Monico Family Travels

Our first day back on mainland Sumatra we went white water rafting.  To begin the day we drove to the starting point but what was really cool was that we got to ride on the top of the car!  It was super fun because it felt like a rollercoaster with all the bumps on the road and we could see all the palm oil plantations we passed through, and tonnes of cows that looked too skinny.  It was windy and in the end we got too cold so we went inside.

There was so much palm oil where there used to be forrest, and here are the skinny cows too:

On the way we stopped off at a town to pick up our lunch, and daddy bought some fire crackers. This is what the town looked like.  They can balance a lot on the motorbikes here!

It was a bit scary and dirty where they bought the fruit, but we survived!

Here we are choosing fire crackers and fireworks

When we arrived, the guides pumped up the boat and carried it down to the water.  

The reason its called white water rafting is because where the water is deep you get lots of rapids and the top of the waves are frothy white.  When we went through the rapids we had to paddle forwards to stop the boat capsizing and us flying out.

We stopped off at a stinky hot spring and swam in the boiling water.  It smelled of sulphur because the water came from inside the earth as there are lots of volcanoes in Bali.

For lunch we stopped on a tiny cove at the side of the river with a little waterfall.  We ate off banana leaves and used our hands to eat.

Here is our lovely lunch spot:

We had yellow water melon for lunch which mummy got excited about because she had never seen yellow water melon before!

At one point we had to get out because we were coming up a dam where they were building a hydroelectric power station.  Hydro power is good because its clean energy, but it can be bad because it often results in flooding of areas where people are living.

We set off again through more rapids until eventually it was calm and they said we could go swimming.  There was still a current so we drifted like pencils through the water vertical all the way!

It was a really fun experience, and it was nice to warm up in a hot shower when we got back!

Here are Emily and me sleeping at the guest house where we were staying