The Marsyandi

Just got back from a trip to the Marsyandi- which means 'raging river' in the local dialect. There were three of us, we managed to hook up with a really cool guy from south Africa- Brad. None of us had done the river before so it was a really good experience. It's a five day trip, with three days on the water. We managed to get a jeep all the way to the put at Ngadi, and from here we were into solid grade four plus for a day. It took a lot of time bank scouting and picking out lines but it was class paddling. This river is rated as one of the best river trips in the world, unfortunately it is in the process of being damned. The upper section of the river is along the Annapurna trekking route which meant we could always find towns with tea houses and places to stay. The further down the river we went, however, the harder this became. We even spent one night sleeping on the bank of the river but we were well prepared so it was all good. The upper section was really fast and continuous but the river soon eased off a little with big rapids of a pool drop nature, which meant some really nice paddling and mainly boat scouting, but there were still plenty of rapids to keep us on our toes. The river slowly became easier and easier until the end when it was a nice two hour grade three float to the take-out. An absolutely classic river it's a pity the dam is being built, although some sections of the river should remain in tact. It was an amazing run and a great experience. Heading off to Pohkara, in the west, to do some paddling around there for two weeks, will post up soon..

The monkey temple

Well we decided to take to take a chilled out day and headed up to the monkey temple. We weren't too sure what it's all about and to be honest, we still aren't. It's basically a Bhuddist temple on the top of a hill looking over Kathmandu, and there are monkeys everywhere, surprise surprise! It was pretty cool, just wandering around with monkeys jumping around right beside you. Twas a bit of craic anyway.

Peak UK himalayan challenge

So went up to the bhote kosi again for the peak UK Himalayan challenge on the 17th –19th of November. There were three events, slalom, freestyle through the rapid, and a downriver race. All three events had to be done in the same boat. There were two men’s categories- Nepalese men’s and men’s international. We actually missed the first event, which was the slalom on the Saturday because my wallet was stolen the night before, fun and games. But all was good and we made it to the freestyle through the rapid on the Sunday. The rapid had five features, which had to be used during your run and it was actually quite fair even for people in big boats. I ended up coming third, which was pretty cool. Reckon it was down to my kickflips over one of the main waves, which were scoring really high. There was a cool beach party by the river on the Saturday night that went on pretty late. Sunday saw the downriver race- 8kms of grade three, with a bit of easy four, and everybody racing together. I came in third but placed second in men’s international. So overall the competition was pretty cool, it was good craic and the paddling was great fun. Big up to Pete for organizing it, it was a great event.

finally photos

So I've figured out the whole photo to computer thing now, thanks to Sean. We just got back from a trip to the Sun Kosi. It takes about seven or eight days on the river to complete. We left last wednesday and got back yesterday. We actually left the trip early, for a number of reasons. When we arrived at the bus last wednesday we realised the trip only had one raft, which had seven Russians, of which only one or two could speak English. We knew it would be a long lonely river trip. We had some craic with the Nepalese guides but they were generally working setting up camp and cooking etc, so we ended up with a lot of time to ourselves. As much as I like Sean it got a bit boring at times. Then to make things worse the river was actually really low, so instead of it being a good solid class 3plus to 4, it turned out to be mainly flatwater floating with only a handful of good rapids spread over the whole trip. There were some nice rapids like Hakapur, it should have been grade 5 but with low water was only 4.Here's sean running Hakapur- There were other good sections like jungle corridor which had about six rapids one after the other all big big volume, nice and fun, but not too difficult. The real low point of the trip was probably when my toothbrush broke! By the monday we had spent six days of mainly flat paddling and were getting fed up with the lack of banter. We found out that they would spend the next two to three days on the river floating a section that would normally take four hours, then they were planning on spending a night in a hotel at the get-out before heading back to Kathmandu. We did not like the sound of this so we got directions to the take-out, got up early tuesday morning and headed off with all our gear in our boats and paddled to the take-out by ourselves. From there we got a bus to Kathmandu, a 17 hour bus ride that was absolute hell. We managed to get the last two seats on the bus, bad idea! there were seven of us spread across five seats in the back row, no foot-room, and at one point there was a guy sitting beside me who smelt worse than me and sean, and we'd spent seven days on the river! Now don't get me wrong it was great camping out on the river and paddling everyday, but it just got to the point where we were completely fed up with floating down flatwater and there being no banter off the river, lessons learnt

1--make sure there is more than one raft on the trip,

2-- bring way more than one bottle of rum!

3--try to have a group of more than two

4-- find a reliable source for water levels

5-- never get the back seat on a long bus journey.

Well the peak uk himalayan competition is on the Bhote Kosi this weekend so we'll head up for that, should hook up withsome more paddlers and have some craic.Fun and games