2012_11_07_08 Rafting

11_07

Great breakfast at the Shangri-La Hotel this morning.  It seems that all we do is eat - and walk.  I stayed up until two in the morning updating the blog.  The beds looked real nice but were the worst on the trip so far.  Had a restless night worrying about the election.

A new group from Ker and Downey arrived with a bus to transport us to the Seti River for rafting at nine.  Rich was monitoring the election returns on his smartphone as we drove out from Phokara.  Just before we left the bus all news reports were that President Obama had won the election.  We were all quite relieved and happy as Obama was the choice for all 14 of us!  

Loading up the bus at Shangri-La Village Hotel in Pohkara.  There's Fish Tail in the distance.

Stopped for a second at the Ker and Downey Office

Kathmandu streets

Stopped along the road for "One more chance to see the mountains".

Stopped here for a bathroom break and ice cream cones.  People seem to be sitting around everywhere

Ice cream.  Yum.

Followed the signs to the facilities

Seemed confused?

Crossed this bridge and went down to the Seti River

Met our Seti River rafting team and were briefed about safety.  The main leader had a Go Pro Hero camera like mine so we were immediately brothers of the camera!  He got out some wire to attach the camera to my helmet securely.  Then loaded into 3 rafts to begin the rafting.  The Seti River is pretty low and we had a mostly lazy float to where we stopped for a box lunch on a sand bank.  After lunch we continued to the camp after about 4 hours on the river.



First site of our rafts.

Day one on the Seti River

Luis tamed a butterfly/moth!

Pastoral view

Passed out the standard lunch sack.  2 sandwiches, turkey and cheese and cheese and onions.  Juice box, cookies (2) banana, peanuts.  Napkin.

After lunch getting ready to reload into rafts for trip to camp.

Arriving at the Seti River Camp

Here's our "tent" with all the wet clothes set out to dry.  Connie in a supplied robe.

Connie and I were shown to our "tent" which is a permanent structure with tent walls.  Each unit has it's own toilet and shower.  The shower felt great as we were all pretty soaked and cold after the sun got behind the mountains for the last hour on the river.  

Cattle being hurded past our tent

Rich looking for election recap news on the smart phone as Gayle rests her eyes before dinner

Showered and changed - Heading for campfire and happy hour

All sat around a campfire and had some popcorn and drinks before dinner.  Another group of Americans were there as well and we updated them with the election results.  They and all the Nepalis were really happy to hear Obama had won.  

Dinner was a buffet of about 6 items - as usual quite tasty.  The chef even baked us a cake - not a usual thing for the local people.  Seems they don't eat many desserts and almost never a cake.  After dinner the rafting crew and staff from the hotel played some music and sang some Nepali songs and everyone got up to dance around the dining room.   We talked a bit about Nepali life and our customs and then back to the cabin to wash up and prepare for tomorrows rafting.  

Sleepy time.

11_08

Seven o'clock and the boys were ready with black tea for Connie hot chocolate for me.

Pretty soon, time for breakfast....

Play that funky music, white boy/girl.  We serenaded the room with our version of Resam Firiri.  The official theme song of this trip!

Headed to the dining room for breakfast and we grabbed the instruments (drum and tambourine) and started to sing the one Nepali song everyone seems to know.  The local people outside got quite a kick out of this!  

Loaded up into the rafts again (this time with dry suits as it was pretty cool in the morning).  We all looked like a Hazmat team!  We floated for about two hours this morning and some of the rapids were better than yesterday.  All in all pretty tame, but with just enough excitement for some that had never white water rafted before.

Connie sporting the one-size-fits-all dry pants!

Bobi has suited up and heads for our daily briefing.

Campfire area in the morning.

Gearing up

Girls rafting team

Nice look, eh?  The dry suits helped with the early morning cool for day 2 of rafting.

The "other raft".  Rediker's and Steingart's

The other 2 rafts from ours

Mardi on the left and the rafts behind.

One more on the river

Go Pro Kayaker

Rapids with a bridge over the river - We're close to the end

Video of some rafting

More rafting

Go Pro Hero camera brothers!  Time to say goodbye to the rafting team
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Unloaded all of our staff from the dry bags on the raft and reloaded (basically crammed stuff) back into our suitcases which had spent the night on the bus.  



How many porters does it take to close Lorraine and Paul's suitcase.  Back brace issue.

Then the long bus ride back to Kathmandu.  Made even longer when a truck broke down right across the road and no one could get by for 45 minutes. The line both up and down the road was backed up so far it was hard  believe.  We were actually lucky as we were able to inch past the bottleneck and escape the jam.  The expected four hour trip became almost 5 and a half pretty miserable hours.  The roads are really not in great shape and the bus jumped around pretty good

Local vendor on side of road making up a peanut and spices concoction.  Pours it into a paper tube - enjoy!

Buddha eyes are everywhere

Shrimp at a roadside stop for toilet

If you look back down the hill you can see all the cars and trucks backed up to where we are stuck.

You can see the cars two or three wide all across the road.  Luis and I walked up quite a way to find out the problem.

Here was the cause of a 45 minute delay.  The truck on the right broke an axle and the big truck on the left could not get by.  So we sat.  Finally the log jam broke but vehicles from both ways were trying to inch past on the left.  Pretty chaotic, but eventually we got back to Kathmandu.

Eventually we arrived back at the Hyatt Kathmandu and collected the bags we had left behind before the trekking.  No problem - all bags accounted for.  Up to the room to freshen up and meet for dinner after an hour.

Walked over to the square the surrounds the famous Boudhanath Stupa (temple) for dinner on a rooftop restaurant.  It took a pretty long time for everyone to eat as one poor waiter had to lug all of our foot up two flights of stairs.  We tried some different foods local than what we had before.  All pretty great and the bill was about $7 a person including a bunch of beers and tea and coffee.  I really like the masala tea - sort of spicy and served with hot milk.  Yum!  I will look for some bad home.

Walked the ten minutes back to the Hyatt - truly ten minutes this time as we didn't get lost like the first night.  We are planning to meet for breakfast at 8 tomorrow as we begin to split up.  Ten of the group have a noon flight to Bhutan so they will be leaving around nine for the airport.  Paul and Lorraine have a 3 o'clock flight headed home to New England so they will be leaving around noon.  We are planning to do some last minute shopping with them after breakfast.  We will be out of the room at one and leave the bags so we can walk around some more after everyone is gone :(  We have a 9 o'clock flight this evening and plan to head for the airport around 6.  Rich has warned us that the airport at Kathmandu can be a zoo when the evening international flights are leaving.  I think it's better to leave real early and get thru security.  If I remember right there is free Wi-Fi so I can be playing!

We'll fly back to Abu Dhabi and sleep for about 6 hours at the airport hotel, shower up and board our flight home at 10:30 tomorrow morning.  14 hours or so later we'll be back to Willow Springs!