Pirates of the Kuala Kubu Baru part 2

Where was i... Hand signals..

So the best part of this hand signals was the signal for 'are u ok?'. They way you do it is to make ur hands macam "ooo-somm burung" or "suap nasi" and then tap the top of your head. So imagine when 30 of you doing it... macam nak ajak satu kampung burung datang makan kutu rambut. Apart from the hand signals, they taught us how to us the helmet, paddle and life jacket. Memandangkan some of us are big headed, a few had trouble finding the right sized helmet. Pasang terbalik pun tak muat jugak like shahrul and lukman. They pakai terbalik so nak cover their big heads kot. Shah and Wafi dah lah gebu2 comel2.. u add another life jacket terus jadi michelin-man or maybe a glimpse of what they would look like in 10years time without dieting. Have to say Agus and Pakli still maintain figure. Damn.. sekepengs!

To familiarize with the paddles and instructions, we played a game catching paddles to left or right based on commands. Sabotajing each other was how some of us got through. example: lukman baling paddle to the ground before lari to the next or some of us just holds on to the paddles leaving no available paddles for some like shafik (rasanya lukman was guilty of this too). After all this, it was time to get on the raft. 6 of us to a raft. Our guide was the crossed eyed named Nanyang (nasib baik takyah eye-contact sangat) and another was called Tez. They were great. Hebat giler org asli ni!

Our raft was nicknamed Sponge Bob and the other geng's was Mr. Crabs. Sponge Bob crew was maz, shafik, man, haziq, faz and myself (ringan2 and agile je crew ni). While the other one was all the heavy weights Shahrul, Wafi, shah, lukman and pakli while there was one papan called Agus. Walaupun dah offset ngan Agus, seems like Mr. Crabs raft was overloaded so angin raft kena adjust a few minutes into the rowing (not surprising.. not surprising at all).

When we started out, some of us had problems following instructions. To me, Nanyang pelat sangat. E.g. 'Overleft' sounded like 'overlap'. faz and haziq way in front couldnt hear. So time tengah mengelabah kena back paddle dioarang rilex je forward paddle sedangkan batu besar depan mata. Haziq memang susah ikut instructions pun lagi2 ada alasan tak dengar.

I forgot to tell you that the water was perfect (suam2, fresh, clean), jungle was great, sun was bright just heated enough to dry us but not burn us (apart from maz... letak mentol study pun maz sunburn.. she looks like a ripe tomato now). I've been to NY rafting expedition and it was never this good. So Malaysia does rock!!! and Malaysia memang boleh!! The company handling this (PieRose) was just great - professional, fun, organized, friendly and cool ppl). One of those few things i can brag to my non-malaysian freinds. Our rafting rivers are better than yours.

So first 10 minutes dia bagi practice ikut instructions. We had to directional paddle, move around on the raft and so on. Lepas to dia bagi capsize one time bagi minum air sikit. kalau nampak putih (awan) just go up, kalau kuning (bawah raft) crawl sideways out of the raft Paling penting jangan panik. Takde nafas pun jangan panik (teory jelah.. sape tak panick). Raft Mr. Carbs unfortunately tak practice capsize. i sincerely believe the guides were worried takleh nak angkat badak air sekor2 tu.

Our first challenge was a level 3 rapid (i couldnt remember all the rapid names..too excited). There they named a big rock "batu bapok" because one raft full of bapoks (no offence to any bapoks.. includes you lukman) were thrown out after hitting it. Coincidently behind the big rocks, you can see a cliff that looks like a face. (pikir balik it looked like hazman..hahahaha). We tackled the rapid ngan suspens sekali but "tak panik". Semualah tak panik. It was cool after you see the rapids from downstream what you just went through. Rasa macam power je!

gtg again.. to be continured