Bandipur

With my Indian visa in hand I escaped Kathmandu and headed NW towards Pokhara, braking up the journey with a bit of rafting and kayaking. No massive rapids but good fun and a beautiful river valley. Camped out on the river beach and then after a bit of a refresher course for kayaking floated off for an 18km jaunt down river with a few light rapids. Still got my barrel roll (after a little guidance) so happy with that!

Morning warm up

It's a beautiful way to explore kayaking and a lot of fun when you throw in a few rapids. I'd love to do a proper river expedition here, but that'll have to wait: got some flying to do first.

India have unofficially stopped petrol supplies to Nepal so fuel is getting pretty scarce. There is currently an odd-even number plate / day of the week driving ban in place to reduce fuel consumption - so people can only drive every other day. Buses are also much scarcer so had to wait around a while before I found a ride to take me towards Bandipur, a little mountain stop off on the way to Pokhara.

Bandipur is perched high up on a ridge and on the drive up, there, towering up above the clouds was my first sight of the Himalayas. And what a sight! Absolutely magnificent and so BIG.

In the centre of the 3 peaks I have a beautiful view of from my guesthouse is Manaslu, top dog in the vicinity at 8163m.

I didn't make it out flying on my first day. I went for a walk down into the valley with Brakur (definitely not his name, but the owner of the guesthouse) and Sam, another English guy staying there. We got a tour of B's village, met the parents, were joined by his pal Govinda, met his parents, got treated to a cup of fresh buffalo milk, ate a few guavas straight from the tree, and then got stuck into the Raxy, the local grain spirit. Its made from millet and has a slightly watery aniseed flavour and isn't that strong (less than 10%) so goes down easily enough. You've got to go the villages to find the best raxy; the local raxy its what its all about.

Getting in to the raxy

The rest of the afternoon unsurprisingly disappeared. Lightly inebriated we hitched a ride back up the hill with a tractor, leaving Govinda, slightly more inebriated than the rest of us...

Who knows what happened after but he didn't show for work the next morning and apparently slept in a rice field!

Went for a little morning jaunt to a big cave the next day - the biggest in south Asia apparently, and with a massive column chamber packed with excitable bats - and then finally got airborne in the afternoon.

On the way to the cave

Time to fly! 

Easy ridge soaring above the trees, with a few monkeys watching me slightly apprehensively from the treetops. Tried top landing but it's a bit tricky (very lifty above the takeoff) so landed in the valley and walked back. I was, of course, greeted by some kids and they escorted me back to Bandipur after persuading me to buy them a new football (the landing field is the football pitch).

I must have been the first person to fly post monsoon as the take off needed a little gardening before launch.

Bandipur ahead

More of the same the next day, but the wind was a bit stronger so better lift. After playing around a bit I went for a little adventure, flying over Bandipur and onto the shallow ridge on the other side. Wasn't much going on there (for lift) and I got low coming back, thinking I was going to bomb for sure. Had a satisfying recovery though after working some broken thermals low down that just gave me enough height to get into the wind again. Landed back at the football pitch and had a quick game with the kids and my new ball before hiking home.