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| Contents | Goin' there, in our bright colours... | |
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In 1996, Phil spent the autumn season safety-boating in Nepal. Thinking that this was a particularly good bandwagon on which to jump, Neil did much the same at the end of 1998. Thus came about a team holiday. This is some of what they got up to.
Words and
pictures © Team Tata-Smeckta® If you're looking for the world-famous Old Rope Guide to Nepal, try here
We flew with Aeroflot, an extremely under-rated outfit, highly suited to disparate cheapskate paddlers due to the company Mission Statement, which would appear to be "We Don't Give A Toss". Taking kayaks as excess baggage wasn't a problem (costing us 25 quid per boat excess on the flight to Kathmandu, and nothing, save a little baksheesh, to bring them home again), nor was huge bagfulls of outrageously overweight "hand" luggage. They were even accommodating enough to exchange Neil's APEX, non-refundable, non-exchangeable ticket for an open return. All this and we got to fly in an Ilutian 86, too.
Preparations… the team shave Our first good paddle (after a warmup day on the Trishuli, a.k.a. Tossuli) was the Marsyangdi. The road towards the put-in (from Dumre to Besishahar) has been descibed as the worst on the planet. Two years ago it took us over 7 hours to drive the 42 km. This year, happily, the road had been graded all the way, but the ride still takes 3 hours. Tying on boats TIGHT before the busride. Dave started to relax once it was clear we weren’t likely to plummet over the edge of the gorge. Neil, as always, was hard at work. Fords are easy in a bus but more difficult on a motorbike. At Besishahar we organised porters for the carry up to Ngadi (4 hours walk, cost us 3 quid per boat, too… we was robbed…). As team miser, Neil did the hard-nosed bargaining. Off up the trail, it’s a long, long, road… The Indiana Jones thing… All sorts of other gear is portered up the trail too, by old gnarly dudes and young kids. Some wear the latest, fully-breathable footwear. The occasional westerner has a go, too. In Ngadi we found a hotel for 10 pence a night, so we stayed there and loaded the boats the next morning for the trip back down the river. In Khudi we stopped and left our gear in another lodge, before we carried back up to Ngadi to run the top 5 km (up to gr.5) a second time. No photos, sorry, we were too busy chasing Neil’s boat and paddles as they made their merry way down to the Ganges. The view upstream from Khudi is good… Lamjung Himal (I think) in the background. The river is fantastic, we covered the section Ngadi-Turturi Bazar in about 9 hours, although it would be better to spend a few days over the river and take time playing. In lower water, this would be less of a blast but a bit less pushy, with fewer nasty pourovers. Oh, we took a few paddling photos. Neil has got a load more; one day they might make it to this site. Next was the Modi Khola, with another bus-roof ride with some good views of Machapuchare in the Annapurna range. We carried the boats ourselves from the road to Birethanti, where we put-in. Neil and David posed for some photos… We ran the section from Birethanti to the bridge just before the Kali Gandaki confluence over two days. The first day is a fun little paddle, very steep and continuous, with water up to gr. 5-. Neil had paddled it in September and was full of tales of river-wide pourovers, huge holes and all sorts of nastiness. In October it was quite a lot lower, but there were still some "must-make" boof-moves and chicken-lines (and the odd enormous, flapping turkey-line) which we had to take. We stayed overnight at a dhaba-house in Dimwau, Rs.40/night B&B, can't be bad... Neil has a lot more photos of the Modi Khola. One day I might even get around to scanning them. In the mean time, if you want to see them, you can nag him about it here
Since we were paddling empty boats we decided to modify the two Kendos a little for a bit more fun in God’s House and the other rapids in the Canyon. No kayaking pictures, I’m afraid. Maybe Neil has some. We had to resort to various antics to survive the inevitable boredom of the two-day FLAT paddle out at the end of the Karnali. Luckily, Neil was well-prepared, and had already been shopping for the various commodities in Jungle Ghat before we reached the canyon... The 16 hour busride out from this river is fairly hellish. Valium is recommended. Back in the Kathmandu Valley, we did a bit more tourist stuff… Pashuptinath is the main Hindu shrine in Nepal. Lots of smaller temples , several cremation ghats and tikka-sellers as well as the ubiquitous holy cows. All this activity means the Bagmati wasn’t on our list of rivers to paddle, it’s not as if there aren’t enough bacteria in the Trent or the Thames. Cute monkeys (say ahhhh…) and the meditating Saddhu make this a fun day out for all the family. There's also the chap who will, for the right fee, lift heavy weights using his chigne, but that's not one for the family album. We spent a bit of time at Bodnath, too. Here’s another picture, and another. Neil was quoted as saying "this is most tranquil, dude". Time to spin the prayer wheel and then go paddling. Right then, some boating photos at last. The Bhote Kosi. This is a superb little paddle, only about 20km, but good consistent gr.4 with the odd bit of gr.5 to keep people sharp. (Look, there it is, behind the rabbit... ) This river is cold, so you need to wear silly clothes. Not good. Lots of very similar pictures of us on just some of the rapids... "Frog in a
Blender"
We ran the upper section of the river twice, from km 95 to the town, and paddled on down to the dam on the second day. This is a good river to do with a raft company, as you can leave all your gear in their bus, which will shuttle everything to the takeout for you. (However, a boat-load of kit could do wonders for those melt-down moves...) And that was about it. A quick run around the tat-markets and silk shops of Kathmandu, grabbing cashmere shawls and chillums as we went, then back to Blighty, and Hurley on four gates. by Phil, with
photos by everyone. |
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This page last updated: 14/9/99 |
