Rafting
After a few days resting decided to move onto Kathmandu via Royal Chitwan National Park. Thought it would be fun to raft there on the Seti River, a nice sedate river without the pollution of the most popular river. We shared our trip with 2 isreali girls. Dropped off at a bridge we squeezed our stuff into not so dry bags on the beach, donned our lifejackets and helmets, issued with a paddle and off we went! The rapids where gentle, at first and then one of the two guides who where with us started to bail out the water that was ankle deep. Paddling was hard work and sometimes when we were told to paddle there was no water there - we were surfing the waves! We got a chance to swim in the river which was a sureal experience, you could feel the currents through your legs like seaweed and I also stubbed my toe on several massive boulders from below - needless to say I did not let go of the boat in these warm waters.
Lunch and dinner where eaten heartily on beautiful beaches, the first day was great fun and the scenery was spectacular. A man appeared from nowhere offering beer, the four of us accepted and sat them to cool in the river.
When we decided to go to bed we discovered the guides had put out tent up right outside a ricepaddy overflow - dur! Fortunatly the tents where waterproof, less fortunate for the guides they got wet - they where sleeping under the raft.
The rain in the morning started at 6 and didnt stop till 10! The river had swollen over night and had changed from a pearly blue to a muddy brown. A new 'driver' had arrived during the night, he was taking over from here as the rapids get more - technical, comforting. This was where we had our nightmare senario - dumdass (driver) starts to show off and gets us caught on a rock in a rapid and the boat starts to fill with water, I nearly get thrown out the boat by the power of the water and we all have to get on to a rock to reboard the sinking ship!
During this commotion we lost two paddles, further down the river people had found them at the egde and we beached up to collect them. We shouldn't really of been surprised to find out that fornominal baksheesh was expected for them and that theprice negioation would take about 30mins - each paddle! David was going mad "if this was england I'd have smacked him!" Kind thanks its not and a scene was avoided.
Not a terrific first rafting expereince, especailly when in the last two rapids one guy came to the front specifically to pull the front up over the waves, we bailed water again from up to our knees - this cant be right, something tells me we where a little overloaded for this trip down river.
However we had excellent humour and company and more importantly got to Sauraha.
Lunch and dinner where eaten heartily on beautiful beaches, the first day was great fun and the scenery was spectacular. A man appeared from nowhere offering beer, the four of us accepted and sat them to cool in the river.
When we decided to go to bed we discovered the guides had put out tent up right outside a ricepaddy overflow - dur! Fortunatly the tents where waterproof, less fortunate for the guides they got wet - they where sleeping under the raft.
The rain in the morning started at 6 and didnt stop till 10! The river had swollen over night and had changed from a pearly blue to a muddy brown. A new 'driver' had arrived during the night, he was taking over from here as the rapids get more - technical, comforting. This was where we had our nightmare senario - dumdass (driver) starts to show off and gets us caught on a rock in a rapid and the boat starts to fill with water, I nearly get thrown out the boat by the power of the water and we all have to get on to a rock to reboard the sinking ship!
During this commotion we lost two paddles, further down the river people had found them at the egde and we beached up to collect them. We shouldn't really of been surprised to find out that fornominal baksheesh was expected for them and that theprice negioation would take about 30mins - each paddle! David was going mad "if this was england I'd have smacked him!" Kind thanks its not and a scene was avoided.
Not a terrific first rafting expereince, especailly when in the last two rapids one guy came to the front specifically to pull the front up over the waves, we bailed water again from up to our knees - this cant be right, something tells me we where a little overloaded for this trip down river.
However we had excellent humour and company and more importantly got to Sauraha.
posted by David at 7:36 am
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