| the real ashu |
Posted
on 09-Jul-01 07:30 AM
What follows may soon come out in The Sunday Post section
of The Kathmandu Post. Comments, criticisms are welcome.
oohi
ashu
**************
The thrill of bungy
By Ashutosh Tiwari
How would you like to close your eyes and fall
headlong from a bridge, stationed at a height of 160
meters . . . into an ice-cold, boulder-filled and
ragingly foaming Himalayan river? If that sounds like
a fun way to spend a part of your Saturday afternoon,
then welcome to the sport of bungy jumping, available,
since early 2000, at a price in this country of
mountains long known for, well, heights.
It was late last year when three friends and I,
looking for a way escape Kathmandu to finish up the
year on an adventurous note, decided to go bungy
jumping. We knew very little about the sport, of
course -- except that, on and off, we had caught a few
bungy visuals on a foreign TV show or two (most
memorably in an Aerosmith music video). The idea that
seemingly sane people would climb up to insane heights
only to come crashing down to the earth with nothing
but elastic cords tied to their body parts was
frightening and exciting. We had to explore this
fright and the excitement for ourselves. That we could
explore this all not too far Kathmandu in one
afternoon and still be able to make it home by the
evening to sleep off the 'jump-lag' only added to our
thrill.
And so we left, at seven on one chilly December
morning, for The Last Resort in Sindhu Palchowk
district. From Thamel, our bus, carrying about 20
potential jumpers, wound its way towards the northern
directions, through the bazaars of Koteswor, outer
Bhakatpur, Dolal Ghat and others. The final stretch of
the Kodari Highway was uneven, thereby rattling the
bus sideways and up and down, and giving us all a good
workout on our seats. But around midday, the bus did
reach -- like a caterpillar completing, at last, that
lurch towards the end of the leaf it's chewing on --
our destination that is within 12 miles of the
Nepal-Tibet border.
Getting off the bus to stretch our legs, we soon
forgot our hunger upon seeing the wiry mesh of the
166-meter-long suspension bridge atop a yawning gorge.
A fast, furious and cruel Bhote Koshi river swirled
below. The whole scene came upon us as though it had
sprung to life from the Marlon Brando movie Apocalypse
Now. As the sun shone warmly high above, turning the
jagged gray peaks of rock yellow on one side of us,
and as crisp air from Tibet blew in our faces, all we
could do was shudder in silence with nervous
anticipation.
The Last Resort folks -- two New Zealanders, one
Nepali and one Israeli -- did their best to make us
feel comfortable. After welcoming us with coffee and a
light lunch of noodles and potatoes, they gathered us
all, and started rattling off the procedures, before
weighing each of us. It was obvious that these
bungy-masters had done the explanations hundreds of
times (a la the flight attendant who tells you about
those emergency exits just as your plane is about to
take off), were thorough in the mastery of their
methods, and knew how to have fun helping people throw
themselves off the bridge.
Meantime, their good-natured ribbing was enough for
some of us to start reconsidering the sheer lunacy of
what we had set out to do. After all, think about
this: who in a right frame of mind in Nepal would pay
a little more than 3000 rupees (that too, at a heavy
discount for Nepalis) for the pleasure of diving
headlong from the side of a bridge into the yawn of
nature? But happily, as I saw it with my own eyes that
day, around 20 or so Nepali and non-Nepali men and
women – each with a varying degree of interest in
adventure tourism – would really put themselves in
that 'lunatic' frame of mind to pursue the ultimate
adrenaline kick, and, to the best of my knowledge,
survive well enough to tell the tale to all who would
listen. Considering that the Statue of Liberty on
Ellis Island in New York is only 92 meters tall, and
that a 25-story building is about only 76 meters tall,
it was no small achievement to have jumped off a
height of 160 meters.
So how did the jumpers -- forgetting careers, families
and everything else – choose to make the plunge? Good
psychology certainly helped. Knowing that that the
Swiss-tested and New Zealand-managed safety standards
would work just fine put all first-timers mentally at
ease. And the suspension bridge, we were reassured,
was not going to snap under the weight of our
collective excitement. That was because it was
designed and constructed with a loading factor of
41,500 kg. Plus, the fact that the bridge functioned
as a jump-platform for jumpers, a backstage for the
bungy-masters to pull up the pulleys, and a balcony
space for onlookers to cheer at his each jump while
remaining a short-cut for Tamang villagers to get to
the other side of the river in less than three minutes
(earlier, they used to trek up and down for five
hours) made all feel like they did not want to let it
down by not, well, jumping down from it, especially
after having come all the way from Kathmandu for
bungy-jumping!
And so, with the issue of 'hardware' settled safely,
it was easy to turn attention to the science behind
each jump. Each jump takes about 15 minutes from start
to finish, and once your turn comes, the bungy-masters
beckon you to the middle of the bridge. There, they
strap you onto a chair that is locked tight against
the bridge linings so you can seat but can't move. And
once you are seated, the bungy-masters wrap, with
velcro, the y-shaped end of a thick
manufactured-in-Malaysia but made-and-knotted-in-Nepal
elastic rope onto those parts of your legs, where the
ends of your socks hug your calves tight. Since the
rest of that mammoth rope, which looks and feels as if
it were one long anaconda, is already down the bridge
forming a U-shape under the bridge and over the river,
all you do is quiver as you sit alone to feel the
unmistakable pull of gravity on your legs and then on
your whole body.
Meantime, to maintain balance, the bungy-masters drop
down a vessel that's slightly more than your weight,
and take great care to keep a pulley-like system in
place. Soon, the lock to your chair is open, and you
are able to stand and walk about four paces forward
onto the foldable iron mat, which juts out from the
middle of the bridge. You grab on to the railings that
are now behind you, and you take a deep breath as you
look sideways, front and down. Sideways, you see your
friends and onlookers cheering you on; up ahead, you
see calm, green hills, majestic in their remoteness;
and, down below, you see the blue and naked waters of
the Bhote Koshi River, and hear their roar amplified
all the more by the big boulders.
And then, you open your palms to let go of the
railings behind, and think of that Van Helen number as
you move forward into the river from a height of 160
meters. Only then, you know that you have jumped . . .
from one of the highest bungy-jumping heights on the
planet.
As your whole body, respecting Newton's laws, lurches
headlong into the river, the U-shape of the rope
quickly morphs into one giant elastic band so that you
are soon turned into a yo-yo. As your heart beats like
crazy, and blood seems to rush out of your system, and
you feel as though you are going to smash yourself
into pieces at that boulder below, you suddenly feel a
gentle tug, which soon takes you back to the way of
the bridge up above.
No uncomfortable jerks. No abrupt pulling and pushing.
No spinning out of control, and no swinging wildly
from side to side. But a bounce so soft and gentle
that you feel as though you have been pulled up to
float (yes, float!) all the more on air. Then the
gravity pulls you down again, followed again by the
upward bounce, and this up and down bounce goes on
very gently for less than a minute until you become
completely suspended, as it were, in a sort of an
orgasmic bliss. Only then the jump-masters up on the
bridge start using the pulley-system to pull up the
vessel so that you can be lowered to a sandy patch by
the river.
Soon, you are able to wave at your friends below you,
and grab hold of a long stick, pushed in your way by
one of the Last Resort folks. Once you grab the stick,
it's only a matter minutes before they help you land,
and open up the velcro straps on your legs so that the
rope can be pulled up to strap on to the calves of
another jumper up on the bridge.
Finally, we Nepalis have long prided ourselves on
being citizens of a country of tall mountains. Indeed,
mountaineers among us have long appreciated the
heights from which they can go around the world. But
for those of us who have neither the time nor the
inclinations to be a mountaineer, spending an
afternoon bungy-jumping from a height may well be one
adventure through which we can experience the world
within ourselves. THE END
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