Sun Koshi named best for rafting

The Sun Koshi River has been named the world’s best rafting river by Lonely Planet, the largest travel guide book publisher in the world. Originating near Mt Shishapangma in Tibet, the river, whose name means river of gold, carves its way through the Himalaya and into eastern Nepal. The Sun Koshi River ’s glacier-fed waters drop for five months of the year, which makes it ideal for white water rafting. In an article entitled “Hold tight: the world’s best rafting rivers”, the travel guide book has described the Sun Koshi thus: “And what a trip it is! The 273 km from the put-in at Dolalghat to the take-out at Chatara Gorge are as exciting as rafting comes-big, bouncy white-water rapids, steep valleys, remote Nepali mountain villages, superb campsites on white-sand beaches, and hot, sunny days with chilly nights. By the end you’ll agree that there’s more than one kind of gold.” The Sun Koshi is commercially rafted between September and January, after which the river triples in volume and becomes unrunnable. It takes up to 10 days to run the river. According to the Nepal Association of Rafting Agents, around 15 percent of the tourists visiting Nepal go rafting. The government has allowed rafting on only 14 of the 6,000 rivers flowing across the country. After the Sun Koshi, the rest of the world’s top 10 rafting rivers are the Magpie River, Ontario, Canada; Zambezi River, Zimbabwe/Zambia; Alsek River, USA/Canada; Middle Fork of the Salmon River, Idaho, USA; Franklin River, Tasmania, Australia; Rio Futaleufú, Chile; Rio Cotahuasi, Peru; Colorado River, Arizona, USA and Noce River, Italy. source: ekantipur