The Ganges is the most sacred river to Hindus. Hindus bathe in the waters to wash away sins, pay homage to their ancestors and gods, and give ashes of loved ones to the river after they pass from this life. So if bathing in the Ganges washes away sins, where does swimming and whitewater rafting fall? Are we cleansed of our sins or was it sacrilegious? We hope it was the former of the two ...
We befriended a Canadian couple, Erin and Jake, here at the hotel, and met up with an Israeli couple, Noga and Yair, on the raft. Our guide, Rajan, from Nepal, was fantastic. He knew the river like the back of his hand and multiple times gave instructions to other guides ... but he also knew how to have a little fun. We came to our first rapid, all set to paddle through, and he instructed all of us to stand up and use our paddles as balance on the raft as we went through the mild rapids. It was quite hard to keep your balance, but fun nonetheless. Then, as we were all distracted with keeping our balance, our safety kayak came up and bumped our raft just a little, but it was enough for all of us to feel like we were going to fall out! We looked back, and Rajan was smiling from ear to ear! We didn't stand up anymore, as the rapids got increasingly harder - and we knew better! The "class 3" rapid named Three Blind Mice definitely took our raft for a ride (and flipped the raft to our right!) - I swear it was more of a class 4 rapid. We had a blast riding the strong rapids, taking a swim (purposefully jumped out of the raft when the water was calmer), and even found a 15' rock to jump off of into the water. Definitely exceeded expectations!
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| The crew |
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| The crew with our guide, Rajan |
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| Carrie jumping off the 15' rock |
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