Beware, this post is
not for the squeamish or weak of stomach. You HAVE been warned.
Living in Tennessee
for so many years gave me plenty of opportunities to go white water rafting,
but I have always been somewhat put off by the legal disclaimers and paperwork
I had to sign in order to participate.
Maybe that came from hearing my parents complain about it. Either way, I had stayed away from the
activity, despite having several friends who were aficionados or river guides
themselves.
When I learned that
going on a rafting trip at the end of July would likely be the last big hurrah
with a few friends who were soon to leave Korea though, it seemed like as good
a time as any to take the plunge (literally and figuratively) with rafting and
join the group. Finding enough people to
go to get the group rate was a little challenging, but we finally set a date,
met up, and crammed 14 of us in a small van to ride northeast of Seoul towards
the DMZ which the river was near. I’m not
sure what valley or falls we were near, but it was on the Hantangang River (한탄강).
We had a package deal of around 30,000 won for the day (between $25-30USD), and I hope that included insurance but I don't really know. Water shoes rental was
optional, but I had Chacos, so I stuck with those. We had packed lunches, so first we sat down on
some broad rocks for a meal together. As
often happens before an early morning excursion, I had spent the night with
friends in Seoul, and they had some first-rate sandwich supplies. They also packed homemade kimbap (sort of the
Korean sushi roll), but they told me it wasn’t a very good example of homemade.
Immediately after lunch, we moved to the
waiting zone and prepared to get on our boats.
Since the boats only held 10 people plus the guide, we had to split into
groups. Rather than letting us go 7 and
7, we had to go 4 and 10, with the 4 joining another random group who was
there. It wasn’t ideal, but I think
everyone still had a fairly good time.
We “listened to” gestures as the instructor told us in Korean how to
fasten our life vests and helmets, and watched as a previous group disembarked
from their bus, took off their soggy life vests and gear and put them in a pile
for us to use next. Fun.
Our guide was a lanky
and lively high school graduate (Korean age 21/international age 19) who was
working as a guide part-time to build up some cash and experience during the
summer. He didn’t speak much English but
was absolutely elated to get to lead the boatload of foreigners (and my Korean pastor’s
family) on our adventure. He quickly
gave us some instructions for how to row and steer together, made sure we knew
how to strap our feet in for rapids, made sure we knew what to do if he yelled “Rope!!!”
and did a few practice turns.
Steering our way down
the first low falls, we cheered as we went, building momentum a little. The river spread out wide though, and slowed
into a nice area for swimming. Having
just set out on the rafting trip, I don’t think anyone particularly wanted to
get wet yet, but our guide really wanted to psyche us up. He decided to plunge in first to show how
much fun we could be having. He flung off
his life vest, helmet, baseball cap, and dove into the water, face-first. He surfaced a small distance away looking a
little stunned, and we immediately noticed that blood was streaming (not
trickling) down his face.
The guide sputtered a
little, but didn’t seem to realize that literally half his face was covered in
blood. We yelled to him, pointed, the pastor
shouted in Korean, and the guide put a hand to his face. It was to his credit that he wasn’t more
visibly upset by all the blood that came away on his hand. He had obviously hit the rocks below when he
dove in, and had a forehead gash, an upper lip gash, and two fairly deep
scrapes on his nose and chin. In spite
of this, he didn’t seem to be in shock, or in TOO much pain, and he tried to
wash off as well as he could.
Unfortunately, those kind of wounds just don’t stop bleeding easily.
The guide from our
smaller group’s boat approached and checked with our guide. He admitted he was showing off and met with
the consequences of that. Still, we had
already come down some falls, and it wouldn’t have been easy to turn back, so
he steeled himself to continue as if nothing had happened, trying to cheerfully
call out the rowing as before. Upon
getting back in the boat though, he did have to do something to staunch the
blood-flow. My pastor’s wife did what
she could to help, but, this being Korea, the boat was not equipped with a
first aid kit (as opposed to the U.S.A., world capital of frivolous lawsuits).
Recently, the guide
had sustained another injury on one of his heels, so his heel was taped up with
a significant amount of gauze tape. This
was of course soggy and muddy from the river, but he matter-of-factly peeled
off the bandage, tore it into pieces, and pressed the soggy mess onto his
forehead and lip as well as he could.
This might have been the most disgusting part of the whole ordeal. I was sitting the closest to him in the
raft. Lovely.
We exchanged a few
worried words in English about him needing to have that looked at, trying to
tell him he’d probably need stitches, and generally worrying about the whole
situation, but the guide got us strapped back in and re-oriented for
synchronized rowing as he continued spitting out blood. Well, okay, dude. Way to not panic in a crisis situation at
least! The whole experience was slightly
surreal and rather absurd. The rafting
trip continued with some decent rapids, but generally was more like a water
park ride than dangerous white water rapids.
Everyone seemed satisfied with this development.
Along the river, there
was a small docking station, with lots of families who had gotten off to picnic
or something. The women nearest to the
river gasped as we approached. The blood
was still streaming fairly liberally though it was improving. He
asked for bandages, but… the best they had at the dock was a roll of toilet
paper and some wet wipes. That was
better than nothing I guess. The women
stared in horror, talking amongst themselves as we pulled back out into the
open river again.
Much to our surprise,
the guide managed very level-headedly to give us some interesting information
about the river as we continued on our way.
He pointed out several word carvings on the rocks that had been made
during the Silla dynasty, around 1,000-1,500 years ago. The area had been used for outposts during
wartimes, or for travelers along the way.
The geology of the area was pretty amazing. I’m still so used to the look of limestone
rocks everywhere in Tennessee, so seeing the polished granites and smoothed metamorphic
rocks here along the riverbeds is fascinating.
I came across the term “Giamgoeseok rocks” but I’m not entirely sure what it
means—maybe “strange and fascinating rock formations”? Regardless, the region is famous for its
beautiful rock formations for good reason.
Several buildings
dotted the banks of the river and the high cliffs above. It seemed like there was at least one temple
or scholar overlook, and there was a sort of charismatic church building or
outpost at one point. There was a huge
cross by this church thing, so naturally we asked about it. According to our guide, it was more for
hyper-religious demonstrative types, not mainstream in any case. This led to an interesting discussion (mostly
in Korean) about church and faith, since we had a raft full of Korean and
American Christians passing by the site.
We chatted about it a while and continued on our way, passing occasional
swimmers and sunbathers, plus one or two people with climbing gear attempting
to scale the cliffs that rose high on either side of us.
Hitting the rapids
just right was thrilling. I can understand
why people enjoy this activity so much.
We have had one of the driest summers in decades in South Korea, but
there had been a fair amount of rain just before our weekend trip, so the river
levels were moderately high. The only
person who ever ran aground in our group was our unfortunate guide when he dove
in. The high water levels kept us at a steady
pace. We had a few water fights with
neighboring rafts too, and rammed a few rock faces for the fun of it. One person did fall out of a raft near us as
her boat went through rapids, but aside from having a slightly bruised leg she
seemed unharmed. It scared the living
daylights out of her daughter though.
The disembarking point
had a wonderful area for swimming as well, so most of us did get in the water
by that point. Our guide had nearly
stopped bleeding, but he was [finally!] looking pretty tired and ready for the
trip to end. I hope he didn’t get fired
over the stunt, since he really was an entertaining and informative leader, and
very responsible after his big blunder.
He certainly got some ribbing from the other nearby guides once we
landed and hoisted up our raft to return to the main site. We cleaned up at the bathhouses (shampoo was a required item on our official packing lists), took some group pictures, swapped stories
about our respective raft adventures, and headed back home. Unforgettable trip, but at least it ended
well.
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