Padas River - White water rafting

---

Today we went white water rafting on the Padas River, which is claimed to have the best rapids in South East Asia! The Padas River is situated in the interior of southwestern part of Kota Kinabalu that is only accessible by train. This exciting adrenalin rushing tour would take us down to a wave that goes as high as six feet and thrilling rapids up to grade IV. The experience covered a distance of 9km of the rather muddy 200km Padas River that holds 7 exciting and tough rapids! These rapids have amusing names such as Merry-Go-Round Rapid, Break Point Rapid, Scooby Doo Rapid, Cobra Rapid, Curve Rapid, Lambada Rapid and Head Hunter Rapid. Each rapid gives you the feeling of the motion as what the name means.
The day started with 20p noodles at Fook Yeun, noodles for breakfast was starting to become the norm! As arranged yesterday we were picked up at 8am for our white water rafting experience. We then picked up Fitty and Sian, with Sian adamant that she wasn't going to be joining in due to nerves! After picking up another two people we were on our way to the train station for the start of our experience. The journey took two hours overland through the countryside to Beaufort town. The adventure began with a one hour train ride along the Padas River that gave glimpses of the thrills and excitement to come. This train is the oldest in Borneo and passes through the once renowned headhunters' tribe – The Murut. So after a train ride that we thought would kill us, not because of The Murut, but beacause it was so bumpy, juttery and roller-coaster(ish), we arrived at Pangi station. This was the starting point for our white water rafting. After a safety briefing and a short walk to our rafts the excitement was to begin. There were 6 tourists and 4 guides in our raft, luckily Ange and myself were sat either side of a guide, who held us in the raft! The rapids were truely exhilerating, as soon as we were through one, the next appeared. We spent an hour on the river, then stopped for some well earned lunch at Rayoh station. Chatting to the guides we found out that the rapids were extremely high and the trips had been cancelled for the rest of the week, for safety reasons. I'm not sure that's what we wanted to hear as we still had half of the rapids to complete! We were all having a great time though and once we were back in the raft, safety was the last thing on our mind. We wanted to find the biggest, fastest rapids! Unfortunately all good things have to come to an end and our ending point was at Halogilat station. The rafting stopped a couple of kilometres from the station from where we were transfered to speedboats, to take us to the station. The speedboat ride was just as exciting as the rafting, with the drivers enjoying finding the rough waters to take us through. We waited twenty minutes at the station for the chartered train back to Beaufort, where we would be able to change into our clean clothes. The clothes we were wearing were wet, extremely muddy and fit for the bin!! At least the sun was shining and we were dried in no time at all. Back at the station we changed, got into the minibus and headed back to KK. An hour into the journey and heavens opened and didn't stop all evening! We arrived back at Hotel Eden 54 at 5:50pm, ready for a good shower and freshen up. We decided we weren't very hungry this evening, so would try some snacks from the highly recommended Philipino market. After a quick rest we were back out again, wandering around the Philipino market which was next to the waterfront and craft market. We didn't feel particularly safe in this area, loads of people loitering and selling items on makeshift/temporary stalls. We bought some chicken satay from one of the permenant stalls, the satay sauce was nice, the chicken....welll....lets just say not so nice! We decided that this area and food wasn't for us, so made our way to the ice-cream parlour in the shopping mall. This was much more to janes' liking! We spent a while in the mall and then with the rain still teaming down decided to make a mad dash back to the hotel for an early night.

---