Memories are made of these: ABC Day 12: 19 Dec 2018

Back to Pokhara...
...and what a day in the sky, ending with a peaceful glide on the calm waters of Fewa Lake that evening.

Pokhara had always been a charming little town, the reason why it attracted visitors both locally and from afar.
The fresh(er) air and laid back atmosphere made one simply just wanted to float on Fewa Lake and enjoy the whole day doing nothing.

Doing nothing was exactly what we were not, on this day. Nicole’s plan was to get the whole gang up paragliding. Among all of us none knew what to expect.

Our Manchester born Chief Pilot Paul came in a Santa outfit to welcome us to our paragliding site.

Paragliding in Pokahara... FINALLY!

It was very good of Ram to fix up this Paragliding company run by a Russian lady called Natasha. Their pilots hailed from an international troupe of British, Russian, German.. mainly Ang Mohs and a good mix of big size men and tiny bite-size lady pilots (surprised! But these petite female pilots really can fly a mean paraglide).

Click on image below for my Strava of today's Paraglide

Click on image below for Relive Video of the Paraglide flight

Relive 'ABC 2018 Day 12: Paragliding in Pokhara'

Paul, the Chief pilot greeted us cheerfully in his heavy Manchester accent in a Santa Claus outfit and he and all his Santa-Claus-attired pilots were out in full force.

Right atop Sarangkot at 1450m was our aunch pad

We really didn’t know what to expect, but the whole plan ran like this- 11 of us were divided into to details and each detail launched separately. They had about 5-6 chutes for each launch, and this was the safest method. The processed involved picking us up from the hotel, signing the indemnity form in their office, then making our drive up to the launch area at 1450m up at the mountaintop of Sarangkot.

Only two paragliders would be launched each time, and each flight will take anything from 20-30 minutes and after landing next to Fewa Lake, the bus will send us all back to the hotel to pick up the second retail for their flights.

THE VIDEO For Detail One

Sarangkot

So there we were up looking over the mountain top on the slope of one side of Sarangkot, detail one: Serene, myself, Fann, Shu Ning and Ah Sing. Ah Li and Babu were the official videographers and photographers.

Paul: “Ok, it is very simple. We are only the pilots. You guys are the engines. When we say ‘walk’ you just walk. Then when we say ‘run run run’, you will keep running like there is no tomorrow and I want to see all of your feet still running when they are in the air!”

Sounded simple? Huh! My foot.

It was a lot of fun when we went back that afternoon and shared stories. But on that morning itself, witnessing Ah Sing screaming as she successfully took off, and seeing Shu Ning false start once and I myself having false-started once, my self-confidence started to take a nose-dive.

“Now you got to run! Don’t sit down, because I can’t carry your weight!” Paul shouted. Ok ok. Wah lau eh... the more he said the more kan Cheong I became. One by one the girls took off - Shu Ning, Fann and Serene. Now then it was my turn. I walked and then ran. I was lucky. The gust of wind grabbed my glider and lifted us big men up. We were off!

“The air behaves like water,” said Paul. “So you will be bobbling around. Therefore you are going to feel nausea and some may even throw up. Don’t worry, it is normal.”

That was precisely how I was feeling up there at 1400m. Nausea. It wasn’t the most comfortable kind of feeling.

“Wah I really felt like syncope!” complained Serene later. “I felt nausea and when he wanted to take me higher I told him ‘no no no!’!!”

“I vomited twice, once on take off and once just before landing and the female pilot gave me tissue paper to wipe the vomit off my sleeves,” poor Ah Sing.

“I was quite ok. No nausea leh,” Shu Ning was good when it came to these adrenaline stuff. She as really an adrenaline junkie.

“It was so fun,” exclaimed Jacalyn. “I took photos and videos from all angles! And the feeling especially when the pilot steadies and everything around you is calm and you see the mountains and then, sometimes the feeling of wah scared until want to die that kind of feeling.. wah I will do it again!”

“It’s a different feeling from sky diving,” explained Darric later. “This paragliding cannot be compared to sky diving because they are just different.”

As I looked around me, and started enjoying the view, with the Himalayan mountain ranges in the distance, Pokhara and Fewa Lake below me, and the feeling in awe of being up in the sky under such unique circumstances, Paul quietly took me higher with the lift from the thermals beneath us to a height of about 1900m.

“Well, it’s not every day that two big size men like you and I can fly so high,” said he.

My flight lasted 31 minutes long. Paul flew me across Fewa Lake almost to the Peace Pagoda.

“That’s the closest I can bring you to the Peace Pagoda, because any closer to the mountain we will start to experience turbulence.”

As we flew closer to the edge of Few Lake I could make out the circle marking on the grass patch below indicating the landing area.

“Are you game for some acrobatics before we land?” asked Paul.

“Bring then on!” I never die before.

And brought them on he did. He pointed out to me a paraglide some distance to the right doing a small little wiggly move. That was what he called a wing-over. He told me that he will do a 360 degree for me. So after he got me ready to hold the GoPro right against my tummy, and to look straight ahead he announced here we go. The Wing-over felt like a roller coaster ride, and at one stage I experienced weightlessness and that scary sensation of your heart in your throat feeling. I was feeling nausea I couldn’t stand straight upon landing and that was so funny!

“Go back and look at all these videos and photos that I am downloading into your mobile for you. Look at that one where your horizon goes 360 degrees and that was the big one we did,” reminded Paul. I did get quite a shock when I reviewed the video!

I saw all green faces when I landed. Ah Sing was the worst, followed by Serene. It was such a funny sight. Because I myself wasn’t walking straight.

The second paraglide detail at 12pm.

The second detail consisting of Kong Wan, Ai Lin, Nicole, Ryan, Jacalyn and Darric started afternoon.

THE VIDEO For Detail Two

It was later during the farewell dinner when I remarked to Ram how good the pilots were, that he revealed that he specially requested for only foreigner pilots for our group as they were more experienced and thus we had to take off in two batches. That explained. We had a great laugh when Darric shared how he had to wear the Santa jacket because he didn’t have an outer jacket and his pilot was a petite lady in order to balance up the weight, so it was such a strange sight- Darric the giant as a passenger with a tiny female pilot. And how Ai Lin was paired with Bris, the tall Germain pilot, and Ryan with big sized Paul.. such that when their pilots stood up, both of them really didn’t have to run much because they were immediately lifted off the ground.

Thus the highlight of the day took a great part of the day to execute. But it was really well worth the time. It opened our eyes to paragliding and it demonstrated how different individuals’ bodies responded to the effects of bobbling in air.

And all thanks to Paul’s recommendation we ended up having post paragliding lunch and dinner at Lan Hua Chinese restaurant, very close to our hotel, really enjoying ourselves silly with the Chinese dishes.

FEWA Lake in the evening

Kong Wan suggested touring the serene Fewa lake in the evening. And so we did. It was a nice ride in the little boat.