White Water Rafting

2 weekends ago, Enon and her 2 friends, Reiny & Azie went White Water Rafting along Kampar River. Enon and her friends met up at exactly 7.00am and drove up north the PLUS highway for 90 minutes heading towards Gopeng. After taking the Gopeng toll exit, turn left at traffic light, and then take another left when you see the sign to Kampung Chulek. Drive through the village road which is not signposted [Beware of chicken and children!] until you reach a metal bridge. Then keep going 500m, then you will finally arrive at the Earth Camp, which is Nomad Adventure's eco-friendly campsite and meeting point.  

 

Picture Source: www.nomadadventure.com and its FB group photo album

The adventure package we selected consists of White Water Rafting + Rope deal [which you can choose from a variety of activities eg. Abseiling, Flying Fox, Leap of Faith, High Ropes course, etc]. Our day started out with a 15min ride to the upstream stretch of Kampar River on a lorry [and yes, I did feel like one of the bunch of I**ons/ B***la workers I usually see transported in lorries back in KL] which was full of back stretches and head blocks trying to avoid tree twigs and rambutan leaves from giving you a tight slap in the face. Miss Azie did manage to get 'bitch-slapped' by Mother Nature that morning. It was damn hilarious! Hahaha.. The driver managed to stop for a while to allow us to pluck some fresh rambutans right from the tree, which was very sweet and 'lekang'.

Once upstream, we were given a short briefing by our main guide, Apeng [I think that's how its spelt]. Rafting basic commands, tips on how to swim in rapids, how to hold the paddle, stuff like that. We were lucky that it was a small group seeing that it was the Eid Al-Adha weekend. Basically there were only 2 rafts, the 3 of us + 2 guides [Fariz + Andy] on Raft 7 and 3 White guys + 1 guide [Apeng] on the other. So, we could go at our own pace and not worry about overcrowding of the river bends.

We then had to lift our own raft to the riverbank and perform a water confidence test, which consist of letting yourself drift in the rapids, heading downstream and then swim across the river current to the opposite riverbank. And I performed successfully had to be pulled in against the current with a rope by the guides [just as EVERYONE else was after that! haha]. And it was definitely good entertainment watching the others struggle through the rapid current! Just like watching WipeOut on AXN, only difference is that its LIVE! [Boy, was I glad to be the earlier ones to perform the test!]

After completing the task, it was now time for the actual rapids. We were told that the Kampar River was rated a Grade 3 in rafting difficulty [don't ask me about the grading system, I know nuts about it]. It started out with a few soft bends/ drops which was a nice intoduction. Then we had to face a few big bends before which Andy [our main guide] asked us if we wanted to capsize the raft. Reiny and I simultaneously answered YES! You should have seen Azie's face when we did. So Andy was then giving commands, positioning the raft into the most likely position to capsize. Unfortunately, we were too good at manouvering the raft that the raft DIDN'T capsize, but Fariz DID fall out of the raft [mind you, Fariz actually fell out about 5 times throughout the whole trip!]. Disappointed, we had to fake our own capsize which was fun nonetheless. Midway down the river [total of which was a 6km journey] we stopped for a quick break, had a quick swim in the refreshing cool waters and jumped off an outstretched tree limb. The feeling was totally AWESOME!

And the journey begins..

Road block people!

Would you come back again? Definitely yes!

Well, see you soon then!

[L-R: Azie, Enon, Reiny, Andy (not facing the camera) and Fariz]

We were back at the Earth Camp by 1pm, in time for lunch and a quick shower before our afternoon rope session where we opted to do abseiling.

 

The unique toilets and showers at the Earth Camp made out of water tanks.

 Off to Nomad Adventure's Mountain School [where the abseiling was done] at 2pm, we were to climb a 25m rock and abseil down its wall. Unfortunately, I didn't bring my camera to the Mountain School hence no chance of storing some photographic evidence. Azie definitely got her 'Mojo' going at this venture, she went twice and even abseiled with inverted descent "Mission Impossible style" which is head down first [and so did Reiny!] 

The rock wall

 A closer look

And in case you didn't get what I meant by inverted abseiling, this picture might help

[minus the revolver in the left hand of course!]

I didn't quite get the excitement of abseiling so I only went once. And I think Apeng felt guilty, so he offered us to try the High Rope course, which is a combination of various 'jambatan gantung' [probably also because we were the only ones there at the Mountain school and we finished abseiling so quickly].

The beginning of the course

Somewhere up there

High and Low

Climb that rock

Across the edge

And down we go

The whole thing ended by 4.30 pm and we then headed back towards Earth Camp for some last minute photos with our friendly and helpful guides.

[L-R: Apeng, Fariz, Reiny, Azie, Enon and Andy]

To my right was the lorry used to transport us to the upstream of Kampar River ;P

LBNL, the 3 lovely ladies ;)

So, does anybody else feel like going rafting?  ;D