We tackled the grade 4 and 5 rapids on the Zambezi, so when the chance came to raft on one of Nepals roughest rivers, we didnt waste no time signing up. We went on a 3 day rafting trip with 2 nights camping by the river side. Day 1 was about 3 hours long but it had probably the best moments and rapids of the whole trip. Our boat was me, shenel and 3 office boys from London, or Princess' as you will learn from the rest of this blog. We were told that on day one we were to come acorss rapids known as Little brother and big brother, fairly tame names compared to the jaws of death and the washing machine we faced on the zambezi in africa, ha ha, oh how we were wrong. It started off ok, the princess' were finding their feet but the rhythm they showed while paddling was terrible, dear oh dear. We hit little brother full on and cleared it, yes a bit of a big splash but nothing to bad, so as we all laughed and joked about it, along came big brother, I cant remember exactly what it looked like because what happened next tended to wipe that out and replace it. To the left of the rapid was a huge rock with an overhang that shadowed the rapid below. We went into it full on, listening to every command our guide shouted at us. As we went in the boat got pushed up against this rock on the left, the 3 princess' were gone for a few seconds, it looked like they were bent backwards and underneath it, luckily they were not but they did come away with nasty cuts, bruises and the shakes. Our guide however took the full brunt of it, he got bounced off the boat and slap bang into the face of the rock, he sliced his chin, cut his arms and legs, he told us thats the 1st time in 10 years he has been hurt, we were also kindly told that someone had died on that particular rapid not so long ago, could we have not been told this before? Anyhow, after some deep breaths from the 3 london lads, they decided to soldier on and not go home as they were saying, but to carry on until the end of the trip, awww how sweet *note sarcasm*

Day 2 was the longest day but was not very eventful, I think we exepcted way to much from this trip and the zambezi was awesome so beating it or being just as good was going to be hard, still it was fun. The 3 princess' however were determined NOT to go into the water at all, not even to swim, you should have seen the looks on their faces whenever we appproached a rapid, ha ha classic. The final day we rafted for about an hour or so and at the end we were allowed to jump into the river itself which was nice. I jumped in all happy as larry and what was coming up? a rapid! The rapid was small, probably grade 2 but the guide said it would be fine to ride it through so I did, there were some hairy moments I admit especially when you have waves constantly spalshing in your face and you cant catch your breath, still, good fun. All in all it was a nice trip with some cool rapids at times, next time we go rafting though, we may have to look into it a bit more and see how mad the rapids actually are.

D & S