Guest blogger: Mama

The robin’s egg blue waters of the Ganges, running through the middle of Rishikesh, has a magnetic pull on a person’s attention:  for some, it is the promise of spiritual awakening, for others, it is the potential adventure that it holds.  The river is big.  Right now, I would guess that it is running about 40,000 cfs, but the high waterline is way above the current river level.  One of our river guides told us that, during high water 2 years ago, it took them about 20 minutes to run an 18 kilometer section of river…  it must have been like riding the top of a speeding train.

My Anna has had kayaking on her mind since her first trip to Rishikesh about a month ago.  I was not willing to commit to a kayak trip without first scouting the rapids and giving it some serious thought.  We signed up for a raft trip the following day to check it out.

The next day was warm and sunny.  The deep water of the Ganges pulled our raft forward through a series of rapids:  roller coaster and golf course being the two biggest.  As we approached each rapid, our guide asked if we would rather take the tiger line or the chicken line.  Anna’s voice could be heard above the others as she said, “Tiger line.”  One of the German girls did not like that, but there wasn’t much she could do about it.  The tiger line took us through a series of Grand Canyon style haystacks…  class 2 and 2+.  The river was rollicking and lovely.

The next consideration for us was gear.  Most of the guides here paddle in creek boats.  A few have smaller play boats and I even saw an old boat that looked like a Dancer from a distance.  When we asked to see the boats that we would be paddling, they were either being used on the river or stored somewhere else.  hhhmm   I did not want to disappoint Anna, but I also didn’t want to set us up for an unwanted epic adventure.  Finally, I made the decision to go. 

We showed up at the shop one morning, signed a few papers and were whisked away by a taxi.  The driver approached two young men standing on the side of the road with 2 boats and a pile of gear.  We tried on gear and loaded up, still 2 boats and 2 paddles short.  We stopped at another guide’s house and picked up another tiny Dagger.

At the put-in, there was much gear swapping and adjusting.  The gear varied from a top-of-the-line paddle to a paddle that looked like it was purchased with a rubber raft at Walmart.  Luckily, Anna and I ended up with, apparently, the better choices  After a few practice rolls we headed down the river.  Our guide looked wary.

  The first rapid was a rollicking class one+.   The waves were big and the feeling was irie.  I noticed that my boat was filling up with water…  pretty rapidly.  I think that this was a combination of a leaky boat and a porous spray skirt.  The next rapid, Roller Coaster, was a straight-forward series of haystacks.  But like many straightforward big rapids, the tricky part is at the end, where the currents can get swirly and unpredictable.  Anna followed the guide, I followed Anna and the apprentice brought up the rear.   We dropped down the first glassy wave into a series of monster waves.  As we crested the top of each wave, we could get a view of the river below as well as each other.  As I braced against each frothy wave I could get glimpses of Anna bobbing along in front of me.  Towards the bottom of the rapid, the view changed from seeing Anna, to seeing the bottom of Annas boat and her head bobbing nearby.  Anna was being blessed by the Ganges, purified by the water…  her nasal passage and eyesockets were being cleansed as she was taking in big gulps of the blessed water.  Anna was purified, cleansed, blessed and spanked by that lovely blue/green water.

As Anna was clutching her cramping stomach that evening, I was wondering if I had made the right decision and I would have to say I did.  Anna experienced the ganges to it’s fullest extent…  it was awesome in it’s power and beauty, as well as humbling.

Happy Holi

Julia and I stayed in Pune for a week after the North tour specifically for the festival called Holi. Like most others, the festival of color isn’t much celebrated in the South, and we wanted to celebrate our last one in style. It felt like Easter as we were woken up by screams of children’s laughter and went to the street of our host’s apartment building to check out the scene. Being a) the only white people, and b) the only people above the age of ten, Julia and I were unsure of how much we would be invited to participate in the celebrations. However, our little host brother and his friends made sure we weren’t left out. The 25 of them ambushed us with their water guns and refused to let up until we were forced to run away and hide an hour later. It was full-on war, and of course we came unprepared. Usually Holi is known for throwing color, but these kids weren’t allowed to use color because some of the buildings had recently been repainted.

Around town we could easily distinguish all the people on bikes who had played Holi. There would be one guy on a bike looking totally normal, then there would be a pink and blue one. Another normal looking businessman before three more pink teenagers. It was pretty funny.

Part two of the day took place with people more our age, color, and music. We found two other exchange students and a bunch of Indian friends completely covered in the brightly colored powders. After the awkward introductions to the people Julia and I didn’t know, we got to throwing some color. The powder came in bags which we ripped open and smeared on all our friends and threw in the air. The boys ambushed us with raw eggs, which they cracked on the girls’ heads, and then we broke out the watering hose. At the end we couldn’t tell who was who, and the magenta sidewalk looked like the scene of Barney’s violent death.  

Aftermath: I had pink ears for two weeks and blue feet for a few days, but other than that I was able to wash most of it off. The clothes I was wearing have been washed six times and still have irreversible stains, which I must admit I love.