Rivers and rescue of a different kind...

It was once again time to travel to kathmandu - Fortunantly it was only for one night before we would be leaving again. We jumped on the bus at fishling with the rest of the guides and clients for the multi river trip. They had lost a couple of people so there was a girl called Michelle and five lads plus the guides. They all seemed like a good laugh although a little fed up of being on the bus - but the beer was helping them through it! 

We arrived in kathmandu fairly late, after unloading the bus, eating some food other than dal Bhat  and sleeping - it was time to load up the bus again and set off to the east and start our journey. It took us a while to get out of kathmandu - we all thought they were looking for oil with stopping at every petrol station but it turned out it was diesel - there was a fuel shortage which had just happened that morning apparently! Soon though we were able to fill the tank and we were underway on our journey. 

We arrived at our lodgings for the night which was situated on the bhote kose not too far away from the confluence where the bhalefi joins. After some lunch it was time to get on the river - on the way up to the bhalefi the journey again was not without event. A dog had run in front of the bus and unfortunatly that was the last time it would ever run again - although it was a stray it happened in front of several young children. I guess these things just happen.

The river itself was from the begining fairly fast and filled with lots of rocks - so a lot of dodging was to be done - the guide boom described the river as a kayakers dream river with boulder gardens, beautiful blue water and fast water. It definatly fitted the description with lots of non stop action and rapids to run some harder than others. The biggest drop on the river and I walked around this rapid with paddy running my boat down for me - which I was more than happy with. 

We were padding fairly quickly as there wasn't much time for stopping with rapid following rapid which was fun catching nice lines through the boulders. Until near the end - unfortunantly I managed to land on top of a boulder and drop into a hole - which I stayed up for some time until I got flipped - no issues I went to set up for a roll and then bang - my head had hit a rock hard, under the water. Time to pull the deck as I couldn't think at that moment - maybe I should have tried to roll but the force that my head hit the rock I wanted air as soon as possible. Paddy was right there to rescue me so I grabbed the front of his boat. And he started paddling me to the side - which was when I said to him "sorry I didn't roll I hit my head on a rock" to which he replied "it's ok, hold on your bleeding". 

It was then I put my hand to my head and saw the blood - mixed with the water it seemed like there was loads. When I got to the side I started to panic a little as I couldn't see what had happened I just knew that it hurt. Thankfully the English guys had some first aid stuff with them and after a quick bandage up, short ferry glide across the river, paddy and me walked up to the road to the bus - we were only approx half a kilometre away from the end but I did not want to get back into the boat. 

I got taken to the hospital and there they asked "what kind of doctor would you like?" And stated the rip off prices that they wanted to charge. I didn't know about this until afterwards but a phone call later and we had a doctor to see me. This doctor cleaned me up, gave me some local anesthetic and then two stitches. The cut was down to the bone apparently which was pretty impressive! I only had to pay for the medicines and what they used. Overall it wasn't a bad experience. Although the headache and black eye that were to follow the next few  days would be a reminder of the rock I had a fight with.