I would consider the whitewater rafting trip at Sungai Selangor as one of my 1999's highlight of the year. Although it was not as exciting as was anticipated, it was a splendid trip on a splendid day.

I have my colleague, Su Lee the organizer to thank for. I had wanted to make a trip there under the Khersonese group when recommended by Doreen but when a person like me who hasn't any mode of transportation outside Seremban (yeah, I do have a car but not allowed to drive out of the town..... imagine, being 25 still does not mean a life of freedom), I thought that I'm gonna miss a rafting trip at Selangor river for good because the issue on that Selangor dam thing.

We're a big group there - 36 people I think. As much as I would like a lot of my own friends to join, I just couldn't when we've already met the maximum of 30 people. Invited Eu Cheng along because the previous time I was invited to her colleague's similar trip which unfortunately did not materialize. It was just great to have her along.

On the day before the big event, I still went for swimming with Gui not just because of the love for swimming, I wanted to get myself tired for the night as well, since I was gonna bunk in with Eu Cheng for the night. I think I managed to sleep about 4 hours which was adequate I guess as I was raring to go the next morning. The excitement started to sink in, in the morning. I was very thankful the whole day beginning with a huge thanks for the weather that morning which did not rain.

The journey towards Kuala Kubu Baru was just lovely with beautiful hills and valleys plus a number of lakes. The town itself is also lovely with pavement roads and cute little trees planted on the side streets. Boy, after reading Anne of Green Gables book, I sorta put myself in her kinda mood - ever appreciating of her surroundings. I wish I could write like the author though. Plus if Eu Cheng could write her account, I believe this will be a good read as she has a good way with words.

Had a breakfast of roti canai where I didn't try to stuff myself up as I was afraid of a stomach upset later. For those who plan to go rafting in future, would like you to know that the trip which costs us RM140 (we got a group discount, else it would be RM160) includes breakfast, two snack stops along the river and lunch at the end point.

Upon reaching the starting point for our rafting adventure, we got ourselves geared up by wearing life jackets and helmets. Had to wait another half an hour for the drivers to park their cars at the end point before driven back in a van.

The excitement started to heighten when a short briefing began where the Khersonese group speaker showed us the proper way to wear our life jackets and helmets, the parts of the raft and paddle, some signals like 'I'm okay signal', 'Stop signal', methods of paddling and what to do should you fall overboard. It's funny how we keep asking ourselves 'what-if' like when he mentioned if we were thrown overboard, we should try to grab the rafts side ropes and climb back. Then if that wasn't possible, they'll try to throw a rope at us. If we couldn't catch it, we should try to float sideways to the riverbank. Then end to the what-ifs is that we'll just have to flow with the current until they can catch us.

Unfortunately, Eu Cheng and I could not be in the same raft as there should be only 6 participants per raft and all the rafts were filled and left with 2 separate empty seats.

I was on the same raft with Su Lee and her two sisters, another two colleagues Clement and Weng Keong. Our group leader was Kai and steering-person at the front was Suri, both of whom looked like from the Orang Asli clan. Kai is calm and eminates a wisdom that could be felt from his instructions given while we went rafting. Suri, although small in size is extremely expert at steering the raft to the correct direction. In fact, most of the times, I felt that the work was done by him and all of us helping him probably by 10%.

Our raft is called the "Raging Thunder" which is the heaviest raft of the lot. It comes from Australia and is actually meant for real rough rafting. It's really stable and Kai seems to have a lot of love for it as he reminince on his past victory of a Cameron rafting contest. Our team were proud of it too as we were the only raft that managed to go through the first canyon smoothly without hitting or stuck in the rocks.

I remember vaguely that there was a joke - yet again on the Titanic, when one of the Khersonese member assured us that the raft was really tough - it won't sink and one of the participants was saying Titanic or something like that. By the way, a raft costs about RM20,000 and with the current monetary crisis, it can cost up to RM42,000 on a new raft.

The rafting ride was definitely enjoyable. The river was unfortunately murky (due to the rainy season of late) - we call it the teh-tarik. I can imagine how beautiful it is when the water's clear 'coz it's already a beautiful place as it is. Beautiful to me means no litter around. And it was a joy to see butterflies flying or should I say 'dancing' about in the air.

The rapids was fairly rough. When asked, Kai said rough here would be a scale of 6 and that day's water roughness mounted to 5 points. All of us were eager and thrilled when it comes to the rough points like the first and second canyon, the chicken drop and the 45 degrees drop. There were actually many interesting names given at certain points of the river as discovered later in the guest book. Yeah, Eu Cheng, wish I could scanned that one here. Especially since I've really got nothing to show in this homepage since we didn't bring our cameras along.

There was one part where both Eu Cheng and I jumped (and we did jump!) at the opportunity to do body-surfing. That's a new term. It's like you just jump into the river and let the current carry you downstream. Yeow! I had teh-tarik from the nose up when I did that! But after that, once you're floating upwards, it's pretty cool to let the current 'wash' you away.

And just like the endings for most of those wildlife documentaries, mine ended with a sad note that all this wonderful natural resources will be gone once the dam (I wouldn't mind if it is read as 'damn') project starts. I wonder what possessed the authorities to even think about building that dam when it couldn't guarantee the need of water after the year 2004. I could actually feel what the Orang Asli felt - being robbed off their sacred land and probably their future. I wonder how much damage it will do to the mangroves, firefly sanctuary and other creatures especially the kingfishers which we spotted at the ending point.

Lastly, check out my summary of the Selangor River Dam issue.

Regards,
Li Li