Rafting!

15 July 2010 8:24am Maitikhan

To continue...

We finally arrived at the rafting place, which was a storefront in the middle of a village. It was such a relief to get out of that truck. There was a water tap close, so we all rushed towards it to wash the mud off of our hands and feet. Once that was done we were given some cold drinks and then were outfitted with life vests, helmets, and paddles. Some kind man also donated another flip flop to Aya, so she actually had a complete pair of shoes to wear. After we got down to the river there was a briefing about how to paddle, instructions, the river, etc. We were then split into two boats- the safety boat (for people uncomfortable with rafting) and the other boat (or as I called it, the adventure boat). Dee went straight to the safety boat with Eugenia, and some more people joined her there.

I went in the other boat (where else would I be?) and got to be one of the captains (Martin was the other)! I figured I was probably one of the stronger paddlers so I went to the front. It was awesome! We were right in line for all of the huge head-on waves. One of them, if I didn't have my foot stuck in the strap I would have gone flying backward.

Further down the river we stopped at this restaurant for lunch (it looked a little fancy for how we were dressed and appeared), where we got to see Martin's article in the Kathmandu Post. That was pretty cool. I'm still waiting for feedback on my article; I'm frustrated at how long it's taking.

Since there were reports of more landslides, we decided to just raft for another half hour and then get picked up, so that we could avoid the road with landslides. We had a couple more splashing battles between the two boats; Ashok was the real troublemaker. Retaliation came at the hands of our boat guide, as he doesn't need to get a good grade. Our boat guide was awesome- he busted out the bucket.

Very soon, we arrived at our end point, which was this hard-to-find path along the side of the river. We climbed up that to where the bridge was (we landed on the opposite side of the river from the road) and crossed that into the village we ended at. There were a bunch of children there, yelling and greeting us. I'm very sad I didn't get a video of this- Ashe started singing the first part of the World Cup anthem, and then all the kids started singing the whole thing from there. It was too funny.

We spent some time there, piling all of our rafting stuff up, finding dry clothes for people (I opted not to), changing and using the bathroom. Now, I've seen some crazy bathrooms during this summer, but I'm pretty sure this was the worst. When I finally got the door unlocked (the thing had a freaking shitty-ass padlock on it), there were only a few things in the room. A bucket of water, a jar, and a drain. Nothing even remotely resembling a toilet. Not even a hole. I first tried going down the drain, but that didn't work- it was too close to the wall and pee kept splashing on my feet. I came to the only logical solution left at that point- I was supposed to pee in the jar. I thought pooping in the hole on the train was hard; this was something else entirely. I had no idea what to do after, so I just left the jar as it was and washed myself with the bucket of water. So gross.