Whitewater in The Morning! ... That's it.

Hello again Thank you all for your comments and whatnot I really appreciate it. 

About two weeks ago Kristen had abandoned me in Besisahar to do her work in the village. With only my work at the school I found myself agonizingly bored. After a thorough cleaning of the apartment I was itching for an adventure, so I sent a text to Nabin to see if he had any trips leaving and to my delight, he replied that there was a trip leaving Pokhara in three days’ time and that I would be welcome along. After two, three minute conversations.  I packed my bag that night and set out the next morning for a couple nights in Pokhara before we left for 2 days and 3 nights on the Kali Gandaki River. I had not given half a thought to who would be going on the trip, but on the bus ride a sudden fear struck me that I would be stuck on a raft with a large Chinese family that spoke little English, and I became quite sure that this would be the case. I submitted to this worst case scenario and arrived in Pokhara thinking that it would inevitably be better than sitting in Besisahar on my own. 

I arrived in Pokhara and stopped into the office, just before dark. Nabin and his wife were gathered around the office desk with a hippie looking couple, another couple dressed in well used outdoor clothing, and another woman and a baby faced young man similarly clothed. I immediately noticed that almost all of these people had chums on their sunglasses and were drinking out of plastic cups. Nabin greeted me warmly and introduced me to the group. To my surprise and delight, this was the group that was to be my companions on the river. Not only were they dressed the part of a group suited for a great river trip they were river guides themselves, from Colorado and Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Immediately settling in at the table I was offered a rum and coke in a plastic cup, and a cheers was put up at the assembly of what was to be a fantastic Himalayan river trip. 

Soon after our assembly I left the office in search of a place to sleep for the two nights before we put onto the river. I wandered north of the main tourist hub to the cheaper section of town and saw a sign that said “Hotel Espanol: Cheap sleep Rs 100” and was lured in. The place was very basic and there were no private rooms but an elevated hut accessed by a ladder where people were welcome to crash. Good enough for me. I dropped my stuff off and headed out to find some dinner with the crew. We found a fantastic little Dhal Baht place and had our fill of rice and went to the “Busy Bee” to listen to live music and have some beers. We shut the place down at the late 11 O’clock police enforced closing time and headed to my crash pad through nearly deserted streets.

A relaxing and quite boring day followed punctuated by a nap near the lake and visits to a few coffee shops. I again joined some of the crew for dinner and made it an early night to rest up for the trip ahead. We would need it and knew it because someone’s birthday was the second day of the trip.

Before I talk to much about the trip here is a rundown of the people that made up the customers and crew.

Nabin: Owner of the company. Helpful, friendly and funny.

Santos: Smiling and quiet gear boater.

Setu: Robust guide with a jolly face and a hearty laugh.  

Kisan: Safety kayaker with a permagrin.  

Rosan: 17 year old safety Kayaker with long sun-bleached tight curls, very quiet but one of my favorites.

Customers

Ariana: the one full price river customer from Holland.

Malcheck and his girlfriend: Both river guides working in Jackson Hole at an adaptive sports program for people with disabilities.

Julie:  Another Jackson Hole woman and ex river guide. (Not sure if that is actually her name but maybe)

Greg and Sam: Greg is a Colorado River guide with a huge beard and dirtbag style (not an insult). Sam is a permaculture farmer that works in Cambodia developing sustainable farming techniques with the locals.

I think I got everybody even if I had to guess on a name or two. All in all it was a wonderful group of people.

We all met at the office in Pokhara at around 7AM and set off for the River, two hours drive, in a fully loaded Micro-van. We stopped so that the Guides could eat their dhal baht and we could acquire last minute provisions including a couple gallons of Raksi and a hefty amount of Rum, intended for Greg’s birthday. By Noon our boats were pumped loaded and floating down the river. By 12:30 we were at the biggest rapid we would run on the trip “Little Brother.” The rapid was a Class 4 narrow spot in the river with a large wave in the middle that there is no getting around, followed by a couple smaller waves and a sharp turn. With our superior paddle crew we dominated the rapid after a very short scouting mission, and continued down.

Not 10 minutes later we came to “Big Brother.” This class 5 rapid strikes fear in the guides who have been around for a while. The waves are not too big but for about a 50 meter section the river narrows down to about 20 feet wide with large waves and holes all along. The water however is not the scary part of the rapid; the fear inducing part is the undercut halfway down the rapid that makes a portage necessary. Just below the largest wave in the section, on river right, is a large jagged brown boulder that juts out from the left above the flow of the water just where you would like to be on an otherwise safe line. Although our paddle crew would likely have been able to make the right move across the river out of the way, the decision was made to portage in the name of safety. A large factor of the portage decision is the lack of medical care within a day’s travel. A story that explains the fear of the wave came out later from one of the most experienced guides around. He told about someone getting their entire face ripped off. Although I wanted to run the rapid at the time, after hearing his story I was glad that we portaged.

The other company sent their gear boats through without a soul on board, and both smashed into the face maiming rock. The second of these was a cata-raft and the nose cone was blown off resulting in immediate listing to one side and difficult rowing the rest of the day. Nabin just smiled and said “I told them not to do that.”

The Dutch girl did not feel well that day and we were all a little worried that her trip was going to be ruined, or that we would have to get her off the river early so we stopped for the night a little higher than we were planning to and on the same beach as another company with a massive group of Israelis. The proximity to another group did not dampen our spirits and the party was on. Although the Israelis did not join our campfire party their guides did not hesitate to come and join in the partaking of our large supply of raksi and rum. We stayed up fairly late but not terribly and it was a shock in the morning when we realized just how big of a hit the booze had taken. This was not ideal since the next night was Greg’s birthday and supposed to be our big night.

 Perfectly spaced mild rapids and about 6 hours of floating made up the next day. We kicked back against our dry bags strapped in the middle of our raft with a cargo net on the flat sections and had a great time with our good company. The party situation however, was always in the back of our minds as we were a little short on supplies to live up to a true river guides birthday party.

We pulled up to our beach and set up camp. The Nepali guides were busy prepping a snack and dinner, and as we settled in around the table for a cup of tea a Nepali woman emerged from the jungle with a large wicker basket on her back. As she began unloading the basket we quickly realized that she was the savior of Greg’s birthday shindig, around 15 big beers and as many small bottles of rum and vodka were stacked onto the beach, and most were promptly purchased by the thirsty rafters, commencing the party. Some of the highlights were Greg freestyle rapping, (which led to an explanation of why dirt bag was a nice thing to call someone), the Nepali guides singing and dancing around the fire, Malcheck living up to his nickname “Marbles” as he mumbled through many stories, and Setu bringing the entire pot of spaghetti noodles to the fire eating out of it by hand and when he was full heading straight to bed.

The third and final day of the trip started late for obvious reasons, but it was OK because the float was short and the large Israeli group would have been in our way at the take out had we gotten there any sooner.  There was only one or two rapids that day and I decided to kayak the flat-water that we soon reached above the 5 year old dam. Nabin says that that day used to be the best of a five day trip before the dam went in. The takeout went smoothly and we began the 4 hour ride back to Pokhara.

Although we saw some very big monkeys on the second afternoon, I still have seen no sign of the Yeti. I guess that is enough for now although since this trip I have had another one day river trip and celebrated another holiday. Those will have to be for another day. Enjoy!