Mon, 17 Jul 2000 10:10:31 GMT
From: simon @ millennium-ride.com
To: sponsors @ millennium-ride.com

2k/06/12
Nepal, the launch-pad

2k/06/02
Priceless Pakistan
+April 08+22

2k/03/28
Karachi-bound

2k/03/08
Hi from Dubai

2k/02/19
Greetings from Jeddah

2k/02/09
South Sinai sun & scuba diving

2k/01/28
Istanbul

2k/01/21
Lap of the Med. instead

2k/01/10
Libya visa problem

99/12/26
I'm outa here

99/12/26
Tracker info

99/12/23
Yes I'm still alive ...

99/10/
Hello Sponsors

99/09/23
Millennium Motorcycle emerges as a Sponsor Monster

99/09/06
Medical

99/07/28
Engine swopping

99/07/17
Tea-table survival & Gambia

99/07/11
Note to Sponsors with pin badge

99/06/12
Bike moves & Budget

99/05/04
things fall into place

99/04/10
TV and the first jabs

You've never had it so good, two emails in the space of less than a week!
There's no press release with this one because it's all rather self-indulgent. I had such a great time on the Bode Kosi River, which comes down from the highest mountains in the world from Tibet to Calcutta, and I thought I'd tell you about it.

Last Thursday started with an offer from Speedway Cargo to crate the bike and do the export paperwork for free. Then I moved my luggage to the Sunrise Cottage, the latest kind people to give me free board, before heading up the mountains. I stopped halfway for some harmonica practise and ended up giving my first public performace to three local Nepalis who wanted to check out what the noise was. It was Bob Dylan's "Blowin' in the Wind", or at least the Milward version!

I arrived at the adventure camp, set on the inside curve of the river, in the rain. Good sign I thought. It had a big open-sided bamboo communal building with thatched roof, bar, pool tables and wicker tables and chairs. There were pre-erected tents with hammocks, a brick toilet and shower block and kitchen. The garden was decorated with the last days of orchid blooms and other colourful flowers, banana palms and marijuana plants. Big dragonflies would fly around when it started to rain, looking for shelter probably, and there were hundreds of multi-coloured butterflies.

There were a group of British and Americans who had just come back from their first raft ride. Two of them dropped out, scared to go again as they had flipped over twice. Eagerly I grabbed the chance to take a place for a free ride so the next day we took the Equator Expeditions bus 10km upriver.
We donned the lifejackets, and already I was regretting eating so much for breakfast (I was paying a flat rate of $7 for food per day, much more than I was used to so I wanted to get my money's worth) the lifejackets had to be done up tight and the food threatened to come back up from my shrunken stomach.

The lauch area was right beside the rapids so as soon as we were in the boat the roller coaster ride down class 4 rapids started. Gigantic ocean-sized breakers, where the mighty torrent came against a boulder underneath the water, came over us. We were accompanied by four safety kayakers, who surfed these waves facing upstream, performing acrobatics and almost dancing in the rushing water, piroetting on their front or back ends, and they emerged from the white froth with gigantic grins.

It was the exclamation of "high right" that some of us didn't hear from the young Nepali captain at the back of the raft as we were broadside on to the flow, whereupon all of us on the left should have jumped over to the right of the boat, to compensate for a big wave and to avoid the danger of flipping. As it was, us on the left were washed overboard. Underneath the swirling waters I remembered the instructions to relax, when I surfaced I assumed the position of laying on my back with feet downstream to guard against rocks. I then grabbed a kayak which towed me to the raft and I was hauled in. Someone was tired so I volunteered for his place at the front, where you get the worst (but in my view the best) of it.

After a small lunch at the camp, it was kayak time. Friday afternoon was therefore spent practising with Dave and Rob, two brothers from Michigan USA, in the relatively calm eddy currents to the side of the main torrent.
I learnt about turning: leaning away from the current, pushing the left knee cap up on the inside of the craft to turn right, paddling properly, and rolling. The later is the self-rescue, uprighting oneself with the aid of the paddle. If this failed, then the T rescue is necessary, whereby, upside down, you bang the bottom of the kayak with your hands and a fellow kayaker puts the nose of his craft alongside on which you press down to get the leverage to come upright. Failing that, you have to bail out upside down and haul the thing to the river edge to empty it and get back in. I was unsucessful at doing the self-rescue roll until my very last attempt on Sunday before the final run down the river.

I must admit that I was feeling just a little scared and only gained some confidence on the last run. As I wobbled off into the main torrent I felt untrained and inexperienced, at the mercy of the river which seemed to say "Ride me if you dare and if you drown then I really don't care".

The river was always fuller in the morning because the monsoon rains came during the night. We did four 7.5km runs on the river, Saturday and Sunday, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. I flipped about twice on each run. The first time down I lent into the wave instead of into the current and over I went. I could not get back in for about 500m. Another time I lost it, bailed out, grabbed one of my sandals and paddle when I surfaced, but was sucked under by a whirlpool. This was when I thought "Crikey, this can be dangerous, I don't want to find out what it is like to drown" but thankfully I resurfaced. Another time, close to our landing point, I went down a 'hole', this being the area behind a great boulder filled only with splashing 'white' water. If you go down a big one you might be there for a few minutes, on the river bed getting banged about. I came out quite quickly but then after 20 odd metres found the river to be just one foot deep with the current too strong to stand up in. In the 'face up feet downstream' position my bottom got a real pounding from the rocks, I can still feel it.

We always took the public bus back to camp, loading our gear and ourselves on top of it, a great way to travel by bus. I had seen people on tops of buses ever since arriving in Pakistan and now it was my turn! There were no police at the checkpoints, they had been sent to fight the Maoists 5 km away, though I had heard no shots in the days I was there, but there again the gushing river was always pounding away in your ears. The Maoists have nothing to do with China nor Communism, they are fighting for a fair deal for Nepalis, like an end to ingrained corruption and decent basic conditions for the people. All the ordinary Nepalis I have spoken to support the Maoists in their demands, but on this occasion four policemen were killed and they looted guns and ammunition.

At the end of it all yesterday, while waiting for the monsoon shower to stop before riding back to Kathmandu, I reflected that my sore muscles and bum, cuts on the feet and blisters forming on the outside of the thumbs where they scraped against the kayak during paddling, bruised knee caps from the turns, bore witness to the fantastic time I had. I was exhausted but feeling fit and happy. I thought how there were so many exciting things to do in one's life, one just had to get out there and do them. This whitewater adventure was something I had always wanted to do and it seemed that I should try to cram all these things into my round the world motorcycle ride, since I feel sure that I will not get the chance to do them later in life.

Riding back to Kathmandu, back on the familiar vehicle, I was having such a good time, better than on the river. The bike is so solid when you throw it around the twisty hairpin bends, steady as a rock, without the boxes and luggage it is a fine fine motorcycle that I'd be happy to race. I'm still not able to scrape the footpegs, so settled for the racing technique of planting my bottom on the edge of the seat and sticking my knee towards the ground. But give me a few more months with kayaks in monsoon season and my river grin will be as big, maybe even bigger because you can take it further to the edge without fear of injury, than my road grin.

Anyway, back to polluted Kathmandu and the buzz of Thamel district, the beggars, the street sellers ("change money? smoke hash? ricksaw? kukuri knife?"). Time for me to suss out a route to Bangkok.

Take care and see you later

Simon

This interim report is intended for those who support the Millennium Motorcycle Ride. Share this dream while raising funds for medical health care registered charities Médecins Sans Frontières (worldwide) and Riders for Health (Gambia appeal). For 20 Euro/US$ + goodwill donation you get a commemorative pin badges and this regular email updates. Corporate sponsors welcome.
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