafting safety procedures. Everyone was instructed to follow the commands of their respective raft captain and store their effects in the captain's waterproof bag.

Our captain was a Balinese from Ubud, I Ketut Losog Ariana, 23, nicknamed Mr. Lizard. All the captains were given a nickname by Sobek.

"Are you the best captain in town?" Blades jokingly asked our captain.

Sitting on the rear of the raft, Lizard, who spoke English, only smiled. Once the trip was over he proved himself not only a good captain but also a "cheating" captain who deliberately gave us incorrect instructions so that we all ended up wet. The journey turned into something resembling a hurricane.

The trip started at around 10 a.m. The first rapid was close to the start.

"Paddle forward, paddle back...," Lizard shouted alternately.

All paddled as instructed. Once we passed the rapid, the raft bumped into a rock. Blades and McClintock who sat in front were thrown backward. Luckily, no one fell overboard. All broke into laughter as the river flowed tranquilly for several minutes.

The so-called "water war" game was then waged. Once the captains gave the order "attack", all rafters in each group madly doused groups in other rafts by splashing water with their paddles. All turned wet, but were cheerful.

Meine and Shenker, both 47, who were on the nearest bench to me, excitedly took part in the water war.

The water war was waged throughout the journey every time a raft approached another raft. Sometimes during the "war", our own captain stealthily splashed water on us with the sole aim of making us wetter and wetter.

After passing through several rapids, we grew accustomed to Lizard's instructions.

Meine, Scorpions vocalist and composer, then gushed: "It (the instructions) can be a good song," then improvised a melody, "Paddle forward, paddle back, paddle, paddle, paddle ..."

All smiled, while paddling. The trip would take two hours, passing through a total of 25 rapids. At each rapid, two men stood by the riverside filming all the rafters by video and taking their pictures. Nobody knew who the men were and what their works were for until the trip was over. The men worked with Sobek. Pictures were later sold at Rp 10,000 apiece and videocassettes for US$23.

The panorama was stunning. The vegetation that lined the river exhibited various kinds of tropical flora, which I am familiar with but my fellow rafters found exotic. "Fantastic," they said every now and then.

Sometimes their astonishment surprised me. At one time they all turned their eyes to the left where dozens of banana trees grew. They stared at the trees for a long time.

"Where are the fruits? It's not seasoned yet?" curiously asked Meine.

"Yes," I said, laughing inside. As a native familiar with banana trees since childhood, I really didn't expect people to be so fascinated by the trees.

At another time, Mrs. Blades pointed to the leaf of a tree floating in the air. The others quickly turned their eyes to it. It was the size of the leaf that amazed them, which I estimated to be three to four times larger than the palm of one's hand.

"What a big leaf," she said.

Meine followed the leaf with his eyes until it fell onto the surface of the river. I was not interested in the leaf because I had seen much larger ones. I was more interested in the curiosity of my fellow rafters, which I didn't expect at all. I heavily sensed the difference of culture and background between us.

On another occasion, Meine contemplated a coconut floating on the river as if it were a strange object. He touched the fruit several times as the raft moved.

The raft moved past several villages, including Ubud. Thus, we came across several groups of children swimming and fishing. A half naked kid leaped into the raft and took a seat beside Meine. He glanced at Meine for a moment as if to ask for his consent. Meine embraced the boy's shoulder warmly and let Mrs. Blades take their picture. Then, the boy jumped back into the water.

In the meantime, McClintock gaily shouted to the fishing kids, "Fish! Fish!" which the kids imitated. Some of them excitedly ran after the raft, forgetting the fishing for a while. But they didn't catch up with us.

Lizard, our captain, explained: "They think you are going to give them money. Because pipis or (in short) pis (pronounced similar to fish) means money in the Bali language."

We all laughed. Thus, when the raft came across another group of children on the riverside, McClintock shouted again: "Fish," and threw Rp 1,000 to a running boy.

"Now, you've got the fish," McClintock gladly laughed.

When the stream flowed quietly and we didn't need to paddle for some minutes, I took the chance of asking Meine about his superhit Wind of Change.

Meine, who sang the song, composed it by himself after a visit to the Soviet Union in 1988. Then, Gorbachev's campaign of perestroika and glasnost was in progress.

The verses and bridge were finished in a couple of hours. He later played the song to his would-be producer in the U.S. who suggested a stronger chorus. Meine completed the chorus back in Germany in several hours. There were some two months in between.

Meine also mentioned the Scorpions' plan to tour Southeast Asian countries, including Indonesia, next year.

The talk was interrupted by the appearance of rather big waterfall on the left. Other groups who had arrived earlier were frolicking under the downpour and were busy taking pictures. Meine, followed by others, quickly leaped out of the raft and bathed under the waterfall and had pictures taken.

After a 15 minute break at the waterfall, the journey continued. There was discussion about Mick Jagger when the raft passed the Amandari hotel where the singer reportedly always stays whenever in Bali. The hotel nestles atop the hill, but some of the premises were visible from the river.

As the boats came closer to Kedewatan village, where the trip would finish, the rapids looked wilder. Several boats failed to pass through them smoothly and some of the rafters fell overboard. No one faced any danger though, thanks to the life jackets. The water around the rapids also didn't seem deep.

Seeing the rapids getting closer, everyone in our group focused their attention on their paddles. We managed to cross most of the rapids. But we became aware that Lizard purposely often gave us the "wrong" instructions so that our raft bumped into rocks several times and almost capsized.

On the last and wildest rapid, our raft rammed into a large boulder and we ended up facing upstream. Lizard instantly gave the command to paddle backwards.

"No, no!" McClintock protested, followed by the others, seeing the wild rapid behind. We thought Lizard wanted to fool us yet again. But the white water strongly pulled at the raft and we couldn't help following his command. Surprisingly, we did it and everyone managing to stay on the raft.

Some minutes later the trip finished. We were beaming. But the following day, Meine said he felt fatigue all through his muscles.