Rafting down the Kaligandki

The next couple of days in Pokhara were spent enjoying a steak dinner as a reward for doing our trek, which cost a whopping 3GBP each, unfortunately having to postpone our white water rafting trip as Trevor had received the news that his nan had passed away, visiting Tara's house again for a meal (this time bringing doughnuts and pastries, and playing cards with the pack that we had left them last time), finding out both the cheapest and best quality place to have breakfast in Pokhara (The Laughing Buddha Restaurant), and going on a 'wild' night out, consisting of drinking some disgusting warm Tibetan beer and going to the 'Blues Bar'; a kind of smoky bikers bar where a Nepalese rock cover band (inclusive of frizzy 80s rock hair) sang the same songs every night, often with questionable pronunciation of words; after trying and mostly failing to fit into the bar we called it a night at 11pm and went in search for food instead! Trevor also tried to fulfill his longing for Fish and Chips, although the reality in a Nepalese restaurant predictably disappointed. Finally, having been away a month, we Skyped our parents and hopefully reassured them that we are doing fine and enjoying our trip!

On the 4th November we began our white water rafting trip down the Kaligandaki River, which is in the deepest gorge in the world, and has grade 3-4 rapids. After a 3 hour drive to where we would start, we split into 3 rafts of 6, our group comprising of a Belgium couple, a Kiwi girl and a Dutch girl who looked like a Russian character from Dodgeball (Dodgeball woman). The group seemed ok on the whole, although we had already picked out a few annoyances. We begun the rafting having an extensive safety briefing from a guy called Simon who was originally from Nepal but now lives in Scotland having met his English wife on the same rafting trip 21 years ago! Having put on our splash jackets, buoyancy aids, helmets and picking up our paddles we were ready to go!

The rafting begun with a small rapid 'Little Brother' which we successfully navigated albeit getting pretty wet, and was followed by 'Big Brother' which we had to carry the rafts and equipments around on the shore as it was too dangerous to raft down. The rafting continued for another couple of hours without anyone falling in before we arrived at a small sandy beach to set up camp for the night. The guides provided ample food throughout the trip, with a good variety and well cooked - it was probably the best we've eaten for days! There was also a 'toilet' set up at camp - a big hole dug in the sand with a curtain put around - fine at first but Sophie was retching each time she had to go in there towards the end!

We got up at 7am the next day to have breakfast and start what was to be our most action packed day of rafting. With a lot more larger rapids to go through, Trevor was the first to fall off the raft (although apparently in his defense he was at the most vulnerable position at the front of the boat), but he quickly got rescued by someone in a kayak and pulled back onto the raft (while Sophie laughed at the extremely shocked and worried look on his face as he fell in). Meanwhile Sophie's main accident of the day was stubbing her toe...not quite as wild, but a month later her toenail is only clinging on by a thread! Our guide on the raft, Suryar, had numerous stories of hair-raising incidents whilst rafting- hopefully we wouldn't be the next!

That evening we set up camp on another sandy cove and bought whisky, beer and chocolate from local villagers that came down to the camp with supplies. We spent the evening sitting around the fire and playing random drinking games with some of the guides; in one of which games Sophie played a duck and Trevor a gay dog...don't ask!

Another 7am start the next morning, a few more rapids, and all going into the river for a very quick cold swim, before a good hour of paddling through flat water concluded our trip. After a long 5 hour bus trip back to Pokhara we met back up with the group that evening for dinner and a few beers to watch a slideshow of photos that a photographer had taken on our trip. He tried to make us pay double for the photos as we were a couple, even though we only wanted one copy of photos, until we argued enough to get it for a single price...having not been ripped off by locals for a while we weren't about to let an American guy do the same! Overall the rafting was good fun but we both agreed we could have done with more rapids, or another day....our quest for an exhilarating rafting trip hasn't quite been fulfilled...yet. The guides and team from the 'Paddle Nepal' company however were really good, with their humorous attitudes making for an entertaining trip :)

P.s More photos to follow when we can find a working cd drive in India!!