It all started back on our, erm, “layover day” in Delhi, when the strike gave us the chance to read up a bit more and research the opportunities and things to see and do in Nepal. I don’t know how I missed it before, but I was very excited to read this –summarized so as not to be cease-and-desisted by Lonely Planet- to (a half-conscious at that point in the night) Ray:

“Kayaking
The opportunities for kayak expeditions are exceptional.

KAYAK CLINICS

Nepal is an ideal place to learn to kayak and several rafting companies offer learner kayak clinics. For the communication required to teach, the best instruction clinics tend to be staffed with both Western and Nepali instructors. Kayak clinics normally take about four days, which gives you time to get a good grounding in the basics of kayaking, safety
and river dynamics.

The clinics are a pretty laid-back intro to kayaking, with around four to six hours of paddling a day. On day one yoll learn self-rescue, T-rescue and Eskimo roll, which will help you to right yourself when you capsize.

Day two sees you on the river, learning to ferry glide (cross the river), eddy in and eddy out (entering and leaving currents), brace and perfect your strokes.

Day three is when you start really having fun on the river, running small (class II) rapids and journeying down the river, learning how to read the rapids. The key is to relax your upper body to move with the kayak, and not to panic underwater. Flexibility is a real plus. Expect one instructor for every three people.

Other companies…operate their four-day clinics on the gentle Seti River. The first day’s training takes place on Phewa Tal [the lake] and the remaining 2\xbd days are on the Seti, with two nights’ riverside camping. The kayak route follows the rafting route, putting in at Damauli and taking out at Ghaighat, at the junction with the Trisuli River. The advantage to learning on the Seti is that you get to journey down a real river.”

-Lonely Planet Nepal, 7th edition

How fun does that sound, right!? Right? Righ– RAY WAKE UP did you SERIOUSLY fall asleep while I was reading that??

So from sitting in a hotel room in Delhi, India, a few days eating our weight in beef (oh wondrous beef) in Kathmandu, a jungle walk, elephant bathtime and safari, pilgrimage to the birthplace of the Buddha, and a couple of nasty colds later, 2 weeks after first reading about it in a book, we found ourselves walking into a little shop with kayaks outside, whose brochure said they were in fact running these clinics. We didn’t think we were going to get to do the kayaking clinic because when we’d asked at another company a few days ago, they said due to the late monsoons this year, the river was very high and it was too unsafe. But when we saw the Paddle Nepal brochure that said they were going, we went in to ask about just how unsafe “unsafe” was. I mean, come on. Learning to kayak in Nepal? That’s only awesome!

To our surprise, a white, native-English-speaking woman greeted us (you don’t see too many white people working here – turns out she’s a Canadian who married the Nepali who had started the company with his two brothers, all three of whom are on the whitewater national team) and assailed our senses with such a fantastic description of the days that awaited – learning new and amazing things, white sand beaches, waterfalls and jungles, warm rivers, new friends, campfires…omg, we were sold. And we were starting the next morning. Yikes!’