Here in Nepal

I have eventually made it to Nepal, after the fantastic journey through Delhi (20 hours in the Airport). I would like to note that Delhi airport is much improved from when I was there last year - 24hr cafes in the waiting lounge and a re-organised departures building made life loads easier. I had to pay roughly 30 pounds to get my boat on the flight onwards with jet airlines to Kathmandu, but it's all worthwhile and I met lots of nice people on the way from all over the shop.

Upon arrival I settled into my room in Kathmandu, the Holy Lodge, since it's the easiest place for kayakers to meet up. Within 10 minutes I heard a familar voice saying, "Oh, I'm from Scotland, a tiny wee island up north." I went to investigate, and there was Sean, my ginger dreadlocked mate from Edinburgh who I thought I was meeting in Pokhara. Ace. We sat down and caught up and within another 10 minutes, Danny turned up. Time for lunch then. After lnuch we took a trip to the "Monkey Temple" half an hours walk away (see typical pic below)...

The following day we made plans to do the Bhota Kosi with an Amercan girl and German girl that we met at the Holy Lodge. Taxis were booked for 6.30am (ouch) to take us to the local bus station. It was great being back in Nepal as we loaded are kayaks onto a still moving bus to take us to Balephi 4 hours away for a massive 120 NRupees (about a pound).

Once in Balephi after a beautiful roof-top journey on which the weather improved from misty to blue skies and sunshine (we even got views of the Himalayas) we had to pick up a pick-up truck to take us the next 10km or so to the upper part of the river.. 70NR. We put in at Borderlands, a camping resort, where they let us know the river was very high and away we went.

The river turned out to be fantastic, lots of big holes and rolling waves as it crashed it's way down away from Everest and Tibet. With Sean having run the river recently we had a good guide for the smaller rapids, but still got out to have a peak at a couple of the biggest ones. Here's a pic of Sean in the meat of the first one of consequence (see below). This rapid started with a huge hole, with a line over it using a curler. For some reason I manged to flip on the eddyline afterwards, rolling up confused about my line through the rest of the rapid. I personally blame it on my new boat ;op

The rapids continued and it was an awesome river to warm up on.... although I did find myself nervous a few times. Whether it was fatigue or lack of technique after a long period out of kayaking, towards the end of the river I was dished a couple of healthy beatings. Trying to punch holes and failing, the subsequent washing machine cycle reminding me to hit my lines properly! Unfortunately this final stretch of river also undid the girls. Sonia taking a long swim through a grade 4 rapid and Monica a shorter one, deciding to exit her boat towards the end. It was a surprise to all of us, since the ladies had looked stronger than us most of the way down. We managed to collect up all the bits and pieces before the dam, to continue down the lower section and pick up the bus home. Eventually... buses are very busy on a sunday evening, we got ouselves up on the top of a crowded bus and rode the roof home, getting back, starving, to our hotel in Kathmandu by around 10pm.

It's almost a week after these events that I've managed to get the time to put this up... we've now managed to meet up with Si and Emrys, we're in Pokhara, we've paddled the upper Seti and the Upper Modi Khola and we're definitley enjoying ourselves... more updates very soon....