There were a few boys already there practising on the wave for the freestyle competition. I don't really know much about the names of tricks and so on and to me it just looked like they were going for a wash... Without soap or shampoo!
A few days into our stay here we had two of the boys from Rishikesh, India turn up. Both of whom I had met last year during my stay in India. I was happy to have more company as I wasn't very good at sitting on a rock all day watching the boys have fun - and there wasn't enough boats - 'proper boats' (not a small playboat) for me to go kayaking myself. It was ok though as we were to take a few days break and travel to Pokhara - which will be another post.
Anyway after our trip to Pokhara it was back to practise - the boys from India had managed to get some boats and they were ready to get practising. I got asked if I wanted to go rafting with a few people to do part of the upper section which I had not done before. I obviously said yes and persuaded Paz to come and another girl called Hayley also came. It was pretty cool we had started to build our girlfriends club and as we were all western and not taking part in the competition we could all talk to each other which was great.
The rafting was great only a short section but we had some bigger rapids to go down - we also unintentionally flipped the raft on a rapid named upset - which was interesting! Kind of fun after being sucked down a few times but everyone was ok just a little wet!
Soon the small town had more and more people turn up for the competition - the GRG crew as well as the other boys representing the Ganga Kayak Festival had arrived and the competition was soon underway!
There were various events such as slalom , freestyle, boater cross, down river race and rafting race. The boys were looking good and much cheering was to be done from the rocky bank. 23 - Ayodhaya 37 - Sunjay, 38 - Soham, 50 - Veeru & finally 57 - my Pappu were the ones I made sure to watch out for and give the biggest cheers to.
Ayodhaya qualified for the slalom final which was great news for team GKF. Soham unfortunatly had a nasty swim crossing from one gate to another where there was a big pour over so he took a swim unfortunantly. Pappu again in the same place got tipped over rolled twice and then gave up on the rest of the race.
Pappu and Veeru qualified in the top 20 for the freestyle - of which then pappu qualified for the finals on the last day of the competition to then come 6th overall - which was pretty impressive.
The boater cross Pappu and Ayodhaya got to the semi finals with pappu being knocked out and Ayodhaya finishing in second Place.
The down river race Ayodhaya came in first out of the boys out of the GFK but unfortunantly was not a medal in it for him during this race. The slalom finals however he placed 3rd overall bringing home his second medal for himself and the only two medals for the GFK team.
Overall the competition was fun with lots of people to meet and make new friends with. There were plenty of events to keep spectators and competitors entertained with live music, plenty of local food and drinks to try and fun to be had both on and off the water.
Hopefully next year I will be back and so will my boys and we will all try again and compete hopefully to do better than this year. However for now it's time to turn the focus to the Ganga Kayak Festival being held in February, in Rishikesh, India.
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