Paragliding Holiday in Nepal

By Brian Steele

The rain lashes down outside my window here in Scotland. My slight tan is fading and I've not flown for a couple of weeks. But wow, for 3 weeks beforehand I had one of the best holidays of my life in Nepal.

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I cashed in some airmiles (thanks HBOS) and headed to Kathmandu. I had paid for a guided paratrek / guiding with Adam Hill who has set up a new company called Frontiers Paragliding. He organised all the worrying little things like airport pickups, internal flights, taxis at the airport and hotel / trekking accomodation, porters etc etc!!! All I did was turn up and wahey.. went flying!

Ozone team pilot Jamie Messenger flys commercial tandems for Adam. He was my guide to the area really and helped me get the most out of the area. I flew at the main site Sarankot most days, but we also made multi-day trips to take off at Galem, Bandipur and also a day flying at Dickie Danda. The Galem trip was marred a little for me as I was properly ill with food poisoning. After a night on the squat toilet with a headtorch I had to come off the mountain. Bandipur and Dickie Danda/the green wall were pretty spectacular though and the people could not have been friendlier.

When I landed short on a glide back to pokhara from the green wall I was hurriedly unclipped by a horde of villagers and ended up dancing, drinking headsplitting home brewed alcohol and tucking into a curry. After 4.5 hours in the air I just wanted to lie down, but I they insisted to teach them some rudimentary Scottish dancing.. so if you go to Nepal on your holidays next year and wonder why they all dance like lunatics..... its my fault, sorry.

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By the lakeside there is a roadside landing area and cafe called Maya Devi offering superb hot snacks and cold beer. This little paradise is home to Adam Hill, Jen and their wee one Zac as well as parahawking team run by Scott Mason. It was entertaining trying to eat a bacon sandwich with a huge egyptian vulture called Kevin gazing hungrily at it and fidgeting with his huge talons.

In the air, well the conditions are pretty cruisy on the whole. The house thermal seemed to be there from 10 until 3.30 every day at sarankot, and if I couldnt find it, well some massive steppe eagles, vultures or kites would point out some other lift source. The views when you climb out are of green lush hillsides, highly terraced so that there is a real effect of flying above a contour map. In November the lift and the bases are not epic but XCs are still easy for those patient enough not to race everywhere at mach1. Conditions are apparently better for XC hounds in February and if I had the money and the time I would book a flight tomorrow!

Eagle or large bird of prey by Brian Steele

Its amazing when flying with large birds of prey becomes a daily experience, and I have to admit there was a tear in my eye when I turned in my last climb and set off on the glide down to the landing on my last day.

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Pokhara itself has a main tourist strip called lakeside which has some excellent and well priced restaurants, and loads of shops offering pashminas, fake but good north face, Mammut, and mountain hardware kit that does the job for flying if not for serious mountaineering etc. I'd recommend hiring a scooter or enfield style to get out of lakeside and check out the surrounding area .

Costs etc - All GB pounds