* Rafting Ride To Sungei Selangor

The Ride With A Different Twist
by: ms goh su fang - the petite biker on a petite bike

The time was 11.30pm on 28 April 2002 at Gelang Petah Petronas (southbound). The trip odometer on my bike read 882 km. This was the total distance we covered for the past two days. It might have been a breeze for the big bikes, but for me and my Yamaha RXZ125, it was a real experience, man!
This was the first trip this year by our 3rd Organising Secretary, Zamran aka Valkaholic. The response was overwhelming with 21 participants, comprising of 17 bikes and 1 car.

Marshalls: Zamran, Florence, Alex, Kevin Teo, Ralizan

Participants – Paul Kan & Hui Ming, Peter Png, Andy Ng, Hui, Adam, Ishak, Sulaiman, Leo, John Paul Low, Lee, Gear & 2 girls (car), Vincent & I.

When we rode into GP Esso at 8.15am on the day before, almost everybody was already there. After the usual route and safety briefing, we were ready to set off before 9am. Being the first long ride for me, I was very “on the ball” and was ready before everyone else. Seeing that, Zamran and Alex signalled me to move off first since I would be the slowest in the group.

I rode off, hit the highway and maintained a speed of between110 – 120km/h. But within 10km, almost everybody had caught up with me. Sad, we were just in a different league. I had hoped that the group would not get too tired waiting for me. The weather was sunny but not too hot. I was enjoying every bit of the journey, the freedom and sense of satisfaction on my metal stallion. About 30 km from our breakfast stop at Pagoh R&R, Ralizan our sweeper rode up to me to check whether I had enough petrol in my tank. I signalled that I was okay, and he moved back to the back of the group. I was very touched. Storm Riders marshals are really great!! At Pagoh R&R, I had a quick breakfast, picked up some highway riding tips from some very helpful riders, topped up my bike, and was ready to continue with the journey up north. The next stop was Dengkil R&R, where a few in the group stopped for lunch while the rest waited at the petrol station. With the help of Vincent, I topped up 2T for my RXZ. It was drinking 2T like the parched desert. I wonder if it was normal? After that, we joined the rest in the mini-mart for a cool chit-chat session. Half an hour later, we saw Gear’s dark blue Merc driving into the petrol station. They did not notice Alex aka Babara (wonder where he got his new name) under an umbrella marking at the turn, and had to do a big U-turn to meet up with us. When everybody was ready to leave, Florence pointed at my front tyre, “Not enough air!”. Vincent then helped me pumped up my tyres while everyone waited. Very “pai seh" man, it’s me again! Finally when all were ready we proceeded to our final destination Kuala Kubu Baru at the foot of Fraser’s Hill. After another short stretch of highway riding, we took Exit 118 and the rest of the journey was on trunk roads with pretty heavy traffic. Since the pick up of my bike is not very good (or is it me, since they always say “it’s the rider not the bike”), I did not have confidence to overtake and had to follow behind the long stretch of lorry, pick-ups, cars, vans and so on. After about half an hour of hot and dusty ride, we arrived at our campsite. I was actually prepared for the worst as Zamran said that it would be the local equivalent of OBS Camp, and during my school days, OBS Camp wasn’t what it is now. So I was very happy to see chalets complete with a big living room with sofas and colour TV, two private air-conditioned bedrooms (triple-share) and a big bathroom. Some of the chalets were smaller without the living room but I guess they were just as comfy. Vincent and I were in a room with Alex, and our other housemates were Paul Kan, Hui Ming and Florence. We cleaned up and had a short rest. Meanwhile, Alex, Vincent, Florence and Paul Kan were looking at the map and toying with the possibility of riding up Fraser’s Hill or Genting Highlands. These are real hard-core riders! At 4.30pm, some of us met to ride out for dinner. Just when we were about to leave, it started to rain. While the rest struggled to put on rain gears, Alex decided to take the gamble as he speculated that there would be no rain after the T-junction judging from the clouds and wind direction. And, true enough at the T-junction, there was no more rain! While there were the hard-core riders, there were some who didn’t mind being a pillion for a change. Among them was Peter Png, who got a ride of his lifetime on the Wild Flying Auntie Eagle’s newly-acquired Varadero1000. For the journey back, he decided to test out being a passenger on John Paul’s ST. Anybody wants to guess why he decided to switch? When we arrived at Tg Malim for lunch-cum-dinner (for some of us), the rain started to get heavier. But some die-hards still decided to drop by the pasar malam hunting for snacks like you zha guai, malay poh piah, fried chicken, soya bean curd etc. before settling down at the dinner table. For me, I was too hungry and thirsty to walk any farther. So I headed straight for the restaurant and helped myself to the first edible food I could set my eyes on – fresh coconut! We had a sumptuous dinner with dishes like sambal prawn and sotong, deep fried chicken, soup, steamed ginger fish, herbal chicken and sambal kang kong. The food was pretty good but the portion was a bit too big. After we filled up our stomachs, the next problem was what to do for the rest of the night. Alex offered us two choices – 1. Go back to the chalet to play Charade, 2. Ride up Genting for Starbucks Coffee. With not too many supporters for the Genting idea, we decided to hang around Tg Malim until 8.30pm before going back. Some of us were craving for a nice hot cup of coffee after dinner so we moved on to the coffee shop on the other side of the pasar malam. We sat in the “open air café” sipping coffee, chatting and enjoying the peace and quiet of this small town until it started to rain again. We moved into the coffee shop reluctantly. That was when Florence noticed that the local popular yong tau foo stall was starting business for the night. She immediately ordered a big bowl of yong tau foo to share with Hui Ming. Seriously, her stomach capacity is amazing! And that’s not the end, on our way back to our bikes through the pasar malam, she was snacking all the way! Back at the chalet after a nice cool shower, I decided to turn in early in anticipation of a long tiring day the following day, while the others watched TV and chatted till the wee hours… At exactly 6.30am the following morning, I was woken up by the vibration of the Valkyrie engine and the sound of its horn. What a unique alarm clock! I thought to myself and went back to sleep. At about 6.45am, I was woken again this time by the noisy geese in the pond behind our chalet. This time I decided it was time to get up and dragged myself out of bed. As I was washing up, I glanced out of the window and guess what I saw, Andy doing his morning jog! And I thought he was joking when he was talking about it the day before. Meanwhile in our chalet one by one everybody started to get up and queue for the bathroom. When I saw Hui Ming who still had her earplugs on, she started to complain about how noisy Florence was. On top of her “famous” snore, every time she moved the bed would emit a loud squeaking sound! I was so glad I never had the chance to room with her. We took a slow 10-minute walk to the Rafting Center just next to our camp. Breakfast was simple but delicious – roti canai, nasi lemak & bananas. All high carbohydrate food and we were soon to find out why. It was eat-all-you-want buffet style. We each filled up our plates, since there were not enough chairs, we sat on benches along the edge of the shed to enjoy our breakfast and the fresh morning air. This place was really out of the way in an “ulu” Malaysian town. We were all very curious how Zam came to know about this place. He told us he heard about rafting at Sungei Selangor and had surfed the net for more information. He came for a reccee and realised that there was no decent accommodation in the vicinity. The only choice was the campsite or to camp in the wilderness, but the campsite was only opened to local schools and companies. I don’t know what charm he used but finally he got special permission for Storm Riders to use the campsite. Thanks, Zam! After breakfast, we had a short briefing on what to bring along and what not to. The advice was to only bring along things that we did not mind getting lost, broken or wet. A dry bag was provided for the cameras we wanted to bring into the river, and a little tubing was provided as specs band for the people who wore specs. We waited excitedly for the transport which consisted of 2 cars, 1 van and a 4-wheel drive to bring us to the “put-in” point. On arrival, we were allocated helmets, PFD (Personal Flotation Device) and paddles. Following was a briefing on safety, paddling and rafting techniques. We were taught how to choose the correct helmets and PFDs for ourselves and how to put them on. The instructor then demonstrated the forward and back paddling strokes and briefed us on some simple rafting commands like “all left”, “all right”, “high side”, “all front”, “all back” and “sit-in”. These commands would be given by the captain of each raft to guide the raft through tight areas in the rapids and ensure that the raft did not capsize. Lastly, we were taught what to do and how to get back into the raft if we fell into the water. We were then instructed to divide ourselves into groups of 4 or 5 and get into the rafts. Other than the participants, each raft also had an “oars-man” in front who was responsible for the directional control of the raft (and did the most paddling work) and a captain behind. We paddled a short distance to an open area named “Flip Corner” for some capsize drill. We split into 2 groups with each group taking a raft and began to practise “all left”, “all right”, “high side”, “all front”, “all back” etc, and of course with some capsizes in between, which was where all the fun was. It was pretty easy to get everyone back into the raft except Florence. It was really a feat and I often wondered how it felt to have her sitting on you? After the exercise, we began the adrenaline-pumping ride through the 9 rapids, graded from 2 to 4, the First Canyon, Second Canyon, Chute, Chicken Drop and so on. The most memorable one was the one where our raft and most of the others capsized. We had cleared a few of the rapids and were already quite confident. Before moving into the rapids, our captain told us the technique to clear this one was to go “all left” for 3 seconds and move back quickly to normal position. We paddled past Alex’s raft and he commented, “This raft sure capsize one.” Before his words sank in, our captain shouted: “All left!” I was on the left side of the raft with Peter Png and Leo, and Vincent and Florence were on the right. I felt Florence suddenly rolling over and the next thing I knew I was already in the water. Our raft had capsized throwing all of us into the river and we were swept into the rapids. It was a rude shock but thinking back, it was definitely more fun than clearing all the rapids successfully. White Water Rafting is actually quite a dangerous sport, that’s why we were asked to sign the indemnity form before the activity. With proper equipment like helmets and PFDs, and safety procedures like clearing the rapids one raft at a time with the guides stationed at various positions on the river back armed with throw ropes, accidents can still happen if we were not careful. In our group, Hui was the unlucky one and was hit in the face by someone’s paddle. The impact broke one of his front teeth (luckily it was only a denture) but his nose bled quite badly. The other person was Hui Ming who slipped and fell a few times while moving along the slippery river bank. There were 2 rest stops where we had Snickers Bar, Uncle Toby’s, fruits and others. At the first rest stop, we also tried out Body Rafting where we jumped into the river with our face facing up and drifted downstream. We needed to hold our breath to prevent water from going into our nose and mouth, and also straighten our backs so that we would not hit our bums against the rocks. But some of us learnt these the hard way. The second rest stop was at a waterfall. We took turns to go below the waterfall. Alex laid face down right under the gushing waters for a nice massage. He claimed that solved his back problem. I wish I had tried that too – my poor back! After the second rest stop it was slow moving water all the way. We enjoyed the scenery and the sun, and some slipped into the water for a swim while our guides did most of the work. When we reached the “take-out” point, our captain shouted, “Paddles up!” We raised our paddles to hit his and then brought them down to slap the water surface, at the same time shouting: “Eeh hah!” This was to acknowledge our success and we did this every time we cleared a rapid successfully. The whole journey took about 3.5 to 4 hours. After helping to carry the rafts and equipment back to the Rafting Center right next to the river bank, we washed up and had lunch. Lunch was again simple but delicious with fried rice, fried chicken, DIY sandwiches and watermelon. For entertainment, we watched our screaming faces on TV. The guides filmed a video clip of our trip and the club decided to get a copy as a souvenir. After lunch, we proceeded back to our chalets for a shower. Some managed to catch a quick nap before gathering at 4.30pm for the ride back. After a short briefing, we moved off promptly. Everything went well until right before the exit of Batang Kali, where we saw a huge jam forming ahead and it was starting to drizzle. We stopped to don our rain gears before riding into the jam. It was difficult riding with vehicles cutting in and out between lanes. I followed close behind Peter’s LT for “protection”. When we finally cleared the jam, I caught a glimpse of some remnant bike parts lying around. Afterwards, we found out it was an accident between 2 bikes with 2 fatalities. I was glad I did not see the horrible scene and when we passed by, the road was already swept clean by the rain. As we proceeded towards Dengkil R&R, the rain started to get real heavy to the extent of a drenching. Visibility was bad and we slowed down to about 50km/h. Some decided to stop to wait for the rain to get lighter while some of us decided to continue on. When we finally got to Dengkil, the rain had almost stopped. But I was drenched all over as I had forgotten to zip my jacket properly, my supposedly water proof riding pants still had water seeping through, and my cheap riding boots were not waterproofed. We had a quick top-up at Dengkil and Vincent and I left before the rest. We headed towards Pagoh and it started to get dark. I was getting cold and tired and was trying very hard to keep alert. But there was nothing I could do other than holding tightly to my handle bar and hoping to reach Gelang Patah soon. When my group arrived at Pagoh R&R for dinner, the rest were almost done and were ready to leave. The group dispersed here and everyone headed back to Singapore at their own time. The ride back was really a test of determination for me. I think even my bike could sense it and was vibrating violently at some points (till now I still can’t figure out what was wrong) to keep me awake. Like Alex said, I owe the trip to a lot of people, the organiser Zamran, the marshals who waited for me under the sun and the rain, and especially my personal marshals Andy, Peter, Hui and Vincent for escorting me all the way, keeping right in front or behind me at all times. Thanks all for a great ride!! I would also like to apologise if I have got any facts wrong or misspelt any names in the report. I got “arrowed” last minute and did not have the chance to take any notes during the trip. Thanks to John Paul Low for offering to help my not so good English before publishing the report.