Bhote Kosi

Somehow I was talked into whitewater rafting down the Bhote Kosi, one of the toughest rafting courses available in the world, by the slightly-crazy Elke. My own craziness is shown by the fact that I agreed to do it.


Rafting in a river a few kilometres from the Tibetan border in winter – what can I say? It was cold. It was bloody cold. The first day we went on an easy run, with only a few Class III rapids and lots of stretches of quiet water in between. We practiced the drills for getting us out of trouble, and rescuing people who’d been thrown out of the raft. We had a good time, but were not prepared for the fury of the river the next day.


After having spent the entire night trying to dry out our wet clothes in the tents, we donned them again in the morning, and off we paddled to a continuous series of rapids from Class III to Class IV+. The maximum is Class V, in case you’re wondering. Rapids are graded on their severity. The photo shows some of our happy crew, pleased that we had done so well at that point.


Things went well for the first hour. There were two rafts, plus two kayaking Frenchmen (Remy and Jean-Paul) and three other kayaks for safety. The other raft lost a member early on, but he was quickly recovered, just in time for the entire raft to capsize. We went to the rescue of the other rafters and thought smugly how clever we were to have made it over the rapid without mishap. Ah hubris.



Then it suddenly became very serious. We crested a rapid to discover Jean-Paul’s kayak upside-down and wedged under a massive rock with a large undercut. When we talked about it later, Jean-Paul was remarkably unconcerned about it all, as he is a very experienced kayaker. He had indeed been wedged under the rock and been unable to right himself. So he released himself from the kayak, but was still under the rock. Each time he tried to surface, he simply hit his head on the rock above him. Eventually the massive current dragged him around the rock and he found air above him. He was able to breathe again.

We knew nothing of Jean-Paul’s progress under the rock of course, and immediately went to the rescue of the upturned kayak. With a huge force we slammed into the same rock and the force of the water pushed our raft vertically up the rockface. Our leader screamed at us ‘all right’ which meant we all clambered onto the right side of the boat in a vain attempt to prevent it capsizing. The six rafters and the leader were all on top of each other on the right side when the inevitable happened – the boat flipped. The photo below was taken seconds before our raft capsized for the second time, later on the same day. You can see how the people on the lower half of the raft are trying hard to scramble up, but it didn't work. I am in the upper half of the raft, at the front. A saftey kayaker is in the foreground.


At first you don’t notice the cold because it is a struggle to work out which way is up and where you will find air. After what seemed like a long time, I surfaced several metres downstream from the boat, along with another rafter, Rachel from England. We had all been instructed that when we surfaced we should immediately swim for the nearest shore. For Rachel and I that meant the left bank and for the others it was the right bank. The problem was that due to the huge current, we swam and swam to the left but never got any closer. We found out later that the others had made it to the right bank in under half a minute and Elke had recovered the raft. But at that moment, Rachel and I were being swept downstream at perhaps 40kph, with rapidly diminishing strength as we fought the water. I was struck by something underwater and my left Teva sandal was knocked off by the violence of the blow. Although I was in no pain at that time, the foot was badly damaged. The adrenalin in trying not to drown, and the very cold water of the Bhote Kosi, meant that while I was being swept downstream, my foot was not my main concern.

Eventually I encountered one of the safety kayaks further downstream, and hung on like grim death. Rachel was nowhere to be seen. The kayaker rowed me to the other raft and I was unceremoniously dragged on board like an enormous tuna and flung on to the floor of the raft. I didn’t mind – I was breathing and I was out of the water. Then Rachel was captured by the kayaker and we were all safe – including Jean-Paul.

After the shock had worn off I realised that I could not feel my left foot, but I put that down to the cold. Later when we were in the bus heading back to Kathmandu the feeling came back to my foot – along with intense pain. I found that I couldn’t walk.

As the pain, swelling and bruising got worse each day, I was persuaded to go to the doctor, who initially thought that it was broken. Xrays were inconclusive and the doctor contacted a specialist who confirmed that there were no bone breakages, just severe bone bruising. So I spent the next several days on crutches, with my foot tightly bandaged and covered in ice, and only leaving my hotel room to hobble to nearby restaurants to eat. I was waited on hand and foot by the wonderful Elke, which was good, and I got to spend time catching up on my blog. The astute reader will note that many of the recent posts have the same or similar dates.


The photo on the left shows me trying to negotiate stairs in Kathmandu whilst on my crutches. It was taken by Elke who was helpfully standing at the top of the stairs laughing.

The photo below shows one of the bruises on my arm.

So the Bhote Kosi was an exhilarating and somewhat painful experience, but crazily, I would still recommend it to anyone. Two weeks later and I can walk without much trouble again. Luckily, my next appointment was with a beach in Thailand.