11th of May, 2012 Friday
Its been months since i updated. Finally get myself on some pictures to boast around. 4th of March(Sunday), me and my colleague went to Ipoh to have a taste of White Water Rafting experience. And it turned out too fantastic and over exciting. We went there on Saturday even before working hours ends. 4pm and reach Ipoh around 8pm to check in to our hotel. We get lost in the town when finding the hotel through GPS. We stayed at Hotel Shangg booked through Agoda website. The website really have some nice deals going on. The hotel was to our satisfaction with its cleanliness and tidiness.
After unpacking and bathing to refresh up, we went to had dinner. Too bad this time i couldn't taste the super juicy beansprout from famous Beansprout Chicken Restarant "Lou Wong" or "Ann Kei". One of the colleague take the initiative to bring us eat at hawker stall. But not so tasty. To make things happy, it was raining that night and the river water level will rose to some certain level. Hehe, evil grind. Back to hotel, we suddenly feel like having a drink at Overtime Ipoh. Promotion of buy one free one. We ordered a barrel of starker beer. It was very nice. Abit drunky too.... ooops. Back and sleep at 2am.
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| RiverBug Base |
Morning comes as the day we are gonna challenges ourselves. We went to had breakfast at famous Dim Sum restaurant. Mr Choong Teng Fong treats us to it. Hard time finding the restaurant too with GPS... really lost. As time pass drinking tea and having chit chat, we start to head to the meeting point for the water rafting. Follow the RiverBug crew through forest and mountains to reach the starting point. Originally we had eight people, but due to some unfortunate events, Yasmin couldn't come with us. Seven of us, after getting our equipments standing around listen to our guide Miguel to give tutorial and safety precaution.
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| Listening to Tutorial |
Miguel explains about the raft boat, pedal function, rafting signals, personal floating gear and safety measures. All of us was listening nervously. Alot of first timer including me. Finally we head to the River and at first sight, everybody knows the water current is very strong. I just got a chill from looking at the river water level. Here we go separated into two groups of four person we start the journey. Each boat have a guide followed by an extra boat of RiverBug crews. Total length is 7km and the water rafting level is II to III. 10:30am Once started, we get to taste some river water at the first fall. Everyone was shouting or to be said screaming. Hell yeah, it was fun. After every fall we will rest for a while. Seriously draining a lot of energy and strength.
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| Amnard, Choong, Nicole & Pei |
And to make things more worst, our boat was stuck between the strong current and it ain't gonna move anymore unless we overturn the boat. We was drinking a whole lot of water from the river currents. And to complicated things, we got our Charmaine that was too scared to let off of the boat. Me and Miguel was trying to overturn and Charmaine keep screaming and it did not help at all. Two other people already fell into the river. We were stuck at there for about 2 minutes. Lastly Charmaine fell into the water and we manage to overturn the boat. With the current so strong, i was being pushed by the current for a few hundred meters together with Charmaine, after being rescued we totally can't feel our breath.
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| Me, CC Lim & Charmaine |
An adventurous journey to be said. We reach the ending point after two hours. Had our lunch and an hour rest. 2pm, we head to our next activity, Tubing. From the description, it say we just sit on the tube and flows through the river enjoying the scenery. But to our nightmares, because the current was strong it was labeled more advance than water rafting. And everyone really having a hard time controlling that tube. We were all shouting and trying to save ourselves from dying i think. Some people keep heading into the side of river where tree branch and grass grows. It pains to being hit by those things. And to watch our youngest colleague almost drown in the water is not a nice sight. Scary and horror.
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| Tubing Activity |
But with relief, we manage to finish the Tubing expedition. All the guys was ok with it as we can pedal to control the Tube. But for the girls, they were tied together and float together until the end. This make them more safe and they can start to enjoy the activity. It took us one hour to reach the end. And obviously, we all become suntanned by the sun. Going back to the RiverBug Base and change of cloth. After a whole evening full of excitement, everyone has grown tired we head back to Alor Setar after collecting the photos and videos for a payment of Rm200. We stop by Tambun seafood restaurant to had dinner.
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| Steam Squid, Sea Snails, Baby Squid, Shells, Laksa, Thai Steam Fish, Bamboo Prawns and Praying Mantis Prawn. |
I just love the activity and would try again anytime.
