In Kathmandu

Hello all!

Hope all is well. Fab 2 read all the comments and to hear what you are up to. Last time we wrote we were in Pokorah but we decided to get on our way to Kathmandu on wednesday. This was a 7 hour bus journey but was pleasant. Was nice to just relax, reading our books and watching out the window!.
Kathmandu is a great place. Alot cleaner than we expected and with loads of nice restaurants. We often meet with our Californian friend for dinner that we met on the Trek. He has invited us to California to stay with him which sounds awesome! We are already lining up where to go next!
We booked a couple of days white water rafting down the Bhote Kose river which is meant to be one of the best places in the world to go rafting... and OH MY was is good!. The adrenaline sure did get pumping! We were on the trip with a sweedish couple (who were fish trawlers), an Israeli couple (that were constantly stoned) and one really geeky English man who had emigrated to Australia. (who was weird). The first day we drove to our camp (3 hours) and unloaded all our stuff. The camp was amazing!. Swimming pool, beautiful gardens and tents which overlooked the river and a beautiful gorge. As this was the first day the rapids were fairly easy as it was more just a training day. Was still fab... but we all wanted MORE, BIGGER, FASTER rapids. Sure enought this is exactly what we got the next day. It really was edge of your seat stuff, although to Rich is was often 'out of your seat in the rapids
action'!. Most of the rapids were scale 4-5 (the highest you can get is 6). We spent 3 hours careering down the river, often backwards or sideways crashing into huge rocks. Rich actually got stranded on a rock by himself at one point. We were approaching a massive rapid. It was a churniing mess of white water and huge rocks. We basically ended up going head on into a massive boulder. The front of the raft pushed up the rock and we just had to hang on. I was ok until I looked behind and saw that the back of the raft was filling with gushing white water and I saw the look on the guides face "Get to the front... quick" he shouted. It was likethat scene from the titanic where they all end up on the top off teh boat!. The raft was getting more and more vertical and so i decided i was getting out... onto the rock. We all ended up on the slippyest rock ever in the middle of the rapid. The raft was near vertical. The leader manged to pull the raft so it was floating downstream and he held it with a rope. He insisted he could hold it while we all jumped in. The water was pulling the raft so much so Rich ended up holding the rope with him. The 3 girls were in first and i was shoutng " Paddle forward". Think i went into survival mode as i was just picturing the raft breaking away with only us in it and us been washed down the gauntlet. Now everyone aws in the raft except Rich and the Nepalese leader. The couldn't hold us any more. The rope was slipping! and so were they. So they let go of us and away we went in a torrent and carrered into a cliff. The leader had jumped into the rapid and swan after us leaving Rich looking helpless on the rock. We managed to pull the leader in... then Rich jumped!. I was so scared, thought he was going to get sucked under but he was fine in his life jacket. We pulled him into the raft and finally we 'all aboard' once again!

We have a flight booked back to Delhi on the 18th April so a couple more days to spend in Kathmandu. We both want to go rafting again. It was absolutly amazing!

Hope all is well

Love Sho n Rich