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Published: October 21st 2008
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Got up at 07:00 because we are going white water rafting on the Trisuli river!!!!! First breakfast of course (banana pancakes, yummm) and then towards the starting point upstream of the river. Megan didn't want to go (it's just not her thing) but she went anyway, yeah for Megan ;-)! So the 8 of us (and of course our two Nepalese guides) on the back of a open van off to our adventure of the day. That was an experience on it's own, trying to keep standing during some serious Nepalese driving... At the starting point we got a brief instruction about what to do do on the boat and a short practise on a calm part of the river we really started rafting. There was our raft and also a safety raft. Megan quickly got over in to the safety raft (Denish swapped places with her) in the middle of the river, later she would regret that decision...
We were enjoying ourselves and at the first serious rapids the unthinkable happened. Just before the rapid one of the oars broke and the safety raft was steerless. That's not a good thing in a rapid and oh yes, the safetyraft
White-water rafting - Day 1 - Lunch
Lunch included canned corn, and Spam - haven't eaten that in years! Very westernised lunch. capsized! Can you believe it? Megan ended up under the boat and Pordip (our second guide) was launched, flipped into the water and landed ashore (where we picked him up later). All of us in the other raft saw this happen and we coulden't believe our eyes! We went through the rapid without a problem (of course ;-))) and we helped the safety crew get their gear in order again. The safety crew was having the time of their lives, they couldn't stop laughing. Also because Megan raised her hand while she was under the boat because she thought she wouldn't be seen if she didn't. The rafting leader was looking all over the place for her and all he could see was her hand and he found that very funny (Megan found that funny also after awhile....). Even Megan had to laugh when she realised that after she was pulled out of the water on top of the bottom off the boat she was still wearing her sunnies, always have to look cool don't you :-)? She was a bit shook up but she recovered. Of course we advised the safety crew to consult us first what to do
Rafting injuries
Glad that this is all I had to show from my rafting accident (sounds more dramatic than it was!) at the next rapid ;-)))). We did laugh a lot this day. After a few other rapids we stopped at the riverside for a very nice lunch (and a bit of comforting for Megan).
: For those of you that don't know (and most of my friends will) - having my head under water is one of the things that scares me more than anything else - not to mention when I can't touch the bottom of the river/pool etc. with my feet! When the raft capsized it felt like I was underwater for minutes (probably seconds) before I came back up and found myself stuck under the boat. I always thought I would panic in this situation but all I could think was that they'd be looking for me so I better let them know where I was so I stuck my hand up outside the raft. They'd all been looking for me when suddenly they could see just my hand - the guys were almost wetting themselves laughing when they repeated this story to me! Anyway, I was still trying to catch my breath ready to make an attempt to get out from under the boat
when a hand reached in and grabbed the front of my life jacket and pulled me toward the edge of the boat and down to get me out. This would have been fine but the back of my life jacket got stuck on the raft and I once again found my head under water for what seemed an interminably long time!! Finally got pulled free and found myself breathing at the surface again before being pulled on to the underside of the boat! As Jan said all I could think about was how the hell did my sunglasses stay on my face and my shoes on my feet because all I could see was the thongs and other bits and pieces from the raft floating down the river!! I nearly died when they started trying to turn the raft back over as I knew it would involve a third dunk in the water. Luckily they weren't strong enough with just the two of them so they had to beach the raft and wait for the guys on the other raft to help (a lucky break????). The raft crew were whooping and laughing like they'd just had the best fun in
Rafting injuries
Don't tell anyone but I think this is actually sunburn but put it down to the capsised raft (looks more like I actually got hurt and adds to the drama!!!) all their lives!!! For me, a good dramatic story to tell the folks back home!
: After lunch we went back on the river for a few last small rapids. Except for one that was too dangerous to do so we all went ashore and the boats were dragged alongside the shore to a safer point where we all embarked again to set off to the endpoint of the day, our tented camp at Trisuli center. We had done four and a half hours of rafting with four to five serious rapids, tomorrow will be a shorter day but with more rapids (approximately 9). Megan won't join us then.... We played our volleyball match and we built a tent for the children to play games in that evening. They were also going to sleep in it but that changed during the evening, they stayed somewhere else. We joined in with the games and that was fun. After dinner we went back to our tents and nearby on the beach a campfire was started. We went and sat at the fire with our Nepalese guides and rafting crew. That was a very nice evening, we challenged each
other a bit to sing a song at the campfire. I can't sing (Jan) but I brought an harmonica with me on which I can play one song (I keep forgetting to learn other songs ;-), Oh Susanna (in C). So I played that just to get the Nepalese guides to sing us a Nepalese song. Pordip accepted the challenge and he sang (together with one of the rafting crew) a Nepalese song about a man that had to go travelling and his wife promising to wait for him. They sung it really well! It was a moment where we felt even more at home in Nepal. Later Denish came also to the fire and he heard about the harmonica and asked me to play the song again. Afterwards we enjoyed the fire a bit more and then went off to bed.
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