Georgette Tan goes down a river in a watercraft slightly wider than her backside and lives to tell the tale.

Francis Ho loves kayaking. This is evident by how the number of kayaks on his private jetty seems to outnumber combined total of humans and dogs in his household. This also accounts for that little jetty. Anytime the water bug bites, he can easily pop a kayak into the river behind his house and go for a quick paddle.

Kayaking was never in my list of things to do before I die, but Francis is contagious. I've not known him for very long but I suddenly found myself thinking, "Hmm, this could be my type of weekend fun." One day, an email with his name landed in my box...

On that particular Sunday, Francis took me and some friends on a kayak trip that will serve as an introduction to the sport. The calm water of Sungai Sarawak Kanan is not too scary for complete novices, and yet by the simple nature of... well, nature, it still created a couple of surprises for the veterans.

Our river route starts at Krokong, but we made a quick stop at the Wind Caves at Bau so Francis could survey the waters. It passed the visual test, and we continued the journey up to Krokong, leaving one of the cars behind so we have a way of collecting the other at the end of our river trip.

Brightly-coloured tandem kayaks were unloaded and carried to the river's edge. Lifejackets were pulled on and adjusted. Keys, phones and wallets were secured in a dry bag. Francis gave us a crash course in paddling and what to do in case we fall overboard. Without further ado, we were off.

The complete novices were paired with veterans, so it was all a matter of learning how to paddle correctly, finding your rhythm and not knocking paddles with your partner too often. It's rather like swimming freestyle; when you find your rhythm, you can make good speed without getting tired too easily. You can also start paying more attention to the scenery.

I first "met" Francis when I stumbled into his blog http://fh2o.blogspot.com. Some exchange of comments led to a meeting, which then led to an invitation that now finds me sitting in a blue kayak with Francis's extremely capable assistant. Azmi is a state representative in the sport. With him onboard, I didn't as much as get my hat wet.

Francis himself discovered kayaking almost by accident. Upon settling down in Kuching with his family after living and working abroad, he set out to find something to do with his free time. What originally piqued his interest was fishing from a kayak, but the fishing part was soon forgotten.

Recently, Francis decided to test the waters and see if people are interested in going on organised kayaking tours. "I put an ad in your paper." he told me. "I was surprised at the number of people who called, but they were even more surprised that there is such a thing in Kuching."

As we drifted on the easy waters of Bau, Francis pointed out the sights. "You've seen photos of these in my blog, yet nothing prepared you for this, right?"

Too right.

The river is banked by massive stones in some places, eroded by centuries of water to form rocky overhangs and crude sculptures of animals emerging from under the jungle. The stone banks are especially prominent in the many curves and bends of the river. In some places, it looked like a dead end until you are actually in the curve. Talk about not knowing what's around the river bend.

And then, there were the trees. Massive trees by the bank - some with buttress roots exposed, some perched on rocky shelves, others literally growing sideways as they struggled to reach the sunlight. One could only cross their fingers and hope the precariously leaning monsters will let you pass without collecting a toll.

Trees on the banks also mean branches and trunks in the river itself. They accumulate at various intervals, keeping things interesting. Together with varying water levels and some slight currents, it created an obstacle course that changes at nature's whim.

At one point, a tree had fallen across the river and the only passage was a gap between the water and the tree trunk. When Azmi first told me we were going under, I thought he was kidding.

Peggy and Michael were the first to take a spill at the one and only bend that could be labelled treacherous.

"We were actually under the kayak." Peggy reported when the two climbed out, wet but otherwise unruffled.

Cool heads are important when faced with the unpredictable, as Azmi reminded me when we first pushed off at Krokong. "Whatever happens, don't panic." he said. Not panicking could mean the difference between life and death. This is also a good thing to remember in day-to-day life.

Going through currents only required some steering, which I left to the professional. The still waters needed more work. Sometimes you can see pebbles lining the bed of the river. Sometimes it's deeper, murkier water where you might glimpse the form of a submerged tree. Sometimes, a drowned tree will gently claw the bottom of your boat as you pass.

There were a couple of times when we had to get out of the boat to haul it off whatever it got stuck on - water too shallow to paddle in or half-submerged trees lying in our way.

We took a break at one of the pebble beaches at the riverbank. Francis offered bananas, nature's energy bar, which has many wonderful qualities like a biodegradable packaging.

"When you're done, you can just throw it away." He flicked the skin into the gurgling waters.

Peggy piped up. "If I throw this in there, will my kayak slip on it and flip over later?"

We pushed off and the river took us to an "island" in the middle of the river. The narrow passage on the right was a mini whitewater course.

We went the tamer left route and waited for the other two to catch up. As Francis and Andrea approached the island, their kayak overturned so abruptly you could almost believe that banana peels were involved.

"I didn't even have time to close my eyes!" Andrea described later. "One moment, I was paddling away. The next moment, I was seeing things underwater."

As we got nearer to the Wind Caves, the mountain range loomed over the jungle to our right. We also started seeing man-made structures like tiny staircases cut into the bank and a pipe siphoning water to a nearby house.

Where there is a river near enough to civilisation, there will be some amounts of garbage. There were plastic bag shreds caught on branches seven or eight feet above us, prompting me to ask Azmi how they got up there.

"Water can get that high after it rains." he answered.

Yikes.

The Krokong-Wind Cave route is about three hours long, but time stood still as we followed the river. Kingfishers and herons flap away ahead of us, waterskeeters shot out of our way and the trees amused themselves by spitting flower buds or tiny fruits into our kayaks. For a few hours, it was nothing but (wo)man and nature.

We heard them before we saw them - picnickers playing in the water at the Wind Cave. Our journey that day was over, but I suspect this won't be the last time I sit in a kayak. After all, I haven't been baptised with a flipover.

More information on kayaking adventures is available at www.kuchingkayak.com

Stumble It!