Paragliding and another missed sunrise

May 12

Yesterday I woke up around 4:15am, just enough time to grab clothes and meet the other 7 people downstairs. We were taking a bus to see the sunrise over the city of pokhara.
Z had told us the bus would be there at 4:30am to pick us up so we were all downstairs by that time. There was a note from him saying the bus wouldn't e coming until 4:45am, and we were all pretty annoyed. Then, by 4:50am the bus still want there. The hotel manager ended up going upstairs to wake Z up so he could call the driver again to see where he was. Finally, at 5am, the driver showed up. When we asked why he was late he said he was not late. Sunrise is at 5:05am (i looked it up, we had been told 5:15am). It takes about half an hour to drive to the point and then Z said we were suppose to do about a 20 minute walk. Either way, the driver was late enough that we were going to miss another sunrise when we all got up early enough to see it.
We started driving because we didn't want to waste time arguing about being late with him. We drove up the hill and we were stopped because you have to pay an entrance fee to get into the viewing areas. Some people in the group were mad we weren't told about it but it was only 25 rupees each which is less than $1.
The driver let us off the bus and pointed us in a direction. It was maybe a 3 minute walk, all we did was climb up some stairs. We didn't think we were in the right place, but at this point the sun was already rising so there wasn't too much we could do. Unfortunately, the sun was rising behind clouds. It was a pretty foggy day. We could see a good view of the city, but we couldn't see any of the Himalayan snow capped peaks behind the city. It was a little disappointing but what can you do?
It seems like a lot of the locals live on the hills. I'm not sure how many of them live in the actual city. The hill was lined with house after house after house. The houses are pretty nice. There are even some normal sized and large homes. I'm not sure if multiple families live in them or just one. The houses are brightly painted and have nice designs and architectural work. It's funny because sometimes they will only paint the front of the house and the other walls will be left as the cement or brick or whatever it was made out of. It doesn't look tacky though.
After the sunrise viewing point we had the driver stop us off at The German Bakery. It is mentioned in lonely planet so we figured it would be a good place to eat. It was about 6:45am so when we got there we were early and they weren't fully stocked yet. We waited in a garden restaurant behind the bakery. It was a really nice little area to eat. We ordered some masala tea and coffee from the restaurant since we were sitting in their area and them got cinnamon rolls and chocolate croissants from the bakery. I also bought a 45 rupee apple crumble for us to all split because everyone wanted to try it. The cinnamon roll was not like Cinnabon which is unfortunately my cinnamon roll standard and the chocolate croissants were not anywhere near as good as the ones in France or even the ones in Hungary. The apple crumble was very good. I spent the morning with Stacey, Martina, Curtis, Monica and Michael. Steve and Julia had gone back and did not join us for breakfast.
They didn't want to pay the driver because they didn't think they should have to pay full price since we were late and missed the sunrise. It's hard because they argue about 50 rupees which is less than a dollar but they always say it isn't about the money, it's about the principle. And I get what they are saying but I don't know if a foreigners we can expect countries to be exactly like ours and to fix problems and be on time like ours as well. I mean look at Alyssa, she waited hours sometimes to meet people for meetings because they were on Africa time. So I'm struggling with it because it isn't a ton of money and it is something they should have been on time for but as a foreigner you do need to take cultural differences into account. But maybe Z or us need to be better about double checking information and making sure we have enough time to get there.
After that we walked back to the hotel and I only had a few minutes to get ready before we had to go paragliding.
They picked us up at the hotel and we rode in the back of a truck. It was open with benches, like in the jeep safari. Once we were dropped off at the office and had paid, we jumped back in the van and headed to the top of the hill again. I was going with Elisabeth, Solvei, and Marianna. We also had a Chinese girl with us but she didn't speak any English. It was kind of funny because literally every stereotype about Asians traveling she fulfilled within a 10 minute time span. She took pictures of everything and everyone. She would just put her phone in your face and take a picture because she didn't know how to ask in English. She also was doing the happy smiling giggling thing. There were a few other things as well. She had shoes on that would fall off if she was running or in the air and they have her shoe straps to wear and she took a picture of those too. It was just pretty funny to me.
Once we got out of the van, we were paraded down the side of the mountain or hill or whatever it was past a bunch of other paragliding take off sites. When we got to ours, they divides us up to meet our pilots.
I was flying was Santosh. He was very nice and really good at explaining to me what we needed to do. We had to wait a little bit because the wind was pretty weak so people weren't climbing up too high once they took flight. There were also a number of people still waiting to go ahead of us.
Finally, it got to the point where he said we were going to start getting ready slowly. He put on his gear and they started spreading out the shoot (?)... I'm not sure what the correct term to use here would be. He then got me all hooked up to my gear. I had a helmet and then a little seat to sit in that was attached to his seat right before we took flight.
I was the first of my group to go. Santosh had been explaining to me what we needed to do and showing me how the people before me were good or bad.
We got up there and he said "walk" and we walked 3 strong steps forward and he threw the shoot in the air to catch the wind and he pulled back on us for a minute and then he yelled "run" and we started running down the hill and all of a sudden I was running in the air!
It was really cool. It was so smooth and peaceful and it was a great view. Every time we would climb higher there would be a beeping sound. Once we were both good and he felt comfortable he started taking a video and pictures. I took my own pictures as well with my camera, but it was hard to take them of myself so I paid $20 for a 9 minute video and 40-60 pictures. No idea if they're good or not but we shall see! It was kind of awkward because I wasn't sure what I should do when I was being filmed and photographed. So that felt a bit awkward. But oh well.
Santosh said because it had rained we couldn't see the Himalayan peaks so that was sad. But it was cool to have the experience of paragliding in general. He said he had been flying for 7 years and I asked him what made him want to paraglide. He said that he grew up here an always saw the paragliders in the sky and had wanted to do it ever since he was a little kid. He also said it takes a long time to learn how to do it.
I asked him about parahawking as well. Apparently the guy who started it is away right now so you can't do it. He said the only time it is available is October and November. I was a little disappointed because Nepal is the only place in the world you can parahawk. It was really strange though because a lot of other locals I asked about it seemed to have a negative reaction to it. They said it is illegal because it exploits the birds.
I'm not sure what is true and what is not. In general, there seems to be a lot of exploitation of wild animals. But on the parahawking website it says that the hawks are taken in from the wild when they are injured and then trained to help guide the paragliders through the sky and then you can also feed them while you are in flight. It also says all of the proceeds go to the hawk conservation but who knows what is true anymore.
I was in the air for maybe 30 minutes or more. I paid for 20-30 minutes and Santosh said that we may only be able to go for 10 minutes because of the wind not being strong enough to climb higher. It was a really long time to be in the air though! I'm glad I didn't do an hour.
Toward the end I actually started to feel kind of dizzy and nauseous. I don't know why. They said people sometimes feel like that and they actually have small barf bags in the handle in case you need to get sick. I didn't need to get sick but my stomach was churning. The landing was smooth as well. You just put your legs out and stood up. I didn't want to hurt my knee so I kind of bent them a bit and that caused me to squat instead of stand but I stood up right away.
I felt pretty sick the rest of the day actually. Elisabeth gave me a motion sickness pill when we got back. We went directly to the horse ride and once we paid for that we got up on these tiny ponies and began walking through the city. They said we would have a guide and it was literally 2 maybe 9 year olds walking next to us. It was a terrible experience. The kids were drop kicking the horses in the leg to get them to go and hitting them with a whip and smacking them. The horses had whip marks on their backs and my horse was following Elisabeth's and each time the boys raised the whip my horse would stop and shudder backward. We had to stop. We didn't even ride the horses all the way back to the place. It was embarrassing and unenjoyable and we were riding through the city for so long it was stupid. Elisabeth was really mad about the fact we were riding ponies and not horses too.
We got back to the office and explained we didn't want to go on the trip and that we wanted the money we paid today back (2500 rupees) but that they would keep our deposit (1000 rupees). He said the rule was that we pay 60% and they give us back 40% and that was what they do with cancellations but we said that it wasn't the same as a cancellation because we had been promised they were proper sized horses for our weight and that we did not agree with or like the way the horses were being treated. Elisabeth told them it was a terrible trip and they shouldn't even sell it because no one wants to ride through the city for an hour and a half there and an hour and a half back. They ended up giving us 50% back which we took. They tried to get us to go on the trip but we decided it was better to lose the money than to take the trip and see the horses abused. That also made me feel sick.
We started heading back to the hotel and Elisabeth was hungry and wanted to eat. I did not want to. She always thinks I am crazy when I don't want to eat because she is so hungry. We stopped in a shop because she wanted to buy something and we saw Monique who was going to eat at Olives and the people she was supposed to meet weren't there so we went with her. I just got hummus and pita and babaganush. It was small and good. We also had some sangria to share. It was good. It had apples floating in it for the fruit though so that was different.
Elisabeth headed back to the room to sleep and I stayed for a bit to shop. It was already 3pm though and I had been up since 4am so I decided to walk back by myself to the hotel.
When I was walking back I saw the Danish girls shopping and Curtis and Monica called me over from the porch of a restaurant. I talked to them for maybe half an hour. They didn't get to go paragliding because there wasn't enough wind when they got up there. They did get to see the Himalayan peaks though. Curtis was so bummed. They are going to stay in pokhara tomorrow morning to try again and take a flight to Kathmandu to meet us there. I wouldn't be surprised if they actually beat us there. The buses are slow and stop a lot. It's a 6 hour bus ride but it may end up being 8 hours. Who knows. There may be a strike tomorrow as well since we didn't have it today. If there are strike it doesn't affect the tourist transportation, only the public transportation so we would still get to Kathmandu.
I tried to go back to the hotel and sleep but I couldn't sleep so I tried to catch up on my blog. Slowly but surely!
I had told Stacey I would meet her for dinner at 7pm to decide if we wanted to go with the group (who were also meeting at 7) or out by ourselves. I found her around 6:45 because I was not hungry still. She said she wasn't really either. We went up on the roof of the hotel for 15 minutes because you could see some of the Himalayan peaks more clearly now. It was really cool to finally see them. Then we told everyone we weren't going to dinner with them but that we might meet them at the bar.
We still had to pack for the morning so we sat and talked in her room while she packed and my room while I packed. I decided to rearrange my bag. I put all my clothes in the bottom compartment of my bag so the lightest stuff is at the bottom. Then I put everything else in the middle compartment. It seems more manageable now because the heavy stuff isn't at the bottom pulling it down but it may just be mental.
It was a really good night. It was chill and we talked about boys and home and he future and traveling and ourselves and how traveling allows you to learn so much about yourself. It was a very enjoyable evening.
I also got to go to bed around 11pm which was really nice. I was very tired. The in wipes me out and I had been up in it since basically 5am.
Elisabeth had gone out to dinner and drinking with everyone. Z is always wanting us to go drink and then he disappears. I don't really like the pressure I am getting to drink. The day I did drink, Z left and I even told him that. But I drank a lot at home before I left and I don't feel like I need to be doing that here too. I don't want to waste my money on drinking every night either when I can go paragliding in the Himalayan range or zip lining through the Thai jungle or take an Everest flight. I also can't even imagine being hungover on the bus trips here. The roads are so bumpy that sometimes you even fly a good few inches out of your seat and there is no AC. Ew. I also want to make sure that when I go out I am with people I enjoy and want to be around. I really like Stacey and Curtis and Monica and Michael and Martina. I don't think any of them went out last night.
Oh yeah! I could actually wear pants and a t-shirt today and it was cool enough that I wasn't dying! It was actually really comfortable weather today which was nice. The sun was still very strong though. It did occur to me to wear sunscreen today. However, I forgot to put it on my chest so I still got burnt ha. Fail. I'm surprised my scalp and ears haven't gotten burnt though.
Tomorrow we are off to Kathmandu!