Kayaking

Once again, Hanifl center has made quarter break one of the best weeks of my life. This break's kayaking trip to Rishikesh, paddling on the Ganga, with some of the best people I've ever had the pleasure of being with.

We started out on Friday lunchtime, after our week of AP mock exams. All of us got into our separate vans and we left for Ganga base camp, home of the Himalayan River Runners.

On our way!

Base camp, aka paradise!

Tents set up along the river, two to a tent.

The day was beautiful, and we were all boiling after the long car ride, so we set up camp in our tents and went for a swim. That evening Mr Fidler (one of our excellent chaperones/instructors) showed us the proper way to swim in rapid conditions, and we practiced swimming in and out of eddies and current.

Something to note: Ganga water is cooooooold...

We came back and played a bunch of beach volleyball with the staff and an Australian family, who were rafting for a week. They were all a lot of fun, and pretty champ volleyball players!

Once it got dark, we set up the campfire and got a magnificent meal. The cook is amazing. 

Anyways, we sat around campfire swapping stories and stargazing for a while, then turned in to our sandy tents for a restful and enjoyable sleep.

Day two was our first kayak day. We all got fitted into our kayaks first thing after breakfast. Mine was a "dancer" and purple. I named it William. ;)

We spent the morning learning how to do basic things like wet exits (pulling the "holy crap strap") and t-rescues, which is where another kayak comes up to the side of the boat when it is inverted, and the underwater party uses the other's kayak to lever themselves back up.

I managed to do my first one ok, but the next few went rather terribly wrong. I couldn't figure out to where I was levering myself and ended up doing wet exits every time due to panic.

After lunch, we had some fun in the water swimming and playing with the underwater camera:

Sun on the water

Hair flips

Happy Hope is happy

Submerged

Mud covered

Attempting lifeguard rescues with PFD's does not really work

I found claaaaaaay!

 The afternoon, we learned the basics of eddying in and out of the current, which I did with some success. I will not deny though that there were a few flips involved in the learning process!

In the evening, we once again played volleyball...

...and were delighted by magic tricks performed by one of the staff members. After dinner we all gathered around in the meal tent and watched card tricks for half an hour! So much fun.

The next day was similar to the second, reviewing and going into more depth on all the stuff we had done the day before. I finally figured out t-rescues and didn't flip (unless intentionally) the whole day!

During the afternoon siesta I taught the group Anomia (the card game) and it was a smash hit! Shout out to Mum for that particular Christmas present!

The day was not without its misfortune though. Hope dislocated her shoulder while attempting a t-rescue, which was more than a little frightening for all involved!

The evening held the most excitement: Mr and Mrs Fidler told us the entire story of how they met, their relationship, engagement, and marriage. It was such a gorgeous story. I hope one day to have such a tale to boast!

Day four: time for a challenge! We drove a couple hours up to where the Ganga river begins. I taught the group "I'm Not Nebuchanezzer" which was also quite popular. Mum, you've got all the good games up your sleeve!

Our trusty jeep

Michael, Hope and Annabelle

Pants

Disembarking and wet-suiting

We put in by a staricase leading down to the river, at the same time as a hindu pilgrimage was reaching their destination. I felt wuite priviledged to witness the ceremony, but at the same time a little sacrilegious getting ready to paddle away on this sacred river.

The morning held some excitement and adventure. I flipped over within the first 5 minutes of setting out, panicked and did a wet exit rather than a t-rescue. I immediately regrette my decision, as I was quickly floating down the current whilst trying to hold on to my boat and paddle, and get into an eddy. Mr Fidler paddled up and helped me lever the boat onto the raft accompanying us. We balanced the kayak across the raft and I hopped back in...just in time for the raft and all the kayakers to go through our first rapid of the day. I was terrified out of my wits! 

Michael also flipped on that rapid. Unfortunately, he was at the back of the pack and therefore no one was able to t-rescue him. To his credit, though, he waited a good 30 seconds to be rescued before pulling the holy crap strap. 

His boat, or perhaps his daredevil habits (we'll never know for sure) caused him to become the most frequent flipper of everyone, earning the name "swimming boy" from our guide Rum. 

Ah, let me introduce Rum! He's a 33-year old Nepali man, an excellent kayaker, great mentor, and at heart is about 4 years old. He is endlessly amused by all our endeavours, and every time someone flips over, he screams "T-RESCUUUUUUUE!" at the top of his lungs and maniacally paddles over to the stricken kayaker. He also would splash us with his paddle and yell "CHISU PANI!" which is nepali for "cold water!" Yes indeed, Rum, that is cold water tricking down my back ;)

My small group for kayaking was myself, the 10th graders, Rum and Pants. We were thereafter known as "Rum's pants". The other group was the "Fidler Four".

Before lunch that day I flipped another two or three times, before finally managing a sizeable rapid on my own. All I can say is hooray for deep water kayak rescues! Also, when you're nervous singing Finding Nemo is really helpful.

After that rapid we stopped for a quick lunch and a river geography lesson. We climbed up a rather sketchy concrete tower in order to survey the river below us, and analyze proper kayaking in rapid techniques.

We set off again, and this time I managed to go the entire time without flipping. We tackled quite a few chalenging rapids, and I can say I definitely had the time of my life on said roller coasters! Who needs Canada's Wonderland, eh?

That afternoon we learned ferrying, which came in useful when we wanted to avoid the big rapids and stick to what was safe.

All in all, this learning, flipping, rapiding and eddying in and out took us until 4 pm. That's when we realized we still had about half the route still to do! Yikes!

We stopped for a quick refueling (packed chappatis are wonderful things) and set out on a nonstop, 1 1/2 hour paddling session. Apurv (who was on the raft) took some pretty sweet photos:

Meeee

Pants

View of the raft

Annabelle

This time of nonstop paddling was calm and peaceful, with a few bouts of excitement and sadness (we found a dead dog floating in the river). I can say I never experienced this kind of peace, exhileration and joy as I did that day.

We put in by a temple on the Ganga, as it provided us with a staircase to get up to the road. Please admire the tan line:

Hope Wright, ladies and gentlemen!

She also had a fabulous tape tan, since we had to tape her shoulder into place.

Our running joke was that every time we lost sight of her or she 

flipped over we would yell "I've lost Hope!" "I know, Wright?"

Not very original, but hey, who cares?

Camp that night was more subdued. We were all pretty exhausted after having paddled for about 8 hours, but we had welcome newcomers in the form of Willow and Rowan, friends from school who had gone on their own adventures for the beginning of 1/4 break, and decided to finish off with a couple day's worth of rafting. Hooray, people!

The next day, my first thoughts were of concern for my leg. After I got out of my kayak the day before, my leg had been totally numb from the thogh down , and a full night's sleep hadn't helped matters at all. I still have some numbness in my foot even now.

My seconf thoughts were of concern for Annabelle. She had been ill during the night and was definitely not feeling up to kayaking over rapids that morning. :(

We set out once again, this time travelling down the river a ways before putting in a half hour's drive from camp. The plan for the day was not as long, we were to kayak down the river to the town of Rishikesh, then get picked up by the van and taken back to camp in time for lunch, In the afternoon we were to go rafting, an activity we hoped Annabelle could partake in.

The only good thing about Annabelle's falling ill: I was allowed to use her kayak instead of the dancer, which helped enormously with my leg.

Yup, that's me!

The group

Mrs Fidler

Going through the rapids

Rum and Hope, with Pants in the background (and someone's hand, not sure who's).

Unfortunately we didn;t have as many exciting rapids this time, so a large chunk of time was spent floating lazily down the river, splashing each other with chisu pani, and doing t-rescues when the heat got to be too much (although after we got into the town it wasn't such a great idea. The river was pretty gross).

We got back just in time for lunch, siesta and a quick game of Anomia before we went rafting! Since the Tehri dam was open in the afternoon the water level was much higher, making for some fun rapids to go over!

Pants, our extra guide Ben and the Fidlers were with us in their kayaks. We were privileged to witness the biggest rapids Mrs Fidler had ever paddled!

Ready to go!

Having fun.

Chisu pani, mwahahaha!

Salina and Rowan

Swimming

Cliff jumping!

Ben, aka "Sexy Safety"

Accurate representation of how we felt after the day's activities.

That evening, we played beack volleyball, cricket, stargazed, and played mafia. We also played a 4 HOUR game of truth or dare, which had some...interesting challenges. We stayed up until about 2 am doing this, and we were all settling down to sleep around the fire, when a massive windstorm swept in. As we were on a beach, you can imagine this was pretty awful. We all quickly retreated to our tents!

Funny thing, Hope grabbed her pillow and blankets, and got in bed with Annabelle. They had an entire conversation before going to sleep, but come morning, I was the only one that remembered this occuring! Both of them woke up more than a little alarmed to find the other sleeping beside them!

That day, it was time to leave. we played one more game of Anomia before heading out. This drive took about twice as long, though, since we stopped in Dehradun for some lunch and grocery shopping. Michael got a drink from KFC that I'm sure was spiked with something. Once we started driving again he started acting really strangely, and the filter existing in most people's minds that catches quite a few... gems... completely vanished. He remembers nothing, of course. But we do... ;)

Once we arrived at school, Hope and I went to the health center to get our arm and leg checked out, respectively. Not much to report, pinched nerve nothing more. Hope was put in a sling for the next week and is doing fine. Not nearly as bad as activity week!

Now I'm back, missing the heat, the sand, the river, the food, and the company. Thank you, Hanifl center.

And thank you, for reading this extremely long, week-late post!

Love to all and everyone,

Emily