Those who have been to Nepal often ask: "what's changed in the last few years?"

Nepal and Tourism

Why Nepal is famous for Rafting?

The country
Nepal is a small country, size of Austria and Switzerland put together, but a huge country in terms of its diversity: from the highest peaks on earth to steamy jungle. It is inhabited by 23 millions people of many different tribes, linked by a rich cultural and religious heritage. Straddling the Himalayas, Nepal forms a boundary and meeting point between the India sub Continent and the high plateau lands of Asia.

It's a country where, a way from the few roads, villages and towns could be straight out of a medieval novel, with a simple life style enriched by deep cultural beliefs and joyful festivals. In modern terms it's a poor, exotic third world country, with difficult mountain terrain, too many people, little fertile land, and lots of development problems. But it's also a country with a proud history a sense of unity; fine friendly people, a country with few roads but wonderful rivers!

Geography
Nepal is long and thin, stretched out along the Himalayas. If we drew a cross section through the country at any point would look something like this.

Running parallel to the southern boundary with India is a trip of lowland plain called the Tarai. This used to be mosquito-ridden wilderness and natural boundary zone, but malaria control programmes since the 1950’s have seen massive fore clearance and population settlement in this zone. This is the development zone of Nepal.

Rising form the Terai are the Siwalik (or Chure) Hills and then a higher range called the Mahabharat Hills. The land then drops to the 'Midlands valleys', typified by the Kathmandu Valley at a height or around 1300 meters (4000ft.). These Midland valleys extend across most of Nepal and are followed by lengths of some of the great rivers – the Seti, Karnali, Bheri, Kali Gandaki, Sun Kosi and Tamur. Most of the population used to live in these valleys and historically these were the cultural heartlands of Nepal.

Climbing from the Midland valleys and the surrounding hills are the mighty Himalayas Range, whose highest peaks often demarcate the boundary with Tibet. The Himalayas drop more gently on the northern side to the flat arid Tibetan plateau.

These different cross section zones also mark the transitional zones for vegetation and wildlife – few areas of the world can show such a marked transition from high arid plateau to lowland jungle. These are difference that you will appreciate on a long river journey.

The Himalayas are still being formed by an uplift of the earth's crust as two tectonic plates meet: the Eurasian plate being driven up on top of the Indian one. This means that the Himalayas are young, active and still growing in height by up to one cm a year. The Himalayas is also an earthquake zone and hot springs may be found on the upper reaches of many rivers where the valleys cuts through a fault line.

A lot of the geological historical of the Himalayas can be read as you raft through the river gorges: rock strata, faults and synclines clearly exposed in the water carved cliffs.

The Himalayas were pushed up after the river systems had established themselves- this explains the strange way that may of the main rivers have headwaters on the North (wrong) side of the Himalayas. The rivers maintained their courses, established a system of antecedent drainage and eroded deeper and deeper gorges as the mountains kept growing: the upper valley of the Arun and Kali Gandaki are some of the deepest land gorges on Earth.


The Rivers
The antecedent system of river drainage partly explains why the rivers of Nepal are so good for rafting and kayaking – they don't just rush straight down to the plain, but follow convoluted courses traveling the Midland valleys of Nepal and then cutting their way in more mighty gorges through the Mahabharat Range. The profile of the Kali Gandaki is typical of many Nepalese Rivers in that the gradient eases off at an altitude of around 1000 meters (3500 ft) – this explains why most rivers running is at relatively low altitude. All Himalayan Rivers are actively down cutting and carry a lot of material as sediment, or as boulders trundling along the bottom – hold a paddle shaft to your ear and you may hear it.
There are tremendous variations in the volume of water in the rivers; Typically the mean monthly flow in the monsoon will be over ten times that at low water and the instantaneous highest flow may be 80 times! These are some of the mightiest mountain rivers o the world!

The People
The physical diversity of this colorful land is mirrored in the numerous different tribes and ethnic groups who make up its population. Each group has strong cultural traditions, dress and language. High in the mountains you may meet the Bhotias of Tibetans stock, or the famous Sherpas. These high mountain people were always great traders, supplementing their subsistence farming with trade over the high passed to Tibet. The Thakalis are another trial group, originally centered on the Kali Gandaki valleys, who have become famous as skilful traders and innkeepers.

On your way sown the river you may meet a village populated by Magars, then a few kms later a village of the Rais tribe – your guide may be able to recognize the tribe by its distinctive architecture. You will meet ferrymen whose family have been ferrymen from time immemorial – paddling their dug – out canoes, 'dungas' skillfully against the current.

Most of these people will be Hindus, but usually it is a Hinduism that has strong blends of Buddhism, the older religion the whole of Nepal seems permeated by its Buddhist past and its philosophy of tolerance and respect for life and people. Despite intense pressures of poverty and limited resources, ethnic or religious strife is almost unknown in Nepal. Most visitors to Nepal are amazed at the tolerance and cheerfulness of the local people and some of your most delightful and vivid memories will be of meetings with local people.

Wildlife
A river is one of the best ways of viewing Nepal's abundant wildlife. You will see a vast number of different birds: from eagles to egrets, vultures to hornbills, over 800 species! Butterflies and moths are usually more visible when you camp, and again there is a huge variety – over 5000 species.

If you are lucky you may sight the rare Gharial crocodile (that's the fish eating one with the strange long snout) or the more common mugger crocodile that feeds on anything: fish, small mammals, dead bodies, or other carrion. The occasional rafting group on the Narayani and Karnali rivers have sighted the very rare Genetic Dolphin, one o the few freshwater Dolphin species in the world (we suspect that a kayakers stands a better chance of viewing the mammals closely because of the latter's curiosity). If you are a fisherman than you will be interested in the famous Masheer fighting fish – record weight 45 kgs!

There are several species of snakes, but these are very rarely seen. River – rafting groups normally see lots of monkeys, and mongoose sightings are quite common. If you are lucky and on the right river at the right time you may be also see tiger, leopard, wild elephant, blackbuck, tiger, gaur, wild buffalo, rhino, hyenas, wild dogs, civets, wild boars, sloth and black bears. These are of course more likely to be sighted on the more remote rivers particularly in the west.

General Advice for the River Runner

When to go
Nepal climate is dictated by the monsoon with arrives in June and usually finishes in late September. The monsoon brings torrential rains that flood the rivers so most people would not want to be kayaking or rafting at this time (but it can be a great time for the expert big water kayakers) Peak season for tourist and for rafting is October throw November: the monsoon is over every thing is very bring rivers are moderately high but dropping, temperatures are warm and sky are clear with find mountain views.

The only disadvantages with these time of year are that it is the peak season and airline reservations are harder to get: also you can't be sure when the monsoon will finished. It can be a month late and this can throw your plans into chaos if you are planning on running a river where water levels are critical – as they are on many of Nepal's rivers.
The winter months from late December though to early February are cold, but skies are still clear and river levels will be low. Lots of river running groups come out over Christmas and have a great time. But you certainly should expect cold water and perhaps think in terms of wet suits and dry tops.

From late February through to early may is also a good time for river running – rivers levels are reliably low, air temperature warm, rivers warm and blue. The disadvantage is that the air is often hazy you can't be assured of stunning mountain views and their may be an occasional shower of rain.

Pokhara, because of its altitude of 800 meters, probably gives a fair indication of the average temperatures that most river runners may encounter.

Conservation
Every year the annual monsoon brings a huge deluge that sweeps down the river and scours it clean-this means that camping on riverside beaches in Nepal has different environmental impact from camping by rivers in North America or other countries. We suggest the following guidelines as good practice:

These basic guidelines have the backing of all reputable rafting companies Dos hesitate to encourage your team if they neglect something. Only if we all show positive concern will we protect this beautiful river environment.

The Nepal Association of Rafting Agents (NARA) asks that you please report any flagrant braches of these guidelines. Please make the time to do this of Nepal cannot afford river rangers- if you don't bother to write then no one else will.


Fires
One of the major ecological problems in Nepal is deforestation. The Himalayan tourist code says that you should make no open fires, a general rule, that we would agree with when away from the river. However, on the large rivers of the Himalaya the monsoon sweeps down huge quantities of drift wood that get deposited on the beaches and in well-populated areas the villagers will gather this for firewood. But, on more inaccessible beaches the wood will just remain there until the next monsoon.

We think that it is acceptable to use driftwood like this for small campfires and particularly for burning garbage. It is nice to sit around a campfire, but you don't need to do this every night-and there is certainly no place for a roaring great bonfire! Some of our best nights have been by candlelight and under the stars!

It is pleasant to cook on a wood fire, but the normal good rule is that cooking should be done on gas or kerosene stoves, with fires only used occasionally, Almost everyone agrees that it is ecologically unacceptable for any rafting trip to bur firewood- but, guides do like cooking on wood fires- so they will often try to shift the responsibility onto the customer by asking. "Would you like a campfire tonight?" If you have an ecological conscience then your answer should be something along the lines- "Yes, it would be nice to have a campfire, but we don't think its right to buy firewood- why don't we wait until there's driftwood available”?

The following are regular trips (including rapid grading)