Early to rise, early to fall
I woke up at 7am as we had a canyoneering excursion today. This is one of the most popular activities to do in Moalboal. Every hostel is advertising trip to the canyon where you get to jump off some pretty high waterfalls. There were a few of us from the hostel that were going, a German girl, Gina, and her friend Fil. We all had breakfast together. Not too long afterwards, we were picked up by a tuk tuk and drove to the canyoneering site. There were a few strangers with us, but that’s pretty normal for backpacking tours.
Here’s some more information about the canyoneering experience, though I’m not endorsing the company.
It took around 40 minutes to arrive at the canyoneering entrance. Actually, we went to some random houses where we rented some dirty old shoes, and left our things in lockers. Back home, this would have been sketchy as hell, but in Asia, it’s totally normal. I rented some old mesh trainers, which basically offered no protection at all. Once we’d sorted these things out, we were driven to the true entrance of the canyon. Actually, we still had a fair distance to walk to get to the canyon, but we were treated to a decent view as we walked. We also had to sign a register, most likely a waiver against death, and have a briefing for the best chance of not dying.
One small step for man...
The first half of the canyoneering excursion consisted of relatively small waterfalls, a couple of metres high, as well as walking along a stream in between the waterfalls. We had lifejackets on and just stepped off the ledges into the lagoons below. For one of them, I did a ‘THIS IS SPARTA!’ kick on Mat and he flew off the edge. It was pretty funny and entertaining. No punches held between us two! Whilst walking between waterfalls, my foot slid on a rock and my big toe went full force into another rock. Ouch!
Check out these wicked waterfalls in Laos, I wouldn’t jump off these!
After the half way mark, we only had a few more waterfalls to go. But we were getting to the thick of it now. There was a 7-metre tall waterfall, quite daunting. However, I was glad to get to the good stuff, and this is when some people refused. It wasn’t as bad as I thought, I just looked and jumped, and I was in water. Thankfully, it only got better from here on out. It was a fair walk to the next waterfall, but it was worth it.
YOLO
The next waterfall was 10 metres high, and required you to run before jumping. An added element of excitement. I made sure to get the camera rolling, then took my run up and jumped as far as I could. To normal folk, we must have seemed like madmen, but it was exhilarating. The fall goes on for a while, and you feel the impact, evidenced by Mat’s inner lip bleeding. We had another short walk before arriving at the pièce de résistance. The 12-metre beast itself, the endgame boss. There were plenty who didn’t dare face this challenge, but everyone from our hostel faced it with defiance.
I had to wait 5 minutes before it was my turn. Once the camera was on, I just leapt, embraced the several second fall, and thanked god I didn’t break my arse. Similar to the one before, the fall seemed to take a while, but it was fantastic. What surprised me the most throughout the whole day, is that never once was I scared or hesitant. Once we had all survived and made it back to land, we had a fairly long walk to our pick-up. We had a bite to eat at the shoe rental huts, then got taken back home. It was a very action-packed day, and we were all exhausted. I, for one, needed an early night, and did so with great joy.
