It was my first time doing white water rafting. And frankly, it ain’t white! It looks more like “teh tarik” instead.

Do you see what I mean?

We flew to Sabah on Friday. And on Saturday, we took a 2 hours bus ride to Beaufort train station from Kota Kinabalu. I must say, riding one of the oldest train was very interesting, or rather “amusing”.

A super long queue at the train station. Wise to “unload” before boarding. You never know if the train may break down half way

This train has been operating since 1950s. It was shipped from West Malaysia and is used as the only mean of transportation to Padas Rver – where the water rafting is.

We were told to “grab” seats when the train arrived because 1) It is a 2.5 hours ride 2) It is shaky and bumpy.

The locals. There were kids waving at us along the way.

We first arrived at the end point of the river, got changed and kept our belongings with the person-in charged. (can’t bring camera along from this point onwards) We then took another supposedly 25 minutes up to the starting point of the river. This time, we chose to sit ‘outside’ instead. What a wise choice..:(

Unfortunately, it took more than 1.5 hour to reach there, simply because the train was not able to travel up slope. It had to stop, slide backward, waited for the engine to cool down, and pulled itself super hard to move forward again. It felt like the train was pulling 2000 tonnes of gold.

We were so “grilled” under the sun for more than 1.5 hour. Nonetheless, it was fun!!

We finally reached the starting point. The current was very strong, no wonder it was graded 3-4 (difficult). I thought we would start off with the grade 1 river first!

It has 7 exciting rapids and they are named amusingly, such as head hunter, washing machine, cobra rapid and etc. At first I found it amusing…but not for long.

We were instructed to sit at the edge of the raft. Yeah…if you want to paddle, you have to sit at the edge of the raft. We were in high-spirit and brave…not till our first rapid – the head hunter rapid.

The second right before the boat capsized. At this point, 2 persons were already “bounced off” the raft (there were 7 of us with 2 instructors at the back) and you can see that the 2 persons are no where in sight in the picture.

Me in blue circle

Everything happened so fast. The moment I realized that the raft was capsized was when the raft was right above me. I tried to push the raft away from me but I can’t! The water kept pushing me down. I struggled to breathe as the water kept sweeping over me and each time I opened my mouth to breathe, water rushed into my mouth instead.

I told myself to sink and swim out of the raft but each time I resurfaced, my head hit the raft again. I thought I was going to die…like those people who were caught in the Titanic when it sank.

I ran out of oxygen and energy to fight the current. I closed my eyes and said my prayer. The next thing I knew, I was out of the raft already!

But it was not over yet. Though I had my life jacket securely fastened on me, I was struggling to resurface to breathe. One wave after another….just kept pushing me down. Again, I took a few gulps of “teh tarik”. Somehow, I told myself that when I passed this rapid, I could survive….which I did when the water was calmer.

When I finally “floated”, I looked for my mates. Then, I realized each of us was so far apart. And great thing was, everyone was OK..and panted very hard. Now I know why they called it the head hunter rapid. Man!! You could hardly resurface if you’re thrown into this rapid!!

The instructor pulled me up to the raft and I fell clumsily. Great…this is only our first rapid…6 more to go..

The most hilarious thing was…4 of us were wearing contact lenses. They were still intact after gone through such a horrible incident. We were so “experienced” that even at such an extreme situation, we still thought of keeping our contact lenses intact. Well done…

We looked very happy and motivated. I guessed we learned from the experience at the first rapid.

Can you see that my instructor pulled my life jacket? He wanted me to stand so that I could be captured in the picture. But NO!! I was too “chickened” to stand up. I know it sounds silly but I was just worried that the raft may lose its balance again.

We went through the rest of the rapids pretty OK and it was indeed a nerve-tingling experience. There was fear each time we saw a “toilet-flushing-like” rapid coming, after coming so close to drowning.

Oh by the way, our raft was the only raft that capsized..:) which made our rafting experience more fun and memorable!

After rafting. Soaking wet and didn’t get to change till another 3.5 hours of ride back to K.K.

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