The High Life?

Some years ago, I landed in Nepal and was deported within two hours of my arrival. The reasons for this undignified course of action were rather mystifying, to me at least. So I was a tad incoherent from my nightlong farewell party after a month in Bhutan. I hadn’t seen a razor during that month resulting in a disturbingly patchy and pathetic excuse for a beard. The only thing stragglier than my growth was my clothes. Okay, so I had no documents at all. My interrogating officers were creative enough to label me an illegal Afghan immigrant. Either way they did not seem ecstatic about my presence.

Several years later, I returned. This time I was cleanly shaved, coherent and clad and at the risk of being over-efficient, I even carried my passport.

Katmandu is full of surprises. I had spent a fair amount of delirious time in the city during my college days. Freak Street (Thamel) was the pseudo-hippie hub where people decided to be temporary hippies until their visas expired. It was the kind of place where travelers thought they could buy nirvana from a smoky bar and people like us thought we were enlightened a few hours after having arrived. I could start off about the local fare, the arts and crafts, the Himalayas, and other stuff that would make for splendid conversation at my nana’s Sunday bridge parties. But this time, with the only common factor being ‘high’, I had come to do something very different.

Kiwi David Allardice is considered by many to be the river rafting pioneer of South Asia. Before we first met, I had heard bizarre rumours that in a nutshell blended him into a drug peddling-secret service-missionary from New Zealand (the land of high-end international espionage and sheep?) He is a man with a good many different sides and a zest for adventure that has allowed him to survive through the intimidating hogwash. In an apparent attempt to get away from the city’s grind, David had partnered in the creation of an adventure center just 10 km from the Tibet border aptly naming it The Last Resort. Parts of the invite I had received read something like this: “have completed the bridge and it has been professionally tested…. it is the second highest jump in the world…..have named the bar ‘Instant Karma’……David”.

I had done a few jumps before, but quite possibly, this looked like the most spectacular jump in the world. I felt like I had been transported back into the interrogation lounge several years ago. This had nothing to do with the staff, but more fittingly with my overwhelming need to expedite the digestion of my lunch. Standing atop that gorge which narrowed down to the base 480 feet below was an incomprehensible rush. Why do we do this? What joy is derived from leaping off a platform over forty-eight stories up with your jewels in your mouth? As fear fused with excitement, I considered rationalizing my intentions. This was when the 14 year old Canadian girl fearlessly plummeted with a piercing “bungeeeeeee” that echoed through the canyon. My rationale was promptly swallowed with a large lump of trepidation. I was next.

After yo-yoing like…well…a yoyo, I dangled a few feet above the gushing force of the river. Having lost my voice screaming madly and my dignity with the shrillness of my voice, I pondered my life with all the blood in my body having drained into my head. And I could only think of describing it the way it has been written…. “Imagine a bridge over a one hundred and sixty meter tropical gorge with the Bhote Kosi, one of the world’s wildest rivers raging below…..NOW JUMP.”