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.