Sun Kosi - The River of Gold

RIVER TRIP DETAILS
Departing From: Kathmandu
Rafting From: Dolalghat to Chahara
Rafting: 8 days
River Distance: 270km
River Class: 4-/5
Season: Sept to Oct, May to June

Another of Nepal’s holy rivers, The Sunkoshi is also known as the River of Gold and derivers her name form the goddess Kaushiki. This virgin goddess created peace on the earth then after doing so took the form of the river we all know as the Sun Koshi.

In length, the Sunkoshi is the longest river trip in Nepal traversing 270 km through the beautiful Mahabharata Mountain range. It begins after a 3 hours drive from Kathmandu and is 60 km from the Tibet border. This all encompassing trip takes you from the mountains near the Tibet border to the hot dusty Indian plains.

This river begins its journey slowly allow the rafter or Kayaker to gain a feel for its ways. As the river progresses through fantastic scenery and quite villages, where you can experience Nepal’s lush culture, its intensity picks up and boast some of the biggest waves seen on raft able rivers in the world. This trip is listed as one of the world’s top ten classic river journeys and if you have the time and want to experience the real Nepal, it’s certainly a trip worth considering for not only rafters, but intermediate to experienced kayakers as well.
 

RAFTING
The Sunkoshi is a superb river for rafting, with a few easy days warm up before entering the bigger rapids. It’s a good solid rafting trip for all levels of rafter and one of the best long river trips for rafting in the world.
 

KAYAKING
Kayaking on this river can be done by the intermediate to the advanced kayaker. The rapids are big and bouncy and make for a great fun kayaking trip with plenty of surfing waves and lots of kayak friendly hole to play in . Its an easy accessible trip for kayakers and displays nicely some fine white water and the lush jungle surroundings.
 

RIVER ITINERARY
Day 01: Grab some fresh Bakery goods hot out of the oven for our 3 to 4 hour bus drive along the friendship highway to Dolaghat. The road takes us high above the river with awesome views of the Himalaya along the way. We take some lunch on the river bank in the bustling town and set up the rafts at which point your guides will issue you with the standard rafting equipment, a paddle, a helmet and a life jacket. We then head to the river for our safety briefing. Listen carefully for instruction and how to act upon the guide’s commands, not falling out of the raft and having a good time. Of course we will also tell you what to do in the likely event of you falling out of the raft. We head to the river for a gentle afternoon of rafting and a nice introduction to the rafting gang to get our coordination and team work up to scratch for the days to come.
 

Day 02-08: Before us we have 270km of blissfully traffic free river to ourselves with plenty of world class rapids to keep us on the edge of our seats. The river carries us along at a nice pace through huge holes, rapids and past massive boulders in the river. At night times we will camp out on the lush white beaches where we can unwind after a hard days paddling. The course of the Sun Koshi offers up some world renowned rapids, such as Harkapur 2, Dead Mans Eddy and Jaws. Further down the river joins with the white flowing Dhud Koshi which has tumbled its way down form Everest, the water gets noticeably colder as well. The 7 km of river called the Jungle Corridor looms up to us after this meeting of rivers. It’s a wild wild rapid ride through a steep sided jungled canyon from one pounding rapid to the next, that’s going to get your heart racing.
 

Day 09: Just when you think its all over, the last big rapid of this trip is called The Big Dipper, after which the river lets up, we all let out a sigh of relief and make our take out near where the Sun Koshi joins with the Tamur and the Arun Rivers. It’s a short drive and flight back to Kathmandu where awe can all have a hot shower, let down our hair and celebrate our amazing trip on one of the world’s best white water rafting rivers.

This trip can also be extended with a safari in Royal Chitwan National Park.

For more information, combined package tours, departure dates and cost, please contact us.