Paragliding is something I never thought I would be lucky enough to experience in my teenage years but when I went to Pokhara in Nepal, I knew I had to. Luckily, my mother was also looking forward to this particular experience and as a result, I was also allowed to go. The place we went to was Sarangkot in Pokhara. Here is where the paragliding take off spot is.

 

The morning of the day of the event, I woke with a certain sense of dread, the weather was so obviously horrific, I didn’t think we’d get to go. It was foggy and the wind up on Sarangkot was so cold my nose turned red and began to run. We went by car to the main point where we discovered that no one was around yet so we walked up the hill to the viewing point. On a better day than that, you could have seen the parts of the Himalayan mountain range and maybe some eagles. I mostly wanted to see the eagles (spoiler alert, there weren’t any eagles around). So after walking up numerous stairs and going down them again, I wasn’t in the best mood and I was desperate to leave. If I couldn’t go paragliding, I’d at least take a nap on our 7 hour journey back to Kathmandu. We were ready to leave, that is until we saw people preparing to go paragliding.


The weather had cleared and the ticket sellers had open slots for that morning. It wasn’t very expensive, 7000 nepali rupees (roughly £45) for two people, and a wait time of 10 to whenever-the-wind-picked-up-again minutes. My mother went first, she strapped on her helmet and gear waiting for her instructor's command. On his signal, they ran off the side of the ledge and then… They were airborne. I could see the instructor adjusting the glider ever so slowly. Later my mother would tell me that he was performing tricks and stunts to shock her but honestly he was just doing his job.

 

I waited with my dad, uncle, instructor and other flyers. It was my go next and I had been through the safety measures out on my helmet and was excited to go. I honestly think I looked a bit stupid with my borrowed items- my dad’s old jacket because he insisted I’d freeze in my own and my uncle’s sunglasses, he insisted that if they ever fell from the sky on my way down, I shouldn’t bother worrying about them- but it was alright, I had wanted to go paragliding sice I was little. Funny enough, they had said that they could do younger children as well. When offered the chance, my four year old sister looked at my dad and firmly said, “No.”

 

We waited for a while, the wind had died down again and wouldn’t be good for take off. It probably took ten minutes or so before we could do anything and then we were off. I ran and ran until my instructor told me to stop. My uncle says he heard me scream and thought it was because I was scared. I wasn’t scared. I wasn’t scared at all, I was perfectly safe in my little seat with my instructor and harness, I screamed because I was excited, I could see the whole of Pokhara from where I was, it was till foggy but no so much that I couldn’t see the cable cars and little farms around the hillside. Everything looked so small but I had never seen anything that big before, the lake was enormous from where I was and stretched out for miles.

 

My instructor and I had a pleasant conversation up there, he gave me a tour and I asked him questions. I asked him where he was born and he said, “Pokhara.”

We chatted for a while as we took a flight in the area, he had been an instructor for about 7 years and when I asked him if he was scared the first time he flew, he told me he was absolutely terrified. We took photos as well on the camera they provided us, he shot some videos and did a few tricks for me. All together the total time we’d get was 30 minutes but I think it was the most exhilarating half an hour of my life. Being high enough to be able to see mountain shrines and going low enough to see the birds resting at the peaks of high trees.

 

On the descent, he told me how to put my legs as we went for landing and asked me if I felt sick. I didn’t feel sick, not much anyways. The descent was quick but the highlight of that experience is that I saw an eagle on my way down, it was far enough not to be dangerous but still close enough that I could see the curve of its beak. Earlier I had joked about seeing eagles on the mountain but I had secretly been hoping to see some go hunt. We landed in a landing spot reserved for paragliders on the far side of Pokhara. My mom was waiting for me there but the rest of our family weren’t, they were waiting for us elsewhere. My instructor uploaded our photos from the camera into my mobile and gave it back to me. He was heading back up the mountain and had offered to give my mother and I a lift back to the main office where our family waited.

I’m not gonna lie, the flight was thrilling but the motion sickness I had after was not. The van was no help at all, roads in Nepal weren’t pleasant and the twist and turns in the road didn’t help my queasiness either so I was grateful when we got off and went back to our own car after thanking the instructors. When I went in, my sister was asleep and I felt the sudden compulsion to do the same. My poor cousin was squeezed to the side because of my sister and I but I think he was just fine, he fell asleep so soundly that when the roads got bumpy and we bumped heads, he didn’t wake up so I guess that was a win for him. I was still feeling the nausea from the land but I didn’t regret that experience one bit. If it meant I could do it again, I thinkI could overlook the dizziness.