Pokhara – Paragliding and Holi

The Journey In
The seven-hour bus journey from Kathmandu to Pokhara took us through the winding hills and valleys of Nepal. The journey itself was uneventful. Of course the bus would go screaming around blind corners on the often-one-lane highway, only to slam on its breaks at the last minute when it came nose to nose with a truck behaving in the exact same manner in the opposite direction. However, we were used to Nepalese traffic by this time, and it did not phase us.

Share the road

The City
Pokhara rests on the shores of the scenic Fewa Lake, and practically at the foot of the grand Annapurna mountain range. On a clear day, the view is practically unrivalled.

Annapurna mountains from the hotel

Pokhara is an adventure traveller haven due to its beautiful location, unbelievably low prices, relaxed (and safe) atmosphere, and abundance of adrenaline-pumping activities. Along with trekking, white water rafting, canyoning, spear fishing, zip lining, and any number of additional activities, Pokhara is globally renowned as a paragliding hotspot, our adventure sport of choice. For more information on accommodation in Pokhara, see our post on Pokhara for Paraglider Pilots (forthcoming).

, A gaggle of pilots (that is actually what it’s called)

In the haze of Kathmandu, Heather came down with a fairly severe sore throat and sinus infection. The atmosphere was slightly better in Pokhara than in Kathmandu, but it also resides in a deep valley that traps the smoke from the wood (and garbage) fires that a significant percentage of the population uses to cook and heat their homes, and therefore breathing was not much easier. This made the first week or so in Pokhara pretty miserable, but at little cost in terms of money or time. In Nepal, medicines are incredibly cheap (like everything else), and can be prescribed by pharmacists instead of doctors.

All fixed up for $5.85 total

Once Heather got better, Pokhara seemed like a paradise. The two weeks flew by!

After flying – it’s a tough life

SIV
The day after we arrived, we began an SIV course. For those readers not acquainted with the paragliding lingo, SIV is a French acronym which means “simulated incidents in flight” and these courses are the most terrifying, exhilarating, and useful activity a paraglider pilot can undertake for their own safety. In an SIV, the pilot flies his or her paraglider over a lake, and proceeds to create a number of dangerous situations and go through the necessary recovery manoeuvres under the guidance of an instructor on the ground (via radio). The reason for this activity is so that if the pilot has an incident with their paraglider while in flight (such as having it collapse and begin spinning and/or falling out of the sky), the pilot will already have experience recovering from these situations. It also allows you to push your paraglider to the max in a relatively controlled environment, to get a more thorough understanding of how much it can take.

Heather practising an asymmetric collapse

Jeff performing a full stall

Heather performing a full stall

The reason SIVs are undertaken over a lake is because if the emergency parachute is deployed (which it often has to be during an SIV), the pilot is able to land in the water (which is comparably safer, although not without its risks).

Jeff doing wing overs above the lake

In addition to the obvious effect on safety, SIVs can be absolutely thrilling because they allow pilots to learn and practice acrobatic manoeuvres that would be too dangerous to experiment with under normal circumstances. We both did spiral dives and wing overs, and Jeff took it a step further and practiced spins and dynamic spins.

Jeff exiting the Spin

View of the spin from the ground

Jeff twisted his risers coming out of a dynamic spin but was able to fix it and land safely.

Details for the Paragliding Crowd
We went with Blue Sky paragliding, which is run by David Arrufat who is a French Swiss acrobatics (acro) pilot and president of the Association of Paragliding Pilots International (APPI). It was very professionally run, and he is a great instructor. We highly recommend it.

The course takes place over three to four days, with two to three flights per day. It starts with some penduluming (rocking the wing to and fro), mostly to demonstrate to David how comfortable we are in the air, and how hard each individual tends to push their paraglider. We then pull a frontal collapse, and practice landing with the rear risers instead of brakes. After that, we move into pulling asymmetric collapses (later with speed bar), and maintaining our direction (and actually turning away from it) while the collapse is held. This is done to teach us to maintain our forward direction, even when experiencing a collapse. After that, we practice wing-overs and spiral dives.

Finally, we pull a full stall (where the brakes are pulled all the way down and the paraglider stops flying), then practice a “backfly,” which occurs when the pilot is in a full stall – once the wing has stabilised over the pilot, you slowly lift the breaks until the air becomes smooth – at this point, you are actually flying backwards, and can safely release to fly forward again. Full stalls can essentially “reset” the paraglider almost regardless of what kind of trouble the pilot is in, and can often be used instead of immediately going to the reserve parachute (provided you have enough height, of course). This manoeuvre is intended to teach us to do this.

Flying backwards

At this point, the SIV exercises are complete. The more advanced or adventurous pilots can go on to practice acro if they get through the other exercises on time (Jeff did some spins, while I was just happy to have survived my spiral dives). For the last exercise, we pulled our reserve parachutes and landed in the lake. It was a lot of fun to do once, and we both hope to never have to use that experience in a real emergency!

Heathers reserve deploying

Heather coming down on reserve

Jeff deploying his reserve

Jeff splashing down

Paragliding Sirkot
After the SIV concluded, we got out of town with a group from Blue Sky and headed to to Babu’s Adventures, a homestay in another renowned (but significantly less crowded) paragliding location in the rural area of Sirkot. Over three days we did several cross country flights, with the goal being flying back to Pokhara.

Buddha at Sirkot

Unfortunately an unexpected high cloud cover on Day Three made it very difficult to find thermals (pockets of rising air that keep us afloat). In addition to David, Pascal the tandem pilot and Dale the instructor, two of our group members made it – Ma from Hong Kong and Ross from Jersey (the UK island). The rest of us bombed out (which means landed earlier than intended due to not finding lift) at various points, but still had a great couple days.

The view from Sirkot

Paragliding Pokhara
During the next few days in Pokhara, we mostly boated around Sarangkot (the launch), and landed at one of the three designated landing zones. One day, we did do a cross country about six kilometers down the valley, which ended up with Jeff trapped between a rice patty and several angry water buffalos! When he landed, several buffalo were submerged to the shoulder in a rice patty, lazily grazing. There are water buffalo all over Pokhara, and this was a familiar sight to us by this time. However, these were more rural water buffalo, not used to the constant dropping of paraglider pilots from the sky. Jeff’s presence aggravated them, and they exited the water, blocking off his only path back to the road. They would not even let him pack his gear and would brandish their horns whenever he tried.

Heather had landed in a different dry spot nearby with easy road access. As always, a group of local kids gathered when she landed. They hadn’t seen Jeff, so she sent them over to guide him out. They casually shooed away the buffalo and thought it was absolutely hilarious that we were afraid of them (wild buffalo can be very dangerous, but these livestock are apparently more docile).

Jeff being rescued by the kids

Holi – The Festival of Colours

Holi is a major Hindu holiday, predominately celebrated in northern India and Nepal, during which a massive water and dye fight takes place in the streets, where anyone of any creed or class may cover anyone else with coloured powders.

In the morning, we met our friends Bikram and his wife Neelima, whom we know through the Snow Leopard Network. They were kind enough to spend some time providing useful information on potential research topics regarding snow leopard populations in Nepal, which we greatly appreciated. After the meeting, we were surprised and delighted to find out that they wanted to celebrate Holi with us. So we put on our $1.50 Holi outfits (purchased the night before), and hit the streets.

Holi: Before

Holi: After

Immediately upon stepping out of the hotel, we were accosted and soaked by a group of tourists who had already gotten into the Holi spirit. Bikram immediately led us to a stand selling the requisite coloured powders, and we armed ourselves to retaliate! The whole street was full of locals and tourists alike, wishing each other “Happy Holi” and covering each other with colour, especially on the face.

In some parts of India (notably Delhi and Varanasi), Holi has the reputation of getting overly rowdy; adolescent boys, emboldened by the chaos and playful nature of the revelry, can have inappropriately busy hands under the cover of the crowd, and purportedly do not know when simple fun becomes harrassment. In Pokhara, the streets were packed shoulder-to-shoulder, and almost everyone maintained a good-natured approach to the holiday. Neelima was even wearing a very nice top that she did not want to ruin, and people were generally respectful (and just went for her face instead!).

Party in the streets

Among the hundreds of people on the streets, we only encountered one group of eight or so teenage boys who lived up to this unsavoury reputation, and even then, not to nearly the degree we have heard about elsewhere. They were walking the opposite direction to us, and as we passed through their group, Heather (who had been warned about this potential behaviour), kept her arms up, and didn’t encounter any disrespect (although her face was covered after that). However, our friend Amanda, an American paraglider pilot from our hotel, was not so lucky. She hadn’t heard about this behaviour, and as a result, got grabbed. She didn’t let this experience ruin Holi for her, since it was just an isolated incident.

Bikram suggested that we go to the park to hear a traditional Nepali band, but on the way, we encountered the band coming our direction, accompanied by a procession of partying people. We joined the parade. By this time, most people had either gotten tired of smearing each other with colour, or had simply run out. Hundreds of people snaked through the street, joyously dancing to the music of the most massive horns we have ever seen. Every so often, the band would stop. At that point, everyone would just kind of mill around, and each time, we thought the festivities were over. But each time the band picked up their instruments again, a cheer ripped through the crowd, and the dancing would start again. Once the crowd got a little bit old, we escaped to a restaurant balcony and looked on from above.

Free Wifi is worth celebrating

It was early afternoon when we went back to the hotel and said goodbye to Birkam and Neelima. We thought the festivities were winding down, so we spent some time scrubbing ourselves clear of the coloured powders (which came off more easily than expected). When we went out later to get some coffee, though, we were in for a surprise. The Nepali band had been replaced by a stage set up in the main street, and the party was still in full swing. We were passed on the street by backpackers who blatantly stared at us, wondering how we could possibly be such wet blankets as to not get a spot of colour on ourselves on Holi!

The party finally ended at about 8:00 that night, and the next morning, there was no trace of the multi-coloured celebration of the night before, except for the telltale splotches of red and purple that were still stuck in the beards of many a backpacker.

Heather during the celebration