Seit kurzem sind wir wieder aus Indien zurück. Hier ein kleiner Bericht davon:
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David and me about to drop into one of these massive rapids - Siang River
- pic: Jonas Grünewald - |
I always
wanted to go to Asia to paddle huge big water.
This year
was the time to go.
Jonas Gruenewald asked me if I would like to join a trip to
north east India (Arunachal Pradesh district).
Quickly we
found two more good crew members, the flights were booked and the planning
started. But the organization was way more complicated than we excpected and it
turned into a nightmare for us. The Indian contact answered emails or phone
calls extreme rarely and at the take-off day it was still unsure if we would
have the permits to enter Arunachal Pradesh and if a driver would pic us up at
the airport.
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| - pic: Jonas Grünewald - |
Arriving in
Dibrugarh (Assam district) thing looked like to change in a good way for us. We
found a cap for the way to the Brahmaputra, we caught the ferry and our driver
and guide was awaiting us with permits on the other side. So our journey to the
Siang was good to go.
3 days of
driving river upstream (approx. 300 kilometers on the dirt road), we were stopped
by the army. The Siang (also known as Tsangpo) river comes from China and our
plan was to start as close as possible to Chinese boarder. Due to the fact that
the relationship between India and China is obviously not the best, the area is
sensitive and the army is based there. Even talks to the local government,
police and army could help us to get permission to drive mire upstream, so we
had to put in close to Tuting.
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| - pic: Jonas Grünewald - |
The Siang
river is probably the biggest river I have ever paddled. The monsoon just
stopped in September and the water level is still very high in October. We
started our tip on this huge brown stream. And the first rapids came up
quickly. They were huge, unpredictable, chaotic wave trains but manageable. In
the next 2,5 days we enjoyed a lot of rapids and flatwater, all integrated in an
amazing jungle landscape. After approximately 100 km we arrived at the Ghandi
bridge, the take out. It’s a 300-400 meter long hanging bridge.
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Siang
- pic: Jonas Grünewald - |
At the put
in of the next planned river trouble came up. Class 5 big water creeking, 2
days of unknown whitewater and jungle landscape created doubts for some crew
members (one had a broken rib), so we made a decision against a descent.
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Rice fields
- pic: Jonas Grünewald - |
In the next
days we had problems to find alternative rivers, but local people were kind and
helped us to figure out new plans. The Yamne river and the Simang river did not
appear to be hard big water rivers but beautiful class 4 rivers through the
jungle.
The time
passed by so quickly in India and we had to leave an awesome place, but after a
few weeks I was super looking forward to eat something else than rice.
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Bramaputra
- pic: Jonas Grünewald - |
Thanks to
Jonas Gruenewald who made this trip happen, Eddy, Nino, Lesslie Ciao and to all
the friendly locals down there.
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| - pic: Jonas Grünewald - |
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| - pic: Jonas Grünewald - |
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| - pic: Jonas Grünewald - |
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Camp 2 on the Siang River
- pic: Jonas Grünewald - |
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Ghandi Bridge
- pic: Jonas Grünewald - |
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| - pic: Jonas Grünewald - |
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| - pic: Jonas Grünewald - |
