Kota Kinabalu Trip (Padas Water Rafting)

Padas river is located in the interior of the sourthern part of Kota Kinabalu that is only accessible by train. Basically,  a white water rafting paddler needs to sign a life certificate as this river is class as grade 4 river. (grade 4 river is actually the highest and most extreme grade for non-trained paddlers)

Simon is the photographer

It all started with 7 USM Engineering brave survivors who boarded a van from Kota Kinabalu and transit at the Beaufort train station to board an old British Colonial steam train named Thomas.

 Having KFC as lunch at Tenom Town.

Thomas is the oldest train in Borneo and its’ railway track is just along the padas river. We were told by our guide, JJ that this water rafting covers a distance of 10km that holds 7 exciting and tough rapids. These rapids carries amusing names such as Merry Go Round, Break Point, Scooby Doo, Cobra, Curve, Lambada and Head Hunter. Each rapid will give us the feel of the motion as what the name means.

After going through the first rapid, my heart started to beat very fast. I told myself that there is no turning back. The only thing i can do is to listen to the instructions. So as our guide-JJ bellowed: “ Everybody, paddle harder!”, all of us did so without thinking. Well, everything went well until we met Washing Machine. Before we meet the Washing Machine, JJ already warned us that she’s quite cruel. So we paddled even harder and harder. Then...we saw her. Standing there arrogantly, almost tall like our lembaran hostel. I just stared at her, my mouth open wide and my paddle stand still. The very Next second, i felt a thud on my head...then whoooosh! There was darkness and i heard “brrr...brrr..” as i realised i was totally submerged in the water and being push down by the current. At that moment, i had no control of my body. I was struggling and tried to grab something around me. Unfortunately, all I could grab were paddles. For a moment, i felt an extreme *(calmless) that i have never experienced before. I could remember JJ telling us during the safety briefing that “ if your boat capsizes, and you are drowning,dont panic. Keep calm and just let your body float. However, theory and practical are two different things for me at that moment.

After struggling for sometime, i decided to surrender. However it just took place for a few seconds as an inner voice shouted at me: NIC, how can you die at such a young age? There are so many thing in this world waiting for you to accomplish. I told myself, girl..you need to help yourself out from this. Finally I managed to catch the life line but at the very next second i heard JJ shouting loudly asking us to let go of the life line as they wanted to over turn the boat to the normal position. Hearing that, I just let go and in the mean time i managed to catch a breather. Then I heard a familiar voice. My friend, Janice was crying. I was estatic at this point as this indicates that i’m not alone anymore! I was the third person who was pulled back into the boat. We were all feeling panic and held on to the life line. So it took quite some time to overturn the boat. And we actually passed through the fourth rapid as well which was the Merry-go-round. Simon and Jason were far behind the boat and we only managed to retrieve 3 paddles back in the boat. This was insane! All we know at that time was to save the two and to get back the rest of the paddles. After everyone got back to the boat, we were scolded because we didn't follow instructions by not letting go of the life line at once. That experience taught us to paddle in the right way for the rest of the journey but also terrified us. Then he told us that there are another few more big rapids which might cause our boat to overturn again. Oh no God, please don’t let this happen again. I prayed to God. After passing through the break point, we met Cobra which is the most extreme rapid in Padas river. At one moment, i could feel that our boat was literally flying in the air. Everyone shouted like crazy..God please help us..come on dude we can do it.. and at the same time we paddled with all our strength.  When everyone was united it overcame our fears ...Yahooo! we managed to do it. Then he told us if our boat overturns in the Cobra rapid and we are trapped by the current, we might keep turning there if we do not know how to come out. Crazy man.. Shock of my life..Thankfully, After the Cobra rapid, the rest are just mild ones. 

JJ, our water rafting guide

Wow, it was wet and wild! Two hours passed by quickly and our hearts were still pounding when we alighted from our raft. Rafting in raging waters is no laughing matter. My heart literary “stopped” when I tried to picture the two big drops along the river. Anyway i thank God for His protection and also for giving us the chance to experience capsizing during white water rafting. ..It would be utterly if our boat had not overturn..If you ask me have I conquered my fear towards water? Not really. Will I do it again? Maybe, just maybe.