Heavy traffic in heaven

I began white water rafting many many years ago and one of the things that kept me hooked (other than the huge adrenaline rush!) was the quietness of the experience. Flowing down the Ganges, between battling the force of the rapids, was a sublime experience: looking up into a bright sky fringed with unpopulated mountains, the sudden flight of varied birds, the occasional villager, langoors that scampered at the slap of the oars on the water. These were moments where you could forget how tiresome the world was.

But this time going to the Ganges after a gap of a few years, I was shocked at the population explosion that has occurred. Camps have multiplied and dot the river bank at regular intervals, some of them housing up to 150 guests! There were, at any one time, rafts of at least three different outfits at the same rapid at the same time. If that was not bad enough, we even had in a raft behind us, the sort of men and boys that harass and eve tease women! For the first time ever, the women in our group were suddenly conscious of their shorts and wet t-shirts and were uncomfortable till there was some distance between out raft and their's.

To make matters worse it seemed that some of the teams were not following the basic safety norms. They had no helmets, no accompanying river guide in a kayak to pick up those who were tossed into the river and it even seemed their guide was ill- equipped to negotiate the rapids. They littered, sang raucously, shouted and yelled, throughly disturbing the peace and quietened down only when one of them fell into a big rapid and had to be rescued by our safety guide's kayak.

Is it time perhaps to have traffic police and control in the river? Maybe even bye laws about camp size, number of camps and environmental limits to the amount of waste the dry pits can stabilize per season?
It would seem so!!

I found this really exciting awesome and adrenaline pumping video on youtube of the River Tummel. I would be petrified to try it but who knows..... Enjoy!!