October 1997 - The 'Shipton/Tilman' Route - Day 19 - October 29

Wednesday 29 October

After we went to bed the rain started. By morning it was torrential - everything wet and dripping though our tents didn't leak.

Bhawan provided tea as usual at 6:30, and washing water, for the last time, at 7:30. This was to be a big rafting day, but it's the first wet day for some time, and they seem to think we may be reluctant to raft.

Early morning view from the damp camp; the main river that Anina rowed us across is in the foreground and Julia's bridge is across the tributary that joins from the left

Breakfast is prepared whilst we sit in the dripping cook's tent around a brazier. There is also an Indian party of students staying but we seem to be treated like royalty in comparison. So, the cooks produce a wide selection of breakfast - no porridge today, but cornflakes, veg / cheese omelettes, veg curry and pakora, with lime pickle, plus toast and marmalade / jam. I stuff as much in as possible in anticipation of an energetic day. Time drifts on - the raft was supposed to collect us at 8:30, but breakfast doesn't start until then. Eventually Anina - the Swiss girl with an American accent - arrives and asks if we wish to curtail our day. John and I refuse - we want a full day's rafting. That's alright by Anina - they wouldn't do much rafting in Europe if they stopped for the weather - but a youth from the Abercrombie and Kent office who has been let out to see the River Camp queries the decision to raft - Indians seem a bit phased by rain - and he must be told firmly not to interfere. He is quite out of his depth in this environment.

Throughout the day there also seems to be contact with Mercury head office and the big wig in Delhi - colonel Kumar. A party of three Americans want to do our trek starting on 1 November. Anil refuses to act as sirdar. In the end it seems Sudhil is doing it; Anil chuckles - "the weather won't be too suitable". Also, Pawan is tired from our trek and doesn't want to go. Eventually he calls Kumar himself to discuss and get out of it. He has talent above most Nepalis, does Pawan, he's only 20 and can stand up to the 69-year-old boss who is a big man in Delhi! Also, Pawan has taken opportunities and is very young to be in his present position. He has also learnt rafting, kayaking and rappelling and is now competent at all of them. Bhawan in comparison is older but has tried rafting only once, and ours was his first trek. He wants to do neither again. He is a superb butler and a nice character. Pawan is more ambitious, talented, and very cool under pressure.

The rafting team: L to R: Anil, Richard, Julia, John, Pawan, Bhawan, camp assistant, Anina

Another camp picture

So, by 9:30 we set off with Anina and a junior member of camp who is learning to raft, let's call him Alum. Anina competently rows us up through Camp Rapid to the beach near where the Tata is parked. Bhawan again acts as Richard's personal porter, and Vicram trails around everywhere. Both shiver a lot.

Now Julia gets her first dunking - from the beach where the raft lands and dead bodies and cows float nearby in eddies, there is a narrow bridge over a wide tributary. Basically a log with small (1ft) planks to step across it. 

Julia is having more difficulty on this every time she crosses it. This time she decides to wade across. I try to stop her but don't act fast enough. She gets to the middle of the torrent holding onto rocks, before being swept off her feet and washed a short way down to the bridge before being rescued. She seems none the worse for her experience and we are soon in the Tata and back at the main Mercury camp. Anil is not well organised today - perhaps a good night with Anina has distracted him. [Or maybe not - Anil, a Hindu, is engaged to a Sikh girl.] However, he calmly sorts out a raft for us whilst we have tea and biscuits and John and I attempt a game of cricket using a chair as stumps and a football (the only ball we could find - quite difficult to bowl it in the rain!).

Soon we set off for Marine Drive (see 13 October) in convoy with jeep and trailer and Tata. We are to do the same trip as on 13 October this morning, lunching at Beach Camp, and proceeding to Rishikesh in the afternoon. Today it's just Anil, Alun and the four of us, with Anina's kayak acting as a rescue boat. She is a very competent kayaker - the boat seems part of her body when she's in it. She brought the kayak on the plane (220 cm long [short!]  and 16 kg of a 20 kg limit. She had quite a bit of hand luggage! She's staying until December, then donating her equipment and boat, which is virtually impossible to get in India, before exploring south of Delhi then going to Australia before returning to Switzerland in March 1998. She has 'sold up' and taken six months off, a bit like Lyn who should have borrowed my car to ship possessions last weekend.

Off we go from Marine Drive, down 'Money Maker', 'Black Money' and 'Three Blind Mice'. The river is lower than it was two weeks ago and seems gentler, or have we got used to white water? We now stop to look at a temple in a cave. This is a holy place. Shoes off, we walk about 20 yards into the hill to the temple, which is on a raised platform at the end. It's dark and warm. There's a largish building outside which is also part of the temple. There are lots of piles of charred wood on the beach where bodies have been burned.

Back in the boat the rain has eased. Julia seems ok despite further dunkings in the rapids. She isn't a strong paddler so John and I, who are strongest go at the front, with Alun and Richard at the back. Extra weight is needed at the front to help avoid 'flips' and Julia sits between me and John - a nice position until Anil calls "High Side". This is the instruction for Julia to lean right forward, clinging to the handrail around the boat, to keep the bow down. Invariably, as we hit the big waves, this involves a complete dunking for Julia at the least - and often considerable consumption of the holy water of the Ganges. Julia seems to stand up to this impersonation of a figurehead very well.

We continue uneventfully down 'Cross Fire', 'Body Surfing' (it's colder today and we may not dry out at lunch time, so we all chicken out) and 'Camp Rapid', to arrive after the one and a half hour trip at Beach Camp at 1pm. The weather is improving - rain has stopped and during the afternoon the clouds completely clear to make it warm and sunny.

After a good lunch and warmed from standing by a brazier, we head off on the 2½

hour trip to Rishikesh - 15 km by road, probably 10 km by river. The rapids are harder and need power from the oarsmen. The first one, 'Roller Coaster' brings an unexpected event - a strong wave knocks Alun out of the boat. He recovers well and I drag him back in. Next comes 'Tee Off' which we successfully negotiate, then unexpectedly we stop. This is because the next rapid, 'Golf Course' has nine holes - ie nine big rocks which creates big holes immediately after them. If you hit a hole you flip. Anil had his first flip in six years of rafting on this rapid a few weeks ago. Every day the conditions vary depending on the volume of water, wind, etc, so a recce is needed, also by Anina from the kayaking point of view - she misjudged it yesterday and got stuck in a 'hole' for a while.

There is a 'chicken run' option for wimps. This is a riverside path which by-passes the rapid. Richard seems to opt for this but isn't shown the path and finishes up back in the boat! Some hard rowing is needed and we do get through this rapid, but the expected instructions for John and me are varied by Anil when Richard and Alun at the back stop rowing and Anil's second option is needed. They were apparently both winded by a wave, so instead of back paddling, John and I had to forward paddle as hard as we could to change the line and pass the next hole and get the angles right. Anil explained afterwards that he always has, instinctively, two alternative courses of action should things go wrong, and the oarsmen not perform as expected. This was a good Grade 3 rapid and gave us as full a taste of rafting as many people (not only beginners like us) can expect. Grade 4 rapids can be quite dangerous, Grade 5 impossible.

The next two rapids are only Grade 2, but still really good fun and gave us all more wetness - 'Club House' and 'Initiation', after which we pulled up on a beach next to a big rock. Warm water flowed into the Ganges from a small tributary. Anina demonstrated a kayak jump by putting her kayak on a rock about 8 feet above the river, getting into it, and sliding down the rock into the river. She then, as rescue boat, loitered next to a rock 20 ft high, from which she expected us to climb and jump in! Alun and John climbed the rock. Alun jumped in and came to no harm. I went up to join John. "You're not seriously considering doing that!" said game for anything John. After a couple of false starts I just hung on to my life jacket and jumped. The river is very deep here, and from 20 feet you do go down quite a way. My helmet wasn't properly fastened and came up first. On my second jump the collar of my life jacket broke on impact and came up first, so Anina was pleased to be there to recover the missing items, neither of which I noticed were gone at the time.

This was Really Good Fun. [Memories of jumping off the high board at Eston baths in my youth.]

In bright sunshine we then proceeded down 'Double Trouble' another exciting rapid, then 'Hill Turn' as we entered Rishikesh to magnificent views of the two suspension bridges and the various temples. Lots of worshippers and hippies lined the banks of the river as we floated gently into Rishikesh main beach area. John, an accomplished oarsman who himself has a 9 ft Avon dinghy (the rafts are 16 ft Avons) was given the job of rowing some calm sections and he successfully took us through the fairly easy final rapid - 'Goodbye Rapid', which is near the building where the Beatles spent time in Rishikesh around 1969.

Rishikesh

There was then an amusing interlude when after stowing the raft we were driven to a hotel where a room had been organised for us to change into dry clothes. The balcony door was open and children played on roofs outside. We somehow managed to get into a banana fight with them. We changed, but the management may be puzzled by the bits of banana on windows and walls - the children were quite good shots and got the gradually deteriorating bananas through the balcony door quite effectively. We did get them back!

A quick drive back to the beach to collect Anil and Anina, and then we went shopping in the busy market streets of Rishikesh. On my own and knowing the area, I bought some nick-nacks (bits of pot with Hindu gods on them), a bell, [currently, in 2025, being enjoyed by granddaughter Isabella, and used on various marathons to cheer the runners on], oil/incense burner and some incense. 

Shoppers in Rishikesh

Others also added to their haul before we adjourned to the Triveni ghat for the nightly ceremony, Aarti, at dusk. A beautiful clear night. This time I joined in with the standing in the Ganges and floating off the little lamps. We then rejoined Anil and Anina to stroll back through the thronging market, today heavily decorated for 'Diwali' the religious festival in India which is equivalent to our Christmas and is based on the moon (no moon tomorrow) - which is Diwali.

Goodbye Rishikesh

Soon we left the vibrant town to return to Mercury main camp for a final meal from Pawan and Bhawan - Chinese tonight, and delicious as ever.

Soon it was time to give the boys their tips - the single most expensive item of expenditure on the trip - 1300 rupees for me out of total expenditure of 4100 rupees - we were very generous. Anil also got some shoes from Richard, which were too small for Richard.

As indicated in Monte Erskine's guidance notes, John put the respective bundles of cash in envelopes (specially purchased at Rishikesh market) and handed them out shortly before we left in convoy with the Jeep, to catch our train from Haridwar. Usual eventful journey - cars with no lights, some with full beam, usually oncoming (or any) traffic is missed by inches. A few recent accidents were viewed, one involving a coach. Accidents seem frequent, and at one point on the Ganges we had seen a lorry which had crashed through barriers and plunged 200 ft to its nemesis, leaving debris for monkeys to play on.

We arrived in Haridwar about 2½ hours early for our train - the Missori Express - to Delhi.

We thought the assembled masses - Anil, Anina, a suited 'Mr Fix-It' who drove the jeep and had contacts everywhere, and two or three others from the Mercury camp who had come in the Jeep, would 'go out on the town' as this was the night before Diwali - effectively Christmas Eve in India - and everyone was living it up with celebrations and fireworks. However, they stayed with us! Perhaps they were to have a whole night out after we left - but they had a party from the Danish Embassy to deal with at the rafting camp tomorrow.

On the way to Haridwar both vehicles had stopped outside 'The English Wine Shop' - a sort of off-licence midway between Rishikesh and Haridwar. Because of the strict rules re alcohol in the religions of this area the police object to cars stopping outside this shop. Hence both vehicles had 'broken down' simultaneously. Vicram did in fact do quite a bit of work under the bonnet of the Tata, which we discovered was his private liquor store! He later smelt strongly of whisky, and we hope he got home ok.

Eventually the train arrived, and our hosts located our coach (A1 seats 1 to 4 - we must have been first booked on) and insisted on carrying our bags and waving us off. There was no confusion, and we had already discovered our full details on the passenger list posted on the station:

'J Griffiths 64
M Banfield 48
J Shipton 47
R Middlehurst 46’

Interesting - I recall Richard telling us he was 45! It's amazing what personal details are needed (and publicised) for train journeys in India - apparently to combat fraud and deception and ticket sales on the black market.

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