In November of 2009, four South African kayakers teamed up with four Indonesian paddlers on an expedition to explore the rivers of the Solok Selatan regency of West Sumatra. After eleven days we had managed to paddle four beautiful rivers, and claim several first descents. In a series of articles I will uncover this oasis of paddling and tell our story from start to finish. (This On Friday the thirteenth, Andrew Kellet and I left Cape Town at 08:00. We flew up to Johannesburg and met up with Celliers Kruger and Hugh du Preez who also brought our brand spanking new boats with them. We had a close encounter with Emirates as they wanted to charge us R400 per kilogram (about 35 US Dollars) of excess luggage. With four creek boats, we were nicely over. Somehow, luck was on our side and by weighing Andrews boat only (which was an empty, small Solo), we convinced the check in counter man that all the boats weighed this little and were the same. Obviously this was a blatant lie as the other three Solo's were all the large size and Celliers and Hugh also had a lot of gear inside their boats. Eventually we got everything on without paying a cent and away we went.
The first flight went off in a haze after I requested a double brandy and they brought me two of those little bottles, effectively making it a quad brandy. This wasn't smart but I felt the need so indulged a bit, then more. With the cabin being pressurised to an altitude of about 2500m, and given the fact that I live at sea level, and the fact that it was a lot of brandy, I got pretty hammered. Oh well, lesson learnt, mostly. First stop was Dubai and this was something new to me. I quite enjoyed the airport and just looking at the shops and the people. By then we were getting very tired and not even my 26 US Dollar meal that I bought at Burger King for Andrew and I could prep us up. Next flight was to Jakarta, still with Emirates, and I was so tired I don't even remember taking off, sleep just overcame me. I can honestly say it is the best airline I've flown with. Although I'm no expert I've been overseas a few times and on both flights we had the most leg room, and also the best in flight entertainment I've seen. That flight was spent drinking water and sleeping. ==== Selanjutnya beserta photo2, klik : http://adrian.playak.com/index.php/west-sumatra-2009-mainmenu-22/146-lower-b atang-liki-the-first-of-the-first-descents-part-1 Wasalam. Nofend
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