My main reason for coming to Nepal was to go on a paratrek organized by the crew from Sunrise Paragliding. Whilst having imaginations of hauling heavy packs around rugged mountain ranges, I was disappointed (but secretly delighted) to discover instead a porter based transport system with chef, food and even plastic chairs. We jeeped to Galyan, a mountain village on the outskirts of Pokhara, set up camp and took in the view. At the head of a valley, the hills dotted with villages and carved with rice paddies it is a magnificent place to fly.

In our eagerness we took off that evening, conditions were condusive to a ready fast sled ride. I found the groundsuck very strong that day, and headed for a nil wind landing into a very small rice paddy some 1000m below our campsite. A long walk back up, and it was then that I really discovered the joy of porter.

Our crew consisted of four kiwis Andy, Fiona, Colin and Ken, our Nepalese guide Rajesh (One very chilled dude) and Guy a pom recently moved to Australia. I was outnumbered by kiwis with there very strenge eccents arund the kempfire. Jist a wee bit much. That first night turned into a brandy fuelled conversation that soon sunk well into the depths of depravity. At one point Raj informed us of leopards in the area, a comment that Fiona responded to with a "I wonder if we will see a spotted pussy in the camp tonight them". Stunned silence. Freudian phopar perhaps? Conversation wandered, all of it downhill, many laughs, much brandy, evil yet strangely addictive throat tearing liquid that it is. Bedtime came soon enough, and I crawled into my super cheap hired sleepingbag... a "North Fake". It was like sleeping in a plastic bag. Fucking awful sticky sweaty down filled hell tube.

My first morning saw me crawling out of the tent for sunrise. Then with Guy attempted an Astanga Yoga session. He had the moves on a sheet of paper, organized into six lines. We racked up three lines together, got a pretty good yoga hit that morning, the porters looked at us with some amusement. The flying was nice, though the bus thermal as the house thermal is known here was behaving like a Nepali bus, on a dirt road with three wheels. It was moving very slowly. Flights over the village create a roar of delighted squeals from the children, who then come streaming in their hordes (much to Fionas child disliking delight) to the landing paddies. They all chant out Oonyu Oonyu (flying flying), and are irresistibly cute, until they trample wing and lines in their enthusiasm.

The locals here grow marijuana as cow medicine. It's everywhere. We would walk past elderly men who clearly seeing us as sick bovines would hand over giant balls of it. Very considerate, and very good, though I didn't inhale...

Dinners were a traditional style Nepalese Dahl Baht. Rice served with a number of vegetable curries and pressure cooked lentils. Servings were large, and lentils lend themselves to an atmosphere of ruminance, turning our nighttime sleeping bags into pungent methane filled zeppelins.

One special night saw chicken on the Menu. Fiona being the vegetarian and devoted animal lover fought fiercely for the chickens rights. She attempted a coup plying the chef with money in a bold proactive "Free Chicken" attempt. Unfortunately he was a carnivore, and the chicken was discretely beheaded, denuded, disemboweled, and then digested. Delicious. One day while walking up from the landing paddies with Guy we were invited into a local house. We were offered milk, and accepted this gracious act of hospitality. Out came two tin mugs filled with white liquid, buffalo milk we were informed. I took a sip, hmmm, interesting, slightly sour, with a definite fizz, and orally disturbing random chunks of 'cheese' that needed to be chewed. We smiled our way through the first cup, a look of relief on our eyes as we neared the end....which was soon shattered by our host insisting on refilling (a number of times). We finally fled, our stomachs awash with fizzy cheese burps and made haste to the campsite.

That night the locals from Galyan, and neighbouring villages came up to put on a song and dance show. People trickled in slowly, warmed by the glow of a flickering campfire. We sat, supping quietly on raksi, the local millet wine, served hot and not unlike sake (in taste, effect and complete removal of inhibitions). Critical mass was soon reached, and the village women with drums and tambourines started to sing, a trancelike hypnotic rhythm.

Dancing soon followed, the locals taking the lead, and slowly bringing us quietly sitting westerners into the fold. I got extremely lucky and was hauled up by an easily eighty year old woman, a face like an old leather bag and missing quite a few teeth. She had the moves though, lucky Spikey wasn't there, the consummate silver fox hunter that he is.

More Raksi, somehow that demon brew of mustang apple brandy made it into glasses, and things become more blurrish. The locals had no idea how to react to a conga line, and they were certainly surprised when it came to our turn to sing. I was given the task of singing the Australian national anthem (and seriously who does know the words to it) I got half the first verse then broke it down into some Waltzing Matilda, finishing the chorus arms outstretched, Pavrotti voice bellowing over the mountains. Retrospectively I would have looked like a complete wanker, but the locals loved it clapping in either praise or sympathetic embarrassment.

The night surged on. Dancing, drinking, and making merry. The head of the Village is a Major in the Ghurka army, one of the worlds most feared and respected fighting forces. His wife was sitting, and Ken, one of the pilots asked her to dance. She politely refused and nothing was thought of it, he moved on.

The next morning, we awoke, I racked up a few more lines of yoga with Guy, and then around the embers of last nights fire we ate breakfast. This yoga stuff is great, its really helping to improve my aim in those treacherous, unlit nepali squat toilets. The Major came up to say hello, then stopping at Ken, fixed him with a piercing stare and said "You made a mistake...". (and the thoughts in his head... I have a very sharp Khukuri at home, and could cut you from belly to bowels).

A traffic strike was called across the nation for two of our days in the hills. This was due to the Maoists a large insurgent group within Nepal. They put the country on hold, any combustion engine that was seen driving over those two days was going to be firebombed. The kids must love the Maoists as they get a day off school as well. This civil unrest can be felt in the bigger cities by the larger presence of police and military personnel. They rock around packing very big guns, and all cars are checked coming into and out of the cities. It doesn't trickle down to affect the tourists though, except for the few stories of trekkers having to make 'voluntary' donations to the Maoist cause. At least they get receipts for the donation! Then again, a teacher got shot just down the road a couple of days ago, so it does get a little more close to home.

It was on one of these days that we were scheduled to visit the local school. They had come in especially to see us. As we approached they had formed lines, each kid holding a floral lay that they had made the night before. Some of them looked like a great deal of effort had gone into them. We each took a line, progressively getting more and more flowers until the end, wearing about 10 kgs of flowers around our necks. It was one of those moments of feeling like royalty. Gold.

Tours around the classroom, giving away sweets, pencils, before heading off for my most epic flight of my time there. Launching off, scratching up the bus thermal, before sooting along the ridge and up over the temple. At this point I thermalled up like a cork from a champagne bottle, into the clouds and off across the valley.

An epic flight, thrashed around the sky by thermals, hooking in and turning under the little growing clouds to stay up. There is a decided ratio of lift to trauma, the bigger the lift, the bigger ones kahunas need to be to stay with it. Bouncing around the sky on a fickle bag of nylon washing that pops in and out of shape can only be described as exhausting. An hour or two in thermic conditions is enough to charge your body with adrenaline, have sweat pouring from concentration, give your abs an epic workout from holding the turns, and then just to finish off you have a one shot landing at 50km/h into terraced rice paddies...some dry...some not... The wet ones home to frogs, ever so eager leeches and scungey green glider stains. The flying is pretty amazing though, as you circle in a thermal surrounded by vultures, kites and eagles, some so close you can touch, its amazing.

More days, more flying, and on our planned final flight back to Pokhara we discovered that cloudbase was below the take off. Peels of thunder were soon heard, not a day for flying. We, well our porters packed up everything, we walked down with our paragliders (how demeaning) to the bottom of the hill, me giving my sherpa a good run for his money (admittedly he was carrying my glider, and I had a very very token daypack). Finally we hit the road, and once we all amassed hailed a local bus to Pokhara. Rain started to pelt down as we squeezed in the already full bus. Gliders in the aisle and us performing acrobatic tricks to pack in an additional sixteen odd people. At least there were no chickens and goats onboard.

We made it back to our hotel, and washed away the quite substantial ecosystem that had been developing in my hair. A few days of SFA are definitely in order.