If you remem­ber, I tried to go river raft­ing a cou­ple of months ago, to no avail.

For one last grand hur­rah in Guangzhou, the Diplo­Man and I gath­ered a group of friends for a sec­ond attempt at a raft­ing adven­ture, just on the out­skirts of town, about an hour from our home. I read about the loca­tion and antic­i­pated a pretty man­made expe­ri­ence but boy-oh-boy, was I in for a surprise.

Imag­ine a very long water­park ride, only instead of plas­tic tub­ing, the ride is made of con­crete. But there are rapids, sim­u­lated to look and feel like nature intended. Oh wait– just imag­ine splash moun­tain. Except, instead of being strapped in a log-like roller coaster, you’re just sit­ting in a two-person raft. With a hel­met, duh.

It took about an hour total to rush down the rapids. 10 min­utes of that was spent being jos­tled back and forth in the rapids, and the other 50 min­utes were spent in the three large pools that were inter­spersed between the dash­ing straits, where as many as 70 rafts at a time would gather and engage in water fights.

Con­ven­tional? Hardly. Safe? I think not. Fun? Absolutely.

Check us out, in action.

I mean, if this pic­ture doesn’t just sum it all up.…

Print this peep