vlongweekendkinabalu: Day 6 -- Saturday, 23 June 2009

Were recommended by yesterday's driver uncle that Kinabalu has nice noodles, so we decided to give it a try. We woke up early and went to this coffee shop near Xplorer Backpackers. It was packed with people. It has a noodles stall and a laksa stall.

The malay auntie who took orders was very interesting - "what do you want to eat?" She said "we have MeeGia,MeePok,....,BanMien." She was speaking so fast that it sounded like a rap. It took us awhile to understand what she was trying to say =p

We ordered (Left) Mee Kia Soup and (Right) Mee Pok Dry. The noodles were average, but the char siew was delicious.

After breakfast, we got ready for check-out. The check-out time for Xplorer Backpackers is 1pm. As we will only be back from rafting at around 2pm, we did an early check-out.

Qin wanted to throw away her shoes which are still in good conditions. Reason being Apple will buy her another one... Greedy Qin! =p

Xplorer Backpackers allowed us to deposit our luggage at the small corner to the left of the reception. We were also allowed to use their facilities when we were back from rafting which was pretty nice of them.

It was a 1.5 hrs ride from Xplorer Backpackers to the Asia Paddler Whitewater centre. The journey is said to have a spectacular view of Mt. Kinabalu, paddy fields, water buffulos and Kiulu village. However, the drive was too bumpy for me. To prevent motion sickness from setting in, I willed myself to sleep after taking a motion sickness pill and putting on the seaband. I still felt a little giddy upon arrival at our destination but no serious symptoms.

There are 4 different grades of river for rafting in Kota Kinabalu.
Class 1-2 – Kiulu River
Class 1-3 – Kadamaian River
Class 3-4 – Padas River
Class 2-3 – Liwagu River

As we had a non-swimmer (Ping) and a first time rafter (Joyce) in our group, we chose the Class 1-2 – Kiulu River, which turned out to be the right choice.
All the other rivers require a full day rafting; Kiulu River is the only one with the half day rafting.

Kiulu River Rafting Tour

We were each given a life jacket, a helmet and a paddle before being divided into groups.

There were a total of 5 rafts. We had 8 people on our raft – 5 of us, a couple and the guide. The rafting tour began with a briefing session from our guide. He showed us how to use the paddle and how to get back onto the raft after a capsize. Then we all clambered onto the raft before our guide pushed the raft into the river.

Kiulu River is a rather calm river. Its shallowness (compared to the Xiugulu River Lynn and me went through in Taiwan, Hualien) resulted in less exciting rapids. It’s almost impossible to capsize unless you allow yourself to. Nevertheless, it suited us at that moment – we are still too tired for any extreme activities.

(Left) Padas River (Right) Kiulu River - Can you see the difference?

Our raft often get stuck on the big rocks on the river bed due to the shallowness of the river, but our guide always got us out of the fix by getting us to shift our weight to the front or the back of the raft.

The rocks, however, allowed us to ‘park’ our raft when we need to. There is one instance when our guide’s helmet fell into water. He parked the raft on one of the big rocks while waiting for the helmet to float within reach – it’s pretty cool to watch him manipulate the raft.

Our guide also tried to made the rafting experience more ‘exciting’ by doing little stunts like trying to push Joyce overboard and pouring water over my head @_@
It was entertaining watching Joyce’s reaction =p

There are several parts of the river (known as natural calming pools) where we can stop and jump in for a cooling swim.

It was during the first stop that we came to know that the group in the other 4 rafts are members of the Harley Davidson Club! They rode all the way here from Brunei!!! It’s likely that they were the same group we saw on the way down from Mt. Kinabalu, though we did not have a chance to ask.

Ping decided to try swimming in the river. She had her life jacket on so the probability of her drowning was pretty low. However, to be on the safe side, I decided to stay beside her. True enough, she started to panic as we drifted away from the river bank to the middle of the river – she no longer could feel the stones beneath her. She held on to me tightly. I tried in vain to convince her that the life jacket would keep her afloat and she could let go of me and try swimming – I was, after all, within reach. After a few round of failed persuasion, I decided that she should return to shore.

However, with my Teva sandals on and Ping clinging on me, I couldn’t move upstream no matter how hard I swam. We could see Lynn, Joyce and Qin happily climbing up rocks and diving into the river with the rest of the groups but they seemed not to realise our ‘disappearance’ and we tried in vain to catch their attention. =(

Finally, I gave up trying and told Ping “Let’s drift with downstream to the opposite river bank and let the raft picked us up later. It should be easier that way.”

I meant to calm her down by saying this. Instead, she panicked more. -_-

Left with no choice, I shouted loudly to the nearest guide (who was still quite far away). Coupled with some hand gesture, I managed to get him to understand that help was needed!

He swam towards us and took Ping away from me. At last, I am able to swim forward.

Exhausted, we sat at the river bank watching the others play.

Shortly, we were on the raft again. The raft drifted slowly along with the river flow allowing us to enjoy the tranquil surroundings.

The quiet moment was shattered when Qin looked into the water and absentmindedly made a comment on the water skaters in the river. She said “(Chinese) (hmmm…the kungfu masters must have learnt to walk on water by observing these little creatures…)”

We burst out laughing and once again the raft was full of laughter and chatter.

This is just so ‘Qin’. She never fails to generate funny ideas.

At the last natural calming pool, our guide taught us to perform a high 5 with our paddles by first, holding up and touching each others’ paddles (the high 5) followed by slapping the paddles on the water surface with a loud ‘PIAK’.
But no matter how hard we tried, we only managed a dull ‘thud’ and a pain in our arms….

Then we paddled full force towards the ending point where our BBQ lunch was waiting for us.

Our mischievous Guide & us

Our lunch & it's finishing fast...

Thanks to the Harley Davidson Group, we had a more sumptuous lunch – they actually changed the menu of the BBQ!

It was 2pm when we were back in Xplorer Backpackers. After bath, we decided to laze at the TV area, watching TV.

Soon, it was 5pm. As our flight is at 11pm, we had to find somewhere which will allow us to have a long dinner.

We chose the Italian restaurant at Jesselton Hotel.

After exploring the menu for 20 minutes, we put in our first round of order ...

Appetizer(Shitake Mushroom with spinach - This is yummy! The spinach was mixed with some light mayonnaise and the taste blended very well with the mushroom.

Seafood spaghetti (Dry) -This is nice too. The seafood used was fresh and the noodles was nicely done.

Pizza - This is not as nice as the two dishes before. Though the seafood used was just as fresh, the pizza base sauce did not blend in well enough.

We had to remind ourselves repeatedly to eat slowly. We took the extra effort to chew more before swallowing. It was difficult at first but soon we got the 'hang' of it!

The second round ...

Calamari

Lamb stew

The calamari and lamb stew were nothing fantastic. We decided to move on to the dessert.

I suggested ordering 2 desserts to be shared between the 5 of us as I was never a dessert person and I was already quite full.

The Tiramisu was horrible! Never had I tasted such a yucky Tiramisu - the cake was soggy and the rum wasn't fragrant at all!

Yummy Brownie with oogling hot chocolate

This was the kind of dessert that even I, the non-dessert person couldn not resist! It was simply too delectable! The bubbling hot chocolate was rich but not overly sweet. It tasted heavenly together with the crusty brownie! We were so in love with the dessert that we ordered another one.

The chef indicated on the menu that he invented this dessert for his wife - his wife must have felt very touched when she ate this!

Finally, our last drinks...(I bet the manager must have had enough of us by now =p)

(Left)Green apple Juice (Right)Green apple+pineapple juice)

Joyce waiting 'anxiously' for her drink...

Is this what I have ordered?

Qin got a super yucky strawberry milkshake which we suspected that the ice cream was spoiled @_@

Finally, something decent!

It was 8pm when we called for the bill! Despite eating so much, the bill turned out to be rather reasonable as there was a 50% discount promotion going on at that moment. =D

We then headed back to Xplorer Backpackers as the airport transfer was supposed to pick us up at 8.30pm.

Taking photo while waiting for the transport to arrive (Photoshop edited =p)

9pm: The transport still had not arrived! Angrily, I called Alvin Quek (our contact from Exotic Adventure) who said he will check it out for me. Five minutes later, he called back saying that the arranged transport had broke down on the way here and he would arranged another transport for us.

We were so pissed. If the arranged tranport had indeed broken down, he should have already been informed about it and not only know when I called him! It must have slipped his mind to arrange for the transport!

Moments later, I recieved an SMS from him saying that the newly arranged transport would only arrived at 9.30pm and assured us that we would not missed the flight. He did not even date to call me!-_-

The transport arrived alight before 9.30pm. The driver sped all the way. Luckily, we did reach KKIA safe and sound, and in time for check-in.