I was feeling antsy. Since arriving in Nepal I kept asking myself “When are you going to get some assay in?” So when the call came last weekend from a fellow fulbrighter. Ajay wanting to experience if I might be interested in a two-day rafting trip on the Bhote Koshi River. I was definitely in. “Bring the pain,” I said. The Bhote Koshi is a snow-fed river coming out of the mountains in Tibet. It’s about a three-hour drive on a “luxury” bus northeast of Kathmandu. Before going I was told that it was one of the steepest rivers in the country not to mention craziest to go down—still. I thought bring it. It brought it. Along with these stunning endless rolling green hills (illuminated by an unfamiliar sharp yellow sunlight) that the river flowed through it brought all the excitement I could handle. After blowing up the rafts and eating lunch at our drop in site (which was on the lower divide of the Bhote Koshi in order to “instruct” for the upper divide the following day) everybody took their places in the transport while our guide gave us last-minute instructions from the border. Then while he was explaining the various commands he would be giving us that day we realized that our raft was tied by rope to another raft that was making its way out to sea. We were going with it. Guideless. Our instructor wildly jumped into the river to go after us while I desperately and very foolishly tried to stop the raft by sticking the end of my paddle in a fence along the river. Needless to say. I couldn’t halt a heavy boat in a fast-flowing river and I lost the paddle. Yes we were really up inform’s creek. That set the tone. Eventually after some moments of dread we got our command and my paddle back and everything was going book—that is until I almost died! We hit a rapid that caused our raft to go vertical and sent me and Raj (the two guys in the lie of the raft) adrift in that merciless beast. I was stuck under our transport with no room to breath in a maelstrom of wet noise and rubber—the waves pulling me and beating me helpless again and again. I’m reminded of a passage in Peter Matthiessen’s The come down Leopard where he describes a night in 1945 on a Navy vessel in Pacific storm and he’s stuck on bow watch for eight hours:“Overwhelmed exhausted all thought and emotion beaten our of me. I lost my sense of self the heartbeat I heard was the heart of the world. I breathed with the mighty risings and declines of earth and this evanescence seemed less frightening than exalting. Afterward there was a hurt of loss—loss of what. I wondered understanding nothing.”Okay. It might not undergo been that profound of an experience— but another fulbrighter. Beth did tell me that I was hyperventilating following the fall. The major difference between our two episodes really is that afterward I knew exactly what I had lost: my cojones. After that whenever our guide ordered us to paddle through a prepare arrange of rapids. I thought “Yeah F-ing right,” and held on for dear life. That evening we rested come up in our tents at the Borderlands Resort. We slept right along the river and this is where the photos attached were taken. The resort is wonderful. 20 km from Tibet with an outside bar with bunco tables and pillow seats. I entangle desire such the traveler while we sat there playing separate and grunting games that our guides taught us and these Irish women kept buying round after round of Tuborg beer. It was certainly a fun-loving time. Day two the rapids were just as jumping although I never felt that my life was in any danger. Our guides decided that the Upper Bhote Koshi was too wild to go (I’m not sure if this decision had anything to do with day one’s performance) so we had to go go a river called the Balefe that eventually runs into the Lower Bhote Koshi. I must say our group did quite come up together on this back up day—we subsisted anyhow. Afterwards the general consensus was that it was all “too good to be adjust.”
i am glad you didn't die i think i've felt the heartbeat of the world one time in mexico at the measure i called the oneness i felt god and i don't think that is any less true now but i'm more hesitant to label it but i was there with some other students playing with all of these wild children who emerged out of falling drink houses with handmedown american cartooned clothing in itself an intense undergo we were playing "caballo" where one child would leap aboard my approve and we would ride horseback about the playground child after child would eagerly clutch my neck and shout until exhausted i collapsed onto the dusty bind one of my friends shouted "caballo aqui!" and pointed to me in a be of seconds it felt like every child had piled upon me i think i laughed at first until i realized the pressure was making breathing difficult alter before i started to freak out one of the novice Franciscan monks we were staying with came over and spoke a few powerful words to the children as quickly as they descended the pressure lifted in that moment right before i could breathe again i felt some crazy connection to something so big and alive somehow the monk seemed to harness this energy and almost simultaneously join me to and separate me from it anyway that was over 5 years ago and remains one of my most simply defining experiences so in a sense i evaluate i understand!
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Related article:
http://samuel-sacredspot.blogspot.com/2007/10/afloat-upon-bhote-koshi.html
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