Tomfoolery and self-deprecation in extreme circumstances

I knew it would be one of the most adventurous, thrilling and downright hilarious trips of my life – a six day expedition down a section of the Brahmaputra in India.

I’d said a sad goodbye to Helen, leaving her in a strange country while I departed for an even stranger one, and dropped everything in New Zealand to join up with my friend, Roland Stevenson, who had foolishly started a white-water rafting company, River India. Not only that, he was to be based out of the remote and largely restricted region Arunachal Pradesh (pronounced are-a-nutch-al prah-desh), the north-eastern most state, out on a limb from India, bordered on three sides by Bhutan, Myanmar and Tibet.

Oh, and China immediately issued a statement saying they didn’t recognise the region as Indian.

Tomfoolery and self-deprecation in extreme circumstances are Roland’s strongest assets. If anyone could organise the logistics for a six day rafting trip down the mighty Brahmaputra in the world’s most famously bureaucratic continent and still come out laughing, it was him. This was to be River India’s first expedition.

Jan 4^th-6^th

Christchurch to Sydney. Sydney to Dubai. Twenty-four hours in a Dubai hotel. Dubai to Delhi. I spent the majority of my time eating, sleeping, sleeping, reading, eating, sleeping, writing, eating, sleeping, and so on.

Jan 6^th

“Don’t panic,” read the sign above the baggage carousel. “There’s always rebirth.”

I wasn’t panicking, but was perhaps mildly anxious. This was my second time in India. The first had been with Helen and our Californian friend, Jasmine, almost a year ago exactly. I’d already learned from the words of a fellow Scot, William Dalrymple, that “nothing is ever as good, or as bad, as it first seems” in this invigorating country. The sign was part of a series promoting the country on behalf of Incredible India. It showed an old school kayaker dropping into a large recirculating hole. The words were to be our motto for the adventure ahead.

Foolishly, from the sanctity of New Zealand, I had tricked myself into thinking that staying somewhere near the airport and away from the backpacker’s mecca of Pahar Ganj and having someone meet me at the airport would make life easier. Instead I had to endure the driver’s endless sales pitch on where he could take me in the city before he dropped me off at a guesthouse [www.ajantaguesthouse.in] in the middle of nowhere. To top it off they were obviously rebuilding half the place and so as I sat, in a daze, on my solid mattress with its solid pillows (surely an oxymoron) suddenly pining for my wife, I had to endure the inconsistent sound of mass construction.

These old colonial Indian buildings are full of stone and marble, radiating cold. I went for a walk, and sure enough, there was nothing around, just a residential area with a plethora of engine workshops and small food shops. Very noticeable that I barely turned a head wandering around the streets, not like my previous visit to India with Helen and Jasmine when we were accosted from all angles. After a take-away dinner I stood in the marble bathroom and rubbed at my smooth chin: a beard is a necessity in the land of facial hair.