Thai VIP Bus

I had the pleasure of spending the night on a Thai VIP bus last night.
It cost 600 Baht or maybe A$28 for the 10 hour overnight journey.
The seats recline almost fully and you are given a box contaiing snacks and water.
There are only 3 rows of seats occupying the width of the bus instead of the traditional 4, so the seats are really wide.
It is the most comfortable bus ride ever, and less than the cost of many hotel rooms in Thailand, its a great way to get around.
My only complaint is that it was so cold inside... Take a jumper and socks to suppliment the supplied blanket.
I wanted to take a picture of the inside, but folks were already sleeping :)

Leaving Nepal

Leaving Nepal.. Nepal has got to be the most difficult country to leave!

It must have taken more than two hours to get through the system.

Well, there was only one door open into the airport terminal, everone was trying to funnel in from every direction, it just wasnt happening, after 30 minutes, we had just moved 1 metre.
So, they opened a second door and things got much better, 40 minutes to get into the building.
Inside the terminal, all big bags were x-ray'd, sounds reasonable.
Then off to the Nepali bank to get departure tax
Then check-in.. Maybe 1 hour to this point.
Through passport control,, easy enough

Interrupt.. I am writing this on the flight from Kathmandu to Bangkok, flying with Thai airways.
I love flying with Thai airwaysm we have just been fed and I have hada small Singha beer befoe the meal, Red wine with the meal, another small beer to follow.
I have to enjoy it beause when I fly my next segments with Jetstar, the cheapskate airline, I get nothing..
There is a message on the p.a.. "There is turbulence, please return to your seat" Ha ha, I love turbulence, I am a Para glider pilot! bring it on!

Now a long 30 minute queue to go through security,, This is where it gets more crazy.
First small bags are x-rayed
Now you go through the metal-detector door thing.
Then, you are patted down.. Why? Doesnt the metal detector work?
Then, your small bags are all opened and hhad searched.. Why? Doesnt the x-ray machine work?

You sit in a boring room till your plane is ready
You walk out to the plane, where you are patted down again.. Why?

It keeps a lot of people employed for sure, but it seems to go on.

Mind you, not like the curtained room in the domestic departure area.

It will feel good to be back in Thailand.. only a three hour flight:)

While I was waiting in the boring room before boarding the plane, Mick and John left on their flight to Singapore, followed not long after be the Russian paraglider pilots headed to Karachi on their way back home.. "Hello Australia" they all called out.
It was a great end to an amazing paragliding session..

p.s. It IS great to be back in Thailand :)

Kathmandu - It's Cold here

Its 5:30am on Thursday morning and its cold, well its 14C in my room, but I feel cold, which is why I am typing this in bed, with a shirt and jacket on.
Getting to sleep was difficult.. The bed has a big heavy doona on it and it took about 2 hours for me to warm it to a suitable temperature.
Kathmandu, like the whole of Nepal, only has intermittent mains electricity, overnight, it came on between midnight and 5am.. Useful eh?

We flew into Kathmandu on the 1:30pm flight from Pockhara, which actually left pockhara about 3pm and arrived Kathmndu at 3:30pm, I guess we were installed in our hotel in the city by about 4:30pm.

Kathmandu is a great city, you could do a lot of shopping here, but when you have a 20kg baggage allowance and a 17kg para glider, it limits you somewhat :) I am already overweight on my lugguage!

We wandered around our part of town for a couple of hours while working up an appitite, and then ate.

I ate at an 'Organic food Cafe and Salad bar' which is not my normal kind of place but I was wooed by the free WiFi internet.
I had this amazing bowl of soup there, and the best coffee that I have had in Nepal, which isnt saying much.
The soup was a vegatable soup that contaied all the veggies that I could imagine, and in case that wasnt enough, it had a lot of rice in it, it was a huge bowl and really really filling.. I ate it all :)
Here is a picture of th soup....

And some dogs sleeping i a doorway :)

Our plan for today is to find breakkfast somewhere and leave for the airport at 10am, arriving there at 11am.
Mick and John's flight is meant to leave for Singapore at 1:15pm and mine is meaant to leave for Bangkok at 1:55pm, but in Nepal, these flights times are approximate :)

It will be strange for me to go from being too cold in Kathmandu, to being too hot in Bangkok, but I am looking forward to the idea.

Thanks for the comments, it is good to know that someone reads these ramblings.

Raining in Pokhara today

It has been raining this morning here in Pokhara

But, we are not para gliding today, so we dont care :)

Its 9:40am here and we leave for the airport at 12, for our tiny flight to Kathmandu :)

Finished

We have just finished our last flight of the trip and we are all safe and sound.
Enough

Roxy and Bones

Yesterday (Sunday) One of the Russian para glider pilots was injured on launch and everybody was really sad.

We drank a lot of grog and got really drunk.

So,this morning, we didn't feel much like paragliding, but we did eventually launch at about 12:30.

I was thermal ling up to my target of 200m ASL, at which point I would have automatically left the hill to go cross-country when I decided that I had had enough!

So, I landed after only 30 minutes flying :)

In the evening, I visited a Tandoori place that I had spotted a few days ago. I have a real soft spot for any place that has a Tan dour oven :)

This Tan dour oven looked as if it had been built into an oil drum.

A Tan dour oven is a drum shape, like the drum on a top-loading washing machine and the sides and bottom are lined with clay.

They cook Naan bread by slapping the dough against the inside of the drum to cook, the guy as using a large smooth stone on which he placed the dough before slapping it against the inside of the drum so as not to burn his hands.

Real Naan brad cooked this was tastes infinitely better than the crap w at at home!
I had a really simple meal of Butter Naan, DaalFry and a curry made with kidney beans, all for A$2

The people of Ne pall are very poor indeed. The daily wage for many of the population is around 200-300 Rupees a day, which is A$4 - A$6

A large bottle of beer costs 160-200 Rupees, so, as you can imagine, the locals only drink beer on birthdays and other special occasions.

So, to combat this lack of alcohol, there is this local moonshine grog called 'Roxy'

Roxy is made from millet and rice and maybe many other things.. The first time I tasted it, I thought that it tasted foul, but I expect some batches are good, and at 50 Rupees for a large bottle which is enough to get 4 people fairly drunk, goes down well with the locals.

While I was ambling back to the hotel, I passed a group of 4 guys sitting around a table by the lake.. As I passed by, one of the guys asked if I was lost or needed help, as I was telling him that I eat too much an had to walk a lot, I noticed that they each had a glass of clear liquid poured from a plastic bottle, so I added "Drinking Roxy?"with a grin. They said, "Come drink some"

This batch was better than the one I had tasted before, but still not good.
So we sat, drank ad talked a little an then their supper arrived in a black plastic bag which was emptied into a metal bowl in the cent re of the table.

The guy proudly announced it as 'Buffalo bones' and that was exactly it, a steaming pile of 10cm sections of leg bones with pieces of gristle ad the odd meaty looking piece clinging to the outside.

I don't like eating this, it is one of the few things that really don't appeal to me, but they were anxious for me to try a little, so I found a meaty looking chunk that had been overlooked by whoever had stripped the bones of their meat and popped it into my mouth.

It didn't taste good, but I politely ate it before excusing myself and went back to sleep at the hotel.

In the Air

Usually, when I am flying here, there is too much happening for me to take photographs, but yesterday, as I headed off over Pokhara city towards DikiDander, I had a few minutes to snap off a couple of pictures.
The first is of Pokhara city, ad the second one is the hill that I wass heading towards.

It was another great days flying :)

Birds and Views

When we are flying, we usually have birds flying with us.
We follow the birds into the thermals as they are so much better at it than we are.
The most spectaular of the local birds are (I belive) 'Himalayan Gryphon Vultures', they are a amazing sight when you are circling with these huge birds, sometimes only a few meters away :)

The picture is the view from the balcony of my room, Our launch point is Sarangkot, which it the hill on the left of the picture.

Great Flying

We have been having some great Para-gliding here in Nepal

There is a Circuit that most pilots here want to fly.. Let me try and describe it.

This is a simplified diagram.


Take off at Sarangkot at 1400m ASL (above sea level)
Its a 6km flight to DikiDangar with no places where you can thermal to gain height and so to get there safely, you need to thermal above sarangkot to a height of at least 2000m ASL.
Then glide the 6km across to DikiDangar (1470m ASL)
To make it safely to the start of the large forested ridge that we call the 'Green wall' you need to thermal above DikiDangar to at least 1700m ASL
Once you arrive at the Green wall, you travel along its 4km length, trying to gain as much height as possible by thermal ling.
This section is the fun part of the flight, by the time you get to the Pokhara end of the Green Wall, you need to have climbed to at least 2500m ASL
Then you make the long 6km glide across Pokhara city, back to Sarangkot
Finally down to a landing by the lake which is 800m ASL.

On Thursday, we took off from DikiDangar to attempt the last two thirds of the circuit :)

It took me maybe 30 minutes to get the necessary 1700m ASL, but once I had the altitude, I worked my way onto and across the Green wall.
Going across the Green wall brought me to the bottom of the clouds, it was the first time that I had got up to the clouds :)
Up at 2600m ASL, I was getting cold, and the thermals were sometimes power full, climbing at 6.8 met res per second.
The glide back across Pokhara city was calm and peace full, arriving back at Sarangkot with plenty of altitude :)
Gliding down to the landing near thee hotel, it was time for a cold beer to celebrate.

The flight had lasted an hour and a half, the total distance I had flown, including all the circling while thermal ling, was 45km.

On Friday, we took off from Sarangkot, to attempt the complete circuit, but by the time we had flown to DikiDangar, the thermals had become too weak to make the climb onto the Green wall and so we all had to land in the rice paddys in the valley below DikiDanger.
But Fridays flight was still great.

And today is a new day :)

The picture is of the launch at DikiDanger.

The real Pockhara

We are staying in the tourist quarter of Pokhara, called 'Lakeside'

A couple of days ago, we decided to take a diversion into the real Pokhara.

So, with our para-gliders tied to the roof of the taxi, we stopped for a wander through the streets of the main town, and took a few pictures :)

Pokhara - A typical day

Um.. The pctures loaded back to front, so look at the last one first :)

Wake up at about 7am and maybe go for a walk till breakfast at about 8am
By 10am, the local taxi's are gathering outside the hotel, some of these guys have been taking Paraglider pilots up to launch for the last 10 years!
So, we take the 30 minute taxi ride to Sarangkot which costs us 600Rp (A$12) between the 3 of us.
This taxi service is probably one of the best soures of income around, but the last quarter of the ride is over really bad tracks and cannot be good for the taxi!

The taxi drops us off about 80metres below launch, so we climb up and sit down on launch to check the weather and see how other pilots launches are going..

Finally, we set up our gliders and launch into the valley.

The time it would take to glide down to the landing area is 10-15 minutes, but our plan is to stay up as long as possible.

To stay up we circle in rising columns of warm air called thermals, and by doing this, often stay aloft for more tha a hour.

If we are smarter still, we can move from one thermal to another and travel over larger areas, sometimes hundreds of kilometers.

But you cant see these thermals and so when you get too low, it is time to head down to the landing area.

The landing areas are a few hundred metres from our hotel and as we land, we are surrounded be a hoard of kids wanting to pack our gliders.

Now it is time for a little food (in my case) before deciding weather to do another flight or else give up for the day.
Once the days flying is over, email, walking, eating, drinking, before being in bed by 9pm.

Our hotel doesnt have any hot water, they say that it does, but I have never felt any.
It gets pretty cold here at night.. maybe 6C.

Pokhara only has electricity for about 8 hours in 24.. never the same 8, so I try and get batteries charged and computer stuff done while there is power.

Flyig from Kathmandu to Pokhara

Here are a couple of photo's from the flight from Kathmandu to Pockhara
The first is a view of the Himalayan range from my window seat
The second is a view of the aircraft itself

Khatmandu

I arrived in Khatmandu about 1pm on Friday 30th after an un-eventfull flight from Bangkok.

I met up with my Australian Paragliing friends Mick and John in the Visa queue at the aiport, they had just arrive on their flight from Perth via Singapore.

Now the chaos began.. We needed to fly from Khatmandu to Pokhara and didnt have tickets..
To got a ticket, you have to get a taxi into the city..
The roads and the traffic are dreadfull..

So, we loaded into a taxi and headed towards what seemed to be the far side of the city to get the tickets.

Maybe half a kilometer from our destination, our path was blocked by what seemed to be a street demonstration and so Mick and I stayed with one of our minders in the minibus while John continued on foot with our other minder.

About 20 minutes later a soldier came towards the mini bus and indicated with his rifle that we should be moving along :)

Fortunately the rest of the party returned and we weaved back to the domestic terminal, armed with 3 tickets for the 2pm flight that ws leaving at 3:30pm

It was all pretty simple from here.. We did indeed get onto the plane at about 3:30pm for the 30minute flight to pokhara..
This competes very favorably with the 6-hour bus ride.

We must have arrived at our hotel in Pokhara about 5pm, only to find that the three of us had to share a room for the first night :) Fortunately there were 3 single beds in the room.

It was now Friday night, and I will catch up more next time!

On the flight from Bangkok

Sitting on the flight from Bangkok to Kathmandu...

I only had 3 full days in Bangkok, and it has been a busy time.

What with Dentist, Suit making, Eating too much... The time has passed quicklyand there
has been little time to write blogs.

I had a meal out last evening with my fried Paichit.. We had a great time out, but I ate
and drank too much.. Oh well, it was the first time on this trip :)

Paichit has agreed to babysit my new suit while I am in Nepal, which is a great help as a suit
is the last thing that I need there.

We should arrive Kathmandu at about 12:30pm local time where I hope to meet up with John and Mick who are on a flight from Singapore, scheduled to arrive at about the same time.

We have to get air from Kathmandu to Pokhara, which will either be a little difficult, else very difficult.
Apparently, you cant buy the tickets from the airport, but you have to get a taxi to town,
and buy the ticket from a ticket agent before returning to the airport.. Crazy?
But who knows what will happen on the day?

Hopefully, by 5 or 6pm local time, we should all be at out hotel in Pokhara, which is probably the first time that internet will be available...