Here I want to tell you about one of the most adventurous moment
I’ve been through in Russia. After I finished my Preparatory Faculty in Tyumen
State University (there I learned the basic of Russian language for around 8
months), finally I had my looooong holidaysss. I didn’t want to waste my
holidays by just sitting in my room doing nothing but aging. So, I made some
plans to kill the boredom, like to travel to Ekaterinburg, Chelyabinsk, or just
to hang out around Tyumen. Unfortunately, It was so hard to find any friend to
travel because they all were busy with their own business.
It was all started when someone I didn’t even know suddenly invited
me in VK (this social media is like Facebook in Russia, almost everyone has it).
She invited me to join a Travel Organizer in Tyumen, it’s called Susanintrip.
At first of course I learned about this organization, I saw their photos and
videos and I amazed. They were so cool! I couldn’t take my eyes off them,
really, they have a lot of wonderful photos and videos. So many trips they had
been organized. And also they had a new trip to raft at Ai River, in
Chelyabinsk Oblast, and they invited me too. I really didn’t think too much at
that time, on the next day I just came to their office and said that I would
like to join in this trip, and that’s all.
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| Ai River from the top |
I had a week to prepare all my stuff before it started. I
was so lucky that I got a big carrier from my best Malaysian friend. For
another hiking and adventure stuffs, I prepared it from Indonesia, so
everything was OK. I just bought some foods and drinks. Of course I didn’t forget
to prepare all my cameras, it was always on my mind.
Finally the day came, it was 9th June 2017. Our
meeting point was at the park lot near their office. I met with the other
travelers, I surprised because I was one of the youngest there (except the children),
the others were like 35 or older, I thought at first it would be more students
like me, but in fact there were some families who wanted to go on holidays with
their children lol. We started to put our things in the bus and picked our
seat. I tried to talk with them both in English and Russian, I didn’t need a
lot of time to realize that they weren’t speak in English. But I was so lucky,
I met with Sergey and Roman, they speak English quite good so it would help me
so much. So I sat around them and the gank.
Our adventure finally started! So, we need at least 12 hours
until we could reach the start point, yes 12 hours! The distance was about 700
kilometers from Tyumen. The bus was so comfortable, at first I thought that I
would be lonely, but no, we talked a lot in the bus, ate, drank, and sang, we
had guitars and a lot of guitar players there. We left Tyumen around 9 pm and
maybe around 3 am everyone was slept.
Shortly, we arrived at the start point around 11 am. We
started to take our stuff and did breakfast, because not long after that we
started our next adventure, rafting on Ai River. For your information, this
river is one of the longest river here, it through 2 regions in Russia,
Chelyabinsk Oblast and Republic Bashkorstan. It's located near the area of Ural Mountain, and the length of this river is 549
kilometers. But of course, we didn’t explore all the river lol, we just rafted
around 42 kilometers, and we did it in 3 days.
As I predicted, our breakfast was only some bread with meat,
vegetables, and mayonnaise. It was good, but not for me of course. So, I prepared
my own foods, I brought rice and nuggets. After breakfast, we did a short
briefing and we divided into several groups. I forget exactly, but we were
around 80 people, and one group had 8 to 10 people. I was one group with Sergey
and Roman, and the other nice guys, and our group name was “Nyemezgi” actually
I didn’t know what it means until now, but it just sound cool, and fun
everytime our group scream this name.
We rafted the river with a boat called Katamaran, it was new
for me to be honest. I was raft on the river several times before, but not with
this kind of boat. This boat looks like two big bananas connected with iron,
and put chairs on it. We put our stuff on the middle of the Katamaran covered
with big plastic to keep them dry. And we started rowing our paddles. The real
adventure just began now.
The weather was so good, it was summer, the sky was so blue
and the water was very clean. It was very nice to breathe fresh air after we
sat on the bus for a long time. The view, oh, I really miss it, green taiga
forest, trees everywhere, and high cliffs standing beside us. We really enjoyed
it. Of course we didn’t raft all the day, after several hours we would stop to
see the the other beautiful places. At first we found a small river and
waterfall, we took a rest there for a moment and made some documentation.
Our next point was a land to build our tents. On the first
day we didn’t raft so much, so we have a lot of time to know each other. They
also built a “Sauna”, they told me that it was a Russian traditional bathroom.
Just a small tent, and they burnt something like charcoal, I knew it was very
hot, they went inside the sauna, cleaned their body with special leaves, and
made their body hot, after that they exit the sauna and swam at the river. I didn’t
try it actually.
On our first day we had some fun games, like competitions
between groups, as well as some team building activities. After that we ate
again, and this time, they cooked a really nice soup and also they prepared
rice. After our tents all built, and we took rest for a moment, we continue our
journey. This time we went to a cave. That was just a short cave, icy, wet, and
muddy. Actually it was out of our expectation.
In the night, we set a fire camp, we sang a lot of songs, I
played the guitar too. That time I only know well a song from Pyatnitsa called
Soldat, or soldier in English. It was really good night. Until finally 12 am
and we slept inside our tents.
The second day was a better journey I think. We raft farther
than the first day. We also hiked a hill until we could see the river from the
top. I swear, it was very very amazing. I was like thinking to build my home on
the top of that and will never go anywhere. If you think that Russia only snow,
snow, snow, and snow, you are wrong. We also went to another cave, and this one
was longer and better. Oh and we also saw another group, not us, they were rope
jumping from the cliff. So crazy, but I think it worth to try.
After row about 10 hours, we reached our check point. Like
the day before, we built our tents and did many fun things on the night. We set
a fire camp again, also we lighted up fireworks. We were like in the middle of
nowhere, I didn’t even check my phone, a simple thing that hard to do in my
daily life. Another good thing was I had a chance to tell about Indonesia to my
new friends. It was really nice to know that some of them have been traveled to
Indonesia, but only to Bali and Yogya. There I told them about Toraja, Borneo,
Papua, and of course my hometown. I explained with my broken Russian but it was
really a good way to practice.
The third day, I thought that everyone were tired. We just
sat on the Katamaran, not all of us wanted to row the paddles. Maybe we realized
that it would be the last day of this adventure, and after that everyone must
go back to their routines. On this day, we didn’t explore any cave or hill, we
just rafted, did lunch, and rafted again. Nothing special on this day. But the
view was beautiful like usual, we saw some village and some farmers were
walking with their cows and lambs.
We did raft until 4 or 5 pm, after that we cleaned and
dismantled our Katamaran. We ate some foods, and prepared for our journey back
to Tyumen. Like our first trip, it took up to 12 hours until finally we came to
Tyumen again around 6 or 7 am. Before we left, we gave hug each other, because
we never know when we will meet again. It was really nice trip for me actually,
I got many new friends, I may not remember their name, because many of them
have the same name (you need to deal with this thing in Russia), but I may
remember their face and their kindness to me. And the way they taught me Russian bad words. :)
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