What a crazy day we've had today! We went white water rafting along the Padas River (grade 3-4 rapids), it was amazing fun. The best day we've had here so far!

To reach the Padas River we had to take a 2hr bus ride to Beaufort train station and then a further 2hr train journey to the River, hence we started out at 7.30am.

We were greeted outside our hostel by a young man called Ed. Ed turned out to be one of the funniest and nicest people we have met, he really looked after us during our entire trip and kept us laughing throughout. Such a lovely guy. Anyway, the bus ride went by suprisingly quickly, probably due to Ed's endless supply of chatter and jokes. We learn't all about Muslim marriages, why some muslim men are allowed 3 or 4 wives and the traditional sacraficing of water buffalo at the wedding ceremony, and how the headhunters would machete their victims and eat their ears. Ed was full of fascinating facts.

When we reached Beaufort station we were both desperate for the toilet and so Ed pointed us in the direction of a little lady with a big sign saying 'toilet 20 cents'. We both paid our 20 cents and she politely showed us to the toilet cubicles. On initial inspection we were pleasently suprised. The corridor was adorned with beautiful plastic flowers and not a cockroach in sight. It looked promising. There was a small queue - the same where ever you go in the world - so we patiently waited our turn. Mia was next in line. When the next cubicle was free Mia tentatively opened the door...OMG!  Squat toilets!!! No flush, just a bucket of water next to the hole and no toilet paper in sight...this was not looking good . After lots of screaming and squrming Mia exited the squat hole and ran to the sink to wash her hands - no water! This really wasn't getting any better. My turn now. There must be a technique to this but it was beyond me. I managed to figure out a way to hit the target but this meant putting my hands down on the floor next to me to support myself - God knows what I was putting my hands in, best not to think about it I guess. Apparently this is meant to be more hygenic then using a western style toilet - lies! We both made a quick escape feeling relieved the trauma was over...or so we thought.

We saw Ed on the platform frantically waving his arms at us - 'the train is here!'. We hopped on the rickety looking train to grab the best seats - what seats?!! There were no seats, just some bags of rice on the floor and a strange looking live chicken in a plastic bag. We had a look round, took some photos and waited for Ed to jump on board with us. Suddenly about a million Chinese people scrambled into our carriage squeezing us into a corner. I fought my way over to the bags of rice to try and get us some seats but...too late. Two little Chinese men with glasses and huge cameras had got there first, so the floor seemed the next best option. We perched ourselves next to a little Malay Lady and her chicken in the plastic bag. The train started with a big jolt throwing the two little Chinese men off their bags of rice and onto the dirty floor...HA! The train journey was only 38km but we had to stop at every station on the way. After about 10 minutes our carriage was full, people were hanging out of the doorways just to get a space on the train, me and sis were squeezed very intimately between the chicken and a sweaty Malay man who obviously hadn't heard of deodorant before. After our toilet ordeal we thought that perhaps this trip had been a bad idea. Anyway, the journey began to get a little better when we started chatting to a guy called Ikan. Turns out he was Ed's brother and one of our raft guides. Another very funny guy. It was a little disconcerting tho, to see him and his fellow rafters down about 10 cans of beer each during the train journey - they were looking very glassy eyed, i'm sure they were pissed. We were just hoping they weren't on our raft or we'd be doomed.

After what felt like a 10hr ride on Nemesis at Alton Towers we reached our destination. We jumped off the train and made our way up to the little hut where they were laying out our gear. On arrival we were faced with about 2 million Chinese all wearing swimming trunks and eating water melon, eagerly awaiting their rafting adventure. Ed called us over to get kitted up with our life jackets and helmets and then we were directed to the safety briefing, a very funny explanation by Ikan as to what we should do if we were to capsise and of the other horrors that may happen to us along the way. We were suitably nervous by this point. We all made our way to the river bank. Ed ushered us over to our raft. I was the first to board (in a very unlady-like manner) closely followed by Mia. We were then joined by a group of Malay people, Kenny and Judy, Vincent and Ying. Both Judy and Ying could not swim and Ying was terrified of water...this was not looking good. Ed jumped on board and we were off, "1-2, 1-2, forward paddle...". This seemed ok, quite easy infact. We entered some mini rapids to get ourselves prepared...EASY! So, feeling relaxed, I sat back and enjoyed the beautiful mountinous scenery when....to my shock Ed shouted "Spider! Spider!" at me. I lept up thinking I had a huge poisonous tarantula crawling up my leg and then Ed pushed me overboard! Apparently he wanted me to get used to falling in...he could've just asked me to jump in. So we all practised our new swimming technique - lie back, legs pointing downstream and smile! Ed then fished us all out and we were off again, "1-2, 1-2, easy paddle". We came up to our first rapids - the wave hunter, grade 3 rapids meaning they were very big! Ed started to shout louder - "1-2, 1-2, forward paddle, harder, harder!" "Aaaaaaahhhhh!" we all screamed as we entered the mouth of the rapids. We frantically bobbed our way through the waves until we reached calm waters, "Hi Five!" "Sam Sam Soy!" We had made it without capsising, yay!

The rafting journey was about 10km downstream and we encoutered a further 7 rapids, all of which were grade 3. The worst was the 'cobra' where we had to dodge three huge rocks that were generating massive waves. It was such fun though, definately worth the trauma that was our journey there. After reaching the river bank and scrambling out of the raft - Mia exposing her backside to Ed as her trousers fell down when climbing out - we headed off to the little hut for BBQ chicken wings and CHIPS!!! - Yum!!! We dried ourselves off in a dodgy looking dressing room with adjacent toilet - not a squat hole so it was quite luxurious by Malaysian standards and headed back towards the railway platform to catch our return train.

It turned out to be an amazing day. Thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it even though it was a bit of a hair raising experience at times. Big thank you to Ed for being so amazing - we love you Ed!!! Oh and don't forget to take a look at our pics xxx