Unexpected Adventure

You expect adventure on a rafting trip during the day, but not at night. We had both. The Trisuli river in Nepal is wild and wide. By day it tries to toss you out of the rafts, by night it sneaks up on you to wash you down river out of your tent.

After a three-week trek around the Annapurna circuit, we decided to spend a couple of leisurely days rafting down the river to the Royal Chitwan National Park to ride an elephant and see some tigers in the wild.

The first two days were exciting and adventurous as we navigated some big rapids with names like Upset, Monsoon, Surprise and Ladies Delight. One group from Nestles fell out of their raft on Monsoon and only had one paddler left on board. They were cold and shaken when we met up with them. We paddled about 5-6 kilometers an hour, but covered 18 kms in two hours on the first day.

The second night we were camped on the riverbank above Windy Canyon and were woken about 1am by the sound of people shouting and running around. At first we thought it was the Nepalese river guides enjoying a “‘Raksi’” party, as they were singing, dancing and drinking the alcoholic Raksi when we went to bed. I poked my head out of our tent and saw a row of tents in front of us had already been swamped.

The guides were yelling to hurry as the river was rising fast. People were grabbing sleeping bags, mats, wet clothes and packs in their arms and running and dumping them on high ground.

The guides had been sitting around the fire watching the river when they noticed it starting to rise. The staff tent went first, then the toilet tent got washed away.

Margaret was ill with vomiting and diarrhoea. She also had a painful back from tripping over a tent peg the day before. Her husband Graham was helping her to the toilet when he heard the guides, but thought they were getting breakfast, and did not realize it was only 1am. He thought it strange when one of the guides said, “I’m just warning you, there has been a lot of rain in the mountains”. When they returned to their tent it had 12mm of water in it. He suddenly realized the significance of the message.

Sue had been having trouble sleeping for a couple of nights and had taken a sleeping tablet. She woke hearing someone running around the tent saying “Excuse me, excuse me, who is sleeping in this tent? She replied, “I am”, then the guide said, “we must move the tents, the water is rising too fast”. As she stumbled groggily out two guides pulled out the pegs and moved the whole tent with everything in it onto the high bank.

They moved one row of tents twice, first below the bank, then right up the bank.

Tricia woke with a torch in her face. She began to pack her things slowly, but moved faster when something she picked up was wet.

Dave almost had a wet awakening. He was sleeping with his head outside his tent to avoid the smell of John’s feet. They had gone to bed late after drinking a lot of raksi and were sleeping soundly. The commotion woke him when the water was only about 30cm from his head.

I finally got back to sleep after all the chaos and confusion and dreamt of tidal waves washing the tent away with me in it.

Next morning, feeling shell-shocked, we realized we might have all been washed down river in our tents and drowned if not for the guides’ late night ‘Raksi’ party! It sure was an “Adventure Holiday I won’t forget”. The guides assured us this was a very unusual event. I’m glad I’m around to remember it.

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