Kg Ulu Geruntum

That's the name of the place where we started our whitewater rafting adventure on Saturday. It's somewhere in Kampar, Perak.

The 5 of us took the 7.30am bus from Puduraya to Ipoh, where Charis, Viv and Eric met us. Then we rendezvous with Nad, Pang and Kun at the Gopeng toll plaza. The convoy of 4 cars then headed towards Gua Tempurung where an Uhuru (the rafting guide company) rep was waiting.

We arrived there, and promptly climbed into the lorry (yes, the 4WD turned out to be a lorry!) that will take us to the starting point - Kg Ulu Geruntum.

Amy was our head guide, and he assigned us to Kado and Mickey the other 2 raft captains. We split into 2 groups, I got in a raft with Iz, Diana, Pang and Kun with Kado as the captain.

So we head into the river with only 2 out of 11 actually know anything about whitewater rafting before. We learned the correct floating technique, the manouvreing techniques etc, and before long off we go!

It goes on about 9km, with the rapids on a scale of between 1.5-3. That means it's okay for us beginners lor. For grade 4-5, better leave it to the more seasoned veterans.

And there we were, 7 bankers, 1 HR manager, 1 insurance agent, 1 fashion consultant and 1 something-or-the-other (sorry Pang) working our way down the river, getting ourselves wet and wild. Wait, that doesn't sound so kosher.

We stopped at the midway point to take a (voluntary) dip to cool off (rather than the involuntary ones, which tend to make some of us panicky). The final stretch of the journey is almost sightseeing, the rapids are very mild (Honeymoon Rapid, Kado said)and the sight was awesome. Arrived at the finishing point sometime after 2pm, and proceeded to mandi sungai some more before heading back to Gua Tempurung for lunch.

Lunch was the only part of the trip we regretted. All of us, besides Irene, got diarrhoea. We're blaming the chicken curry.

It was a fun trip, a pity I can't take any pictures (you try it, and see if you can). This trip was well worth it. Next, looking forward to Kuching and Rainforest World Music Fest in July!