chuckles... in Malaysia

The Train Ride and Beaufort Town

Our expedition started as we left our accomodations at Kota Kinabalu in the early morning and rode for an hour and a half in an early 90's toyota van, which surely had the shocks completely removed. Then we reached Beaufort, the train town. From their we headed to the river rafting via antique toy train as you can see below. It is the train used by the natives to get between the city and home, so many stops are made, even where there is no stop. The train ride was best from the open platform seen below, where you can relax with the malay wind flowing by and get a view of the lush green mountains and beautiful brownish-yellow Padas river.

As always, many of my cheesy comments can be found on the photos...

the train...

beaufort train town

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train town of Beaufort...

on the old native train...

at the train station...

the train station...

our rafting gear... yep not just the BNB have matching gear...

two happy rafters...

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the train..

our rafting crew (from right to left) the guide ben punched in the eye, the guide who steered and did all the work, the girl who could not swim, the girl who busted her knee pretty bad (she also could not swim), and, well you know the rest...

native baby on board

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on the train...

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sarai...

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I've always wanted to hang out the side... though I always pictured it on a high speed train.

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Yellow Yellow Rafting

We rafted the Padas River that runs through Southern Northeast Malaysia. They don't call it white water rafting because the water tends to be brown, great for culturing amoeba and other organisms. Some of the rapids were called "The Headhunter," "The Snake Pit," and other intimidating names. I must say, rafting is a lot like a roller coaster, nothing beats being in front, especially when it means seeing Ben smash the face of one of the rafters with his fist, when the rafter is saving our lives. Great stuff...

rafting...

Traveling There...

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traveling...

Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia

Our accomadations were in Kota Kinabalu, on the west coast of Northeast Malaysia... yes it is puzzling. There we found a great Italian restaurant and saw some of the native markets...

There will be more pictures to come of the antique toy train ride, white water rafting, and the small train-town of Beaufort...