did i mention i love how the sun is up by 6am? makes you feel like you've overslept and must.get.out.of.bed. haha. well anyways, today was whitewater rafting day. so off to pack our belongings and whatnot for the chartered van to come pick us up at our hotel at 7.30am. had breakfast first before starting out journey. i think it was close to 8.30am before the van got moving. there were 12 of us in total, all colleagues of Significant Other.
breakfast at kedai mamak
here's what i read off the Internet:
Important things to Bring & Do:
Additional dry clothing, Sun block, Cash for Payment, Sandals, flip-flop or sport shoes, Swim wear (T-shirt, Short pants), Sunglasses, Baseball cap, Towel, don't forget to bring sense of adventure / fun / humor / enthusiasm and a flexible attitude!
ooookay.
the ride alone took almost 3 hours. there was one point in the road that if you look closely was actually sloping downwards but when the van stopped and gear was put into neutral, it rolled in the opposite direction. optical illusion or something? no idea (i always sucked at physics T_T). we stopped by the roadside for a quick toilet break. signed some release forms, then we were on our way.
stopped again for lunch at Tenom town, the food was OK la. rice + lauk, chinese style. then we got changed, slathered tons of sunblock on ourselves, then boarded the van to take us to the train station. at this point we had to leave everything behind so i didn't bring my camera =( or my watch, so i kinda lost track of time.
the train was really really really old-fashioned and antique-looking @_@, the tracks ran parallel to the river, so we got a preview of the rapids of Sungai Padas on our way there. we arrived at Pangi village to get our gear ready - waited for the rafts to be inflated, wore our helmets (Significant Other pakai helmet terbalik haha)and our safety jackets. they served us watermelon while waiting for them to get everything ready.
by this time i felt like we had too much food to eat and too many stops and experienced not even one river action yet @_@
we saw a bunch of locals getting by on platform trolleys, you get your platform moving using a stick (sorta like canoe-ing on dry land to push yourself along the tracks, except you substitute the oar with a stick haha). made away along the tracks to the edge of the riverbead. a colleague of Significant Other nonchalantly said, 'when we were young, our parents taught us never to play on the train tracks, now what are we doing? walking on the train tracks!'. lol.
we were given a briefing on how to stay alive afloat on the raft. there were three rafts and so many of us, so we had to split into two groups and share a raft with some Australians. so we had 9 + 1 river guide in one boat. huargh so many people... no chance to capsize la like this =P.
this was my first time whitewater rafting, and according to the guide, most of the rapids that day ranged from Level 2 to Level 4. or was it Level 3? sudah lupa. i don't really remember what types of rapids were there. but it was extremely fun. too bad nobody went overboard. haha. at one point our river guide said we could jump into the river for a swim, which the Australian mama did. hoho. that was one kewl mama. i'd have liked to, but the water was freezing cold hokeh. brrrrr.
halfway down the river
unfortunately halfway down the river, as we stopped for a short rest, our raft kinda deflated. the bad part was they didn't have a spare raft so we had to cram into the remaining two rafts. tsk. imagine we ended up going down the second half of the river with 14 + 1 people on board @_@. berat overload nak mati. definitely no chance of capsizing anymore. and they even purposely tried to rock the raft to intentionally fall out - no dice. someone said we should totally blacklist the company, i kinda agreed because it felt like the whole trip was disorganized from the moment we stepped into the van that morning. fufufufu~
end of trip
we got off the raft at the end checkpoint, took a speed boat to somewhere, and from there boarded the 5.30pm old-fashioned train to Beufort, where our van and things were waiting for us. quickly changed into dry clothing (no showers whatsoever, so simply changed into drier clothing in the toilets), and boarded the van back to KK. didn't use the same road we came from, so we arrived earlier at the hotel around 8pmish.
we were famished so we decided to go the same restaurant we had seafood dinner the night before, this time with Significant Other's friend Rahim. we ordered more or less the same thing, but we asked for fried fish (steamed fish is so much better btw, the fish is really fresh!), added chicken and sotong goreng tepung (minus the kerang thingy and the crab). hehe. and of course, two servings of kelapa puding. kah kah kah.
oh yeah, this was the day Kate and Will got married, and i sooo totally missed it live! haha.
*photos thanks to Significant Other's colleague who managed to get a waterproof casing for his camera.
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