Adrenaline on the Rocks by John Borthwick
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This definitely wasn't in the brochure. Margaret took one look at the "standing wave'' that her rubber raft was about to slam into. It didn't remind her at all of the words which had convinced her to sign up for this river trip in Nepal: "Blades gently breaking the water; nature all around.''
Too right it was all around. White water poured over the sides of the raft which now was slewing down the wave, broadside into a maelstrom.
When she surfaced 10 seconds later, Margaret was - as the brochure had promised - "floating past friendly villages, valley walls towering above''. She was doing so in a Himalayan torrent, minus the services of her raft, which was headed down the Trisuli River, now one crew member lighter.
Our group of tourists and Nepalese had gathered to raft a distance of around 80 kilometres, descending from the middle hills of the Himalayas towards the Gangetic plains. More or less in unison, the six of us in the lead boat stroked around the first bend. The midstream current accelerated us past a bouldered shoreline where black-faced langur monkeys skittered in the Sal trees. A distant rumble arose from downriver as we gathered speed.
The rapids known as "Upset'' are our baptism. As the current funnels through a gauntlet of rhino-sized rocks, our pair of six-metre rafts plunge and buck like paper cups in a storm drain. The roar drowns all other sounds. Our raft slews off a boulder. Jack at the bow loses his paddle but keeps his left arm. We skid towards a foaming, gnarly wave. Bhim, our Nepalese boatman on the sweep oar, skillfully hauls the raft around so that we hit the wave bow-on. We launch over the crest, then crash down the back, before being spat out.
"A-bloody-mazing!'' hoots Jack.
"Jeezmarynjosef!'' mutters Jean from New Zealand, a non-swimmer.
Life on a Himalayan river raft is not all narrow escapes from the undertaker. Between its twists and rapids are long stretches of placid water, silver sand beaches and forests. For the bird spotter, Nepal on the wing is a blur of cormorants, kites, river chats and eagles. The most sinister bird is the giant, vulture-like lammergeier that drools upon the banks.
From the lead raft, Chhongba Lama (who's billed by his lowland mates as "the world's first swimming Sherpa'') calls, "Rapid coming up.'' Our rubber tubs are again sucked into the mountain surf like flotsam. Mintues later, the Trisuli is again so wide and tranquil that we wonder if all this is happening on the same river.
The river continues its drop through the Himalayan foothills. Below a bright moon we camp on a deserted river beach. The cook, Krishna Lama, conjures a meal of buffalo schnitzel, pappadams, fried chicken and banana custard, all prepared on a "stove'' of three rocks and four aluminium pots.
Above Mugling rapids, we pull into the bank while the boatmen sight their course through this, the longest and most turbulent run of our trip. We check our life-jackets and nerves - then paddle into the torrent.
"Keep paddling! Hard left!'' yells Bhim. We broadside off the backwash from a boulder as big as a house. Whomp! Whomp! The bottom of the raft bulges with the waves and rocks beneath it. Four more strokes, and we skate out onto flat, deep water, with a balmy Trisuli again meandering innocently before us.
We beach the raft and pull out our cameras as raft number two begins its run through the 400 metres of white water. It careens into a standing wave, stalls at the crest for a moment, then is dumped into the whirlpool behind. Seconds later, as the raft re-surfaces, we see someone go overboard.
We drift on, past the back doors of lowland villages, and into surprise meetings with washerwomen, fishermen, kids in dugouts, monkeys and precarious suspension bridges.
Toward the end of our journey we put ashore at Devghat, a little Hindu temple at the confluence of the Trisuli and the Kali Gandakhi rivers. There we met the resident swami, a one-armed man known as "Crazy Baba''. Rotund and content - incomplete as he may be - he sports a diamond ring the size of an ice-cube, a gift from the King of Nepal. With pride, he shows us his sleeping cell overlooking the river. It contains those items indispensable for any one-armed Himalayan holy man - a transistor radio, a rafting life-jacket and a golf putter.