Pokhara, Nepal

Bodhananth Stupa just outside Kathmandu.  My first night in Nepal I awoke to thousands of red-robed monks circling this enormous thing, chanting and humming and singing.

Here in Nepal, money is the biggest problem in my life.  Specifically it is the lack of small change that is challenging- the ATMs will provide cash only in one-thousand rupee bills, though a typical transaction might involve only around one hundred rupees.  Imagine if you tried to hand your barista a hundred dollar bill every other day you came in for a latte- such is my daily preoccupation, except no lattes.  A dhal bhaat set meal, for example, piled high with rice and curried lentils and cauliflower with chapati bread and masala tea- a nice, simple meal- might run around one hundred rupees, or $1.00 USD.  In this situation I will usually feign act of sifting through my wallet for the appropriate change, then smile apologetically as I hand them the thousand rupee note.  The cashier or taxi driver or whoever it may be will look at it disdainfully then check back to assure them I do not have smaller notes.  A trip will be made to inquire to the nearest neighbor if they have change, then on to the next, until someone is grudgingly agrees to help out.  Most locals don't always have the kind of cash on hand to change a thousand rupee (about $10.00 US) note when minimum daily wages might be more around two or three dollars US.  I am wealthier here when I have small change on hand.

Near Bodhananth

I provide the example of my “problem” of finding small change not to be patronizing but because it highlights the asymmetry of the tourist sector and the local economy here, which exist not necessarily together but in parallel to each other.  There is one set of goods and prices for foreigners here and a different set for locals.  In the Lakeside district of Pokhara where few visitors seem to venture far from and where I find myself passing through some mornings on the way to the paragliding launch at Sarangkot, one can find such exotics as lemon cheesecake and pizza and trekking poles and shouts from a throng of people hawking their services and demands- shoe repair, taxi, rafting, marijuana, good time mister, shave your beard? one rupee please?, and the ever-present children's demand of “one chocolate?”  (Whoever started conditioning these kids to expect candy from foreigners, consider the relative scarcity of access to dental care here...)  Just several blocks away from this commercial gauntlet the world returns to some closer semblance of normal- hardware stores where women out front crowd around piles of limestone slabs, crushing them in to gravel by hand with large metal pestles, cows and goats and feral dogs wandering among the trash-strewn alleys, armies of uniformed school children with red paint dabbed above the bridge of their nose marching purposefully towards class, tall stacks of oranges or shoes or candles or anything for sale arranged in the middle of the sidewalks.

After my first several days holed up in Lakeside bedridden with the flu, shivering in the tropical heat, I shook off the zombie-ish curse and moved myself to a more peaceful area several kilometers outside of town called Khapaudi near the designated landing zone for paragliders.  At Guest House '”In To The Wild” I meet Uzzawal, who had advertised his digs as a paraglider-friendly place via a paragliding user-group of Couchsurfing.org that I sometimes monitor.  I was greeted with a cup of tea and a smile.  He pointed out the landing zone below within a stone's throw of our table. 

Uzzawal with tea!

Uzzawal was excited to meet someone from Alaska- yes, the name of his guest house was inspired by that “In To The Wild.”  I explained that many Alaskans have mixed feelings about this book/movie/fly-trap for attracting clueless backpackers to Healy, Alaska.  “Right.” he says.  “Dying is not good.  That is why I change the meaning of 'Wild' to this: Wisely Intentionally Leaving Desire,' like in Buddhism.  Otherwise it is a good story.”  I have found the modern Buddhist, leaving Desire en route through Hollywood.

My home for the next few weeks at the foot of Sarangkot (the mountain from which paragliders launch) is a one-room adobe hut with a straw roof for one about one dollar per night.  It lacks some of the sophistications of other guest houses like hot water or a generator to fill in the gaps during scheduled power outages (usually for about 8-10 hours of the day here), but it is a perfect fit for me.  Uzzawal is an idealistic and well-traveled soul who provides his services seemingly not for commercial gain but because he envisions a more genuine experience for visitors here.  It's not clear to me if the economics of his business plan align with reality, but I'm glad to be here for now.

From the guest house I could see a veritable locust swarm of paragliders like I'd never seen before circling the peak looming above, and even heard the distant shouts of excited tandem passengers high above in the throes of the loops and swirls of their flights.  There are supposedly at least 120 tandem pilots who work out of Pokhara, and looks as if all of them are out working the same thermal every day.  I've never visited anywhere where the sport is even as remotely commercialized as here.  It is easily the most crowded skies I've ever witnessed in my experience of visiting more than twenty launch sites, and I was intimidated to even consider flying amid that sort of close range.  I braced myself for disappointment and got my equipment ready to head up.

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View from launch at Sarangkot

A twenty-minute taxi ride shared with two Brits who I spotted wandering around with over-sized backpacks brought us to launch.  Once there, it was a level of chaos even greater than I envisioned: a near-miss collision every fifteen minutes or so as everyone races to get off the ground, tandem pilots jockeying with solo pilots for a spot to lay out their wings, aborted launches ending at the edge of the steep field in a heap of tangled lines and material, show-boaters strutting their ground-handling moves amidst all this crowding.  Everyone seems to accept such gross negligences as par for the course.  I found a shady spot to observe the scene for the next two or three hours, waiting until late afternoon before attempting to launch.  I asked one of the Brits for a site briefing, which usually consists of details about wind patterns and geography.  Instead, it was this: “Just don't have a mid-air [collision].  Look everywhere, always, because not everyone else is.  Just launch safe, fly safe, and land safe.  Anything else about distance or hours or acro or whatever is just gravy on top.”

Above the Annapurna range.

Once up in the air I finally understand all of this insane elbowing: this is an awesome place.  Intending for nothing more than a mere sled ride (gradual descent to landing), I easily boated around on several house thermals for about forty-five minutes with the snowy Annapurnas as a backdrop.  The landing zone is a wide, flat field with a consistent breeze perfect for ground handling that I took advantage of until dark.

The following week developed in to a comfortable rhythm of flight: breakfast at the “Sun Well Come” cafe in North Lakeside where fellow pilots convene in the morning to share transportation, an afternoon of attempting to fly as far and as long as I can muster and weather allows (usually 10-20 km), landing out near some little village, then navigating public transportation back to town.  After a few days of shared taxi rides to launch I found the trail up Sarangkot, which makes for about an hour and half hike uphill through terraced rice paddies and goats who scamper when I approach.

The act of flying itself is a sort of Zen-immersion experience for me for about which I don't have too much to write.  One is entirely focused on the act of piloting.  When asked, I try to emphasize that paragliding should not be treated or thought of as an “extreme sport” or carry all the baggage that comes with that label.  It comes with the same responsibility of piloting any sort of craft, whether it be a jumbo jet or a mini-wing: the same physics apply.  With a glider, one descends gradually through smooth air until wham- turbulence rocks the glider, and a sharp turn is made to stay inside it.  Then turning, turning, turning, spiraling around inside the bubble of rising air that lifts us up to the clouds, and scanning the horizon for the next circling hawk who will mark the next thermal.  Thermals are by nature inconsistent phenomena- it's always a gamble of sorts as to if there will be another rising air bubble a few minutes in to the future after one dies out, thus is what is happening now, here in the moment that is the more essential focus.  That's about as much as I understand about Zen.

Upon landing I am always mobbed by someone demanding something.  Kids who insist on helping to fold my wing for a few rupees, unbidden taxi drivers who start piling my belongings in to their car, property owners inquiring if I have something to share.  My favorite, which I have not encountered elsewhere in the world, is when some ambitious teenager wants to practice ground-handling with my wing.  If I have have time I'm usually happy to oblige, usually they're quite good at it.  It's a situation where we can both gain something while bypassing the usual neurotic demands of “one chocolate”- I can watch and learn from them, and they can borrow equipment that they otherwise have little access to, which they are already more talented at using than I.  Flying has been popular long enough here that many kids aspire to it.

"You let me ground-handling?  I very good."

With the approach of a competition to be held here I decided to bug out of town o nearby Bandipur for a few days while the crowds persisted.  A fellow pilot from Holland, Tom, best summed up my feelings about flying competitions: “ I don't understand why people race paragliders... it seems sort of like racing frogs or cockroaches.” 

Usually the mobs of kids I get upon landing are all boys.  This was the first all-girls crew I'd gotten, they hadn't learned how to pack and fold the wings yet so I was happy to teach.  I got a tour of the family chicken farm afterwards.

More to come later!