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