I love white-water rafting and I can't understand people who don't. With the right crew and company it is totally safe and mostly this activity carries with it very little chance of injury or death. There are a number of places in the world where you can engage in this but it hadn't dawned on me that it was a feature of Nepal until I was there. Generally, people talk about the true highlight of the country which is the Himalayas themselves. After a friend and me broke off from our group after tiring of trekking after 10 days a two-day rafting trip sounded like it was going to be awesome. It was anything but.
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Now right out of the gate I want to say that the actual rafting that I experienced was wonderful and some of the most challenging that I have faced anywhere in the world. The safety was fine too. What I didn't plan on was the absolutely dreadful conditions of our accommodation during our night's stay. There was no alternative either and we were unaware of how horrible it was going to be until it was too late.
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For starters, the brochure failed to mention that our transit to the rafting site was simply a bus ticket on the public bus. I don't know if you know anything about buses in Nepal, but they are a really awful situation. They are packed to the gills and people actually ride on the roofs. Obviously this is really inexpensive but a comfortable way of traveling it is not. I am six feet tall and so is my friend. The tiny seats in this bus resulted in our knees being crushed against the seat in front of us and at one point someone came and sat on my lap without so much as looking at me first.
It was a windy and slow-moving road as roads tend to be in Nepal, but when we arrived at our drop off point there wasn't even anyone there to greet us. We had no idea if we were even at the correct place. About 30 minutes later someone came up to us with a "sorry... i forget" approach, which is not what we wanted to hear after that bus journey.
So when we went rafting that was fun, but it once again involved a lot of sitting around and wondering when we were actually going to do anything that day. This was several hours of just sitting while the rafting operators finally got around to getting us on the raft.
The rafting itself was straight up awesome but like any rafting trip in existence on the planet, it was over quite quickly.
Then the worst part of the entire thing happened. Our accommodation was shown to us.
This pup tent on the ground next to the river was our accommodation for the night. There were not showers, no toilets, and no electricity. Our guides disappeared after an hour or so and then it started to rain. This tent is not big enough for 1 person, let alone two 6 foot guys. It was impossible to get to sleep but I eventually did accomplish it despite the heat, the complete darkness, and the really uncomfortable mattress that we were given.
The next day we went rafting again and it was more of the same: Exciting, but a lot of waiting around while other tourists made their way there. By the end of it all I was very happy to be getting on a bus to our next destination. This time, we went on a private bus that only sells the amount of tickets as they have seats. It costs a few dollars more but my goodness was it worth it.
I suppose I should have known that we were getting into something that was "too good to be true" when we scored this 2 day all inclusive trip for under $100 and boy did I learn my lesson. If I am ever in a position to do a multi-day excursion in a package deal I am going to do a lot more homework before I sign up... or maybe just not sign up at all.
I think there is a reason why no one really raves about these trips online, because there is very little to rave about.
I did some rafting in West Virginia many years ago, it was awesome. Then later I did some in Thailand but it was so tame that i wouldn't even call it white water rafting, it was still fun i guess.
I would have hated the sleeping on the ground situation you described, I bet they don't feature that part of it in the brochure!
I have heard good things about a lot of outdoorsy stuff in West Virginia. I don't think many people imagine WV as a travel destination. I'll have to look that up because I love that sort of stuff. I did go skiing there once many years ago but I don't remember the name of the place. Does Snowshoe sounds like it might be right?
Snowshoe is a ski resort, there is also Canaan and Winterplace which I believe was called something else in the past. Snowshoe is the best IMO so if you went there you chose the best one!
You should see the white water rafting we have up here in Chaing Mai. It's a joke. They don't have enough water during certain times of the year so they made a dam that they open just as all the rafts take off in the morning. If you miss that window of opportunity your raft will bottom out on the creek.
oh really? Well, you gotta give them points for innovation i suppose!