Water Buffalo, Parasites, and Water Fights!

That’s right, we just went on our annual rafting trip in Hangzhou.  Don’t let the title fool you, we had a great time!  This year we had about 90 SCIS teachers attending from all three of our campuses.  The morning began at 9am with breakfast sandwiches, beer, and stories from last year. 

After driving for an hour and a half, our first little stop was a rest area.  Now these are not your average American little stops on major highways.  In China these places consist of smelly squatty potties (with no tissue), stinky tofu (worst smell ever), soft serve ice cream, a convenience store, and a guy selling cigarette holders.  Random, I know, but it didn’t stop us from beginning the day with some fun.  The day officially began with fingers plugging noses, ears listening to stories of getting parasites from the water, and hands around cold beers.  We had to wait a good half hour for the Pudong crew to join us.  Then we were off to complete the trip to Hangzhou.

We arrived shortly after and were ready to raft!  To get to the river you ride a cart pulled by water buffalo.  I hate seeing the way they treat the animals…but what are you to do.  Once we got there my team wanted to get on the rafts as soon as possible so we would not be at the end.  We knew we had a BBQ waiting for us and we didn’t want to miss out on the food!  As we set off- Travis, Krystle, Zach, Bri, Matt, Tony, our saving grace translator, and I quickly realized we were well ahead of our friends and the trip would not be complete with out some major water fights.  So we did what any expat in China would do, we paid off our guide to slow down!  It worked. 

Some of my favorite parts of the trip were the following:

·      Spitting out water to make sure no parasites find homes in our bodies

·      Another teacher telling Travis he could get to know her better later (you can all imagine how I reacted to that one!)

·      Matt hopping rafts and almost sinking the other raft

·      The men bargaining for beer from other rafts

·      Tony jumping in the river for a beer

·      Zach falling down in the water at the end of the trip

·      Drying our butts off with the heat of the grills

·      The long walk through a bamboo forest back to our bus with Tony telling Travis there were snakes.

We ended the day with a wonderful BBQ of hamburgers, hot dogs, vegetarian burgers, chips, and of course cold beer.  We drove home shortly after while singing some of our favorite tunes from the 80’s and 90’s and laughing a lot.  There really is never a dull moment with this great group!  Check out our pictures of the trip from last year on facebook.

Next week…Cambodia!