my travel blog: Trisuli: Lessons of the day

I just came back from some days of refreshing my kayak skills on the river Trisuli at the Royal Beach Camp. We picked the middle section of the river which is usually level 1* and 2 with maybe some level 3 white water. Well, usually...this time the water was rising as the monsoon is around the corner and the rain had started, hence the water levels were rising and the river showed a lot of movement. The big rapid has swollen to a level 4+ while there were some solid level 3 + rapids. Still hardly exciting for rafting but more than enough to freshen up my flat water kayak skills.

The last day's lesson were:

1. if it looks rough, there is good chance that it is rough
2. if you capsize and hang upside down in a kayak with your head under water and your lower body is tight set in a plastic shell, it is very dark - well black to be accurate thanks to a lot of squirreling sand
3. if lessons 1 and 2 apply within a level 3+ rapid, your heart rate goes up quickly (while you are racing down streams)
4. if lesson 3 applies you are likely to forget your eskimo roll skills (or loose your paddle or both)
5. if lesson 4 applies your only option to survive is to pull the deck and swim
6. if lesson 5 applies you will swim as fast as you've never done before (and if you are lucky the safety kayaker and instructor will pick you, your boat and your paddle up a couple of hundreds of meter down the stream just before the next big rapid)
7. if you approach a level 4+ rapid and your instructor offers you and your kayak a lift in a raft, you should be grateful, accept the offer and understand that level 3+ is your limit

Anyway, I only swam through one of the big rapids but got through the others - great time with a great instructor and thank you for getting me out of my comfort zone every second minute.

*river grading: level 1 = easy to level 5 = very difficult, level 6 = not managable, suicidal