Bandipur, Nepal

Bandipur, Nepal with Himalayas in the background.

Above launch at Bandipur, I've finally begun to clear the haze inversion that lies constantly like a dark ghost across every otherwise beautiful vista of the country. I'm the lone glider in the sky today, the only pilot in this little town actually, which is not really ideal- it's always good to have second opinions and extra eyes to assess conditions and plans when it comes to flying- but I couldn't resist on a day like this. From up here above the messy chessboard of a valley below I can make out distant snows on the Himalayas. Hawks circle lazily below to show me where lift is to be found, the air is smooth, the threatening clouds still distant on the horizon. A hilltop Buddhist temple at the end of the ridge I am soaring over has a little boy who waves enthusiastically each time I pass every ten minutes or so. Or maybe he's throwing rocks at me. I'm pretty sure I did see a rock, the punk.

After forty-five minutes or so of easy soaring the cumulus in the distance start looking a little too-cumulonimbus-y for my tastes, and I decide it's time to come down for a landing before the powerful clouds approach any closer. The conditions have grown stronger by now and it takes me a good twenty minutes of big-ears and wing-overs to come in for a landing. Several times I descend but am blasted back up in to the sky just before touch-down. When I finally slide in to a gentle stop in the small field centered along the ridge my heart is pounding and sweat rolls off my forehead. I check the wind, gusting to 35 kph now.

"You take me fly?"

Still hooked in to my heap of lines and material, two little girls maybe ten and eleven appear out of the brush. They are sporting large rusty khukuri knives and sandals and pink t-shirts with American cartoon characters. They set down the heavy loads of brush they have been collecting, wood for cooking fuel no doubt, to come investigate this thing that fell from the sky. I'm by no means the first paraglider to appear here- for perhaps the last ten years or so there has been an occasional trickle of pilots visiting Bandipur, a small ridge-top village with a fly site that would be considered spectacular anywhere else except when compared to nearby Sarangkot, one of the world's most spectacular, popular, and busiest launches. But it's still not quite any everyday occurrence that pilots show up here so surely they are curious. I'm relieved that I'm not immediately harangued for coins and chocolates- the girls are either well-behaved or still unspoiled by tourists handing out incentives to pose for photographs. They stare and chatter among themselves. I unhook myself from the harness and exchange a few words of rudimentary Nepali then pass them my hand-held wind gauge to play with while I'm folding up my equipment, which they button-press with gusto.

I decide to wait around for a while to see if flying conditions improve. The girls leave their work behind for a moment to play, fashioning flattened water bottles to bare feet like mini-skis to slide down the grassy slope, the rings of cellophane labels for bindings. Here like everywhere in Nepal there's plenty of empty bottles strewn around on the ground- centralized trash collection is not an institution anywhere except perhaps the most upscale areas of large cities- so I flatten two more bottles and join in myself. I am heavy compared to the girls though and do not slide so smoothly over the grass. They are still watching me carefully so I perform a few dramatic trips and somersaults in my attempts to ski. Everyone cracks up, my work here is done.

Landing fee receipt for which I paid one time when I landed in the village in the valley down below Bandipur.  I think the writing translates as. "Hey, we've got rich people falling out of the sky, why not?"

After some practice they've got skiing down pretty good. They slide all the way down to the bottom of the slope with arms extended like plane wings. They turn around and point at me and circle their wings a few more times before running back up the hill. They must have seen me take off a while ago so they know you have to build up a little speed just before launch. They spread their wings as they have seen me do, their imaginations taking flight.

After a half an hour or so they are back to work and dive in to the brush to search for anything not yet reduced to stumps. I don't have a big knife with me but I attempt to help by breaking off smaller branches to add to their pile. They seem charmed by my efforts.

As I'm returning to the field with a load of brush a well-dressed family apparently out for a sightseeing picnic is up at the launch. I add my brush to the pile and they come over to investigate. There is a young man about my age in fancy sunglasses and slicked hair, his wife in heels that somehow must have managed the steep and rocky trail up here, a son and a daughter in tow. The young man's English is quite good, he says he is home for a few weeks from working in construction Saudi Arabia where he has gone to seek the attractive wages of a few hundred dollars per month. He wants to know how much my paraglider costs, and how much money do I make per year. I give him a low-ball estimate on both numbers and he slaps his forehead in hilarity. And how long I am here in Bandipur? I tell him I'm not sure. But I can stay here for as long as I want, he says, right? Who cares about time when you've got money?

I grimace back at him politely and decide to go back to helping the girls collect firewood. When I return with another load the family is gone, and the girls arrange their loads in tight bundles. One of them failed to bring enough rope for the job and I watch her collect an armful of tall grass and expertly weave it in to several meters of strong twine in just a few minutes. They arrange the loads on their backs supported by a tump-line across the forehead and head downhill back to town with a wave and namaste.

I am left up top alone with a sunset and too much time on my hands.