Rest and low clouds...

The trip was organised so that we have 7 guided days out of 10.  We missed the first couple of days due to a combination of sussing the ban out and not great conditions.  After 5 days of flying, yesterday was decided to be a day of rest. Much needed after nearly a week of climbing mountains and concentration whilst active flying. It was an good decision as the clouds remained so low that you could almost throw a stone into them. Some of the guys opted for more walking, others hiring motorcycles whilst I opted for a much needed shave by the local barber and a day of relaxation around our base.

Article in the national paper that mentions the flying ban. Looks like they had anti-aircraft guns ready to take us out :-)

I had been warned advised that there was two in town, one of which can best be described as suffering from god awful BO. I accidentally chose the latter and was awarded with a smell that I could almost taste drifting from the sleeves of  his jacket. I must admit though that it was a small price to pay with the grooming I received. I was in there for nearly an hour and by the end had a full shave, haircut and nearly every bone snapped in my upper half of my body.

I was also advised warned by another friend on the trip to avoid the neck snapping as hundreds of people a year are either disabled or killed in the barbers whilst having that done. Oh well, I survived so will settle for just the trim next time.

The evening was spent around the campfire drinking beer, whiskey and a dodgy bottle of rum the I bought for 200 rupees the other night, most of which was thrown in the fire as it tasted so awful. It was in a plastic bottle and called ‘Boxer’ rum and had an even dodgier picture of  Lennox Lewis on the front. My advised for anyone reading this who is traveling to India in the future is to avoid at all costs. Its shite!

Chilling by the fire in the evenings

We should have 2 guided flights left which should be vol-bivouac days.

The idea today was to set off from –Billing, possibly going over the back into no-mans land before top landing on a mountain before sunset with our sleeping bags for the night, taking off from the same spot tomorrow and doing the same the following day somewhere else. Unfortunately, cloud base is once again very low and as we stood around take off, it descended even more than if we chose to fly, we would need to do so with GPS to ensure that we did not fly off course when in the clouds and into either a mountain, or another paraglider.

John Silvester having  break...

The group decided against it but there was what appeared Russian paragliding students taking off into cloud under radio instruction and no GPS or compasses.

The Generals wife should arrive soon as the clouds put a stop to the tandem flight she was going to have.

We are expecting the Generals wife for lunch today in the garden. We passed the convoy of cars on the way back down from launch. They even had a red carpet on the mountain!!! Too much fuss over nothing if you ask me. I am heading out for lunch instead...