My Gap Year

Last weekend Soph and I went with all the volunteers on a rafting trip to the Trisuli river which is down near to Pokhara and Chitwan National Park. We set out from Thamel bright and early on Saturday morning and took a bus down to our starting point - only took three hours so it wasn’t too bad a trip - did see quite a few bus accidents on the way down which is always going to make you feel a little less safe!!We made it though in one piece!!As there were about 22 of us we had to obviously divide ourselves between four rafts, soph and I went with James, Tara, Russel, Kristina and Britta!!!We firstly had to pump up our raft which was not as easy as the rafting guys were making it look!! We eventually pump it up and then had our safety briefing by Maila - seriously one of the funniest people we’ve met out here yet!!!He turned out to be the rafting instructor that we had on our raft which was really good!! Our raft was called team Yo Baby!!We rafted our way down to the beach that we were having lunch on plunging ourselves into many rapids, falling out several times and jumping out at our own will - the water was seriously cold, but you kind of just got used to it!!After every rapid we had to chant our yo baby chant which was really funny - we were by far the loudest raft!!!We were also allowed to actually swim down one of the rapids which was seriously good fun if not a little scary at times!!We literally just stopped at a little beach on the side of the river took a seat and the next thing we knew the rafting guys had prepared this feast for us, we even got tuna!!!It was amazing!!We just sat around and relaxed for a while as instructed by Maila so letting our food digest before we were thrown back into the water again!!One of the rafts had a whole in it which had to be fixed aswell - luckily not our raft!!

We then rafted our way down to the place where we were camping for the night!!It was seriously nice spot that they had chosen, they even pitched up the tents for us on the beach so we literally just step out of the rafts, got changed into some more dry clothes and sat around having some tea and coffee to warm us up!!! The food that the guys managed to produce for us was pretty impressive considering that the gas that they had bought to cook with didn’t work, so they had to cook everything over a wood fire - we literally got given yet another feast, it was amazing!!We then all sat around a camp fire and were thoroughly entertained by Maila’s singing and dancing!!!The rafting guys then produced this homemade rice wine which was actually really nice and really warmed us up!!!We also got to playing some games around the fire which were really funny!!!Most people then headed into their tents for bed, however soph and I decided to be really hard core rafters and sleep next to the camp fire on some mats!!!

Both Soph and I woke up with sand all over us, but feeling content as we had such a good night sleep!!!We all grabbed some more tea and coffee, and then the rafting guys produced yet another amazing meal for breakfast, we even got pancakes!!!!We all stocked up on as much food as we could to re-energize ourselves for some big rapids!!We had to dismantle the tents before we left for rafting - proved to be quite a difficult task for soph and I, had to get the rafting guys to help us!!!We then set out again on the river and had yet another amazing morning of rafting, the rapids were slightly bigger and that was made apparent by the number of people that fell out of the rafts!!!Our raft spent most of the time getting soaked either by jumping in, falling in or being splashed by other rafts - so generally it was a wet morning!!We also had the best instructor being Maila, his broken English commands kept us all thoroughly entertained on both days!!!We eventually got to the beach, had yet another amazing lunch, got changed and dry, and then hopped on the bus and headed back to Thamel!!!The bus journey was also very entertaining and Kristina and I serenaded everyone for the whole journey!!!There was an accident on the road on the way back so we didn’t get back till really late, so everyone stayed in Thamel that evening and we went out for supper with all the rafting guys which was really nice!!Generally it was an awesome weekend, and one full of many quotes and jokes that will never be forgotten!!!

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