"You are the first Indian woman to raft down the Brahmaputra!"..exclaimed a colleague. Not possible...arguable, I said. Who cared? There was the Brahmaputra, and there were the set of six rafts and a couple of canoes, and all around me were the team of 21 Americans and 5 Air Force colleagues. The mission? A 12-day Indo-US expedition on the Brahmaputra from Tuting to Pasighat. Team leader JB had a motley crowd of first and old timers to shepherd around, so did his Indian counterpart Sqn Ldr TS. Me? Oh a veteran with a vast experience of 4 days on the Indus at Leh a summer ago, and another 4 days on the Ganges at Shivpuri as a warm up for the expedition.
(All this was 12 years ago, I intend taking swimming lessons very soon)
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| White water flows, adrenaline accompanies |
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| At Yembung |
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| 3 'Bhaskar's... a coincidence |
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| When the tents almost flew away... |
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| Yes, noodles with aruNAchalis |
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| Surveying ahead of a rapid |
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| Waters that were mostly serene |
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| The guide's skill with the paddle |
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| Lovely white sands |
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| Lined up for another day |
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| The 21 member US-IAF team |
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| Warm dinner in a warm house with warm people |
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| Jennifer Gold, a rafting guide |
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| Campsite |
The equipment (rafts, tents, cooking) was provided by AK's Mercury Himalayan explorations; his team had a Kashmiri cook G and two more raft guides.
The schedule: Set off early from Tuting on Day 1, traverse the Along till about 2 pm, the pull out at a convenient beach, camp the night and set off next morn, till on Day 12, we reach Pasighat around mid-morn.
Our low-budget red-coloured wet suits consisted of pants & jackets. (Every morning after the first spray from a good white water stretch, we got used to the wet feeling)
All these without swimming lessons?You mustbe the first lady doing that too :-))
ReplyDeleteIndi.