{"id":4902,"date":"2010-01-20T22:42:08","date_gmt":"2010-01-20T22:42:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.pyranha.com\/blog\/?p=4902"},"modified":"2012-03-30T13:37:41","modified_gmt":"2012-03-30T13:37:41","slug":"beating-the-bandas-aka-new-year-in-nepal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pyranha.com\/blog\/beating-the-bandas-aka-new-year-in-nepal\/","title":{"rendered":"Beating the Banda’s (aka. New Year in Nepal)"},"content":{"rendered":"

The first word that everyone learns upon arrival in Nepal is the ubiquitous greeting\u00c2\u00a0“Namaste”.\u00c2\u00a0Our trip however was to be different.\u00c2\u00a0The first\u00c2\u00a0word we learned was “Banda”. Banda is the Nepali\u00c2\u00a0word for a strike.\u00c2\u00a0These strikes aren’t quite the same as you’d get\u00c2\u00a0back home, where a line of disgruntled workers stand at a factory gate, they are much more\u00c2\u00a0extensive and indiscriminate. Traffic is not allowed on the roads, shops aren’t allowed to open and the whole country\u00c2\u00a0effectively grinds to a halt.\u00c2\u00a0
\n\u00c2\u00a0
\nWe arrived in Nepal at 10pm the\u00c2\u00a0evening before\u00c2\u00a0three consecutive days\u00c2\u00a0of these strikes. One day of waiting may have been acceptable, but no matter how you look at it, 3 days of a 2 week\u00c2\u00a0holiday is a lot! Despite stories of the rather violent enforcement of the banda by the Maoists, on day 2, a local guy we met in the street said he could get us a “landcruiser” to take us and our boats off to the first river under cover of darkness. Obviously this would cost us dear, but we figured it was worth it. When the “landcruiser” turned up, it turned out to be a tiny car, and the driver wouldn’t go without his mate, but by then we were beyond caring, so we crammed 5 guys three boats and 2 weeks worth of kit into and onto the machine and set off into the night…<\/p>\n

Although December is the low water season, there is still some great paddling to be had, especially if you venture further up the valleys of some of the rivers normally done “in season”. Whilst dodging strikes, we ticked off upper sections of: Bhote Kosi, Marsyandi, Kali Gandaki along with a few other nice runs down some of the classic sections of these and other rivers.<\/p>\n

Anyways, enough spiel… To the photos!! Here’s a flavour of the trip:<\/p>\n

Ominous Gorges<\/span><\/strong>:
\n\u00c2\u00a0\"Upper<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Kali<\/a><\/p>\n

Good Lines<\/strong><\/span>:<\/p>\n

\"Autoboof,<\/a><\/div>\n
Photo: Patrick Clissold<\/em><\/span><\/div>\n
\u00c2\u00a0<\/div>\n
\"Frog<\/a><\/div>\n
Photo: Will Eldred<\/em><\/span><\/div>\n

Bad Lines:<\/strong><\/span>
\n\"Beatdown<\/a><\/p>\n

Terrible Lines:<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\"Tamba<\/div>\n
Photo: Will Eldred<\/span><\/em><\/div>\n

Lines with consequences:
\n<\/span><\/strong>\"Horrendosiphon,<\/a><\/p>\n

Local Culture:<\/span><\/strong>
\n\"Nepali<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Durbar<\/a><\/p>\n

Local Transport:
\n<\/span><\/strong>\"Bus<\/a><\/p>\n

…and last but by no means least, a very healthy dose of:<\/p>\n

Belting Scenery:<\/strong><\/span>
\n\"Kali<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Marsyandi<\/a><\/p>\n

Safe lines, and see you on the river…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The first word that everyone learns upon arrival in Nepal is the ubiquitous greeting\u00c2\u00a0“Namaste”.\u00c2\u00a0Our trip however was to be different.\u00c2\u00a0The first\u00c2\u00a0word we learned was “Banda”. Banda is the Nepali\u00c2\u00a0word for a strike.\u00c2\u00a0These strikes aren’t quite the same as you’d get\u00c2\u00a0back home, where a line of disgruntled workers stand at a factory gate, they are much … <\/p>\n

Continue reading »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":185,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2,4,273,5],"tags":[293,292,154,294],"class_list":["post-4902","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blogroll","category-creeking-articles","category-expeditions-2","category-paddler-lifestyle-articles","tag-banda","tag-december","tag-nepal","tag-strike"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9tk9G-1h4","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pyranha.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4902","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pyranha.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pyranha.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pyranha.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/185"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pyranha.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4902"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.pyranha.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4902\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12088,"href":"https:\/\/www.pyranha.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4902\/revisions\/12088"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pyranha.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4902"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pyranha.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4902"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pyranha.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4902"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}