"KK Expedition Day 2 ~ White Water Rafting"

Woke up early the next day, but for me, the night's rest was very strained. Nope, no snoring room mates but the room was very stuffy! We rented Velvet Lodge, with four a room in double decker beds. The problem was that my room had no windows! Yes, air con is nice, but it's really hard to breathe properly! Luckily the girls got a room with windows and fan.

One thing good about Velvet is the free internet access....


Catching up on the latest news updates... well, we did go to KK immediately after the Tsunami Elections....
Oh shit.. Lim Guan Eng got bashed on the NEP issue... wtf?!

To get to the whitewater rafting, we took a bus. Instead of the supposedly usual 1.5 hours drive, the driver had to take a detour to the mountainous Crocker Range due to the train service breakdown. It takes much much longer, but we do get to see some spectacular sceneries...


The bus has to go uphill....

Valley....

Nice colors, eh................ :)

Our trip organizer... BUSAT... eh, why are we taking pic of this..?!

Heh... I mentioned the trip was longer.. Now it's about to get MUCH longer!!


Tayar pancit!

... as it we weren't late enough! Everything that went wrong did.......... :-S The sun was blazing hot at this time (noon) and we were all hungry........ :'(


Miserable........................

Well, after what seems like hours.. the guy managed to fix the spare tyre... and continue the looong journey................................. fuhh

At last, believe it or not, we arrived! The next stage would be to take a train to the starting point of the water rafting!


Oh, train... where are you.... can we get started already?? I just want to row the damn boat......

Aha!

Yeah............! Water, water, we want water!!

And water we got!! Woo-hoo!

At this point, we had to leave all our stuff (including cameras) behind. We were given a quick meal of fruits and cakes and then the safety instructions blablabla...

It's one thing to view Padas river from afar and totally a different feeling to be ON it... I felt so small in the little raft. There were 10 people in a raft, 2 guides, 6 of us, and our Sabah guide, Mesius with his gf... Me and Pang took the front seats, one on each side. Gf didn't want to row so she sat in between us.

The first 10 minutes was pretty fun, jz rowing slowly, admiring the sceneries... too bad my camera wasn't water-proof; the view was really superb. You feel like in a movie (something like Lord of the Rings!) rowing the small boat in no-man's land with huge hills by the river banks and a very clear blue sky.....

Until we hit the first few whitewater areas! The first and second was fun: sitting in front, you can see the waves coming and pushing the boat up high and then falling a few feets down! There's even stages where we are allowed to jump into the calm water and practice human rafting.. pretty neat!

Then came the Washing Machine.... OMG, did the waves hit us hard! Me and Pang were struggling in front trying to row the boat with the water splashing all over like rain storm! Then in a split-second we were thrown back from a MEGA WAVE!! Fortunately the raft didn't overturn, but we were damn close to being thrown out!! Shit, that was no joke man.. A quick look behind... oh man, the raft behind us weren't so lucky! Quickly like Rescue 911, we held out our rowing oars to the struggling guys in the water... A few were even washed further.... Pulling and holding in everyone, we rowed to the nearby banks to regroup.

The final two whitewater areas were pretty tame and soon we floated to the finish line....

and to calmer waters.......... ahh...you know, I *almost* wished our boat got overturned.. hahaha ;)

Before we have our lunch, we needed to hike a little to have our shower.

More train tracks...

Here it is! Lying down in this nice little river with the crystal clear water rushing past you... and the smooth rocks below with the nice warm sun shining down.... phew~ this is *BLISS*!

Plenty of nice shots to take once we got back our equipment...

Damn hungry by now, everyone changed to the dry clothes and whack the BBQ lunch.....

A short while later, the train arrived to bring us home....

The journey back was relatively quiet... everyone was pretty tired, but definitely this was one unforgettable adventure!

Next: Island Hopping!!