Sg Sedim - River Romp

Admittedly, we didn't pay too much attention to the details of the trip because we only remember too well that we had to FFK the previous trip at the very last moment, due to each family member having their own plans and not informing one another. This time we informed the parents months ahead and even paid up for the trip so that we couldn't back out easily. All we knew about the trip was that there was whitewater rafting involved. End of story. The other stuff like who's the driver, where will the Klang Klangites be staying, where will we be meeting the Penang Klangites, what else asides from whitewater rafting will there be...totally no idea.

We all planned to leave on Thursday night as the whitewater rafting was on Friday morning itself - and so we took the afternoon off with the intention to pack and rest up. Mana tahu we ended up at 1 Utama until nearly after work hours instead, wearing ourselves out even more. Still, managed to pack up and snooze a while before the guys arrived to pick us up and be on our way.

Must learn to skip Enya songs while we're on road trips. Everybody else seems to complain.

So us Klang Klangites ('Nic, NJH, Webchitect and Girl-Jun) and KL Klangites (guess who) were to make our way up to Penang and stay overnight at this apartment called Krystal Suites. Nice place, big rooms, but only one toilet to share between 6 people (Lil' Y arrived there first and checked in for us). Say only reach apartments we all go sleep in preparation for tomorrow...made it there sometime near 1am, checked in, and everyone proceeded to watch Kung Fu Hustle that was showing on AXN till 3am.

That night, we had our first encounter with the Nighttime Chainsaw Nightmare. Even the fact that we're a heavy sleeper and we were tired wasn't enough for us to overcome the Nightmare. Sorry yah, if we complained hell too much about you during the whole trip! Next time we won't complain, all we'll do is plug up your nostrils with tissue paper.

Our cabin in Sedim wasn't bad - it was spacious, there were lockers, 2 shower stalls and 2 toilets, fans, and best of all the 8 of us didn't have to share with strangers! Of course, we had to live with insects flittering about, a dead insect stuck inside one of the fans, dusty floors, the lack of toilet papers but those aren't really much to gripe about. Reminded us really of when we bunked down in them backpacking hostels (sans insects and dust) when we were in London.

The day at the river started off with tubing - where we all had a rubber tube akin to a car tyre (but not as heavy) to merrily float our way downstream, while being pulled left and right by currents as well as banging our butts on unseen rocks below the river surface (not fun!). The guide tells us that to be able to balance in the tube you need to work your abs. Great, you get to work those 6-packs while having fun.

As for the rafting itself - the river was a tad shallow so we ended up getting stuck rather often. We ended up scampering around the raft following the instructions of the guide more than we did rowing. The highlight was when we went down a Grade 4 fall - no rowing was needed, and the guides just had us sit facing each direction of the raft (we got to face front!) and off we went! Mini-rollercoaster that turned out to be.

We went in two teams (incidentally who sat in whose cars shared the same raft), and was in the lead at the end of the ride when our guide nicely called for all of us to lean hard left - thus capsizing the raft. The other team, observing how we capsized our raft, were wary of their own guide's instructions. It was then that Inspector Ayam lived up to his title by jumping ship and abandoning his mates before anything else could happen.

After the river sports it was lunch and then onwards to the Flying Fox.