white water rafting-Nepal & Endra, Nepal's most recent Everest summiter!

(photo of the JV booking agent team, not the all star guide squad). Yubaraj is also a rafting guide and invited me to the annual rafting picnic sponsored by the Nepali Rafting Association; an afternoon of rafting followed by a picnic/all night party (Wheels, they had dance moves that would have given you a good run for your money). Basically it is the annual gathering of all the rafting guides and booking agents. He asked me if I had rafted before and I told him "yes, a few times and twice in West Virginia on class 5 + rapids." Class 5, no problem, he thought that was good enough so I went in his boat with 7 of his friends; all guides. The river was considered one of the easier rivers in Nepal. I didn't really think about the fact that I was in a boat with 8 other guides who by nature are all adrenaline junkies! The US definitely doesn't have the same scale of measuring rapids as Nepal does. Their "easy"river, class 3+ is ten times harder than West Va's 5+!! They all liked to take the hardest route through the rapid and me being the least experienced seemed to be the only one to fly out of the boat more or less every time. I tried to find the humor in it the first few times, but the novelty of lapsing in and out of consciousness wore off pretty quickly. Also, contrary to what they said, I don't think they like fishing the waters for me. After a few good knocks and seeing my life flash in front of me, I switched to the boat of booking agents. They were all wasted or stoned and when they came to a rapid, they thought it was funny to jump out and swim it! Again, funny the first few times. All in all, I survived with only a few bruises and had a blast. I knew rafting was popular here, but only later found Nepal has some of the most extreme rivers to raft in the world.




Endra, one of Yubaraj's best friends just summited Mt Everest!! (yes, I know I look a really rough, tough day on the river!!) He went up with another Nepali and a Turkish team! It was awesome to hang out with him and listen to his stories. He was so humble about the whole experience, a really really inspirational guy! We hung out for a few hours and he might teach me how to kayak next week. In the middle of conversation I kept on thinking to myself, damn this guys summited Everest 2 weeks ago and he's my age!


Every one here thinks I am Nepali, which is a good things at times. Trying to keep things simple I initially told people I am just American, simple. Then I told Yubaraj a little bit of my background. He asked me where in India my dad was born and I told him just outside of Lucknow. "Ah!!!, you are Nepali. I knew it!" he said. According to him, at some point during Gurkha rule Lucknow was part of Nepal. I haven't been able to verify it, but he always tells people I am Nepali. Then the questions start...."Is it your first time here? If you are Nepali, why is it your first time? Didn't your father bring you? Why don't you speak Nepali?" It's too difficult to try explain that I am not Nepali. Thanks Yubaraj for adding to my ethnic confusion!

So, what's next in Nepal? 4 day kayak course (i've always wanted to learn), mountain biking (maybe even a race on the 10th), more yoga, Vipassana course on the 15th and then hopefully if all works out, a 21 day bike ride from Lhasa, Tibet back to Kathmandu via the Friendship Highway (fingers crossed). I couldn't imagine coming home June 1st as I had planned, life is good.....really good.