We just got back to Kathmandu from three days of kayaking on the Seti River. While we had planned to do a rafting trip at some point during this trip, we got sucked into a four day kayaking course when we were relaxing in Pohkara (after trekking around Annapurna).
Both of us have been on sea kayaks in the ocean and on lakes, but river kayaks are a completely different breed. Sea kayaks are designed to be very stable and river kayaks are designed to be responsive and manueverable; thus river kayaks flip easily, but also allow the kayaker to change his or her path quite quickly. Add rocks, waves, eddies, currents, holes, and the possibility to flip, and the experience on a river kayak bears almost no resembelence to its cousin the sea kayak.
We spent the first day learning basics on Phewa Lake in Pokhara – how to escape your boat if it capsizes, how to help rescue someone that capsizes, and how to attempt to roll yourself upright if you capsize. I think you can all get the point: during the next few days on the river everyone would CAPSIZE at least a couple of times…
We then spent three days on the Seti River learing about currents, how to safely cross the river, how to stay stable, practising our rolls, etc. The guides were amazing (the owner of the company was on the trip and is a world-class kayaker) and other particpants were also great. Like our experience on the trek, our group was like a mini-UN: Canada, Switerland, Scottland, Austria, and Ireland were all represented. We kayed through beautiful country, camped at amazing locations, witnessed a sudden hail storm with golfball sized hail, saw many interesting river communities, and basically learned to kayak (we both managed to learn the eskimo-roll – Camille learned on day one, I learned at the end of day three : )). All and all, it was a great experience!
We spent today in Kathmandu and fly to easten Nepal to trek for another couple of weeks. We’ll update the blog again at the end of the month when we return from the Everest Region.
Sending lots of love from Kathmandu,
BRIAN and CAMILLE
