From One Place To The Next

I'm happy to say that my absence from this blog as of late can't be traced to laziness. Rather, I've been running around without a moment to spare and it's been great! I'm in Rishikesh now, resting after a busy week. I'm quite tired now, but I've wanted to write for a while so I'm rallying to update everyone who's following my trip. 

I'll start back in McLeod Ganj, land of the Dalai Lama and Himalayan views, on the morning of my Nov. 2nd departure to Bir to meet Vipin, co-owner of Red Chilli, and try out paragliding.

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I woke up early on the morning of Nov. 2nd and packed up my things for a two-day journey to Bir, opting to keep my guesthouse room while I was gone to store most of my belongings. Rather than spending 300 rupees to get a taxi by myself down the hill to Dharamsala, I crammed in a jeep with seven, no nine, no twelve! people plus the driver for 10 rupees (comfortably, the jeep would've held five to seven of us with our bags). After making this decision to take a shared jeep rather than a taxi, I committed to this local, crammed, cheap but colorful style of travel for the rest of my journey, wanting to experience public transportation in India first-hand. Fortunately, the guy squished next to me was a young Tibetan college student who was headed down the hill to same place I was headed, the office of the Superintendent of Police. He was getting his Indian Visa re-newed while I was getting a Restricted Area Permit to visit Bir. We had a nice talk about Tibet and life there, as well as life in India for Tibetans. We got off the jeep and transitioned quickly onto a city bus and headed to the police building. Once the attendant who manned the desk in Room #8 (for foreigners and Tibetans) showed up (the office was supposed to open at 10am, he casually cruised in around 10:35am), I found out the place to get my permit was in an office down the street. Leaving my Tibetan friend, I headed down the street with my bags for Bir, realizing I should've known that getting a government permit was going to be a bigger ordeal than I thought.

By now, it was 11 o'clock and I was itching to get going. I was sent to Room #212 in the Deputy Commisioner's building where there were three Indian men sitting at desks. One handed me the form which I quickly filled out and returned to him with the requested passport and visa copies and two passport photos. Surprised at my sense of urgency and "on-top-of-it-ness," he told me to come back at 4:30pm. Smiling, I told him it was not possible for me to wait that long as I was leaving today and needed to get going. State-wide elections were two days away he told me, and the government was working slower than usual. I decided the best tactic for me was to just plop down in the office and sit there until I received my permit. Making small talk with the guys in the office, they realized I was a decent guy but more importantly, that I wasn't going to leave them alone until they handed me the piece of paper I applied for. Of course, after about an hour-and-a-half, I received my permit. I left the building awestruck at the mountains of paper all over the place that make governance in India so inefficient.

Walking up to the nearest bus stop, I waited for a public bus to Palampur or Bajinath, the closest big cities to Bir, where I would get off and hop on another bus to my final destination. Long story short, after a "yes, yes this bus to Palampur," and then "no, no this bus not to Palampur," all the way back to the main bus stop above the police buildings, then on another bus, I was finally on my way. During that Dharamsala bus mess, I was tempted for a few moments to give up my public transit commitment and take a taxi to Bir, paying the extra money (taxi = 1500 rupees, bus = 100 rupees). I was glad I persevered, sitting shotgun in a bus to Palampur that ebbed and flowed from packed, standing room only to only a few riders.

The first of many public buses on my trip, all ornately decorated

After transferring in Palampur, I was lucky enough to find a direct bus to Bir.

Busy Palampur bus depot

Arriving after about 3 hours of bus travel in Bir, I now had to find Vipin who was hanging out at the landing zone. I embarked on a 3km walk through the surrounding village of Bir, finding my way by hand signals from local farmers. The sun was setting fast and the last thing I wanted was to find myself lost in the countryside of Bir in the dark. Even though time was running out, I couldn't resist the kodak moment.

I knew I was getting close...

I finally found the landing zone where Vipin greeted me (pretty obvious to spot the raft guide with the big, red dry bag!) just as the sun was setting. We had some chai and headed back to the bright green house Vipin is renting in Bir for dinner and sleep.

Waking up the next morning, I felt butterflies of excitement as I was set to try out a new adventure sport. I have to admit, I'm not one for heights, and I was pretty fired up for my first flight. Meeting up with some good fliers in Bir who Vipin is friends with in the morning, we headed up the hill on a windy, 45 min drive to the launch site. At the launch site, we wasted no time strapping up and before I knew it, I was hooked to an Indian pilot and we were running into the sky.

The flight lasted about 45 mins and the views were awesome. I enjoyed the experience and found it quite peaceful in the air. We caught thermals where you circle around in an updraft of warm air to gain elevation and then took a tour of the valley below. While I enjoyed paragliding, the experience confirmed my love for rivers and I think I'll stick to rafting for the time being :)

After another interesting bus journey on the way back to McLeod Ganj, I was glad to be back and exhausted from all the public traveling.

I saw Dr. Dhonden the following morning. He slightly altered my prescription and sent me off with a three month supply of black balls (total bill to see the doctor twice = 20 rupees, about 36 cents - total bill for a 3 month supply of pills = about 1500 rupees, less than 30 dollars). While the medicine tastes terrible, I have noticed incredible improvement in my asthma and allergies...it's quite wild and very cool.

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Arriving back in Rishikesh in the early morning of Nov. 6th after another overnight bus journey (which I was much more comfortable with, thanks to my Bir experience), I headed back to the Red Chilli office and caught up with Arvind. To a long story short, Arvind told me that if I wanted to run the Upper Alkhanada as I hoped, me and the team would need to be back by Friday the 9th as the Red Chilli jeep that we could use was leaving for a trek on the morning of Saturday the 10th. This meant that we needed to leave Rishikesh on the morning of the 7th, drive 9 hours to put-in and camp, then raft 90km over the next two-days and drive back 6hrs to Rishikesh right after taking off of the river to return on the night of the 9th. Finding a crew at the last minute consisting of Mark and Matt, jumpmasters at the Bunjee site in Rishikesh, Flow and Rakesh, all kayaking, and me rowing a cataraft with our gear, we decided to get a good night sleep and pack all the gear first thing in the morning. Somehow, I got rallied to dinner at a restaurant across the bridge and ended up having a late night. I was exhausted!

I woke up at 6am to pack my personal gear, met up with the team at the gear store at 7am, packed up the jeep and headed out for the long drive up the canyon. 10 km from the town of Chomoli, the official start of the Upper Alkhanada run, lies a class IV/V rapid called Hillary Falls. The rapid is named after Sir Edmund Hillary who drove his jet boat from Rishikesh all the way up the Ganga and Alkhanada to this rapid which he deemed impassable, ending his journey. Interested, but looking too low to run from the road, we decided to save ourselves the hassle of a possible portage and put-in just downstream. Finding a road to the river but a gate to the beach locked, we carried our camping gear a short ways to a secluded beach, made dinner, and crashed out.

In the morning, with the help of the young guy living in a shanty just inside the gate, we hilariously lifted the gate off the hinges, ignoring the lock, and drove the jeep down to the river to unload the remaining gear we didn't unload the night before. Pushing off around 11am, we put in an awesome full-day on the river. The flow seemed medium, maybe 7,000 - 8,000cfs. The fourth rapid was the first "California-style" rapid I'd run in India, about 200 yards long with multiple moves, big holes, waves, and fun drops. It turned out to be my favorite rapid of the whole run. With downstream progress in mind, I took no pictures of the first day on the beautiful river.

When it was time to find a camp, we pulled over to many camps but each had its issue. For the most part, we just wanted to avoid locals. While kind and good-hearted, they tend to stand about 3ft. away from you and stare. And they stay there, more gathering by the minute, until there are 30 villagers standing almost arm length away from you just starting. Getting tired and watching the sun go down, we finally found a nice beach and set-up camp. The beach we camped at happened to be just across the river from a big Army base. While not our best move, we were running out of options as we headed into a steep part of the canyon. With the occasional spotlight shined on us, hoping that we wouldn't wake up to the Indian Army asking for our passports we left in the jeep, we made dinner and all passed out nice and early.

Waking up the next day, we got a bit of an earlier start just as the sun reached our cold camp. We saw a rapid from the road that looked big and soon after launching, were at the top, getting out of our boats for a scout. By this time, with many tributaries entering the main Alkhananda River, we were running a big-volume river that must have been somewhere between 12,000 and 15,000cfs.

With few pictures to show from the trip, I decided to watch the kayakers run the rapid and take photos.

Rakesh runs far left

The rapid consisted of a holey lead-in that fed a large wave-hole, followed up by a big, nasty pourover to the right and just below the center feature.

Mark running left of center where the other two kakayers ran

After watching the kayakers take smooth lines, Flow ran up to get a photo of me. With the camera on, I decided someone had to run the meat! With a line in mind, I headed back to my boat and got ready to run the Class IV rapid.

Further right than I wanted to be but thankfully missing the biggest pourover just after the hole

Here we go!

No problems!

Right down the middle, my line had the guys laughing. After running a few more fun rapids, we found ourselves at take-out, bummed our trip was over. We packed-up the jeep and hit the road for a 6 hr journey back to Rishikesh. 

The Upper Alkhanada is by far my favorite section of river I've run so far in India. With big class III and IV whitewater and beautiful, aqua-blue water, it's a river anyone can enjoy. I hope to see it again soon!

The team: Rakesh, Matt, Mark, Me, and Flow (from left)

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Back in Rishikesh, I'm resting and catching up on sleep. I'll write more soon, but I'm slowly fading, my body deprived of rest....until next time!