# Nepal



## jakebrown98 (Mar 4, 2008)

Hey All, 

Anyone out there with Nepal paddling experience? My wife and I were planning to head over for the Christmas holidays, but our friends bailed so the Karnali trip we wanted had to be cancelled. We are hoping to show up in Kathmandu and see what rafting trips might be headed out during our window that we can jump on. Is this at all feasible? I don't want to spend a week walking between rafting offices trying to find the right trip. The outfitters I contact from here can't seem to help me unless I have a group to sign up. 

We plan to leave our Shredder here, but if bringing it will open up possibilities, that could be an option. But bringing boat (and other boating gear) would seriously weigh us down and could cost more in airfare so we were planning to leave it. 

Any helpful hints would be great at this point. Thanks in advance.


----------



## FarPastGone (Jan 22, 2008)

That is completely possible. The tourist area of Kathmandu is named Thamel and there are a number of rafting/kayaking outfits based out of there. It is likely that you can spend a few hours your first day in town figuring out who has trips going where. There are a lot of options though; Sun Kosi, Karnali, Kali Gandaki, day trips on the Trisuli, Bhote Khosi, Balephi Khola (although may be to low), etc... 

A group of us were over there kayaking for nearly 3 months last year and had some injuries in the group and were able to join a Sun Kosi rafting trip for a few days. I can't remember the company but the trip leader was named Arun and he was a good dude. 

Here is a video I made with a bit of footage from our trip. 

Nepal Trip 2012 on Vimeo

- Matt


----------



## jakebrown98 (Mar 4, 2008)

Thanks for the info and video, Matt. I just heard back from an outfitter and he has two people who want to do the Karnali and two people who want to do the Tamur that we may be able to join. Also I found a multi-river kayak trip that doesn't seem to prejudiced against inflatables that we could join. It looks like I might be able to sort this out before we arrive, but it is good to know I will have options in Thamel too.

Did you and your buddies get on either the Lower Karnali (saw some footage that could have been the Humla Karnali...) or the Tamur while you were over there? Both those rivers just sound great, I wish I could do them both. First world problems, I know...


----------



## FarPastGone (Jan 22, 2008)

We did do the Tamur and it was an awesome river. Very scenic, really great whitewater (kind of reminded me of the SF Salmon in Idaho), and just an overall cool experience. We paid for a truck to bring us to the putin because it was supposed to be faster than doing the trek in, and therefore would give us time to explore some of the tributaries of the Tamur. I 100% advocate doing the trek in, the drive was a 30 hour suffer fest. No Humla Karnali for us, but we did get to do the Thule Bheri which was an amazing experience. We also paddled the Balephi Khola, Bhote Kosi, Sun Kosi, Mewa Khola (Tamur trib), Maiwa Khola (Tamur trib), Upper Seti, Upper Upper Kali Gandaki, Upper Modi Khola, Madi Khola, Marsyandi, and the Buri Gandaki. 

I don't really have any advice for you on which river I would choose of those two (both if possible!), but I am sure whatever ya'll do you will have an awesome time. I really would like to go back sometime in my life and paddled all the other classics that we happened to miss out on.

- Matt


----------

