If you go to Tuaran, you may take a short walk at the Yu Huang Temple. To get there, on the way from Kota Kinabalu to Tuaran, you will see a junction at the right, about 1.5 KM before Tuaran town. The temple is about 100 Meters away from the main road. The first thing you will see inside is the 12 Chinese Zordiac sign. I took a picture next to my zordiac sign too. But I like the dog statue the most. Haha… like me mah.
There were a bunch of children noticed that I was taking pictures, so they all climbed on the snake statue, yelled and asked for a photograph. I took one picture and quick quick walked away. If they broke the statue, the owner would think that I encouraged them.
The 10-feet tall Dragon Door is also a very creative design. As you can see in the photo below. The back of the dragon extended out from the door as the roof.
“The rating of the rapids now is grade III to IV*. River depth is medium. You may face waves that are 4 to 6 feet high,” the tour guide announced. Wow, wave of 6 feet high? I hardly believed that. There were 8 rapids in this course, and all of them have a name. You may look at the map at the left. The Cobra and Washing Machine sound really nasty, and YES, they are. According to the guide, these two rapids are the toughest and scariest. I also curious why they named one of the rapids as “Scooby Doo”. They only know that it was named by an Australian back in 1982. For what funny reason, don’t know…
By 11:10 AM, we arrived Pangi, the starting point of rafting. The sky was cloudy but no rain. The rafting camp is just a few meters away. We were invited to go inside a big “cage”, where we had some watermelon and water as light refreshment. Sound like everything here today have something to do with Water, only the rafting was not “sub-sub water” lah (easy).
After 15 minutes, we gathered for a safety briefing. There were 30 people went for rafting. We were split into three groups (boats). After we wore our life jackets and helmets, the tour guide gave us a 10-minute safety briefing. Mostly about how we rescue ourselves and others from the water, and how to raft safely. For example, to pull someone out of water, you must not pull their finger hand, this would hurt their wrist if the stream is strong. The right way is to pull their life jacket. And also the tip to avoid being eaten by crocodile. Just kidding, there is no crocodile here. Probably they don’t find water-sport interesting.
Then we started to raft at 12 PM something. BTW, since I couldn’t afford to soak my Sony digital camera in the river, I got a new friend with me. It was a RM38 Kodak one-time-use camera that could take up to 27 pictures (ISO 800). It is rugged, waterproof and shock resistant, so very suitable for outdoor and underwater use. I just tied it on my life jacket.
For the first 1 KM, it was a easy rafting on the flat and calm river, as a warm up. Everyone was asked to jump into the river to do “Body Rafting” (let the body floats and moves with the stream), then swam back to the inflated boat. I don’t know how to swim. The deep and yellowish water made my mind struggled but I did it anyway. Haha… not bad. I even took a photo of my feet. Next time you see these feet, you will know this is Smoke Head. But when I tried to “swim” back to the boat, others have gotten on the boat quickly, only me still kept swimming on the same spot. Quite embarrassing… 😛
We managed to conquer the “easiest” Warm-Up Rapid, where I almost broke my toenail. Sssss… very painful. The nail was not broken but became a bit curly. Then we moved into Head Hunter Rapid. Aahh… we were attacked by 3-feet waves and got wet all over. The cold river splashed right on my face a few times and I was not thirsty anymore. When we looked behind, there were already 3 persons from other 2 boats fell out. No worry. They were rescued shortly. For extra safety, we had 3 boats (from 2 different companies) to do the rafting together as a team. There were also two safety kayak followed at the back. The life jacket can float object up to 150 KG.
The Cobra Rapid was really frightening. It is a big and long rapid. We were hit by many 4-feet waves from ALL direction. Sometimes we even got “surprise” attack from behind. If you didn’t stay highly alert, the next second you would be in the water. We had to paddle hard enough to ran over the big wave, otherwise the wave would flip and capsize our boat. More team members fell like big potato this time. After the Lambada Rapid, we took a break at the shore. I was so glad I made it…
After 10 minutes rest, we continued to raft again. They said Washing Machine Rapid was the second most difficult rapid. They were very very wrong. We were slapped by more aggressive waves, which were more unpredictable. The rapid was so strong as if a fierce monster was hitting really hard non-stop at the bottom of the boat, trying to knock you out. We were so busy paddling to leave this horrible place. Suddenly the guide shouted, “EVERYONE LEAN FORWARD NOW!!!! LEAN FORWARD!!!!!!!” When I looked at the front, OH SHIT!!!! I WAS TERRIFIED. A 6-feet wave was on its way to hit our boat face to face at fullest momentum. It was lightning fast and BANG! our boat was like hitting a solid wall and we were swallowed by the wave.
When I opened my eyes, I was already in the water. I tried to stay calm and floated slowly to the surface after 3 or 4 seconds (like a century long to me). Once I got my face out of the water, I opened my mouth widely to take a big breath. When I did that, the spiral pulled me down into the water again and I sucked a lot of river water. It went on and on… I was spinned in circle (like in washing machine) in the river and totally lost control already, until the guide pulled me onto the boat. One guy was choked really bad (probably he breathed with nose in the water) and coughed for minutes. 7 out of 10 persons (except the 3 guides) were thrown into the river just now. I will never forget that moment in my life.
Hey, got something really funny here. After I developed the film, I found one blur photo below. I tried to recall but I don’t think I took any picture like this. It took me quite a long time to figure out that it was me in the water. I think when I fell into the river, the impact was so big that my camera was triggered. Too bad it is blur. You can imagine how fierce was the force.
Finally, we reached the ending point in one piece around 1:30 PM. We took our personal belonging and changed our cloth. After that, lunch time at a lodge nearby! Got fried rice, mee, sausages, chicken wings, lamb… At 2:20 PM, we took the train back to Beaufort. Everyone was really exhausted, as you can see in the photos below:
It is such an unforgettable and thrilling experience. I will do it again in the future. My New Zealand aunty still could not stop talking about it excitedly even until today. I personally highly recommend it if your company wants to organise a team building activity. The BEST part will be throwing your fucking boss into the river and let him drown (don’t forget to throw stones at him). OK lah, this shall conclude my blog on this trip. Hope you enjoy reading it. And thanks for bearing with my poor English. I have tried my best to describe…
*River Rapid Rating System
Internationally graded standards are applied to judge the River Rafting in Scale of I to VI:
Grade I: Easy float
Grade II: Medium with clear passages
Grade III: Difficult waves, narrow passages
Grade IV: Very difficult, long, boiling rapids
Grade V: Extremely difficult, big violent drops
Grade VI: Unrunnable!
There were about 30 people in the train. More than half of them are foreigner tourists who were also coming for the White water Rafting. Their spirit was high, and all happily chit chat with one another. Most of the railway is next to the Padas River, so you could see the river condition clearly. Besides, you will see small houses, grass field, hills, fruit plantation, dense forest along the path, a typical rural view of Sabah.
I don’t know why they call this “White Water” Rafting coz the color of Padas River looks more like Teh C (Milk Tea). After an hour, we reached Rayoh, the ending point of water rafting. This was the place where we would stop for a short while, kept our personal belonging in the lockers there, changing cloth. After 10 minutes, we all got on the train again to go further up to Pangi, which is about 10 KM away. The only thing I brought along was a diposable waterproof camera. No more digital camera from this point on.
Now is the rainy season. So the Padas River was quite deep and “fat”, carrying large quantity of water and sand. Everyone relaxed and enjoyed watching the river.
As the train moved closer to the upstream, the current seemed to move more swiftly… Everyone got excited. I can see the words “Not Bad Huh” written on their faces.
But what we saw later started to exceed our comfort zone. The closer to upstream, the more Padas River revealing its angry and violent behavior, as if it was hungry for a sacrifice from a ritual. Our hearts were beating as fast as the rapids, when we realised how strong they are. The train moved quite fast so I only managed to shoot a few photos. The wave below looks like a huge washing machine.
Our laughter and smiles gradually vanishing and everyone stopped talking and stared outside the window. The Wah and Wow expression on their faces were replaced by fear. The rapid in the photo below looks like many snakes moving. As you can see, its waves can bite you from any direction.
We saw more and more rapids like that. And the next one always looked more shocking and sound “louder” than the last one, even in the train. The silence and tension were growing. At the end, we only heard train howled in pain and moved slowly to the destination, Pangi, the starting point of the rafting. I did not exaggerate anything. We were quite worried and scared at that moment. The waves may look small in the photos above but keep in mind that the river is very far away from my camera.
My blog about the White Water Rafting in Padas River is very long, so I decide to split it into 3 parts. I will publish one article each day. Some tourism sites have posted article about Padas River with a few documentary photos. But they don’t really show you how the Padas River looked like up-close. I hope I can show you more here.
The story started when my aunty from New Zealand, and also a water-sport lover, would like to do kayaking at our islands during her long holiday in Sabah. I thought, “She is an experienced kayaker so she must have seen the world-class beautiful sea view in New Zealand. She comes here to see sh*t kah?” That’s why I proposed to go white water rafting. She was quite pleased with the idea, so we headed to Padas River yesterday.
Chinese says, “You can bully the mountain, but never mess with the water.” I don’t know why I had such a crazy idea coz I don’t even know how to swim (a old drought duck, hehe…). Padas River actually means “Spicy River” (Pedas). From the name itself you already can imagine that it is not a “mild temper” river. This Grade III and IV river, during the rainy season now, can easily capsize your boat and drown you. This activity is very challenging and always listed as one of the top 10 things you must die do in Sabah. The full day trip costs about RM150 – RM180 for locals, and that includes two-way transport (by train, van), use of rafting equipments, briefing and BBQ lunch.
A few notes about rafting at Padas:
1. You do not need to bring drinking water. You WILL drink a lot of river water, which is full of minerals. It is quite impossible that you do not fall out of the boat. Be ready to enjoy the feeling of drowning. You will survive anyway.
2. You don’t need to know how to swim to join this activity. In fact, in its high speed rapids, swimming skill is also no use.
3. Try to have heavy breakfast before you go. The so-called refreshment provided by the tour operator are only watermelon and water. Lunch time is at 2 PM, after the end of rafting.
4. Cut short all your fingernails and toenails. You will not wear any shoe on the boat. I almost broke my toenail during rafting. Very painful…
5. If the survivors say they hit by 4 and 6 feet high waves, they are not joking. I personally experienced it…
6. Even though this sport carries risk, it is quite safe. But it is a bit dangerous if you get panic easily in water. I heard someone died bcoz his leg was trapped by the rock under the river.
In the morning, the travel agent transferred us to the train station in Beaufort. There were 7 tourists in our group. They are from Czech and Estonia (East Europe). After 90 minutes, we arrived the train station. While waiting for the train to arrive, we walked around. To be frank, the train station looked odd to me. The ticketing counter is on 1st floor, not the ground floor. I remember a Taiwan TV channel was documenting the Padas River trip and their actor also could not find the counter. Note the sign is not written in English. The malfunction toilet door-lock… the old trains that look more like big piece of scrap metals at junkyard… Come on lah, maintain these things a bit lah ok…
The train arrived around 10 AM. We all got on the train to begin the journey.
There was a Chinese New Year celebration in Yu Huang Temple, Tuaran, on last Sunday (Feb 5). It was really worth the time to go there. You could see all kind of lions, dragons and qi-ling performed there. Besides, there were also other performances such as Wushu, Chinese cultural dances.
They played the lion dance so well that you thought the lions were real animals. The “Lion King” of Yick Nam School was also invited to perform. All the best lion teams were there. I must say this was a very enjoyable and high standard show. I was so deeply focus on photo shooting that I forgot I was exposed under the hot sun for hours. Unfortunately, due to the car tyre bocor, I missed the Green Lion performance in the evening. Not many chance we can see Green Lion…
Have been a long time I didn’t see the “Big Head Buddha”. So happy to see him again that day. On the same day, I also went to Ling San 9-Storey Pagoda and Tuaran Tamu. Later I will post the photos too. Tomorrow I will go for White Water Rafting at Padas River so I may not blog. If I manage to survive, see you again on Thursday.
Happy Chinese New Year to all of you! Wish all your dreams come true this year. Have you all taken a walk at Segama night market? This year you may like to have a look at the night market at Foh Sang of KK too. The market is much more smaller but the view there is really fascinating. There are hundreds of small lanterns hanging on top. Beautiful… I took some pictures and share two of them here. Oh, if I am not mistaken, they close on 1st day (today) of Chinese New Year, in case you want to go there.
Due to the new year, everyone is in good mood. If you walk around in town, you will frequently hear friends meet up on the street and have happy and warm greeting opening such as below:
Ah Lee: “Hi.. Ah Chen, long time no see!!! Where the fuck were you? You still not death meh?”
Ah Chen: “Aiya.. I OK lah, Lee. No hole No broken. You Chee-Bye lah, never call me one.”
Ah Lee: “Diau!~ You not bad mah, fat like a pig already. Must be eat good, sleep good lah!”
Ah Chen: “C-Fuu lah!!! Mana got as good as you?! How is Ah D?”
Ah Lee: “Oh, Ah D? That Ling-C start his own business already..”
Ah Chen: “$^%your*&mother #@-+…”
Ah Lee: “*&G#-XXX}|18~!generation64H!@…”
…
(So sweet… isn’t it? Sorry if you don’t understand the script, get a Hakka friend to translate for you.)
Last night I didn’t blog coz I felt really sick. Last Wednesday I ta pau some “Sarawak Kon Lau Mee” as dinner from a night stall next to ThaiSeng Supermarket in Taman Tai Tet. Then the following morning my stomach got severe pain that cut like a knife. My mom also said she puked. Probably that dumped all the dirty stuffs from her body so she was ok, though feeling a bit uncomfortable. I had diarrhea twice in less than 30 minutes and the pain was getting inbearable, so I decided to see a doctor. After taking some medicines and had a rest, I was ok.
I eat out quite often, so getting food poisoning once or twice per year is not something unusual. In fact, I don’t even attribute it as an “accident” or “unlucky” incident, sadly, coz it is too common. I think nearly 50% of the “sick leave” I took in the past 5 years were related to food poisoning. Someone told me that Food Poisoning is one of the top reason for taking MC in Malaysia. Not sure if it is true, but no surprise to me.
This time I see another doctor and I got less medicines (see picture) and it works fine. Last time I saw different doctor who was quite “popular” in his prescription. For the same sickness, he gave me 5 very colourful capsules. He explained to me, one was for stopping the pain, one to kill the bad germs (antibiotic?), one to stop the puke, one to stop the diarrhea, and one to ease the muscle ache. It was so scary that I almost wanted to knee down and crawled to him, “Doc, please… Is there anything seriously wrong with my body but you didn’t tell me? Please… let me know if I am going to die. But before that, would you please issue a 6-month MC for me?…”
That’s why I don’t like to see doctor… too much antibiotic nowadays. I know in certain developed countries, sometimes the doctors only give you advice and don’t ask you to take any medicine (ya, you still need to pay). Haha… In Malaysia, if you come back from a clinic with an “empty hand”, people would say, “Aiyo… what happen to that doctor ah? Does he really know to cure or not? Don’t give you any medicine? No!? Not even some vitamin pills? Aiya, RUGI lah you… next time don’t look for him again.”
Today even Ah Dog, Ah Cat also got car. Despite the expensive parking fee, looking for a free parking space has become a time-consuming job of city people. It is already annoying not finding any free space. I get even more irritated when I see the “empty” space is actually occupied by a Kancil or Kelisa. A feeling of kena “fooled”. Guess many have the same experience?
I am quite sure that the phenomenon of Malaysia roads being flooded by toy cars is so unique that you won’t see this in other parts of the world. The tourists will be shocked to see this, “Wow! You Malaysia got so many dwarfs kah?” Luckily these cars suck so bad that most other countries refuse to import it.
