After all the Diwali celebrations had finished in Nepal Bjorn and I got the tourist bus to Pokora. The bus from Kathmandu to Pokora took about 7 hours but this time could have been significantly reduced as the bus stopped unnecessarily several times for 'breakfast', 'lunch' and a few pee breaks. The trip could have been managed easily in 3-4 hours.
When we arrived Pokora we found a hotel and then went straight to the Ganesh Kayak Shop, owned by a French guy called Charlie. Charlie was one of the most helpful people we met in Nepal. He has so much knowledge that he is willing to share, helps everyone find paddling buddies and even helped us with taxis to and from the river. Charlie helped Bjorn and I find someone to paddle the Upper Seti with the following day which was really nice.
Our first day on the Upper Seti we went with an Italian paddler who had come alone to Pokora. We were able to see a large amount of the river from the drive up to the put-in. Once we were on the river we heard a couple of people yelling out to us from the road above and we realised it was Caroline who we met on the Karnali trip and Mo. We waiting in an eddy for a long time hoping they would catch up to us but we eventually gave up and paddled downstream. Finally while we were scouting Caroline and Mo caught up and we were able to complete the rest of the river together.
The Upper Seti is class 3-4 and is fairly continuous. We all got a lot of boofing practice on this river which was very fun. The river is wide to begin with then there are 2 rapids which are gorged in (worth having a scout and probably the hardest 2 rapids on this section of river) before the river widens out again.
After returning from the river that afternoon we found an American kayaker called Preston who Bjorn and I met in Kathmandu and kayaked the Balephi River with. He was also keen to run the Upper Seti River so Mo, Caroline, Preston, Bjorn and I went to the Seti again the following day and kayaked the section of the river twice!
Pokora was a lot more relaxing than Kathmandu and we noticed that we did not get harassed as much for things here. Hotels were also cheaper, however food cost the same as Kathmandu. Bjorn and I decided to break the budget a bit in Pokora and splashed out on a few meals such as woodfired pizza, pasta, chicken sizzler etc. One of our favourite places to eat was Moon Dance Cafe which was reasonably priced and also had free wireless.
We followed our 2 days of kayaking on the Upper Seti with a rest day in Pokora (mostly spent by reading a book by the lake) before our long journey using the local buses back to Rishikesh, India. Surprisingly this journey went rather smoothly and took about 36 hours (including the time spent crossing to border and waiting for buses in Banbasa and getting a taxi from Hardwar to Rishikesh).
Bjorn and I really enjoyed our time in Nepal but would have loved to have kayaked some more rivers and possibly done some trekking. Unfortunately due to lack of time and money we will have to come back to Nepal another time to do these things.
Thanks to Preston for all of the photos from the Upper Seti and also to Charlie from Ganesh Kayak Shop for helping us while we were in Pokora.
