Rafting in Rishikesh

Having discovered that water and my cameras don't mix very well, I didn't even bother taking my camera along with me when I went rafting. But the valley was lovely, picturesque and provided a thoroughly enjoyable venue for rafting. There were a couple of grade four rapids (at least the guide told us so; I'm not so sure, as grade 4 rapids would generally be expected to eject people from the raft, particularly a raft full of rather inexperienced people), and they provided a good deal of excitement. And I met a genuinely insane woman. So it was entertaining.

She was from Brazil. I met her when I went to the rafting company's office for the formalities such as signing of waivers and such. There were three people, actually and they all were up in arms about the waiver. It was a fairly standard waiver for people taking part in an activity that could potentially be dangerous. And those things always present it in such a worst-case scenario kind of way that it sounds as though you are about to participate in something so dangerous that you can expect to come away minus at least one limb. And the company accepts no liability should that happen, of course. It is an intimidating sort of thing to read, I will grant. But they were all upset because they thought the company should be accepting some responsibility. And from my reading of it, it didn't sound like they were denying any responsibility for our safety. It was more or less stating that we understood that we were undertaking a dangerous activity and were responsible for that decision. And any sane individual would realize that it isn't in the company's best interests to go about letting their customers get injured without doing anything about it, or even drown. Even in India where, to be honest, rules and laws are at best flexible, a company that offers dangerous activities and doesn't offer adequate protections will very soon find itself with no customers and will close. This would be particularly so in a town such as Rishikesh where it seems like every second shop is offering rafting as an option during one's stay.

However, “I'm from Brazil, and I know how things operate. They don't pay any attention to safety and don't follow the laws. They don't have licences and it's not a problem for them. India's the same.” I would actually think that Brazil is the same as India and those sorts of things, in this day and age with the internet and social networking and all kinds of sites that allow travellers to tell on places like that, such businesses couldn't stay in operation.

But she wouldn't listen. I don't know why I actually got into the argument, but they just all three of them decided to tell me the problem they had. I eventually asked why they weren't talking to the owners about the issue, since I couldn't do anything. And they didn't seem to understand they weren't getting in the boat without signing the waiver. The Brazilian girl still tried to do that though.

In the end, it all worked out, and we headed off and had a great time. And the fully trained guides, who gave us detailed instructions on what to do with various commands and how to stay in the boat and what to do if we did end up out of the boat, made sure nobody drowned. It was fun.