THE RIVER OF GIANT LEECH

Oneday, when I was asking Ivy which river is her favourite river. Ivy is an experience kayaker who is about 10 years older than me. She told me there is a beautiful clearwater river somewhere in between Bau and Batu Kawa which the locals called it as "giant leech" in English. There are a lot of giant sized water leeches found living in that river. I started to pay attention when she said, " I found a species of long leaf, dark olive green colored of water plant growing there." It could be a new species so I decided to join their kayaking trip.

December 26,2004. It was a day after Christmas. The monsoon rain was pouring down from the sky for more than 12 hours and I believed the water level of that river must be very high. Since nobody wanted to cancel the kayaking trip, I grabbed my gear and met Francis at his house. This time I wore my Christian cross around my neck. I was thinking that if anything bad  happened to me during this kayaking trip, I could rest in peace.

Mimik, another kayaker came to meet me, Francis and Ivy at a cafe at Batu Kawa.

Ivy parked her car at the down stream near the ending point of our journey. Francis and Mimik parked their car at the up stream where we would launch our kayaks. When we gathered at the starting point to launch the kayak, I started to feel nervous. The water level was extremely high, the underwater current was very strong and turbid. I could see the vegetation growing near the river bank already submerged under the water. Ivy told us that this river was used to be clear and very shallow during the dry season.

Photo below : Ivy is getting her feet wet.

Mimik is getting ready to launch his kayak.

Paddling down the river is very easy job, but still you need to watch out for obstacles and the over hanging vegetation near the river.

Watch out for that tree! The river bank is flooded.

It was drizzling at that time when we launched our kayak. I was well prepared this time so I was not afraid of getting wet. Nevertheless, I felt uneasy when I looked at the brownish water. We did not need to paddle very hard as the current was so strong and pushing our kayak towards down stream.  There were a lot of obstacles in the water and over hanging vegetation and trees' branches near the water surface while paddling down stream. It was a bit challenging to avoid paddling too near to the obstacles.

I was sitting on the same kayak with Francis. He was teaching me how to paddle the kayak in the correct way while trying to control the kayak from being getting too closed to the obstacles in front of us. In the middle of our journey, our kayak was being trapped in a half submerged log but we're successfully got over it. As the water was very high, a lot of the trees' branches were hanging very near to the water surface and we had to crashed into them in the direct position. After more than an hour of paddling, our kayak was full of leaf litter. My face was being "slapped" for quite a number of times when passing through all those branches. That kind of experience was totally different when I learned to fight the rapid about a week ago.

Apart from that brownish water, the scenery along the river was quite fascinating. We could see a huge number of different species of epiphytes attached themselves to the aerial parts of the trees.

Taking a short rest at a sand bank in the middle of our journey.

15 minutes later, we noticed the water level is dropping.

Mimik and Ivy are trying to collect the bird's nest fern (Asplenium nidus) hanging very near to the river for Francis.

I had to give up my secondary objective to collect wild fish and aquatic plant as the water level was too high. Less than 1km away from our ending point, our kayak was swamped with water while trying to get passed the branches of over hanging vegetation. The kayak was a bit unstable but it did not capsized. We paddled to the water near the river bank. Francis was trying to get rid of the water from his kayak by using the sponge to soak the water out while Mimik and Ivy were waiting us at the corner. The kayak of Ivy was drifting too near to the half submerged vegetation. There were different species of insects crawling around the emerged leaves of the vegetation on the flooded bank. Ivy did not notice that there were a large of amount of spiders crawling to her kayak when it was drifting near those emerged leaves. When she was realized that, she was yelling very loud while splashing the water into her kayak to get rid of those unwelcome "passengers". I never seen so many spiders crawling around before and shouting back at her, "Those are harmless water spiders! Don't worry !"

When Ivy was successfully disembarking those unwelcome "passengers", she left us first and paddling to the down stream. Mimik was puffing his cigarette at the corner while watching Francis to get rid of those water out of his kayak. When we were ready to continue our journey, we paddled out to the middle of the fast flowing river. We saw the waterway in front of us was totally blocked by submerged trees and over hanging vegetation. The current was extremely strong at the point. Francis asked Mimik to paddle ahead of us first. When Mimik was trying to get passed those branches, his kayak was stuck and capsized. Francis and I were shocked and trying to paddle to those branches to catch Mimik's kayak. Francis was trying to "bump" Mimik's kayak in order  to dislodge it from the tangle of overhanging branches. I could not see Mimik from a distance. I believed he was washed away by the strong current.

The moment when our kayak was bumping into Mimik's kayak, we lost the balance. The water was coming in from the left side of the kayak and we finally capsized in a distance less than 500 meters from the ending point. I let go of everything and trying very hard to hold on to the tree branches hanging in the water. I was struggling in the cold brownish water for a few seconds. Suddenly, I felt so scared because I could not see anything in the water. I was stuck in those branches. I told myself I must fight with all my energy to get myself out  to the surface. In the water, my both hands grabbed the tree's branches and quickly I push myself to the surface by kept on pulling the branches. It was not easy to catch some air in the surface because the current was kept on pushing me down. I swam away and realized my shoes were not a water shoes. The shoes became a burden for me to swim freely. I used all my energy to swim and finally I reached a tree trunk not far away from the bank.

I heard Francis was calling my name from a distance. I shouted back to him but I was not sure he could hear me or not.

At the same time, Francis and Mimik were swimming in the down stream and after struggling in the water for a while, they finally grabbed their own kayaks and paddles not far away from the finishing point. Once they swam across the river and reached the banks, they  managed to hang on to some small tree branches. They did not notice that the branches were covered with a huge amount of ants! The ants crawled all over their boats and their bodies and attacking them! They were badly biting  by those ants. Ivy was waiting for us at the finishing point. She was started to panic when she found out I was missing when she only saw Francis and Mimik swam to the bank. Ivy shouted my name from the finishing point. I yelled back at her but she could not hear me.

I was holding on to the half submerged tree trunk and trying to figure out how to swim across to the shore. I let go of the trunk and swam very hard to the shore while my right hand kept on pulling the branches of the submerged vegetation. When I reached the shore, I was so happy that I survived again from the capsized kayak. I walked along the river bank and Ivy was feeling relief when she saw me. She said if anything bad happened to me, she does not know how to tell my parents. She was stunned when I told her I lost her paddle which she lent me. It was an expensive paddle. Francis and Mimik were not far away from us with their kayaks. After 10 minutes of waiting for Francis and Mimik at the river bank, Ivy and I spotted that lost paddle floating down from the up stream. We shouted at Mimik and pointing at the paddle floating on the surface of the water. Mimik quickly paddled to catch the paddle. It was not too hard for him to fight the current to catch that floating paddle. We were a bit surprised to see that paddle washing down after I lost it more than half an hour ago when the boat was capsized.

Once we reached the banks we managed to hang on to some small tree branches. Thats where we were attacked by the ants!

Mimik is fighting the current to catch Ivy's paddle in the down stream.

While waiting for Francis and Ivy taking their shower at a shop nearby the river, I was having a short conversation with Mimik. He told me that certain part of  Sarawak river still can find some crocodiles. He even saw a crocodile swimming across the river a few feet away from his kayak before. I asked; "What if they attack you from the river?" "It won't." Mimik replied. "It only attack the prey when it is swimming at the shallow part of the water near the river bank because it can not launch an attack from the deeper part of the river by using its tail."

After changing our clothes, we headed to a nearby town called Tondong to take our lunch for celebrating of our safe return from the "untamed" river. We believed the scenery along the river is much more beautiful during the dry season when the water is slow flowing and clear. We will come back to visit this beautiful river again.

When we reached home, we were shocked to know that the tsunami which was caused by the earthquake in Sumatra had killed so many people in Asia. It was a black Sunday for everyone in Asia.

On the way back, we stopped at a restaurant at Tondong town to take our lunch.

The Tondong town center.

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