Up about 6:00, tea/coffe ad breakky, broke camp and started rafting about 9:30.
WOWSERS, some amazing rapids today! All day long, they came, unrelenting! It was superb!
Mani told us the water was low this time of year. The best time is October and November, after monsoons, water levels are much higher, creating significantly better whitewater, with huge drops, whirlpools, faster, better rapids. 2nd week in October is the best time for the Tamur river. The 1st or 2nd week of September for the Karnali river.
We stopped for lunch about 12:30. We had an old village lady visit us, she had a huge gold nose ring, bedecked with gems. It's common for the older ladies in the villages to have these big nose rings, signifies age.
All day long, Shaun and I were conspiring to push each other in the water. We didn't trust each other. Mani told us we could latch the ends of the paddles together and then balance on either edge of the raft, leaning backwards towards the water. Like a balance, we would hold each other up. We gave it a go, and as we were balancing, Mani knocked the paddles apart, and we both went crashing into the water. Mani got a BIG kick out of that one...he got us good there.
At one point, at one rapids, Mani got us wedged between two rocks, stuck in a moment of time. After lots of jumping, and all of sitting in the bow of the boat, water barreling all over us, hopeing to work ourselves free, Mani climbed to the back of the boat and grabbed a rope attached to the stern. He brought the end of the rope back to the front, and indicated to me that we were going to start pulling on the rope and flip the raft over, end-over-end, to get unwedged...it was the only way. I just blurted out..."You can't be serious!", and I guess the look on my face was indescribale. Steph started howling, because of the look on my face. Ends up, Man was just playing me, we were going to yank on the rope to work ourselves free. It was a hilarious episode, trying to work ourselves free, it took us about 10 minutes. The other rafts and the kayakers cheered when I finallly got ourselves free.
Near the end of the Tamur river was an amazing canyon, then the Tamur dumps into the Sun Khosi river, significantly bigger than the Tamur, and much dirtier (muddy, debris (vegetation) floating down it).
Awwww, it's almost over! None of us wanted it to be over, we were all having so much fun.
We found a nice campsite on the Sun Khosi. A bunch of locals descended on us (mostly kids), and some of the adults them brought some local rice whisky and beer. I had a little bit of each, the local whisky tasted much like the local whisky we had in other parts of SE Asia, but the local beers was ungodly horrible. I didn't drink much, but enough to make my stomach churn, and I lost my appetite.
Went to bed about 9:30.
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