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.
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