On the beach at dusk by the Sun Kosi, the river of gold in Nepal. Picture by Lee Stokes.
Getting the Sun Kosi on my brain
Back in 2003 I rafted the East Glacial river in Iceland in the northern region of Skagafjörður in Iceland. I wasn´t new to rafting, I had been on that river four years earlier but somehow I had much more fun the second time around. Perhaps, because we had an epic flip in the infamous "Green Room" rapid! I also got to know Nepalese guides who told me about the ´River of Gold´- Sun Kosi - in Nepal. They told me of huge water volume, huge rapids, massive waves and big hydraulics. Over the years the idea of going to Nepal and take on that river grew on me. The civil strife in that country dissuaded me and friends from actually going ahead.
The suburbs of Khatmandu from the air
The thought of Sun Kosi didn´t leave me alone though and in 2012 I knew I had to scratch that itch and I had the perfect excuse of turning 40 (hey, its cheaper than a sports car!).
I contacted my friends but they were lukewarm to say the least. For some reason they weren´t turned on by spending 8 days on a river bank in Nepal and rafting some 275KM. I just don´t get these guys :)
I tried my brother and to my delight and surprise he was all for it. So I went online and started my search for a reliable Nepalese rafting company.
Map of our route
Safe, reliable, predictable
I wanted to find a company who was reliable, was safety conscious and had been in business for some time. I had never travelled to Asia before and could hardly describe myself as an experienced traveller. I decided to use Tripadvisor and contact the highest rated Nepalese rafting company. It was clear that GRG Adventure Kayaking (GRG) was that company.
Starting out. In the background you can see the guides inflating the cargo boat and on the right you can see our raft who somebody had named "Krishna"
I went on the GRG Facebook page and found a picture album from a Sun Kosi trip they had organized and messaged one of the guys who had been on that trip and asked for his verdict. He recommended GRG without any hesitation so I decided to use them for the trip. We booked a trip that started on the 2nd of October 2012.
One of the beaches we camped on.
One of the camps. We did the dishes in the buckets in the centre with ionized river water. We also used treated water from the river for drinking.
Be a lazy tourist in Kathmandu as well
My wife advised me to stay at a nice hotel in Kathmandu as the trip involves eight days on the river. I decided to go for the Hotel Shanker which I found to be a really old school four star hotel with some really great and helpful staff. The best thing about it was the resturant, the spa and of course the pool where you can relax with a nice drink and surf the web.
The guides cooked some awesome food for us on the way.
I booked my flights through Icelandair and we had a smooth (albeit long) travel which started in Keflavik and then on to London with Icelandair and then with Etihad Airways to from Abu Dhabi to Khatmandu.
The "facilities" - when you wanted to use the toilet you would take the helmet with you to indicate that it was occupied. Notice the lantern on the right of the paddle. It would light our way in the dark.
Culture shock
When we arrived in Kathmandu we were taken to the GRG office where we met up with Maila and Chrissy and our companions on the trip. We had our dose of culture shock when driving through the traffic choked streets of Kathmandu. Neither of us had been to Asia or a third world country for that matter so the poverty and the massive chaotic traffic was something quite new to us.
We are not in Iceland anymore
Early next day a bus from GRG picked us up at our hotel and we drove in a bus for three hours to our starting point in Damauli. The trip was actually fun for us who had never been to Nepal. The guides pumped up the volume of their favourite music and I felt a world away with the Bollywod music and the excotic scenery outside. We stopped once or twice along the way and, man, it was hot outside. My brother provided a taste of home by bringing some dried fish but it was somewhat underappreciated by our companions. Next time he should bring butter as well :)
My brother Gudjon with dried fish on his way to the Sun Kosi
Routine is good - when it involves a lot of thrills and spills
There is a detailed description of the Sun Kosi trip on the GRG website so I won´t go into what we did each day but what impressed me was the routine that took over from day one. It went something like this:
1. Wake up at 6 in the morning - look greedily at whatever the guides were making for breakfast
2. Have coffee or tea and breakfast and lots of it
3 Strike our tents and get our things into rubber dry bags
4. Carry all things to the raft and cargo boat
5. Put on helmets, lifevest and get on the raft - feel a flutter in your stomach as we pushed the raft from the beach and on to the river for some thrills and spills
6. Paddle hard through some awesome rapids, joke with the guys on the raft, swim in the river if the guide gave the green light or just enjoy the fantastic scenery.
7. Land at a pristine beautiful beach and have delicious lunch
8. Repeat no. 6. We would spend some 6 hours on the boat each day
9. Land at beach and bring all gear to land, pitch our tents, dig the toilet, light candles, collect firewood and get ready for darkness which falls at 18.00 or so
10. Have an evening snack prepared by the guides
11. Eat a delicious dinner prepared by the guides, these guys prepared feasts by the light of an open fire or a small torch
12. Sit by the fire, chat with my friends and have a beer or two
13. Fall asleep in record time
I also realized how disconnected from the cycle of day and night us westerners have really become. I mean, I found my self at a riverbank in Nepal thinking to myself: "Hang on, it´s all dark now, where can I turn on the light?" The guides were ever patient with us so when we had forgotten to find our sleeping bags after it had become really dark they were quick to help us out.
Love sand
And I have talk about the sand. Beaches are nice but you shouldn´t stay there unless you love sand. And believe me there is a lot of it and it gets everywhere. So just love sand. Even the kind that is made from crushed rock and consists of razor sharp crystals.
The rapids of the Sun Kosi river
The Sun Kosi is filled with large (and small) rapids. The main ones are:
- No Exit
- Meatgrinder
- High Anxiety
- The mighty Harkapur, the 10th largest rapid in the world
- JAWS where we flipped (see below)
- Rhino Rock"
- Jungle Corridor
- Rollercoaster
- Big Dipper
- Black Hole
The Beastly Harkapur
The feeling of going successfully through a big rapid like Harkapur is a pretty unique feeling to say the least. I think the videos and the pictures below tell the story much better than I ever could. What is missing from those videos and pictures is the deep rumble of a large rapid such as the Harkapur rapid. We heard this bone crunching growl when we came to our camping site the night before and it was our companion throughout the evening and the morning. We scouted the rapid in the afternoon and in the morning before running it and it wasn´t the massive waves or the rocks that scared me, it was that rumbling sound that got to me. You would listen to it and think "My God ... what have I gotten myself into?"
One interesting thing that happened and something you might catch on the GoPro video below, at one point when were are approaching the rapid the senior guide (Gotam) yells something in Nepalese to Rajul the other guide steering the boat. We all took this as "Forward hard" so we paddled really hard, it was like an electric current going through the boat. He was actually telling him to steer to the right. Oh, and they didn´t mention to us until we had gone through that two other companies had bypassed Harkapur so we really opened the rapid for the 2012 season. Pretty cool :)
Final thing about Harkapur: I had my trusty Garmin 310 GPS watch and it showed that we accelerated to 29.9KM per hour. That is really fast, especially when you keep in mind that the regular flow of the river is just around 5 - 10KM per hour.
Scouting Harkapur from the riverside.
Running the Harkapur rapid and opening it up for the 2012 season (GoPro view - my brother is wearing the camera on his helmet).
Running the Harkapur rapid (GoPro view - my brother is wearing the camera on his helmet)
This video was created by the Icelandic production company Tjarnargatan and features footage from our trip down the Sun Kosi.
Below are images from us running the Harkapur rapid:
Kali guides the cargo boat through Harkapur.
We accelerated to 29.9KM per hour.
Overview map of the Harkapur rapid.
Flipping in the Jaws rapid
The same day we ran the Harkapur rapid we had an epic flip in the Jaws rapid.
Flipping the raft in the JAWS rapid. My God!
Apperantly, our angle into the rapid was a bit off so the massive wave just swept us aside like we were a piece of cardboard in a hurricane. I remember paddling hard when two successive waves struck the boat and flipped it over. It is strange but I wasn´t really surprised when the boat turned and I was in the water.
I was lucky as I got ejected from the boat in a way I didn´t spend significant time under it. I will never forget the view when I got to the surface, a huge wave on the right and that sound again, the massive roar of the rapid. Successive waves of water slammed me in the face. Then I saw the kayakers in front of me and I yelled so loud for help I was hoarse for two days. They rushed towards to us and pulled us to safety. My trip to the riverbank took an interesting turn when Finn the safety Kayaker turned to me where I was hanging to his kayak and said: "You have to let me go now." I knew I had to comply as this meant we were having an encounter with a whirlpool. As soon as I let him go I was sucked under and I wish I had a recording of the gurgling sound I heard myself make while stuck in the whirlpool. When the whirlpool ejected me to the surface a rope appeared in front of me as by magic. This was thrown from the guys on the cargo boat. They pulled me in and one of the guys patted me on the back and said: "You went down for a long time."
After this we all worked together to salvage the situation and get everybody back on the raft where they belong and tackle the next rapids in the Jaws series. And that whirlpool? Finn told me later that it was at least 15 meters wide. Holy crap.
The last two days were pretty quiet but I liked those days as well as it gave us all a time to chat, cement our friendship and enjoy the beauty of Nepal.
Team FORWARD! From the left: Sanji, Jon Thorsteinsson (me), Gudjon Magnusson, Raju the guide, Ralph Boelzner and Lee Stokes. We are mates for life.
Finally, we opted for a flight back from the "take out" point of Chatra which involves a two hour crazy drive through the countryside and an hour long flight back to Kathmandu. We flew with Buddha Air which was just as uneventful and smooth as you want a flight to be. The alternative was a 16 hour ride on a bus. We were glad we took the flight. We came to the Shanker Hotel, hugged the water toilet and took extra long showers. The morning after we revisited Buddha Air and joined them on a mountain flight to see Mt. Sagarmatha (or Mt. Everest as it is known in the west.
Mt. Sagarmatha or Mt. Everest on the left.
What to bring on a rafting trip to Nepal
- Sun Screen and after sun lotion
- Bug repellent
- After bite lotion
- Baseball cap to wear under your helmet to screen your face from the sun
- Thin dry fit long sleeved sweater to wear on the river to shield yourself from the sun (GRG issues a jacket but it got a bit hot sometimes)
- Dry fit pants to wear on the river, again to shield yourself from the scorching sun
- Imodium in case you get a stomach flu
- Carbohydrate drink mix or energy gel like long distance runners use (in case of stomach flu)
- Copy of your passport and insurance documents
Be careful when deciding upon a company and a trip. Make sure that the company is reputable and they care about safety and know what they are doing.
This includes the following:
1. Enough safety kayakers who are experienced and certified in river rescue
2. They are insured
3. Have been in business for a long time and have a good safety record
4. Have the proper gear
5. Safety isn´t just about rescuing in big rapids. It is also about being able to run a proper camp on a river beach in the jungle or next to village. This means taking hygine seriously and being aware of the risk of theft which is inevitable when bunch of tourists with priceless cameras and stuff show up next to an impoverished village. The guides also need to be proficient with first aid, for example it is necessary to clean and bandage all small wounds or cuts immediately to avoid infections
Disclosure: I am not affliliated with GRG Adventure Kayaking in any way but both Chrissy and Maila are friends with me on Facebook. I would without a doubt use GRG again should I return to Nepal for rafting or hiking.
Written by Jón Heiðar Þorsteinsson
