Rafting on the Ganga

Dave, Shannon and I (and a group of about 15 other americans) went on a whitewater rafting trip along the Ganga (Ganges river) this weekend. It was an extended weekend, we ended up being out on the river from Saturday through Wednesday evening. Counting a 6 hour train ride there and back, and it was a long, but fun trip.

This is a picture of the camp, which was deep in the foothills of the Himalayas, about a 30 minute drive from Rishikesh, in Utteranchal. Looking at the map, I thought this would be close enough to get pictures of the white-topped Himalayan Giants, but we were apparently still a few hundred km too far away. Still, the foot hills clocked in at 3-4000 feet, which puts them on-par with the shorter of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

The river was much bigger than I expected it to be, with a very fast moving current. Since we were so close to the mountains the water was quite cold (your feet went numb in a few minutes) but in the afternoon this was a pleasant contrast to the hot sun. The river water was brown from silt, so you couldn't see more than about a foot into it, and I was told it was unsafe to drink. This was unfortunate, since I had the bad habit of whooping while running rapids, often getting a mouthful of "Ganga juice" from an unexpected wave.

To wash ourselves there was a mountain spring-fed pool about 100 feet from the campsite. The water was warmer than the river and significantly cleaner. You basically brought biodegradable soap, sat in a pool and let water cascade over your head; it looked vaguely like one of those Herbal Essence commercials. Shannon enjoyed bathing there so much that she compared it favorably as the best experience of her life, joking that it easily outdistancing her wedding day. She said it enough times that I think it was starting to give Dave a complex.

We spent the mornings either rafting or hiking in the Himalayan foothills, the afternoons relaxing, kayaking or repelling, and the evenings hanging out with each other around a campfire.

The highlight of the trip was the whitewater rafting, for which I was unwilling to bring the digital camera, so sadly there are no pictures of the rapids. Needless to say, it was a lot of fun. I fell out of the raft (both on purpose and by accident) enough times to have washed away few life-times worth of sin.