Last Stop, India

I had a couple of days in Kathmandu (a fair bit of time was spent in Tom & Jerry's) before flying out with Louise and Clarky (who were working in Voss this summer in Norway) to Delhi.

We had a hassle free adventure to Rishikesh. The car Ganesh had organised to collect us from the airport in Delhi was on time, the driver had very good English (didn't freak us out with scary driving which is a bonus), and best of all we had a massive, air conditioned car!

We got to Rishikesh pretty late at night, maybe 2am so we just crashed at Arvind's house on some spare mattresses on the floor before finding a hotel the next day. We were lucky to get a cheap room in a very clean, modern hotel with hot water, a balcony and even TV!

I had only 5 days in India so I spent 3 of them on the river kayaking with the Red Chilli gang. I also got to meet up with 2 other Danish kayakers who were working in Evje, Norway this summer as well as old friends such as Flow (from Austria) and the Kiwis from the bungee jump.

It was a pretty quick visit to India but I was happy I got to see all my friends and was also very excited about flying out to spend the winter season in Whistler, Canada.

Marvelous Marsyangdi!

Chris about to enter the first main rapid below the rafting put-in

Wow! The Marsyangdi was one of the most beautiful, breathtaking rivers I have ever been on. Apart from spectacular views of the Annapurna range, the Marsyangdi is easily one of most kayakers favourite rivers to paddle in the world because of the steep, technical rapids and continuous class IV whitewater.

Chris scouting 'Mammas Big Butt'. A rapid which was a lot easier than it looked when we scouted with a very intimidating hole at the bottom!

Chris entering 'Mammas Big Butt'

Making the move to avoid the sticky hole

Chris more than happy to get down 'Mammas Big Butt'

After a night in Besisahar (and recovering from the 'Magic Bus'), Daz (owner of Pure Land Expeditions), Chris and took a jeep with our kayaks up to the put-in (just a bit further up from the commercial rafting put-in). Our plan for the day was to paddle from here and down to the dam then get the local bus back to Besisahar so we could stay in the warm hotel again as some of the teahouses further down can be rather grim.

At first both Chris and I were a little apprehensive because we had been told the Marsyangdi was 'the river' to do in Nepal and that it was steep, technical, fast, pushy and that the water level was also at medium flow.

Because we had our river guru Daz with us we were able to take our time getting down the river and the stress very quickly went away. Daz spent a lot of time with both of us focusing on reading steep sections of river and choosing appropriate lines down the rapids without having to get out of our boats to scout. We had a few times where we did have to scout but the new approach to reading the river definitely helped me feel a lot more confident in not only where I was going but also in my ability with my skill level to run the river.

Chow Mein lunch stop with a lot of curious kids

Women cutting grass below the hut where we ate our lunch

One of our spectators at our lunch spot

It all wasn't so easy going all the time. There were a few occasions where I found myself having a small surf in a couple of holes and flipping upside down against undercut rocks but I was surprised at how friendly the holes on the river were and dealt with these problems as they arose.

At the end of the day Chris and I were so exhilarated at the fact we had finally experienced this much talked about river.

A very dodgy hat we found a Nepali boy wearing at the take-out of the first day

Daz unloading our kayaking after our first day on the river. Unfortunately 'Prince' wasn't available for this photo

We got the local bus back to Besisahar and found the bus boy had a close resemblance to Prince. We all decided to sit on the roof of the bus with our gear and sing through some of Prince's classics with a bit of George Michael thrown in there.

There was then a couple of hours to spare before dinner and due to being pretty much in the middle of nowhere we weren't quite sure how to entertain ourselves.

We decided to go for a walk in the village. Daz made friend's with a young boy and told him our names were 'Tony Blair' and 'Margaret Thatcher'. The young boy obviously had no idea what was going on and eventually lost interest in us.

Then came the idea from Daz about the Class 5 Street Eating Challenge. Pretty much we would walk along the street, find something dodgy and dare each other to eat it and then give the food a rating like you would in white water. We even made the challenge more complex in the way we could get each other to run it 'blind' with 'no portage' allowed.

We ate probably a kg in sugar in Nepali sweets before dinner then it was time for bed.

View of the Annapurnas on our drive to the put-in below the dam on day 2

The next day we put in below the dam and we had some exciting rapids to start the day off with. After about an hour the river calmed down a lot and we had some spectacular views of the Annapurna ranges.

At the end of the day we hiked out of the river straight to a local dhal bhat place where we had some of the best dhal I've had in Nepal before we parted ways (Daz & Chris heading onto Pokora and myself to Kathmandu).

Last day on the Marsyangdi with a beautiful view of the Annapurnas in the background

The Magic Bus

A one-sentence summary cannot describe the bus journey I had with Chris and Daz on a local bus to Besisahar. Most individuals would have been complaining from the beginning, possibly before they even set sight on the bus or knew what was inside. I guess for me the only way to sum this particular bus ride up with one word is ‘entertaining’.

The bus first pulled up to where Daz, Chris and I were drinking chai and exclusively collected us before going to pick up the locals. While Daz was securing our kayaks and paddles on the roof of the bus I made sure we all got the good seats inside. I chose the front rows with ‘extra’ leg room and was pretty proud of my selection, especially after sitting next to Chris on the tourist bus before we got out to transfer where Chris had a lady recline her seat back so quickly it almost chopped his legs off! As she moved her seat 5cm forward and said ‘is that better?’ Chris replied ‘…uh not really, I can’t feel my legs’.

Our luxury moment of the front row with extra leg room was short lived. After about 5 minutes the bus started to fill up…..and up….and up. When we thought it was full, it wasn’t. I’m sure if you could stack people in the overhead luggage racks that would have also been an option for the bus company.

There were many things crammed into the bus, I could even hear a goat bleating from somewhere in the back (goats and chickens were expected). People then began to squish in the front around the driver, and in front of Chris and I, substantially narrowing our leg room and room in the aisle besides Chris to the point if the window of the bus was open we probably would have been pushed out.

Chris made a funny comment about the man sitting facing me trying to play footsies with me. I looked down and realised he had no shoes on and his feet were on top of mine.

We could hear Daz’s voice saying something but even though he was in the seat just opposite us we couldn’t see him anymore.

An elderly lady got onto the bus and I was in shock that the lady behind us wouldn’t move over to let her sit there. Chris thought she looked like the old Gypsy women in Drag Me to Hell. She could barely stand up along and it took a while for people to eventually move the young lady out and let the old lady sit down on a sit along with another aged woman.

When we thought the bus was at it’s maximum load the bus boy tried to haul a giant black steel chest onto the bus that seemed to have bigger dimensions than the door way they were trying to haul it through. It seemed incredibly heavy and Chris, Daz and I tried to guess what was inside. Possible explanations were: a dead body, Sinfrid and Roy/David Copperfield.

The black chest just allowed a few more people to be squeezed into the bus as now babies could use the top the chest to sit on.

It was around a 30km bus ride but it took well over 3 hours. Whenever the driver saw someone he knew he would stop and have a conversation.

After a few stops a man came on and was standing next to Chris. His body was against his shoulder and Chris leaned over and said to me “I think that guy is smuggling Mars Bars in his pocket’’ ‘

’Why?’’

‘’Because there’s something hard pressing up against my shoulder’’

After an hour he was gone and a lady with her baby took his place. Chris felt something warm and wet on his shoulder and our conclusion was the baby might have peed on his shoulder.

Every now and again we would hear Daz yelling out ‘hey are you guys okay?’. We couldn’t see his version of the Magical Bus ride but I’m sure it was something pretty epic like ours.

We stopped in one village and spent 20min there while someone went shopping for a tarp. I badly wanted to go to the toilet but the driver refused to let me get off. I guess he realised I would have to climb over him to get out and now it was raining and he didn’t want to get wet. I figured there might be some ‘other’ type of rain on the bus if he didn’t hurry up and go. The thought did pass through my mind about cutting up a bottle and use your imagination for the rest but I’m sure it would have been a disaster.

We had a few more passengers on the bus. When we got to the point where there was no more visible space one lady got on the driver’s seat and sat with him for the rest of the journey.

I was pretty happy when we got to Besisahar and so was Chris (because he got feeling back in his legs again and had no more Mars or Snickers Bars pressing against his shoulder). Daz just seemed happy he could actually see us again!

So that was the Magic Bus journey to Besisahar where we would spend the night and get onto the Marysandi River the following day.

We did have another (much shorter) bus ride the following day with a bus boy who we named Prince but that’s another story.

No this isn't our bus (we didn't have enough room to get our cameras out!)

Now to the Far East - Epic Trip on the Tamur

*Flipped gear raft on the second scout first day on the river (all beer supplies lost, 2 lost oars and lunch down the river);

*Day 2 on the river: front tube of the customer raft exploded (we waited 2 days on the beach for a new raft to arrive from Kathmandu)

*Third day rafting: Garth dislocated his shoulder in class 1-2 water

*And….. too many ‘’big jobs’’ between the whole group to count!

Yes the Tamur trip was an epic but most of us found the carnage highly entertaining! The Tamur River is in fair Eastern Nepal and involved a 2 day local bus ride (some people flew which meant they had 1 day on a local bus), 4 day hike in and 6 days on the river (but for us it was cut down to 5 days on the river and 2 lay-over days on a beach).

So where to start? 4 of us decided to get the local bus with all the gear to the put-in (Karoline from Norway and Jesper & Garth who are kayakers who worked in Norway this season). For me I have slowly got used to insane driving in India but our bus driver was a maniac! He started the bus journey around 4pm and was still driving until around 2pm the following day before we changed drivers. He still stayed with us on the bus and kind of stunk of alcohol before he was relieved of his duties but once he finished driving he made a point of having his own personal rum party on the bus!

View just outside our mountain hotel the first morning of our hike in

One of the children absolutely fascinated by the fellow Canadian Cory

He was pretty fast for our liking and we broke down 2 hours before we were meant to pick up the other clients from the airport in a town who’s name I cannot remember for 4 hours. Luckily for the other Nepali staff on the bus with us the four of us were pretty easy going about the bus journey and saw the lighter side of things.

The night before we started hiking we stayed at a mountain teahouse that reminded me something out of a fairytale like Hansel & Gretel. We had the best Nepali dhal bhat I had tasted so far and each of the rooms we slept in were so small they only had enough room to fit the beds in so they felt very cosy and had a warm feel to them.

The following day we started the 4-day hike. Karoline and I stayed out front for most of the 4 days hiking which gave us a lot of experiences that the other part of the group missed (but I think they would have had special experiences of their own).

The 4 days of hiking were a lot easier than I expected. Nights were extremely cold though even in a down sleeping bad with a down jacket and all my thermals on!

Young girl sitting outside one of the tea shops on the first day of hiking with what looks like her own tea stall

One of the many Yaks we saw coming down the mountain

During the first two days Karoline and I made friends with two Israeli boys hiking who offered us tea and biscuits. Our paths kept crossing during the hiking trail. We were also extremely lucky on our last day of hiking. We were both out in front and passed a small village that were holding a polja. There were Nepali girls and boys dancing around the polja and then they performed a group dance for the village. We felt strange passing by but were really fascinated about what was going on. Some Nepali villagers invited Karoline and I to join in with the girls dancing, gave us chai then made a special spot for us to sit on the ground and watch the festivities. Some of them spoke English but Karoline tried to initiate all her conversations in Nepali, as she has been living and studying in Kathmandu the last 6 months. Locals usually appreciate a few Nepali words such as thankyou and hello but whenever people realise Karoline can speak Nepali they are so fascinated.

Goat line up!

Karen taking a quick nap on the 3rd day of our hike in

Corn stacked up to dry in the warm Nepali sun

Karoline and I were lucky enough to pass by a small village where celebrations were taking place. We both were invited to dance with the girls, drink chai and then watch a performance including dancing and singing.

Villagers watching the performance

The last day of hiking we arrived a campsite that backed onto the Tamur River and we were all able to wash in a side creek that was amazing! After 2 days on a bus and 4 days hiking it was such a relief to get semi-clean in the creek even if it meant putting smelly clothes on afterwards!

Onlooker at the put-in of the Tamur River

I was pretty nervous the morning of our first day on the river. I had been given so many different explanations of what the Tamur River would be like. I guess I had this image in my mind that it was going to be steep, huge and full on continuous! But I was surprised, it was all read and run and where there were more difficult rapids we stopped and scouted.

Garth on the first rapid of the Tamur River

Chris running safety down the first rapid of the Tamur River

I really enjoyed the second rapid (first scout) of the day but it was a little intimidating after scouting and choosing my line that when I entered the rapid there was so much water I almost couldn’t see anything but made it down fine.

First scout on the Tamur River

Garth styling the second rapid of the Tamur River

Clients with wide eyes after getting down the second rapid on day 1 of the Tamur River

Chris waiting in an eddy at the bottom of the second rapid of day 1 on the Tamur

Our second scout was one of the longest rapids on the river for the entire multiday trip. It also caused the most carnage!

I ran down first with Chris the Nepali safety kayaker and we stopped half way down and waited for Garth and Jesper to follow us in the kayaks. It was exciting watching the boys come down, especially when Garth hit one of the holes we were trying to avoid but he did a super job holding on and coming out of it.

Next up was Stan guiding the raft with all the clients. There was a moment when he got a friendly surf in a pour over parallel to me when I had a 5 second thought that there could be a possible flip but he was in control and gave the clients safe lines down the rest of the rapid.

Now we were about half an hour into the trip and this is when all the excitement began! Kumal and Umesh were in the gear raft and I saw them get spun out and hit an extremely big hole and got huge surf. All of a sudden the raft was upsidown and Kumal and Umesh were swimming like Olympic swimmers to the closest eddy. Because the guides were safe and I realised there wasn’t much I could do to help with the raft because it had already gone past me I tried to save some of our lunch which was floating down the river (bread in a plastic bag which wasn’t yet wet. The noodles had already gone past me pretty quickly!). I wasn’t really sure what was going on downstream at this stage but was later told that during the flip a rock fell on the bow line of Stan’s raft, slowing them down to get out of an eddy to chase the gear raft. Cory the Canadian then was asked to hold onto a rope which the other kayakers had attached to the gear raft and hold onto it (imagine a lot of weight and tension) while Stan was trying to push it into the bank. The clients had to paddle a lot and Chris the safety kayaker did a pro job of helping get the raft to shore also. Meanwhile Kumal, Umesh and I were upstream and I had to help them get down the river to where everyone else was.

Stan going hard over a pour over on one of the longest rapids on the Tamur. Our second scout and rapid with the most carnage of the entire Tamur trip

So with our first flip (and hopefully last flip) on the trip we had lost 2 oars, the pump, a load of cutlery and plates and we were lunch less for the rest of the day. And maybe what some people considered the most important thing……all the beer was gone! I can imagine there were a lot of lucky people fishing downstream who got those beers!

We finished off some more beautiful rapids then pulled into our first beach camp for the trip. We were pretty tired after a long day on the river and Stan once again did a great job of preparing us an amazing dinner.

The next morning it took a while to pack the rafts up. All of us in kayaks were kitted up and on the water ready to go then I heard what sounded like an explosion. I thought maybe something happened in a village over the hill but I looked over to see the entire front tube of the client raft had exploded!

Chris preparing lunch at our first beach camp

Curious young girl at our first beach camp on the Tamur

Carnage on the second day and we hadn’t even gone down the river yet. I was surprised how calm Stan remained but I think he was holding some frustration in very well. Within 30min he had arranged a new raft to be bought to us from Kathmandu so we spent the next two days relaxing on the beach, reading, sleeping and drinking some of the 28L of rum bought on the trip.

Our raft finally arrived and we were once again ready to go. We had 2 scouts on our second day of white water and one rapid which still remains in my mind was Dinosaur Rock which was a narrow rapid with a lot of water which was super fun but pretty powerful.

Stan charging down Dinosaur Rapid on the second day of whitewater

Chris giving one of the boys a lift to the other side of the river

A steep rapid which for me seemed to come out of nowhere. What a nice surprise!

The river then eased off for the next 2 days. There were still some great rapids but it wasn’t so continuous anymore.

Our last day on the river was the most intense. There were over 40 rapids and we had about 4 scouts on this day. All of a sudden I was told we had finished the section of the Tamur and I felt sad because I didn’t want the day to end because I was having so much fun.

We set up camp at the confluence of the Tamur and Sun Kosi rivers in the afternoon then Karoline, Cory and I wandered a little bit in the village (Cory was extremely happy to find they sold cold beers at one of the shops). We still had one jug of rum left and Stan made sure it was all finished before we went to bed.

Karoline enjoying the warm sun at one of our lunch stops

Jesper & Garth making it down one of the scouts on our last day of paddling on the Tamur

Brilliant whitewater on the last day of the Tamur

The next day was our last day before Karoline, Jesper, Garth and I had an overnight local bus journey to Kathmandu (everyone else was sensible and flew back). We had about an hour of paddling on the Sun Kosi River then we stopped half way down to see a temple. We then arrived at our take out point and crossed paths with a few other trips that had been on a multiday Sun Kosi trip.

We had a pretty good feed of dhal bhat before the bus ride back to Kathmandu. That was another story in itself (lets just say it involved a chicken in a bag which was kept on the floor of the bus……).

Our last lunch stop on the Tamur, with one day left down the Sun Kosi

Last Major Rapid on the Tamur

Garth resting after our last day on the Tamur River

Jesper and Cory stoked to have finished the section of whitewater on the Tamur River

Karoline deciding if she wants to support the local economy

The Tamur River was an epic but a good epic because now we all have a lot of exciting and funny stories to tell. I have been waiting for the day for some rafting carnage so one day I can tell these stories around the campfire by the river somewhere.