[Sabah trip, 31-Mar-2006] Early morning, we boarded on an old-style train at Beaufort that carried everything from passengers to chickens, vege, goods and even cars. Our destination? Padas white water rafting.
I always wonder why it’s called WHITE water rafting.. water is never white, and in the Padas river scenario, it’s more like a brown-ish teh tarik.
Padas water rafting is rated as grade 3 by international standard, and if it’s raining season.. it could get to grade 4. We were ‘lucky’ that it’s a rainy season, and it rained heavily just a night before, so.. it’s good lol.
Each boat was guided by at least an intrustor and an assistant, we were joined by another dozens of adventure-seekers and were briefed by a guide before boarding the raft.
We were also taught to learn body rafting and how to handle cases when we fell into the river.. actually everything was kinda exciting the moment we stepped into the raft and got into the middle of the river.
The journey was dang fun, it’s an hour of adrenaline pumping, gut rushing and exhaustion. Time passed by pretty fast though, we didn’t realized that 60 minutes had passed when we ended our adventure.
That’s shower and buffet provided at our ending point, a nice and fun experience that I would recommend to everyone.
Ability to swim is not a necessity, the instructors and guides are great rescuers. Well knowing how to swim will perhaps prevent some excessive water drinking, like our CY with stomach full of free teh tarik.
I actually had a water-proof camera with me, but I forgot to bring it along when leaving our bags at the drop point. The tour organizer did get a photographer to snap our photos, with a price.. but worth every cents in my opinion.
April 25th, 2006 at 12:44 pm
Went river rafting only once and the river was pretty tame apart from few stretches. The river in your pics looks really tough.
April 25th, 2006 at 2:21 pm
Well Adam.. the guide told us that the Padas is the roughest white water rafting spot in Malaysia, could very well be the truth.
Where was your rafting place last time?
April 26th, 2006 at 5:02 pm
[...] [Sabah trip, 30-Mar-2006] We continued our journey to Klias Wetland after our joyous Padas white water rafting. Klias Wetland is famous worldwide for its endangered species of proboscis monkeys. [...]
February 26th, 2007 at 7:30 pm
so which rafting operaor did you go with?? was it riverbug?
February 26th, 2007 at 8:52 pm
I can’t remember the operator’s name… it has been almost a year. Glad to see you having fun at Sabah as well :)
April 4th, 2007 at 11:08 am
did ur tour organizer arrange both river rafting and Klias cruise together? i still cannot find such tour for my trip next month. they normally have these 2 trips on 2 seperate days, tho the 2 events r on the same area. Or u go to Klias cruise on your own afterwards? or is it possible to go to these 2 places on my own?
April 4th, 2007 at 12:46 pm
helen… we did go on the same day (stayed overnight at Klias).
My tour was pretty customized, I am not sure if you can find a package like mine; but if you are going in numbers (say 8-12+ person), you can always negotiate for a customized tour.
Btw, we drove ourselves to the destination, our guide was on one of the car as ‘guide’. It’s been a while though, I can’t remember the journey between Beaufort and Klias… I guess there is always taxis available, but could be costly.
April 22nd, 2007 at 7:41 am
yes jee we did have so much fun in padas. to helen, traverse tours at http://www.traversetours.com does a similar tour Padas-Garama Probosis and Fireflies tour. check it out.
April 22nd, 2007 at 10:09 am
Thanks for the link.
August 22nd, 2008 at 11:44 pm
hey i just came across your blog while googling for padas river rafting. i just came back from there 2 days ago and I’m still feeling the excitement from it!
just wanna say i spotted the same guide who guided us in your pics. he was absolutely evil! but all in all i agree with you its a once-in-a-lifetime experience i’d defo go back there agian
:)
August 23rd, 2008 at 1:49 am
The picture so small you can also spot the guide? You got sharp eyes for sure lol.
Ya, it’s fun… I am going there again in March or April 2009.