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The day has finally arrived ! We are terribly excited about the prospect of going white-water-rafting in Tibet. Hopefully, we might even get a T-shirt to prove it. Chris, the Australian chap in charge of the company, came to pick us up in his lovely lime green jeep. He is a terribly nice chap. It took him three years to set up the company, get the permits and authorisations to operate. 51% of his business is owned by a large Chinese company. He has to renew his visa every two months, a scary situation considering the huge investment that it must be, importing the boats and all the kit from the U.S and Canada.<br />

White water rafting in the wilderness of Tibet

Degrubenc
2005-12-09 12:46:18

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The day has finally arrived ! We are terribly excited about the prospect of going white-water-rafting in Tibet. Hopefully, we might even get a T-shirt to prove it. Chris, the Australian chap in charge of the company, came to pick us up in his lovely lime green jeep. He is a terribly nice chap. It took him three years to set up the company, get the permits and authorisations to operate. 51% of his business is owned by a large Chinese company. He has to renew his visa every two months, a scary situation considering the huge investment that it must be, importing the boats and all the kit from the U.S and Canada.

About an hour and a half away from Lhasa, on a surprisingly smooth road, we saw the boats, all ready and waiting for us; there was also a gathering crowd of locals, who had never seen large inflatable rafts and wondered what on earth were the wet suits, life jackets and helmets for. We all turned up in good spirits, ready for the day ahead. We greatly amused the locals by trying desperately to wriggle in our wetsuits, usually putting them back to front and making complete fools of ourselves; the girls all tried to hide behind a blanket which kept falling. The local village thought it was all great fun, far better than cinema and the circus put together. They cheered us on with enthusiasm, pulling their tongues at us whenever we looked. The kids joined in the fun by trying on our life jackets and helmets (once they had ascertained that it was not live by prodding them with sticks), they even tried some of our own clothes on. Eventually, the traffic on the nearby road stopped to allow the drivers and passengers to partake in the spectacle. After feeling terribly uncomfortable, hot and eventually resembling a yeti, we finally got in the water, took our positions and started rafting. I was at the front of our boat with Bene leading the group into the biggest rapids we could find. Our guide was a kind Nepali chap named Ram. He was slightly concerned ...