Our group of 8 paddlers and 5 guides left Kathmandu bright and early at 7AM to start the adventure to the river. Did I say 7? I meant 930. That's the way things work in Nepal--nothing runs on time. There are always a few delays here and there. The Nepalese are an incredibly friendly, hard working, but less than fully organized people, at least by western standards. I had forgotten this, but quickly relearned the lesson on the trip. Wake up at dawn and get on the road or river by 930. Because really who needs to hurry in Nepal. You'll get there eventually. The mountain/river isn't going anywhere. You just have to go with the flow and get used to it. Eventually we got packed and on the road and spent the day winding through scenic foothills vistas of terraced rice fields on steep mountainsides dropping down into the river. The roads were all paved on day one and mostly livestock free. With the exception of a short 1 hour delay in the heat of the day we made great time (the truck driver had neglected to check the coolant and it ran completely dry and overheated).
There were of course lots of military/police checkpoints to stop at, but you get used to those. Even though Nepal is no longer at war with the Maoists or anyone else, they still feel the need to have a checkpoint approximately every 5 miles on the road outside of towns. You'll pull up and there will be 3-10 army guys sitting around in camo, stopping all the vehicles and checking paperwork to see where people are going. Occasionally one will hop on and look around a little bit. The particulars of the proceedings are somewhat amusing, if slow. For example, most of the local buses have people riding on top, which is technically illegal. So they will stop 50 feet from the checkpoint and the people will climb down. Then the bus goes through the check point, and on the other side (in full view of the police who are indifferent) the people climb back on top of the bus and it resumes its course. As you can imagine, the whole process is very inefficient--driving any distance in rural Nepal involves a 1-3 minute stop every 5 miles. I suppose it provides jobs to the military and police folks, but I think they would be much better employed to fix the numerous potholes in the road or do something else more productive. Despite the checkpoints, we had a day of amazing scenery, and eventually made it to our hotel for the night, a beautiful little mountain retreat along the way with comfortable beds and an endless supply of Dahl Bhat.
Dahl Baht is the standard nepali dish, and they will eat it pretty much every meal without complaint. Its like pizza to a college kid. Basically its a plate of rice, with several toppings to mix in--a lentil soup, spicy potatoes, some spinachy stuff, a bit of salsa, and if your lucky a chipati (a crispy break thing). You quickly become a Dahl Baht connoisseur in rural nepal when driving or trekking, because often thats all there is to eat. The nice thing about Dahl Baht though is endless refills. For about 50 cents, its all you can eat.
The next morning we began our second long days adventure to the river (remember getting there is half the fun) and made good time until we stopped for lunch and fuel and found out there was a giant diesel shortage in town. There is actually a giant shortage Nepal wide, much like in the US during the 70's. The guides explanation was that the Indians or the Chinese had limited gas coming into Nepal in an attempt to control prices. There was a giant line of tractors, motorcycles, trucks, and bulldozers for 100 yards down the road from the pump. They were selling 8 liters at a time. We had lunch at nice hotel (dahl baht) while a couple of the guides attempted to buy gas from another vehicle and siphon it out. This plan apparently failed, and after a few hours, it was decided that we should actually take the bus to the gas station. This seemed like a good plan, except that the bus couldn't get in line. Luckily 2 guides with jerrycans were able to coax their way into line and get a couple gallons of gas each at a time. Of course when the went to try to poor the gas into the tank they realized they had no funnel. (I reiterate-- planning ahead is not a strong suit) They improvised with a plastic water bottle, and only spilled about 1/3 of the gas. Eventually after a total "lunch break" of 5 hours we got on the road. We eventually made it to the river just after dark and set up camp on the beach, happy that the trial of getting there was over. It was a long adventure, but as the guide pointed out, we were supposed to be on the river by that afternoon, and we were still on the river that evening; just a little later. No problem :)
We awoke to the sound of rushing water and the sight of a beautiful sunrise glittering on class 3 rapids. A great breakfast of coffee, eggs, french toast, and cereal was prepared, and as we ate the guides readied our gear. While we waited, the local village came down to see us off. All the kids were interested in the kayaks and rafts, while the men where hard at work fishing and breaking rocks.
An aside for a short lesson in Nepali Microeconomics....They break a lot of rocks in Nepal to make roads and build concrete. Rock breaking consists of a guy with a hammer making large rocks into smaller rocks, then someone else carting them off to another location where another man pounds them into even smaller rocks. These are transferred to a third location where another made makes rock dust out of some of them. The interesting thing about rock breaking on the river was that there were literally millions of small and medium sized rocks (all limestone) yet the rockbreaker invariably chose to start with a big rock, so it took him a good 5 minutes of pounding to end up with a pile of rocks that to us looked just like the medium sized ones laying all over the place. Then another man would spend 5 minutes making a pile that looked just like the small ones that were naturally all over the beach. We speculated a lot as to why they didn't just start with the smaller rocks (at least until they were all used up) and the only logical conclusion we could come up with was that doing so would mean less work, thus less jobs. They are intelligent and very hard working people, but they don't always do things the "western" way. Some societies prefer to build in inefficiencies...which provides local jobs but dooms them to failure in the world market.
Once on the river, things ran smoothly and we had a beautiful trip down the 180 KM of river. Day one was a warm up, with lots of big water class 3 rapids for us to learn to coordinate our strokes in the raft. As we progressed downstream, we left the large village behind and the scenery became very remote. About every 5 miles we would pass a small hamlet of 2-5 houses on a terraced hillside, and the locals would paddle out to meet us in handmade dugout canoes. The kids were exceptionally strong swimmers as well, and did a good job of keeping up with the rafts in flat water.
There were of course lots of military/police checkpoints to stop at, but you get used to those. Even though Nepal is no longer at war with the Maoists or anyone else, they still feel the need to have a checkpoint approximately every 5 miles on the road outside of towns. You'll pull up and there will be 3-10 army guys sitting around in camo, stopping all the vehicles and checking paperwork to see where people are going. Occasionally one will hop on and look around a little bit. The particulars of the proceedings are somewhat amusing, if slow. For example, most of the local buses have people riding on top, which is technically illegal. So they will stop 50 feet from the checkpoint and the people will climb down. Then the bus goes through the check point, and on the other side (in full view of the police who are indifferent) the people climb back on top of the bus and it resumes its course. As you can imagine, the whole process is very inefficient--driving any distance in rural Nepal involves a 1-3 minute stop every 5 miles. I suppose it provides jobs to the military and police folks, but I think they would be much better employed to fix the numerous potholes in the road or do something else more productive. Despite the checkpoints, we had a day of amazing scenery, and eventually made it to our hotel for the night, a beautiful little mountain retreat along the way with comfortable beds and an endless supply of Dahl Bhat.
Dahl Baht is the standard nepali dish, and they will eat it pretty much every meal without complaint. Its like pizza to a college kid. Basically its a plate of rice, with several toppings to mix in--a lentil soup, spicy potatoes, some spinachy stuff, a bit of salsa, and if your lucky a chipati (a crispy break thing). You quickly become a Dahl Baht connoisseur in rural nepal when driving or trekking, because often thats all there is to eat. The nice thing about Dahl Baht though is endless refills. For about 50 cents, its all you can eat.
The next morning we began our second long days adventure to the river (remember getting there is half the fun) and made good time until we stopped for lunch and fuel and found out there was a giant diesel shortage in town. There is actually a giant shortage Nepal wide, much like in the US during the 70's. The guides explanation was that the Indians or the Chinese had limited gas coming into Nepal in an attempt to control prices. There was a giant line of tractors, motorcycles, trucks, and bulldozers for 100 yards down the road from the pump. They were selling 8 liters at a time. We had lunch at nice hotel (dahl baht) while a couple of the guides attempted to buy gas from another vehicle and siphon it out. This plan apparently failed, and after a few hours, it was decided that we should actually take the bus to the gas station. This seemed like a good plan, except that the bus couldn't get in line. Luckily 2 guides with jerrycans were able to coax their way into line and get a couple gallons of gas each at a time. Of course when the went to try to poor the gas into the tank they realized they had no funnel. (I reiterate-- planning ahead is not a strong suit) They improvised with a plastic water bottle, and only spilled about 1/3 of the gas. Eventually after a total "lunch break" of 5 hours we got on the road. We eventually made it to the river just after dark and set up camp on the beach, happy that the trial of getting there was over. It was a long adventure, but as the guide pointed out, we were supposed to be on the river by that afternoon, and we were still on the river that evening; just a little later. No problem :)
We awoke to the sound of rushing water and the sight of a beautiful sunrise glittering on class 3 rapids. A great breakfast of coffee, eggs, french toast, and cereal was prepared, and as we ate the guides readied our gear. While we waited, the local village came down to see us off. All the kids were interested in the kayaks and rafts, while the men where hard at work fishing and breaking rocks.
An aside for a short lesson in Nepali Microeconomics....They break a lot of rocks in Nepal to make roads and build concrete. Rock breaking consists of a guy with a hammer making large rocks into smaller rocks, then someone else carting them off to another location where another man pounds them into even smaller rocks. These are transferred to a third location where another made makes rock dust out of some of them. The interesting thing about rock breaking on the river was that there were literally millions of small and medium sized rocks (all limestone) yet the rockbreaker invariably chose to start with a big rock, so it took him a good 5 minutes of pounding to end up with a pile of rocks that to us looked just like the medium sized ones laying all over the place. Then another man would spend 5 minutes making a pile that looked just like the small ones that were naturally all over the beach. We speculated a lot as to why they didn't just start with the smaller rocks (at least until they were all used up) and the only logical conclusion we could come up with was that doing so would mean less work, thus less jobs. They are intelligent and very hard working people, but they don't always do things the "western" way. Some societies prefer to build in inefficiencies...which provides local jobs but dooms them to failure in the world market.
Once on the river, things ran smoothly and we had a beautiful trip down the 180 KM of river. Day one was a warm up, with lots of big water class 3 rapids for us to learn to coordinate our strokes in the raft. As we progressed downstream, we left the large village behind and the scenery became very remote. About every 5 miles we would pass a small hamlet of 2-5 houses on a terraced hillside, and the locals would paddle out to meet us in handmade dugout canoes. The kids were exceptionally strong swimmers as well, and did a good job of keeping up with the rafts in flat water.
They seem to live a very simple, but happy life. The weather is sunny most of the year on the Karnali, with a dry heat in the low to mid 90's in summer, and cold temps in the winter around 50 degrees. The villagers grow rice and vegetables on the hill sides, and collect native plants for salad greens as well. They set traps and trotlines for the abundant trout and catfish in the river, and raise goats, water buffalo and chickens as well. Every thing they need is right there, and they have lots of leisure time for swimming and playing games with there families. No 40 hour work week here. Of course you'd have to get used to only having solar power and no TV, but all in all not a bad pace of life.
Between villages we saw a constant stream of wildlife: egrets, cranes, kingfishers, mongoose, deer, and mountain goats as well as lots of colorful birds I couldn't identify. The first night we set up camp on a beautiful uninhabited beach and had a good dinner of buffalo steak stew with potatoes and rice. Worn out from a long day of paddling, we went to bed early under the stars. The river had other ideas, and we were awoken at 1AM by a 50 mile per hour wind and sandstorm, quickly followed by a torrential downpour. We scrambled into the tarp tents we had hastily erected before bed, and with the help of everyone pitching in managed to bury the edges under rocks and sand. Of course the tent I was in still leaked like a sieve, but that's what waterproof sleeping bags are for right? We managed to get a decent nights sleep and learned to take extra care in setting up the tents in the future. Each night we dug them into the ground and secured every direction with rocks, ropes, and sand, prepared to withstand hurricane force wind. Thankfully it never rained again the rest of the trip---but it was good practice.
Day 2 of paddling was when the river picked up into a series of raging rapids. The gorge narrowed and steepened and we were treated to continuous class 3 and 4 rapids all day. Many sections were narrow canyons with steep vertical fern covered walls and cascading waterfalls. The river hydrology and canyons reminded me alot of a longer version of the wild and scenic Rogue River in S. Oregon--except for slightly different tree species, and animals. We finally got our coordination down on the raft after a few close calls and managed to complete the day without flipping and only having 1 swimmer. We had a wonderful and dry camp on the beach that night and spent the evening sitting around the campfire, swapping stories and drinking rum punch, which would become our nightly ritual for the rest of the trip.
Day 3 the scenery and wildlife got even better, and we finished the class 4 rapids by noon, allowing me to relieve one of the safety boaters and switch to a kayak for the rest of the trip. After 4 years of not being in a boat, jumping right into bigwater class 3 rapids was a challenge, but I slowly got the hang of it again and retaught my shoulders, hips, and abs to work together in the big wave trains.
Over the course of the next 3 days the river gradually widened out, and larger villages began to appear, as well as lots of trees full of monkeys. I enjoyed the rural scenery and class 2 rapids, thankful that the current held strong and we made good progress on our float toward India. We continued to meet lots of villagers at every camp, and had a wonderful, relaxing time. The kids came by to check out the kayaks, play frisbee, and see their pictures on the digital cameras. We ate very well, and every night the stars would break out around 7 and light up the sky as far as we could see. Then the full moon rose at 10, and lit up the river like daylight. Its amazing what you see when there are no electric lights for 100 miles at night.
We finished our float trip early on the morning of day 8, packed up and made the quick, but dusty 1 hour ride to Royal Bardia National Park (only 5 police check points in route). The park is surrounded by the villages of the Tharu people, who have an agrarian society based on wheat, rice, and livestock. Its one of the driest dustiest parts of the Indian subcontinent, and reminded me a lot of the Savannahs of east Africa. The people have ample irrigation for their crops though, and seem to eat pretty well. The biggest surprise in walking around the area is all of the wild Marijuana growing everywhere. You see this in patches throughout the Himalayan region, but in this area its so prevalent that its actually a full time job for the people and goats to weed the stuff out in order to grow their crops. I guess this is why Nepal was a popular destination on the hippie trail of the 60's and 70's. It's strange scene coming from the US--every ditch, roadside, and field lined with 4-8 foot tall pot plants. And it is the primary forage food for most of the livestock. Nothing like walking down a rural dirt road watching a bunch of stoner sacred cows bumping into things.
We went for an elephant safari, which has to be the bumpiest form of transportation I have ever experienced. You sit in a small box or Howdah, on the back of the elephant, and straddle one of the corner posts, while the elephant lurches through the jungle, stopping whilly-nilly to uproot and eat medium sized trees with its trunk. The elephant jockey sits on the elephants neck, and controls it with a combination of a chain between his feet at the elephants neck, and a big metal rod which has a hook on it for pulling the elephants ear if it really gets unruly. The elephants go down beautiful jungle paths and cross streams in search of wildlife. If you are lucky, you'll see black rhinos, tigers, and a plethora of other animals. I saw the rhinos on my 2005 elephant experience, but this time we only managed lots of deer, monkeys, and colorful jungle birds. I told the elephant wrangler he'd get a big tip if he could take us to tigers, but I'm not sure he spoke English. Our ride was just over an hour, which was plenty. Dismounting the elephant is the hardest part, as they make them lay down, and then you have to jump off before the elephant changes its mind. My elephant was pretty smooth, but one of the others decided to lay down sideways halfway, and proceeded to loudly break wind for a couple minutes before my friends could escape off of the front side.
After the elephants we were treated to the obligatory cultural dancing show, and had a great dinner of barbecued chicken with a side of....Dahl Baht. The next day was optional wildlife safaris by foot or jeep until 4, when we departed for Kathmandu. Never being one to let FOMO (fear of missing out) convince me to spend 3000 rupees for a dusty jeep ride, I decided I'd seen enough animals in Africa. When you've spend a couple months seeing all the big game animals up close and personal, it takes awhile to get excited about "the chance" of a rhino or tiger; especially for $40, which will buy you 8 very nice steak dinners in Kathmandu. Instead I opted for a free sunrise walk around the village to watch them plow fields with oxen and thresh hay, and then spent the rest of the day reading a Jason Bourne novel. The jeep group almost saw tigers, but there was apparently a group of Indians in front of them who scared them all away. (Indians don't understand being quiet apparently). I'm told they saw lots of birds and a rhino though.
The ride back to Kathmandu was a marathon trip, leaving at 4 PM and arriving into town around 7 in the morning. We managed it with only 1 Dahl Baht stop and approximately 30 police checkpoints, so it went fairly quickly compared to the ride in.
All in all it was a great adventure of a trip. The river was outstanding, and even though it took a little work to get there and back again, that's part of the fun. If it was easy, everyone would be there...instead we had the whole 180KM stretch of beautiful river to ourselves the entire week, with no other white people in sight. That's definitely worth a few checkpoints and delays. Just remember if you ever travel in rural Nepal--don't have a schedule, and bring along a good book.
