Day 6: The Padas River and me!

Today was my day of white water rafting and it was by far was the best day of my trip so far!

I got picked up around 7;45am by the tour guide and after picking up some more people we hit the road and went to Beaufort (about 1.5 hours). In Beaufort we waited around a bit then finally boarded a train - the 'oldest' train in Borneo. We road past some towns and shacks and saw farms and fields and forests. I can't believe that people actually use that dilapidated old train as a form of transportation everyday. Not only was it old and slow but it was 45 minutes late! Overall, if I didn't look at the rundown houses etc the scenery was very beautiful.

We got of the train a few stops before our actual destination to change and ditch our belongings then we continued on our way to the start of the tour. After a short snack and safety brief we hit the water! It was brown and a little 'different' than the other places I've rafted but I went with it and figured that if the locals were ok and they go in it everyday then I would be ok too.

There were 6 of us (foreigners) on my raft and 3 guides. The main guides name was Lao and I have no idea who the other two were. Lao was the only English speaker and although he introduced the other two I didn't catch their names (hehe he pointed to them and then said in first person "My name is (insert random Malay name here)." ) 4 of the other foreigners were Aussies and had just finished a 2 week tour around Sabah similar to what Liz did last year and the other one was a Chinese Canadian guy who lives in Hong Kong. He cracked us all up because he was a little out of it. When people asked him where he was from he said Hong Kong. Which confused people because after talking to him you would find out he was actually from Canada. I live in Japan but it doesn't' t mean im from Japan and when I would answer the same questions but answer Canada he would smile at me. He was also trying to plan a trip up Mt Kinabalu. The other 4 in our boat had already done it so he was asking them questions. Well it turns out he was going to climb the mountain in teva sandals, shorts and a tank top. The mountain is 4000 meters high! What was he thinking? Anyways...That was my boat!

We were the 'funnest' (ya ya its not a word but I like it ok?!) boat on the river! We also spent the most time actually IN the river than any of the other boats. Yup, at every rapid at least one person fell out and on more then one occasion our whole boat flipped over. It was GREAT and I loved every second of it! I was a bit apprehensive at first because I was afraid that I wouldn't be able to get back into the boat but after the first fall and recovery I was ready for another! Eventually we even got bored with our own raft so we pirated the others. We would paddle as hard as we could to catch up to the others then a couple of the Aussies and a couple of our guides would jump into the other rafts and throw people out. ahh....soo fun!

After a couple of hours on the Padas river we ended up back at the station where we left our bags. So we changed again and sat down for a BBQ lunch (more like a midafternoon meal). This was my first time in two years eating BBQ'd lamb chops and proper BBQ'd hots dogs. It was the perfect end to a fantastic river rafting experience.

High Fives (when everyone holds up their paddles and smacks them in the middle and cheers) to the best river raft out there!!