This article continues story from Nepal: TATA vs Mahindra
Impact was terrible, aside from few bruises and Patrick’s bitten lip, everyone was fine. We are changing busses within few moments and continuing to the town of Surkhet. We arrived around midnight and were forced to sleep in the worst hotel I have ever visited. Morning caught us in great hurry, because we had to be at the airport around 7. As we were waiting another hour before airport gate I murmured to myself: “Get used to Nepali time for fuck sake”. It was good call, because flight schedule is also directed by this magical formula. Pretentious barn, heavily guarded by local army with artificial muzzle-loaders and cows walking down the runway – Welcome to the airport Surkhet!
Big group of 7 was flying, therefore we had rent two planes. Usually it is being paid by few dollar notes, but we are paying with rupees. Quarter of million rupees is solid pile of money. Everyone from the airport personnel stop by to check out this fortune.
Security check is another test of patience and it also include our passports, however our passports are safely stored in the hotel in Pokhara. Another ID document must be enough – like credit card or 2 years old ISIC. It worked out at the end.
We are waiting for our pilot. Door handle clicked. Cigarette and tip of crocodile shoes entered room. Yeah, Nepalese Topper Harley will take us to the Thule Beri. Small puzzle of how to manage squeeze 7 kayaks in the thin plane. Everything needed to be weight on scale, which weigh randomly. We let them to fill up plane up to 1000kg.
I was little bit surprised, when I saw that maximal cargo is 750kg, but to be honest I was more concerned about piece metal glued to the wing by silicon pasta. Flight was calm and offered magnificent views. Hills were getting closer. Plane leaned on the side and we were able to see airport Julpha for the first time. Patrick screamed: „Oooh shit, that’s our runway!“ and plane was already jumping on badly ploughed field. We are used to that plane descends to the runway, but in the Jolpha runway ascends under plane. Topper made it down without any problems and we stopped full 5 meters from the end of runway, which ends with steep slope. He tried to comfort us, that if he couldn’t stop, that there would be slight change to take off again. This year just few planes got to Julpha, so our landing was viewed by whole valley. Paradox is that porters for reasonable prize are so hard to get. I and Jirka took our boats on our backs to improve our way to Dunai with little load.
Upper Dolpha finally looks like from travel agency catalogue. No trash lying on the stress, kids are not screaming „money!“ and villages are not interwoven with nets of electricity cables and there is no road at all. I made it. Within two years road will be built and with that everything bad arrive. Dunai is capital town of Dolpha region. Thanks to that we were able to buy basic supplies and accommodate in one of two hotels.
We divided into two groups as Colin, Espen, James and Bed are in hurry to catch a plane in Kathmandu and we wanted to do 4 days hike to Phoksundo Lake. Jirka griped about hiking all the time, but at the end he approves it. We split our supplies for single days with special care, because our departure from Pokhara was rather quick and that’s why we have minimum food and also almost no money.
Full of optimism we are starting our hike direction Phoksundo Lake. Immediately at the entrance to the national park we are experiencing first problems. Park guard wants permits for this region. Surprisingly we don’t have any and these permits can be obtained only in Kathmandu. We started to play game, who will conceal first. Our team is presented by Patrick, who is explaining that we are not leaving till we see one of the most beautiful lakes in the world. Guards started to be compliant till at the end, they wanted to see just our passports, but our passports are….
Discussion continues…
Do you have porters? No
Do you have guide? No
Tent or stove? No
Map? No
Do you speak Nepalese? Yeah, 10 words…
Go, I have never met you!
Rest of the hike is without problems except that we got lost couple of times. Trail is quite steep all the time, but scenery and lake itself are worth that. Water colour is unbelievable blue. All views are simply like from other world. I think it was all made in China from plastic…
As we returned to the Dunai, Patrick found out that children from the village have eaten all of our chocolates and our supplies are close to none. Not a good start for adventure like this. First couple of kilometres nothing is happening. River just flows through mountain desert, but right after first footbridge river started to show its full power.
Opening boulder garden marked as class V, define rest of the trip. Full loaded kayak is not under my control. First few kilometres my kayak chooses lines rather than me. River started to dig it’s way through hills which marks beginning of Golden Canyon. We ran couple of first rapids and then we stop at the first house. Shack is occupied by Nepalese seniors, so warm Dhal-bat can’t be refused, which is great related to our supplies. I was able to eat huge amount of rice as I can imagine hard work in the front of us. It is the shame that with seniors there live something around 1000 flies on square meter. Sleeping here was good call as senior’s garden hide unrunnable rapid. So we can start just under it.
Golden Canyon is exceeding my expectation by 200%. Continuous rapids kept us occupied whole day. Almost everything can be boat scouted, but that doesn’t mean that it is easy whitewater. River dig it is way through golden-orange rock and in the light of late afternoon sun, speaks for its’ name. We are faced with harder rapid and line is obvious – boof and get out. Reality is different.
At least I found out that there can be really dark even in crystal clear water, no swim though. First section is around 25km without much of a rest. We are getting really tired, so immediately when canyon opens up we stop at the first beach and call it a day. Pasta with red sauce is gone faster than we expected it. Morning is not as cold as the day before up in the mountains and we were able to dry our clothes for a little while. Right after the very first corner canyon walls close up again and fun continues. We know about 3km long portage from the guidebook, which is close to the first bigger village. We are pretty much fired up, boat are lighter as we don’t have any food. We arrived to the village and started long scout. First kilometre would go, may be even everything else if there would be more eddies. We decided to portage it. Valley gets more opened right after portage. Difficulty remains same, because flow already doubled and it is getting really pushy.
We are caught up by Benji and Jasper next day morning, and we are happy for that as they have enough money. However they also bring bad news about group, which separate from us in Dunai. One of guys was transported to the hospital by helicopter.
We are trying to push on next day morning. We run last canyon with couple powerful stoppers. River finally loses its gradient and difficulty, but river show us its’ power for last time in the long furious class V rapid. I can’t admit I was scared, because there was huge amount of water in the river. We were able to run it eddy to eddy without scouting. We made it!
Our trip finished in the village of Devestal, which is connected by road. I was looking forward for huge feast, where I will eat till I die. As you can expect I spent first two days at the toilet. We met James, who was in the first group, and finally we understand, what had happened. Ben stepped into some kind of hole in the ground and something bite his angle, which turned black other day. Although no poisonous scorpion lives in Nepal, Ben must be bitten by some kind of spider. Ben was transported to the hospital in Delhi and he is ok.
Thule Beri was one of the most intense experiences in my life and I can fully recommend it! You will experience true Nepal, where is no road – thanks for that!
Check out second movie from Nepal and full gallery.
