Raft Wars: Shuangxi strikes back

"Here take this," said the tour guide, handing me a pink umbrella and a circus-like water gun as I clambered onto our bamboo raft (zhufa) wrapped in a blue plastic raincoat. "Are you ready for a big water war?"

As the raft, one of 1,000 at the disposal of the Hangzhou Shuangxi Rafting Company, engaged in exchanges of friendly fire with other boats and hiccupped its way over the first drop in our hour-long ride, however, it soon became apparent that the only thing in danger was my masculinity, not my life.

Bamboo rafting in Shuangxi, a small town of 4,000 people about an hour's drive from Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, has been wildly popular among Shanghai locals and neighboring Chinese since its launch in 2000. Foreigners are also getting in on the act, with 60,000 making the trek there in 2006 alone.