Rishikesh
35 kilometres of rafting on the holy Ganges!Photos
One of the many deserted rafting camps to be seen on the banks of the Ganga
Kirk emphasizing his baywatch muscles... o by the way, he really is a lifeguard :)
Danielle tries her hand at the airpump
Zack (Dani's boyfriend) had to get a full license to carry those guns
This picture (barely) shows us in the lower left corner the start of a rapid our Nepali instructor ominously referred to as "The Wall"
A rapid to be taken very serious
A rapid with a 95% chance of "flipover" (meaning exactly that)
A rapid known for separating the boys from the men
Did I already tell you that this was the very first rapid we had to pass? Our instructors went ahead to visually inspect the ferociousness.
In the meanwhile it had started to rain. Within minutes we could discern the Ganga changing its likeness, color fading from blueish-gray to darkgrey, the speed and level of the river increasing. Our instructors were nervously conferring in Nepali. After a long discussion, they instructed us thoroughly what to do in case of flipover, which parts of the rapid to try to avoid when in the freezing water, which bank to swim to, what to do when sucked down a vortex, etc. They warned us that flipover percentage had gone up to 100%
The atmosphere in the boat was tense, but in the end everybody had something like "fuck it... let's go!"
So there we went, our instructor - barely audible above the roar of the oncoming Wall and the splatter of the rain - yelled "FULL FORWARD!!!", us peddlers put our muscles to use, the boat picked up speed quickly, but somehow the bough seemed to be sucked off course just before we descended or rather dropped into a giant whitewater wave. This baby was at least 3 metres high, our flipover seemed inevitable.
Next thing I know our raft doubled up after a deep dip following the wave, nobody fell out though the popping back of a 7 meter boat is not without consequences. On board it was a jumble, limbs and paddles dangling, instructor frantically trying to straighten our course and then another wave faced us.
To avoid boring you to death I'll wrap it up. In the end we didn't flip over, insane cheering followed, especially as we passed two flipped over rafts with a scattering of floating people and equipment. I suspect everybody had been doing little prayers, I know I did :)
A video of the scenery at the spot
Not us, but some pictures I took a couple of days earlier of rafts passing a challenging rapid.
Nowadays middle class Indians can afford to raft as well
Almost completely submerged, kickass stuff
Zack in the act of preparing us some smokin' relaxation
A much needed break after almost getting hypothermia during the 2 hours of endless rain and "accidental" drops in the river. In the end the water of the Ganga still comes from glaciers melting.
Kirk
Swami
Another Kirk?
Zack going for it freestyle!
Mei
Raft assistant
Mick doing a little mid-air walk
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