White River Rafting: Sungai Padas

One of my aim goal for this year is to explore what the land of Sabah might offer me in terms of adventure entertainment. So without any doubts, I booked tickets to Kota Kinabalu and even booked some of the sports package offered online and one of them are white river rafting.

I must say that I am very excited about this, I haven't done anything crazy for long (have I done anything crazy?), I mean out of my norm. Come to think of it, I should have done all this kind of activities long ago, I must admit that I got the adrenaline rush to endanger my life at such a late stage of my life. But come again, to pull out all of this stunts, I must have good liquid cash and awhole tonnes of courage. I was a little scared chicken during my teens and early twenties, still a chicken now, only that I dare to fly though I ain't got the proper wings to.

So back to the white rafting adventure. We left Kota Kinabalu town at around 7.30 am which was quite late, blame my sleepy head that is, the package we bought was inclusive of a bus trip straight from Kota Kinabalu town to Beaufort Train Station, which is about 2 hours ride.





Then from the train station itself, we took a train ride heading towards the head of Sungai Padas, where the base of rafting club is. The train ride, which was quite interesting, only one way train, take us through a jungle at the side of the river, which offers us spectacular views of river rapids and the wild.







As soon as we reached the base, we were given briefings about rafting and safety precautions.
The rafting will take us 2 hours to finish depending on the current. Luckily the weather was clear and river rapid doesn't look so angry today.

So we started of the journey with a bunch of KL chinese-adventure-hunger guys, who turns out to be crazy and wild, I'm glad we catch a hike with those bunch, it made the rafting even more interesting.

Since I was the only girl in the group, I was given the privilege to sit in the middle of the raft like a queen, no rafting involve, means I have to just sit and enjoy the raft ride.




Of course I'm not happy with this, I made a-not-so-happy face to the guide, and after few runs of rapids, he let me exchange place with one the guys. Adventure at last!









Though I don't know how big my pedaling impact did to the raft during crazy rapids, but I keep on pedaling as if my life depends on it. I didn't fell out from the raft like the others did, probably I'm better at balancing myself on the raft unlike them, I don't know, but I was dying to get myself out the boat but I just couldn't even at the craziest rapids. So I requested to the guide then I want the boat to flip and guess what? We flipped the boat and everyone fell to the river. I think I was panicking for awhile there cause I can't swim but luckily we had the life jackets on. So we kept on floating on the river for few hundred meters.



Sungai Padas is a level II-III white river rafting, so it can be good for beginners who wants to experience rapids. It is a worthwhile experience, especially the part where we just laying floating in the river, enjoying the view of the jungle and sky. It was a very refreshing escapade.

White river rafting --> CHECKED!