Splashing around in Batam

!(imgcenter)http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1047/529777950_8c98eb9ca8_m.jpg(Batam cable ski park)!:http://www.flickr.com/photos/yannie/529777950/

Now that my arms have recovered sufficiently for me to speed type again (my former colleague cum schoolmate Kuali observed that I “type very fast leh”), I can now blog properly about the adventure that we had in Batam.

Last Saturday, a group of us headed to the Indonesian town for a water-drenched and sun-soaked day filled with cable skiing and cheap beer at Batam Cable Ski Park.

For the uninitiated, cable skiing is much like wakeboarding except that the boat has been replaced by a system of cables that have programmed speeds to take you around the designated area. In the case of Batam, it was a muddy man-made lake roughly the size of a 400 metres track.

!(imgleft)http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1238/529865377_b91bc3b83d_t.jpg(Splash)!:http://www.flickr.com/photos/yannie/529865377/
Wakeboarding sounds simple: stand on the board, balance and off you go! But it’s really not. I totally sucked at it and could never proceed beyond two metres of the dock or last more than five seconds on the board. I ended up drinking a lot of brown water filled with good, muddy minerals, which might explain the sore throat that I am currently nursing.

On the other hand, Nyrtap, Joker and Popartgirl seemed to have mastered the art of wakeboarding, with Nyrtap happily making one round on his feet.

In all, we spent almost six hours under the blazing hot sun, although most of it was spent queuing for a chance to jump onto the boards.

It was really good fun and the feeling of the wind against your face is exhilarating. The motorcycle ride back to the dock whenever you fall from the board was pretty cool too. But I am not completely enamoured of the sport as I was with mountain biking, though I wouldn’t mind trying it again.

But be warned though: your entire upper torso could hurt so bad for the next few days that you wouldn’t be able to stretch, scratch, carry, shower, undress or dress without wincing in immense pain. Salonpas was my best friend for the two days after.

The full set of pictures can be found here.