Lakeside life

I initially stayed in Damside when I got to Pokahara, great for the local flying info the english owner John gave me, bad for the location - just being a little too far from the Lakeside tourist hub to comfortably walk more than once a day. I soon moved on into Lakeside, but stayed up at the quieter, more relaxed north end of town.

Lake Phewa

Damside gives the best mountain views

Lakeside (you'll never guess what its next to) is the tourist district of Pokhara (and Nepal). Its touristy for sure, but its still got a friendly laid back atmosphere and its small enough to easily escape to the quieter edges. When I first arrived it was really quiet with a palpable lack of backpackers strolling the streets. It did get busier towards the end of October but remained pleasingly relaxed (for me!).

The food in Lakeside is surprisingly good. There's a wide range of restaurants serving local and global cuisine and they do a pretty good job of it. There are a couple of turkish restaurants that are particularly good, and its all cheap. 

I settled into Lakeside life very easily. Breakfast at Cafe 17, a lift or hike up to Sarangkot, fly for a few hours, take a late lunch, relax, dinner and maybe some live music. A hard place to leave! 

It was great to get to know Manuel, Juddah, Yurgi and Bibek on our Mardi Himal hike and I hung out a lot with them over the following weeks. Yurgi runs a cafe and french bakery in Lakeside (with a very respectable pain au chocolate) and its become a bit of a hangout for the resident pilots. The day invariably started there. 

Pokahara does seem to draw people in and the few tourists that are here seem to end up staying for a long time. Its a friendly place and you soon start to get to know the people around. There's even a decent live music scene, driven by 2 excellent guitarists who seemed to feature in every local band, playing a multitude of styles.

Local football game

Beyond flying around Sarangkot I didn't really explore the surrounding area, except for a bike ride around the lake on one of the few non-flyable days. A steep, cobbled ascent up to the world peace pagoda, then along the ridge before dropping back down at the far side of the lake. Route finding was a little tricky along the small tracks and villages and we had to track back a good hour after missing our route back down to the lake. After all our climbing, the downhill was a disappointment. A slip-slidey stoney track down and with bare tyres impossible to grip in places. 

The white blob is the World Peace Pagoda, with Pokhara in the valley behind

At the bottom though, we had an amazing, atmospheric ride back across the lake, crossing through vast flooded rice fields on a narrow path in the late afternoon light, and then pulling ourselves across the river on a small ferry before the final leg back to Pokhara. 

Into the rice fields

Cruising with the birds at Sarangkot

Its pretty easy flying from Sarangkot. There's a big grassy take-off, multiple landing options down the lake, an ultra-reliable house thermal and lots of birds: big Himalayan Griffon vultures, a real pleasure to fly with. There can also be lots of gliders, with a conveyor belt of tandem flights filling the air, but compared to recent years it was still relatively quiet.

Sarangkot. The main take-off is back right on the hill.  

As the fuel crisis set in, the cost of a taxi to take-off went up from about $5 to $40 so getting a lift up became something of a scramble. It was often possible to get a ride with the tandem boys but if they had a van full, you were on your own: 2 feet can always be relied on!

Although hot and sweaty the hike up wasn't too bad, following steps up through the trees for most of it for about an hour and a half. There was a bonus to be had too: hazelnuts littered the forest floor so there was plenty of foraging for snacks on the way up!

You get a great view over the lake and Pokhara and if you're really lucky to the Annapurna range behind. Chances are though, if you can see the mountains the flying will be inverted and crap! Take-off is at 1450m, cloud base was generally not much higher than about 2000m and the 2 m/s thermals were normally pretty smooth.

At this time of year the cross country potential is fairly limited but I had a few nice runs down the ridge (and sometimes back) and good fun playing in the clouds. The ridge is complex enough to offer a few challenges, so even if you couldn't go anywhere I didn't get bored. The local XC route to tick off is to fly to the "green wall", the big ridge north of Sarangkot, but the conditions never really got going until my last flight and it was finally on... it was so good there's a separate post for it.

Heading up the ridge

As soon as your away from the main take-off, no matter how high you are, kids go mental to get your attention below, with screams of hello, bye bye and all manner of other screeched noises. And there's nearly always a welcome party when you land out.

flying friends