Row row row ur raft gently down the stream....
So the trip started way early at 6 am when we departed from home and head up north to the sleepy town of Gopeng, Perak. I have no idea where it is on the map but it is apparently near Kampar. Not much help there either huh? Right, the journey to that place only took like 2.5-3 hours from KL, but when I only had 1-2 hours sleep the night before, it didn't seem long enough.
Gotta be a Rockstar 24/7 eh? Minus the mulut terngah-ngah la...
We arrived at the pick up point which is at Gua Tempurung at around 9 am where a dude in a van eventually came and pick us up. The weather was perfect actually, no rain but no hot sunlight either. Knowing that we will be wet most of the time, we decided not to bring any electronic stuff which included the camera. The guide, Arnold (yes he did try to make the Schwarzenegger reference) then drove us off 20 minutes through Gopeng town and then into some small, beat up road to the middle of no where. Quite literally we went into an oil palm plantation.
The 5 of us
And according to Arnie, we will be rafting down the Kampar river which is considered a class 3 rapid river. He added that there were 6 different classes so this one was just in the middle, not too calm and not too dangerous. So we had to ask, whats a class 6 rapid like? His response was simple, "Suicide kind". And apparently in our country only got until class 4 which is in Sabah. Which also was where most if not all of the rafting coaches were from.
So when we reached the rafting site, we were greeted by Den our rafting instructor and who also would be the guy on the raft with us (there was another group as well). So after the usual safety briefing and instructions, we walked down the road to the river. And shit, river water at 9am is just freaking cold! Although Marcelo, the lone foreigner who joined our raft, said "the water in Italy is much colder".
There was quite a few of this...
Right, before we actually went in the raft, we had to do this safety thing where we body raft (a feat where we were suppose to just lie back in the water heads and legs up with our but down, kinda like a V shape) along the river and had to catch the rope that the instructor threw at us a few meters down the river. Simple as this may sound, considering we were drifted into some small turbulent water, whole body submerged 1 second and emerging the next, catching that damn rope was not easy! This was supposedly to prepare us in case we actually did fall over board during the actual rafting. The 4 people who went before me manage to grab the rope on the first try, so the pressure was on me, and me being me, something had to go wrong... As I drifted into the water, I went under and my heel clipped a rock and because of that, my sandal came off and drifted away down the river... I was like "oh shit, there goes 20 bucks..at least I have the other 20 on".
So even before the real adventure begin, I already lost a sandal... Sign of bad things to come? Well, no, the entire 10km of our rafting experience was damn damn syok!! Yes, it may not be like the rapids that you see on TV but it was sure damn fun, even the ones that look small oso had the potential to tip the raft over! And my gf and her sister went for a drink once each. But surprisingly after they came back onto the raft, they both actually liked going over board! As for me, I did fell off my seat a couple of times, but some how, I just fell into the raft, not outside -.-'. Dunno to feel lucky or unlucky?
But luckily none of this...
Right, not gonna burden ya with much details, but suffice to say, after a 1 hour 45 min of adrenaline rush and excitement, it was a super experience. And to my surprise, when we got off the raft, the guide who was waiting for us at the river bank laughed at me and said " Eh, why ur sandal float faster than u eh?". They FOUND my sandal!! With all the white water and fast moving currents, I thought it was a goner for sure! But some how, the other river guides manage to fish it out and they even knew that it wasn't just a piece of trash that was thrown away!
Aftter drying up, partially anyways, we were brought to lunch which was provided some where along the river bank. My my, mutton curry and chillied toufu never tasted so good! For our new friend Marcelo, this was the end of his trip and he would be off to KLIA in a few hours after lunch! Appreantly, he did bring his camera along and there was a water proof bag for us just incase we had any valuables. So thanks to him there were a few photos of me in my rafting gear. I just hope he remembers to send it to us.
It was like a labyrinth down there...
As for us, next up was some cave-ing inside Gua Tempurung. Now I'm not much of a fan of this sorta things, especially with caves comes bats which entails guano. I'm sure most of you have seen Ace Ventura to know what I'm talking about. Plus I've just been to some caves in Hanoi last year. But as with almost every preception of something I have, the opposite will just turn up. Heck it was quite the challenging walk even with ready man made steps for us. All those climbing up and down. Really good leg workout. Sadly we didn't have a flash light with us so most of the cave formations remained in the dark for us. And we couldn't wait for the guide as well cos he was taking a bunch of old ppl with him.
The 5 of us..again..
So at the end of the day, a very tiring day in fact, we headed home, with a little pit stop at The Curve for dinner at Paddingtons House of Pancakes. I swear, they have the fluffiest pancakes in town! I wouldn't mind going again, for rafting of course, and at 150+ bucks it is well worth it! Anyone wanna go?
I survived!! WooHoo!!
