Here a few statistics of the time spent in Pakistan. We spent roughly 63 days in Pakistan. Of these, 25 were flyable and on 23 of them we actually flew which makes that we flew on roughly every third day. It rained or was not flyable on 21 days which makes for 30 percent of our time in Pakistan We lost 4 days to time needed to travel back from our XC flights and used 7 days to get to the different flying sites, not including our return to Islamabad. Finally, I was sick on 5 days. Our total expenses once in Pakistan were 1000 dollars US, about 15 dollars per day.
We had very few days with a cloud base exceeding 6000 metres, something you need in this area to be able to fly big XC.
Longest flight; 140Km
Longest time in the air; 7 hours
Fastest climb; 11.7 M/S
Highest altitude; 7544 metres
Total flying time; 75 hours

Things I would do differently next time. I would travel with a bigger budget to pay for a higher standard of accommodation and food to try and keep my body in better shape. Although I only lost 5 days to sickness there were many days that I did not feel one hundred percent. The flying environment asks for a hundred percent commitment, with less, you risk making mistakes which you can not afford. There is no helicopter rescue and medical facilities are few and ill equipped.

The interaction we had with the people of Pakistan in the places we visited was outstanding. The people are genuine in their desire to help and it was rarely that I felt taken advantage of. Never did I feel threatened or unsafe, whether during the day or in the dark walking back to the hotel during a power cut, something I cant say I feel comfortable doing anywhere else I have been. History hasn’t been very kind to this part of the world, it being a play ground for the big powers to play their great game. On top of that, as I write this, 14 million people in Pakistan are dealing with one of the biggest natural disasters that the world has seen. The monsoon rains are destroying everything, infrastructure, crops, houses, food stores, and livestock. It takes a faire bid of resilience to deal with so much drama. It is a country with a hopeless political situation where corruption is everywhere but also a country with the most beautiful mountains and an exceptional playground for Para gliding pilots. I hope it will stay accessible for foreigners in the years to come both for the benefit of the Pakistanis and the visitors. Fly high, Rob

Here a few statistics of the time spent in Pakistan. We spent roughly 63 days in Pakistan. Of these, 25 were flyable and on 23 of them we actually flew which makes that we flew on roughly every third day. It rained or was not flyable on 21 days which makes for 30 percent of our time in Pakistan We lost 4 days to time needed to travel back from our XC flights and used 7 days to get to the different flying sites, not including our return to Islamabad. Finally, I was sick on 5 days. Our total expenses once in Pakistan were 1000 dollars US, about 15 dollars per day.
We had very few days with a cloud base exceeding 6000 metres, something you need in this area to be able to fly big XC.
Longest flight; 140Km
Longest time in the air; 7 hours
Fastest climb; 11.7 M/S
Highest altitude; 7544 metres
Total flying time; 75 hours

Things I would do differently next time. I would travel with a bigger budget to pay for a higher standard of accommodation and food to try and keep my body in better shape. Although I only lost 5 days to sickness there were many days that I did not feel one hundred percent. The flying environment asks for a hundred percent commitment, with less, you risk making mistakes which you can not afford. There is no helicopter rescue and medical facilities are few and ill equipped.

The interaction we had with the people of Pakistan in the places we visited was outstanding. The people are genuine in their desire to help and it was rarely that I felt taken advantage of. Never did I feel threatened or unsafe, whether during the day or in the dark walking back to the hotel during a power cut, something I cant say I feel comfortable doing anywhere else I have been. History hasn’t been very kind to this part of the world, it being a play ground for the big powers to play their great game. On top of that, as I write this, 14 million people in Pakistan are dealing with one of the biggest natural disasters that the world has seen. The monsoon rains are destroying everything, infrastructure, crops, houses, food stores, and livestock. It takes a faire bid of resilience to deal with so much drama. It is a country with a hopeless political situation where corruption is everywhere but also a country with the most beautiful mountains and an exceptional playground for Para gliding pilots. I hope it will stay accessible for foreigners in the years to come both for the benefit of the Pakistanis and the visitors. Fly high, Rob

July 29. The events are overwhelming. We have passed a good night sleep in our hotel but it rained the whole night and so the flooding continues. The raging torrent has turned into an all devouring monster. The road that we walked yesterday to cross the bridge has been completely carved away and the river is now a good fifty metres wider. The bridge is invisible under the enormous volume of water that presses around and over it. The on and off ramp washed away and the narrow passage around the bridge was a boiling mass of muddy water. Tons and tons of topsoil are being washed away every second. The really disturbing sight is the amount of building materials that race by on the surface. The road into the side valley is practicable for a few hundred metres and then it is blocked by some rock fall and washed away by the enormous forces at work. At times the earth shudders when big boulders in the flow race by. The bed of the river directs the flow against a rock wall which divides the water. It creates an gigantic vertex that turns at great speed and eats away at the terraced cornfields on the other side of the river. A house that looks like it has been finished not long ago is on the edge of the water and with the vertex eating away at the land on one side and the raging river on the other side, it looks doomed to disappear. On our side of the water is also a house right on the edge and the people are getting whatever belongings they can salvage before their home topples into the flow. The amazing thing is that while all this tragedy is going on some people risk their lives trying to salvage drift wood out of the churning water. The vortex is catching big quantities of flotsam and spits them out into the eddies close to the shore. Those people were standing on ground that was rapidly sliding into the river and while hanging onto branches they would pull the timber out of the water. It was timber from houses that have been destroyed further upstream and later in the day the horror stories start to come in from whole villages that have been swept away by the rising waters inhabitants and all. The sheer power of the water is frightening and we are all silenced by this overwhelming force of destruction. Later in the morning the new concrete house toppled into the river and got simply swallowed up by the water as if it was an aspirin dissolving in a glass of water. Many power lines come down as the poles topple into the flow so the power supply stops. We realise that it is going to take some time before we will able to continue our trip. News is hard to get as nobody can get in or out of town and the only way to get news is via the cell phone. From our friends in Islamabad we hear that the flooding is wide spread and that the rain will continue for another 24 hours. We also hear that a plane has crashed trying to land in bad weather in Islamabad and that all 152 people on board have perished.
July 30. In the night it has stopped raining and in the morning the flow in the river has visibly reduced. They have constructed a flying fox over the gorge so people can come from one side to the other. All the shops are on our side and medicines and food are sent over. In the night the bottom part of a hotel, perched on the riverbank, has been swept away as has part of the park at the confluence with the Indus. Pierre is anxious to get on his way as he has a plane to catch on the first of august. I however don’t feel the same urgency and Im quiet happy to wait for the first vehicles to come though from down stream. Till then we have a place to sleep and food to eat in a reasonable safe place. The people down here are definitely not used to foreigners and often look at us with suspicion or just stare at us. Communication is also a lot harder as not many of the locals speak English. Throughout the day conflicting news comes through about people that would have made it out or into town but the impression is that tomorrow is going to be the day to make an attempt to leave. In the convoy from Gilgit we have met a young chap from Karachi on his way back from a holiday near Nanga Parbat. Sam is an excellent help in organising food and transport and makes things a lot easier for us. It stays dry all day and things are looking good for tomorrow. We pass the time playing cards and strolling down the main street noticing the dilapidated state of this place.
July 31. We get up at 7 and at 8 Pierre has found a taxi bus to take is away. A bulldozer has cleared a path trough the mud and stones that have spilled onto the road with the over flowing streams. The water level has receded enough so that we can drive trough the fords. It is only after two hours that we are stopped at a police checkpoint where we are told that we can not proceed with the car. We have to take our luggage and walk over a bridge and load up on the other side. A big landslide would be blocking the road ahead and they didn’t want the traffic backing up through the bazaar and over the bridge. However our driver organizes another bus on the other side of the bridge and by the time we are loaded up and drive to the landslide the bulldozer is just pushing the last rocks of the road. Then the devastation becomes worse again. In places there is just enough road left for the minibus to pass, the rest of the road having been eaten away by the floodwaters. We make good time and slowly leave the mountains behind us. We arrive in the first major town where we are just to late to catch the bus for Islamabad. With the help of Sam we organise a taxi to the next town to cache up with the bus and from there we drive in the first air conditioned, clean bus on roads with no potholes to Islamabad. Our friend Jabbar is at the bus station to pick us up and drive us to our hotel. It is strange to be back in a big town with all the consumables available, after two months in places with only the bare minimum in the shops. In the evening we eat pizza from pizza hut and burgers with French fries and coke. Im already missing the vege curry from the Hidden Paradise restaurant in Karimabad. It is only when we watch the news on TV in the evening that we realise the full extend of the drama that is taking pace and how lucky we have been to escape so easily. The floodwaters have now reached the plains and millions of people are displaced and many have drowned.
August 7. Time flies, even when you are not having fun. I have arrived in Manali after a gruelling 26 hours journey, what was supposed to be around 15 hours. The monsoon is also in India and a landslide had cut the only road in and out of the kullu valley and manali. Traffic backed up for ten kilometres as only a one lane strip was finally cleared and reconstructed. At some point the bus simply dropped all the passengers of, turned around and disappeared, leaving us to fend for ourselves. The rest of the trip was made on several flat deck Jeeps and finally the last bit from kullu with a bus. I thank the gods for holding back the rain as I had no means to keep my stuff dry. Grey and I stayed in Islamabad for 3 nights, we had some social engagements and had trouble finding a seat on the bus to Lahore which made us stay one more night. The whole trip to Amritsar went very smooth. The bus to Lahore did 120Kmh, a speed that we are not used to any more, then a taxi ride to the border. Here one has to walk across to India. I lost count how many times I had to show my passport but it was close to ten times. With all the luggage we have there was no way we would be able to carry it ourselves over the kilometre stretch between the borders so we had to haggle with porters to assist us, Pakistanis up to the border and then Indians on the Indian side. We left Islamabad at 7am and arrived in Amritsar at 2pm which left us enough time to have a look at the golden temple and organise tickets for the next day. From here on Im going on by my self as Grey has business in Delhi. The heat is intense and even when you don’t move the perspiration pours from our skin. Our last night in Islamabad we stayed with Sadjad, the owner of Cox and Kings travel agency, and the person with all the right contacts in Pakistan if you want to travel there. In the evening we had a great Pot- luck BBQ and copious amounts of liquor with some of the local pilots and the prime minister of the Kashmir region. That night the air conditioning was great but it must have given me a head cold. My cold really broke through during the bus ride to Manali and when I got here I was more dead then alive. Yesterday I spend in bed all day and today Im feeling a lot better. My plan is to Robbo114@hotmail.com. Cheers, Rob
rent a motorbike and tour around Ladakh for a couple of weeks. I will not maintain this blog from here on. The only addition will be a summary and travel tips at some stage. I hope you have all enjoyed travelling with me. If you ever have any questions about anything relating to Pakistan and Para Gliding feel free to contact me.

July 27 All good things come to an end and so we prepare to leave this enchanting place. Yesterday we bought our bus tickets to Islamabad and today we got confirmation of our seats on the plane for a flight from Gilgit to Islamabad. Seen the weather forecast I think there is very little chance that the plane will be flying so I hang on to my bus ticket. Flying is our preferred choice though, a one hour flight against a bus ride of a minimum of 24 hours. Grey and Pierre have their mind set on flying but with the weather forecast the way it is I don’t think that that is going to happen Common sense prevails in the end and Grey and Pierre decide to come with the bus as well. We pay the bill at our hotel and say farewell to the owner of the Hidden paradise restaurant who has cooked for us over the last two weeks. He gives us all a few packets of dried fruit and a bar of Hunza chocolate, a mix of dried fruit and nuts to show his appreciation. I think we were his best clients for the season and he was sad to see us go. The owner of the hotel organised a taxi for us and paid for it, I think we were his best clients too. We are not looking forward to this ride and are apprehensive about the state of the bus. We could only get seats in the back of the bus so it is certainly going to be a bumpy ride. The first stage of the trip takes us back the way we had come over the road that is under reconstruction by the Chinese. It takes 4 hours to do the first ….. km which shows that it is going to be a long ride indeed. Not far from the confluence with the Indus river we run into an accident scene where a tanker truck has rolled and is across the road. It is noticeable warmer and the air is humid. After an hour the road is clear and we continue. Just before dark we are stopped at a police post. From there on busses are only allowed to travel in convoy with police escort. We are entering the tribal area and the folks around here have the habit of harvesting valuables of passengers of lonely busses. We wait for an hour and a half and later on this is the time which is going to make all the difference in our progress to Islamabad. Because of the waiting time to get the convoy going we arrive at the dining place at midnight. The next time I wake up is for another police check post where we have to show our passports. It is an eerie place in the middle of nowhere, windy, no light and a line of busses waiting in the dark. Walking along those busses in the dark with people silhouetted against the light of the head lights felt unreal. Each time the bus goes over a bump in the road we get air born and then fall back into our seats, my neck hurts but through the discomfort I manage to sleep through the night. When I wake up it is raining and that is the beginning of the end. The rain gets heavier, rocks start falling and streams swell up to torrents. I don’t remember at what time we first got stopped by a flooded bridge but we waited for two hours for the water to recede. From there on things got worse. The incessant rain found its way into the bus and the water dripped through the air-conditioning vents. Mid day passed and the possibility of another night in the bus started to loom. The bus driver was a skilled person and we never actually got stuck but driving over those flooded fords was a frightening experience. Sitting in the back of the bus there simply is no escape if things should go wrong. We traversed several of those fords and it was sometimes unclear why we had been waiting so long before crossing it as the rain never let up and the water level only got higher. We finally reached the first important town on the south side of the Indus gorge and that is where we stood for an impassable obstacle for the bus. A stream from a side valley had swollen to unbelievable proportions. A bend in the road followed the bend in the stream and the now raging torrent tore away at the ground. When we arrived already half of the road had eroded away so it was impossible for the bus to reach the bridge. The water had been passing over the bridge but because off a temporary abatement in the rain the level had dropped enough for pedestrians to cross. The water was the colour of dark chocolate and the air was filled with the smell of wet earth. We got our bags as soon as possible and ran over the bridge. The roar of the water was deafening and the sound of enormous boulders careering over the bottom of the river sounded like canon fire. The volume of water was bigger then the bridge allowed for and so every now and then a big wave would spew over the top. This action of getting over the bridge saved our bacon. An hour later the bridge flooded and became impassable. On the other side we found a cheap hotel, got something to eat and put our heads down nice and early.

July 29. The events are overwhelming. We have passed a good night sleep in our hotel but it rained the whole night and so the flooding continues. The raging torrent has turned into an all devouring monster. The road that we walked yesterday to cross the bridge has been completely carved away and the river is now a good fifty metres wider. The bridge is invisible under the enormous volume of water that presses around and over it. The on and off ramp washed away and the narrow passage around the bridge was a boiling mass of muddy water. Tons and tons of topsoil are being washed away every second. The really disturbing sight is the amount of building materials that race by on the surface. The road into the side valley is practicable for a few hundred metres and then it is blocked by some rock fall and washed away by the enormous forces at work. At times the earth shudders when big boulders in the flow race by. The bed of the river directs the flow against a rock wall which divides the water. It creates an gigantic vertex that turns at great speed and eats away at the terraced cornfields on the other side of the river. A house that looks like it has been finished not long ago is on the edge of the water and with the vertex eating away at the land on one side and the raging river on the other side, it looks doomed to disappear. On our side of the water is also a house right on the edge and the people are getting whatever belongings they can salvage before their home topples into the flow. The amazing thing is that while all this tragedy is going on some people risk their lives trying to salvage drift wood out of the churning water. The vortex is catching big quantities of flotsam and spits them out into the eddies close to the shore. Those people were standing on ground that was rapidly sliding into the river and while hanging onto branches they would pull the timber out of the water. It was timber from houses that have been destroyed further upstream and later in the day the horror stories start to come in from whole villages that have been swept away by the rising waters inhabitants and all. The sheer power of the water is frightening and we are all silenced by this overwhelming force of destruction. Later in the morning the new concrete house toppled into the river and got simply swallowed up by the water as if it was an aspirin dissolving in a glass of water. Many power lines come down as the poles topple into the flow so the power supply stops. We realise that it is going to take some time before we will able to continue our trip. News is hard to get as nobody can get in or out of town and the only way to get news is via the cell phone. From our friends in Islamabad we hear that the flooding is wide spread and that the rain will continue for another 24 hours. We also hear that a plane has crashed trying to land in bad weather in Islamabad and that all 152 people on board have perished. Sorry I have to post this and run.to be continued…….

July 21. It has rained all night and it still drizzles in the morning. It’s a tough life. Pancake breakfast at the Hidden Paradise restaurant and coffee with walnut cake at Hunza café followed by an internet session at zero point internet café. The weather forecast is good for Friday and the weekend. Lets hope we finish of our trip on a high note.
July 25. The 22nd was another rainy day and a good 20 degrees colder than last week. We spent the day doing absolutely nothing apart from the 3 trips to our favourite restaurant for breakfast, lunch and dinner. It surprises us that we can put up with this. The 23th was flyable and Grey and I got away. We walked up high above our usual launch site to increase our chances to get away but even then Pierre was unlucky and was in the landing field after 20 minutes. We flew down the Karimabad spur to the west and flew with a couple of vultures a few times. Then we decided to have a look at the new lake behind the landslide. The moment I turned around I dropped out of the lift and sank out all the way to karimabad where the youth goes crazy every time we fly over. Grey stayed up another hour and flew close to the fort so I could take some video. The weather forecast for the next days was good so we organised ourselves with transport and porters for a 1200 metres climb to a launch site a bid to the east of the eagles nest. The 24th we got up at 5am and drove up to the eagles nest with two Jeeps, one for us and the gliders and one for the porters. I don’t feel to good about getting another human to carry my stuff, I feel like a colonial with his coolie. But that feeling fades once the going gets tough, I couldn’t have gotten up that hill carrying all my own gear. The day looks great but once on the launch site it is very stable. We are at 4300metres and the inversion is below us, the clouds that form are generated above the inversion. It makes for an infuriating couple of hours flying, wearing way to many clothes and hitting the inversion and turbulence at 3900. The lift is close to the mountain so it is intense flying, always close to the ground. It is not till we get to the end of the karimabad ridge that we are able to push trough the inversion and climb to over 4000 metres. I flew on the opposite side of the valley of Rakaposhe and had a awesome view of this 7788metres high mountain with its many glaciers clinging to its slopes. The walk up had sapped Grey and myself of quiet a bid of energy and on the launch site we felt the effect of the altitude. That and the intense flying took its toll and after three hours I had had enough. I flew back to our start point to make an out and return and then went to land in our usual landing spot right next to Grey who had already packed. I decided that that was my last flight in Pakistan. There has to be something to come back for. A flight over the top of Rakaposhe is one reason. We are told by the locals that spring time is more unstable. I will have to ask the experts, John silvester and Brad sanders about that. In a few days we go back to Islamabad, either by plane or by bus. Today we woke to a mainly bleu sky but the high cloud is motoring along at a hundred kmp. Non of us is very enthusiastic about flying and the lure of the café life is strong. Tomorrow we will rent a Jeep and drive into another valley and go for a walk I think.

July 13. Well, that didn’t happen. We are getting a little taste of the monsoon so it was overcast most of the day with a few spots of rain. The weather forecast is for a few days of this so tomorrow, if it doesn’t rain, we take a Jeep ride into one of the valleys to get a close up look of one of those giant glaciers around here. Today we went for a walk around the area along irrigation channels and trough a maze of pathways. It keeps amazing me to what lengths humans go to make the environment inhabitable for them. Thousands upon thousands of tons of rock have been and are being moved to create terraces and water channels to be able to grow crops.
July 14. We took the Jeep into the Hopper valley. After an hours drive we reached the end of the road and The Hilton Inn, from where the walking track climbs over a little rise to reveal the first glacier. As every where, the people are desperate for visitors and we get assaulted by people selling things as soon as we get out of the car. Out of pity more then necessity we take a guide to show us the way. The glacier is covered with rocks but some parts are fairly active and huge seracs have been pushed up. The scenery is big and wild and it feels good to have my feet on the ground. Flying is a great way to see a lot of country with minimal effort but for me it doesn’t leave the same dept of impression as a walk. It is a partly cloudy day which is just as well. It is still hot and breakfast wasn’t sitting to well with me so about three quarters of the way in I turn around to make it slowly back to the car. Grey continued with the guide along a second glacier to reach a summer grazing area with Sheppard’s huts and stunning views of the high peaks all around. When we get back to the hotel a fourth pilot has arrived. Mukrim has to leave in a few days so it is great to have someone else to replace him.
July 15. It was a flyable day but once in the air it was rough and inverted. This launch is not very high and with the current conditions it is very much hit and miss weather one gets away or not. This time it is Mukrim again that misses and ends up in the landing field after 10 minutes. The air was very rough and inverted and after two hours of trying to get higher dark clouds started to form to the south with the sound of thunder reaching us, time to land
The 16th Grey, Pierre and I take the taxi up to Eagles nest. Halfway up the road is blocked by a new landslide. Tonnes of mud and rocks have spilled from the slope above the road. A reminder of the fragility of this man made oasis. The slopes are steep and the layer of arable soil lose and overlaying solid rock, the irrigation water a perfect lubricant to get things sliding. We walk across and catch another taxi to take us to the end of the road. It has been very warm and the air has been stable so we are having a late start. We are driving up because there is a few small clouds forming, giving us the hope to find some thermals. The walk up is pretty hot this late in the day and I suffer under the load of my glider and all the bivi gear. Getting ready and putting on a long john, fleece pants, pants and flight suit plus double down jacket is an energy sapping exercise when the temperature is over 30 degrees Celsius. The thermal cycles are weak and, as usual, across the slope. I shoot straight across the canyon and have to scratch a long time very close to the slope before I can relax a little. Pierre and Grey launch shortly after me but do not find the lift I got and sadly sink out to the village. I climb out and repeat the flight around Lady finger and Hunza peak. Then around 3 o’clock all thermal activity stops and I glide across the hunza valley towards The Rakaposhe side and get a glimpse of the enormous ice fields that surround this mountain. Then I glide back to Karimabad and phone Grey to come to the fort to take some pictures while I soar around it. Another great flight, I cant be to enthusiastic as Grey and Pierre bombed out, hopefully we get some more instability soon so we all get to fly this awesome scenery.
July 17. The sky is an azure bleu with not one single cloud. It is hot and nothing stirs. Time to play the tourist and visit the nearby fort. The Altit fort was build some 800 years ago and has some interesting Tibetan characteristics. The little village at its foot is unspoiled by concrete structures and is a maze of little alley ways. Prince Charles was here in 2002 and visited one of the local houses. The owner has turned the place into a shrine and points out were the prince sat and were he put his hand, all riveting stuff.
The village square is a water reservoir that doubles as the kids swimming pool and with this heat it is full of them, daring each other to jump the highest from the trees surrounding the water.
July 18. The stable conditions persist and we stabilise with it. We are becoming so stable, we hardly move. It was a day doing nothing more than eating, sleeping, internet and lamenting with the locals about the lack of tourists. The people here are getting a raw deal. First of all Osama blew up the twin towers and as a result the conflict spilled over the border into Pakistan. Pakistan is supporting the Americans so the Taliban fights against it with a few bomb attacks on the capital. As a result the tourism numbers have dropped to virtually nothing and the people relying on tourism are left to fend for themselves. Just imagine this happening in New Zealand or any other big tourist destination. The little town of Karimabad has developed on tourism with the main street lined with tourist shops full of carpets, shawls and other nick knacks. The streets are empty but the shop owners are still putting out there wares and sit in front of their shops eagerly awaiting the arrival of the hordes that are not coming. It is hard to look at the pour buggers sitting there day in and day out looking at us with expecting eyes. Yesterday I asked the guy at the ticket office for the fort how many visitors he had had. Two people had bought a ticket. We kind of laughed about it and decided that that was better then crying, which would scare away any potential client. On top of the perceived danger of terrorism they have to deal with a natural disaster that has come in the form of a land slide that has wiped out one village and has created a dam of a mile wide and some hundred metres high. The lake behind the dam is now 30km long and has drowned several villages and the Karakorum highway to China. All road transport to and from China has ceased and on top of that the road to the south is under reconstruction in a way that a trip that took 55minutes 5 years ago now takes 5 hours. If all this would befall any valley anywhere in the western world people would rise up and make sure that the rest of the world would know about there predicament and that their leaders would do something about it. Here the government is corrupt at all levels and the people seem in shock.
I wonder how much longer these people are going to take it before they rise up and revolt. I guess what saves them is the fact that most still have their land and grow their own potatoes and cereals and fruit.
July 19. Today is a day to forget for me. We went to the launch late as the conditions looked stable. Pierre hired a guide and porter and walked up a thousand metres above the launch site early in the morning. When we saw him climb up after launching we rushed up the mountain to join the puffy clouds that started to appear in the sky. As usual the thermal cycles were weak and across the hill and I repeated my routine by flying over the ravine to try and catch the lift on the other side. This time I was out of tune with the thermal cycles and sank out below the level from where to expect to work my way up again. Grey was 5 minutes behind me and worked his way up in no time. I worked hard above the fort in light lift, to the delight of the kids in the village who clapped and whistled at my efforts. I gained a few hundred metres but never got high enough to connect with the rocks and the soaring crows and my day was over in 20 minutes. Grey had an awesome flight, reached 6800metres and got pretty close to Rakaposhe.
July 20. The end is nigh. One more week and we will be leaving Pakistan. Today we woke to a cloudy sky and stumbled from breakfast to coffee, the first real one in 8 weeks, to a game of cards, to lunch and a siesta. Then at 2 in the afternoon we set of for a walk into the canyon that we fly over. There is an incredible feat of local engineering build on and in the wall of the canyon. They have blasted a ledge in the wall and build up the sides with dry stacked stone to create a canal that runs the water from the glacier nose into the village. The drop is sheer and several hundred metres deep in places and the walk along it a bid unnerving.

July 11. Forget all I have said till now about big mountains. Big is a measure of your experience, just like heavy is a measure of your strength. If you are not very strong, then little weight feels heavy. Well I hadn’t seen any big mountains till now. Now I know what a big mountain looks like!!!!! I had a great little flight today, now further then 10Km away from launch but at the highest point 3300 metres above it. We went up to launch at 11 and it must have been after 12 when we launched. Again the airflow was across the hill but the thermal cycles were more frequent then yesterday. I climbed a bid further up the mountain then Mukrim but by the time I had my Vario working I was at the same level as him. We scratched around for a few minutes maintaining height and then I shot across the canyon that empties out the Ultar basin behind Karimabad. It saved the day for me as the lift was much stronger on the other side. Mukrim stayed behind and slowly sank out. The mountain crows showed me the way and later avulture took me to cloud base. I flew around the Lady finger and soared up to the top of Hunza peak at 6270 metres. I took some video and photos of the surrounding scenery and although I totally enjoyed the flight it was only when I saw back the images that I realised how totally awesome it was. I could have flown far but I paced myself and was happy to just boat around. When I walked up back to the hotel, Grey drove past in a mini van, just arriving from Gilgit. He has had enough of driving and has a soar bum because, like me, he hasn’t got much meat left on his arse.
We go out for dinner to the same place I went with Mukrim last night and we stuff our face with delicious mixed veggies, chicken and potatoes with pancakes for desert. It is great to be able to eat vegetables again and the effect on body and mind is noticeable.
July 12.The sky is filled with cumulus cloud early in the morning and by 10am it is OD ing. We have another rest day, fill ourselves up with food and visit this little town. We talk with many of the shop keepers and locals. It is the inauguration celebrations for the spiritual leader of the Ismalis Muslims, the predominant Muslim religion around here. As part of the celebrations the locals lid fires all around high in the mountains last night. Traditionally they would envelope big boulders in timber and roll those down the hill burning. The boulders have been replaced by used tires that they set alight with petrol. The effect is quiet spectacular in the dark. The tyres role for hundreds of metres down the hills leaving behind a trail of fire and at some point they would do a free fall of several hundred metres and then explode in a ball of fire at the bottom. A great way to get rid of used tires, NOT. Now we are all ready for some big flying tomorrow.

Hi all. Im back in internet country but the connection is still to slow to send pictures. enjoy reding our adventures of the last ten days or so.26 June. The day took a sad turn, literally. Grey, Mukrim and Farhad went to the launch area at the summer palace where Farhad took off first. For some reason he flew away from the launch initiated a right hand turn and did a 355 degree turn into the hill. He took the impact with his right hand side and broke his shoulder and wrist. All the pilots of the valley were in town for a club meeting so he got plenty of support. It is sad and frightening to see the state of the local hospital. It is filthy and run down and will make me try harder to stay out of it. Grey and Mukrim did the rescue and were exhausted, a glide down into the valley is all they could manage.
27 June. It is Sunday today and there is not enough people to fill up a taxi. We are stuck in Chitral for one more day. The conditions are wearing us down. Our diet is not complete with all dairy products and fresh vegetables missing. The quality of the air in this town is not that great either with the burning of garbage and wood smoke. We have all had infected air ways and the usual stomach problems.
28 June. It took hours to fill up a taxi so that we had to wait in the taxi stand to hold our place. In the morning we missed out on an earlier taxi because we didn’t stay around. It gets unbearable hot and it is two o’clock before we get going. We pay for an extra seat so we have more room and we don’t have to wait any longer to fill up the car. The cushioning on my bud has worn a bid thin over the last five weeks and the five hours drive from Chitral to Mastuj is taking its toll on my derrière. The temporary bridge that we have crossed twice, since we have been in Chitral, is no longer. I didn’t get the full story but it either collapsed or washed away. It means an extra 15Km drive to the next bridge which in these parts means another hours drive. We check in in one of the guesthouses and go to the police station to write down our detail. We also find out that next days bus is totally booked out so that we have an extra day in this village. Our room has a garden court yard with some cherry trees laden with fruit which just happen to be ripe at the moment…..
In the evening I feel feverish and hit the sack early. We are in rural Pakistan here and we are meeting a different level of society. Here the young people want to leave. The economic situation is near hopeless and the administration is corrupt. It is tough to tell them the truth, there is very little chance that they will ever be able to get a visa or afford a plane ticket. Who M I to tell them to stay here and fight the system from within. I knew it already but questions like this emphasise again how lucky Im to have been born in Europe.
June 29. Just as well the bus was full. A days rest before we do the next 7 hours to the Yasin Valley is probably not a bad idea. I spent the day lounging around in the garden and go for a walk around the place. Im not feeling that great, which must have an impact on the way I see things. The place looks in decline with lots of the irrigation channels in disrepair and houses abandoned. It is still a green oasis in an environment of barren rock and the cherries tasted good.
June 30. The bus leaves at 6am so we are up nice and early. The ride takes us over the chandur pass, famous for its highest polo ground in the world, and then down into the valley that leads all the way to Gilgit. Iv taken my sleeping bag to sit on so the ride is a little more comfortable but I should have taken my earplugs as well. The chitraly music is very repetitive and monotonous to our ears and it is way to loud in the bus.
Grey has been doing the social networking and when he mentioned to Farhad that we intended to go to Yasin he got the address of some relative that has a summer house there. We got of the bus in Gupis and after a few phone calls we are in a taxi and on our way to the father of the chief of justice of Gilgit. We leave the narrow valley behind and the most spectacular landscape reveals it selves once the valley opens up. Snow covered peaks and rugged crags all around and the whole valley lush and green. It looks like Para Gliding heaven to me. The taxi drops us off at a walled property and stepping through the gate we enter a beautiful garden with roses and cherry trees laden with fruit. Nobody speaks more then a few words of English so the situation is a bid awkward at first but a grand child is summoned from somewhere to be our interpreter and things get organised. Bowls of cherries appear, thee gets served and introductions are made. It appears that we are staying with the father of the chief justice for one night and that we will move to his sons place tomorrow once that one has arrived from Gilgit. Im totally out of it, the bacteria are playing havoc with my guts and I have no energy left. A visit to the doctor next morning gets organised for me and I sleep away the rest of the afternoon. Were we with the descendants of the Chitraly royal family before, now we are with the descendants of the royal family of Varshigoom now called Jasin. There is some great flying potential here, the only thing is that there is no roads up the sides of the valley so to reach any take off we will have to walk. Iv gotten to weak to spent that kind of energy but Grey and Mukrim scout out some potential launch and landing sites.
July 1. In the morning a taxi gets organised and I get taken to the local hospital to have a consultation with the GP. I wile away the day in the vicinity of the bathroom and Grey and Mukrim go for some walks around the place. In the afternoon the chief justice arrives and a car get organised to take us to his house. He speaks perfectly English and we learn a great deal about the history of the valley. All rulers lost their power in the seventies when Bhuto declared that all people should be governed by democratic government, al the kingdoms got abolisched. The royals got banned from their lands and deported elsewhere. Now they are back but” apparently” have not much to say anymore in local government. In the valley alone there is some 1400 descendants of the royal family which, Im sure, must create quiet a power house in the local government. In the family summer residence we get a big room with en suite bathroom, tiled and clean, alas no hot water as the boiler is broken. Apart from the awkwardness that we are guests that have invited themselves and that the host doesn’t want anything in return, things are good. We get fed and anything we need gets organised.
July 2. The medication seems to work and my appetite has returned. I still feel very weak though and need a few more days to recuperate. Grey and Mukrim get picked up by the taxi at 9.30 and drive to the bottom of the hill. Our host has organised a few porters to carry their bags up the mountain. At noon I see them launch from about 400 metres above the valley floor and soon they climb to cloud base. Mukrim lands near the house in the riverbed after two hours and Grey flies a 60km tri angle and lands after 4 hours near the house we had stayed the first night. I borrow a bicycle and ride the 5km or so to where Grey is. By the time I arrive he has just finished packing and we get ushered into the walled family compound, away from the huge crowd that has gathered. Inside we sit in the traditional family room which is a rectangle with a square in the middle, formed by for carved wooden pillars. This is the place where the whole family lives in the winter. The men sleep on one side of the square and the women on the other. Inside the square is a stone cooking platform with a hole in the ceiling right above it for the smoke to escape.
The ceiling is made of poplar beams laid in a diamond pattern three or four layers deep.
It must get pretty cosy in the winter as in this family alone there are 8 adults, 16 grand children and the grand parents.
Food gets brought out for us and then thee and cherries. Grey shows his photos to all and he is the man. A taxi get organised for him and I cycle back home. People around here are not used to seeing foreigners especially not on a bicycle so I get a lot of attention on the way. That may also be because the kids in the compound have decorated me with roses so I look a bid like a dandy on a bike.
Grey’s flying stories are of massive 7000 metre high mountains and glaciers and many valley’s, I will have to be better tomorrow!
July 3. This time it is Mukrim who stays behind. He has been neglecting a cold and the last two nights he has been coughing his lungs out. We have banished him to the insolating cell so he can cough as much as he likes without keeping us awake. This morning he is feeling to weak. Im not yet back to my former self, which a few people much be happy about, but with a strong local boy carrying my bag up the hill, I can manage the flying. We make good time and before 11am we are on a spot about 500metres above the valley. Thermals are coming trough constantly and the sky is already filled with big cumulus. We promise each other to stay together and explore one of the side valleys to try and get close to one of the 7000metre peaks. However the sky gods have another idea in mind. After Take off, Grey finds a good thermal that takes him a few hundred metres above the launch site. When I Launch the sun disappears behind a cloud and it takes me a lot longer to get away. By the time Im up, Grey has sunk out low. We repeat this for the next hour till I have had enough. The wind is a lot stronger today and the shear level where the thermals meet the wind is not a nice place to be. Even though this shear level is at 4700metres we climb trough it often enough. When we get below 4000 it feels like we are getting low, the valley still 1500metres lower but the immensity of the landscape distorts all perspective. Our radio communications are not very professional and with those big gloves on not easy either. I decide to fly my own flight and cross the main valley to the windward side of the mountains. By now this is also the sunny side and the thermals are strong at some stage my Vario shows a constant 10 metres per second. I fly the length of the valley to Darkot where the glider decides to do its own thing and folds itself up, changes its mind, opens up again and throws in a little pirouette before giving me back the control. All this pretty much out of the bleu in a few seconds and to close to the summit of a 6000 metres peak to feel comfortable. And to think that I had just put away my video camera, bummer, would have made some interesting footage…… The cloud base has risen to 6000 metres like yesterday but with the stronger west wind the flying is not as good. After 4 hours I have had enough and glide to the landing field. The people have asked us to land near their house again and Grey has already gathered a big crowd with his landing. I have plenty of height to burn so I throw in a few spirals and wing overs and the crowd goes nuts. Grey is doing the crowd control and gets everybody to the side of the landing field before I land. When I touch down there must have been two hundred kids and adults running towards me and I land to a spontaneous applause. I get just enough time to bunch up my glider and swing it over my shoulder before they reach me. I walk straight into the walled compound and the door closes behind me leaving all the onlookers behind for Grey. The rest is a repeat of yesterdays, Cherries, delicious food and green thee and the smiles of 16 grand children and a grandpa to top it all of.
July 4. Today was set aside as a rest day for Grey and Mukrim which was perfect timing. It was windy and overcast in the morning so flying was not possible. Grey needs to go and see a doctor for the same reason as me and Mukrim is still coughing away. It is Sunday so Grey will have to wait till tomorrow before he will be able to go further then a few steps away from the toilet. We pass the day doing absolutely nothing and wonder how we manage. Somehow time passes and we are not part of it. Breakfast, lunch and dinner get served on time and we don’t have to think about anything. Yesterday we heard rumours and today we got confirmation that the one big event of the year, the Shandur polo festival, has been cancelled. The two provinces cant agree on who is responsible for the event and are disputing the boundaries of the province. It is a political game with the people the big losers. Very sad.
July 6. Shajjad from Islamabad still seems to think that there is going to be some sort of event at Shandur pass so he is driving up with his bus and 25 pilots. They have been asked to put up an air show and fly into the festival grounds. I had decided long ago that it is not going to be my sort of scene so I had decided to move on to Karimabad. However, after our little outing today I have decided to stay in this valley for a few more days. We hired a taxi and drove to the head of the valley. We took plenty of photos and even watching them now, just having been there, they don’t reflect what we just witnessed. The valley ends in a sort of enormous amphitheatre formed by 6000 metre high mountains. The summits are draped in fluted snow fields that end in big hanging glaciers. Further down the main glaciers collect all the falling ice and snake down to the valley like giant high ways. Around the village the fields are an emerald green and the sky was dark bleu. Its all on such a huge scale and such a intense, unspoiled beauty that it is hard to describe. The whole area so asks to be explored from the air that I cant leave this place without having a go at it. Again the people are very friendly and on my walk I had to refuse their offers for cups of thee several times or risk blowing up my bladder.
June 7. This morning Im going it alone. Grey and Mukrim are leaving for Chandur at lunch time, so I take the taxi to the bottom of the hill by myself. The conditions look great and again we start walking to late. I think this site is on early in the morning and a good launch time would be 10.30. When we walk up, yes Im using a porter again, the thermals come trough strong but by the time Im ready to take off the sun has gone to the side of the hill and thermals are less frequent. It is so bad that I almost bomb out and I have to pull all the tricks out of the bag to stay in the air. The house thermal is not working and it is not soar able. I try my luck further away from the hill and find something to get me back to take off height but then I lose it. I go for drastic measures and fly across a valley onto some scree slopes that are baking in the sun. It is still not convincing and it takes a lot of manoeuvring to work my way up high enough to cross the main valley and finally hit the good stuff. When you only get one shot at the day and you have to walk two hours to get to the launch site there sure is a good incentive to try a bid harder.
From then on it all becomes easy and the next hour to reach the head of the valley is a walk in the park. It looks very feasible to fly close up to those awesome glaciers that we saw yesterday during our excursion by road. Now I just have to make the right choice, or I go wide and follow the sunny sides of the mountains or I go straight across onto these massive walls of ice and hope for some dynamic lift. Small thermal clouds are actually forming on the shady side of the mountain and I decide for the direct route. What a totally awesome spectacle. There is no way to describe it. Im flying over miles and miles of ice and Im thermaling up on some lift generated by the few rocks that are not covered by snow. I glide along the entire north face of this mountain towards a saddle that I arrive just a bid to low at to see what is on the other side. I have not the faintest idea of the lay of the land on the other side and have to make up my route while Im there. I find some lift at the far end of the saddle and get enough height to glide back and get a look over to the other side. I have two seconds to make up my mind whether to go across this pass or not. In those two seconds I see a massive wall of ice, a glacier at the bottom of the valley and a rock face at the sunny side and way down a river that seems to flow to the south. I pop over and immediately regret it. The rocks are not that high above the glacier and the lift generated by them is very broken. The bag of tricks is being called on for the second time today and the prospect of a 3 day walk out keeps me fighting. It works and the reward for this act of, well’ you decide, act of bravery? is a flight to the summit of this 6500metre high monster of ice and rock called Tuy mountain. I get to the sunny side which has more exposed rock and easily thermal to the top. From this altitude the topography of the area is clear and I can see my way back home. It is only 2.30 and I have a “What now” moment. What do you do after such a spectacle? I decide to put the Chandur pass into the “Go To” on my GPS and find that it is only 82km away. I make good progress for the first 15km but then it gets more cloudy ahead. With many more mountains to cross and a totally unknown lay of the land I decide that I have pushed my luck enough for today and head for home. I only have to fly out of this one valley for 15km and I will be home where the cherries and green thee are waiting for me. I cant figure out what is going on with the air. I hid massive sink and headwind, then get propelled up in erratic thermals to fall out of the sky again with a tail wind. The prospect of a landing in this narrow valley looms and the walk out would be a total bummer. I skim the mountain side to catch as many bubbles as I can and slowly get to the mouth of the valley with a sigh of relief. I go on final glide, clear the last power lines with one metre to spare and touch down at the far end of the landing field. My approach was so low that nobody saw me coming and for the first time there are no hordes of kids to deal with. What a totally awesome day!
July 7. I have decided that today is going to be my last day in this piece of heaven. There is much more flying to be done but I somehow don’t need any more. Also I feel that we have stayed with these people for long enough and shouldn’t abuse their hospitality. When Grey and Mukrim left for Chandur I moved back to the house where we spent the first night. The guy that runs the show here is the village police man and the cousin of the chief justice. A guy with quite a bid of status and today was the day that he wanted to show off his European visitor to the village. He speaks hardly any English but goes out of his way to help us. We walked up to the place where the old fort used to be. In the 16th century the sikks came from what is now India and invaded Yasin. A big battle was fought around the fort and thousands of people died. Not much is left of the structure but it still is a great spot with a dominating view over the valley. On our way back we stop by the one hotel in the village to find a group of people that have just finished a 5 day tracking from Chitral to Yasin. The surreal thing is that they are watching the world cup soccer semi final between Uruguay and Holland on TV. Iv been away from the Netherlands long enough to feel impartial but it is still great to see them win. Once back home, after lunch and a siesta I find out that the grand father is not as healthy as he looks. They were going to put him in the same taxi bus as me tomorrow morning to take him to Gilgit.I doubt he would survive the ride. I can afford to pay a private taxi for both of us and it is a way to thank them for their hospitality, I also will not need to be on the side of the road at 5am tomorrow morning to wait for the taxi bus…….
July 8. A transit day today but what a spectacular drive from Gupis to Gilgit. The phandar river turnes into a big volume of water that at times get compressed into a narrow gorge and thunders down rapids. The small green irrigated islands of cultivated fields contrast sharply with the barren rock all around. It is a lot warmer in this valley and by the time we get to Gilgit it is outright hot. I check in into one of the better hotels in Gilgit and enjoy the first non Pakistani meal in 7 weeks. Chicken sweet and sour never tasted that good. I also have a proper bath room and enjoy my first real shower with warm water in seven weeks as well. Till now it has been mainly buckets of cold water and the occasional cold shower. It is such a handicap to know about all those luxury things like hot showers and different types of food. Without the knowledge of existence of those things the yearning for them would not be there and acceptance of conditions or situations not an issue. I sometimes wonder how different life would have been if I wouldn’t have known about sex….
Anyway, where was I. After a late lunch a great shower and a bid of world cup on TV I venture out in the late afternoon heat to find a place to fill up my Oxygen bottle and buy some supplies for the bus trip to Karimabad tomorrow. Again the people are supper helpful and in no time I find the person that supplies the whole area with Oxygen. As the bottle in his shop doesn’t give enough pressure he takes me to his store room where he has hundreds of cylinders. My connector doesn’t quiet fit on his bottles so he fits another one on my setup and away I go. With a full bottle I can have a go at the altitude record or, failing that, at least stay warm above 6000 metres for an hour or two. Rakaposhi with its 7788 metres is visible from Gilgit and Karimabad is right at its base.

PS. Im the only one able to download my tracs as grey forgot to bring his cable. There is a few on Leonardo. Photos still not possible sorry.

June 22. Grey landed in Booni yesterday so he is travelling back this morning and we have no news from Mukrim. The flying conditions look like a repeat of yesterday so Dimitry and myself try to be on the launch site an hour earlier. The plan is to get to Tirich Mir before the clouds develop so we can get a closer look at this beast of a mountain. I hope to fly a tri angle with Booni Zoom as a third turn point. The thermals are strong and some what erratic at first which results in a surprise frontal collapse that leaves me a bid shaken. Then we get in the groove and make good time. We stay together till we get to Tirich mir and then we loose each other. The landscape is so immense, if you take your eye from the other for a few turns it is very hard to connect again. I struggle with my camera to get a few photos and that is enough to loose sight of Dimitry. I push on alone to Booni Zoom and have a very enjoyable scenic flight back to Chitral where I arrive after 6 hours in the air. We are clocking up the hours, Grey has 39 hours of airtime in 10 flights, more then he would do in a year of free flying back home. I think it is going to be a rest day for me tomorrow, unless Grey wants to take me for a tandem. It’s a tough life this Para bumming.
June 25. The 23th was a rest day with time to update the blog. Putting it on the web was impossible though, power cuts and slow connections frustrated me to no end. I realise that some readers were anxious to find out what happened to Mukrim as I said that he had been lost for a few days in my last blog. He landed way up north and actually spend a few days in a hostel waiting for flyable weather, which didn’t come. He had a long long ride back in the back of a jeep. Grey landed in Booni on the 21st and got invited by a family to spent the night. He was so happy with their hospitality and the presence of a few pretty women that he got ground suck two days later and landed in their backyard again, giving away the option of flying a big tri angle. The 24th I went back to the kalash area with Dimitry but this time to a valley that is not visited by tourist that often. Once past the police check point it is another 8km on a four wheel drive track through a narrow valley to the main village in the Rambour valley. We get dropped of by the taxi in front of the two mountain police that are stationed there to protect any foreigners that venture there. The border with Afghanistan is only a few km up the road. Two years ago a Greek engineer got kidnapped by the Taliban from the next valley and only got released 8 months later after payment of a big sum of money. This place is totally idyllic. The fields of ray and wheat are being harvested. Big walnut trees and Mulberry trees are laden with fruit and all the irrigated land is bright green. And every where in the landscape are the women in their bright traditional dresses. It all looks like some painting from the romantic classics with children playing, women working the fields and oxen ploughing.
When we flew over this place two weeks ago I had spotted a few villages higher up the valley and that is where I wanted to go. One of the police officers happened to be from up there so he turned from bodyguard into personal guide. This was the first time in weeks that I had done any sort of exercise so it was hard to keep up with this mountain goat.
The weather clouded over and a few drops of rain fell which was perfect as I don’t think I could have kept up in a burning hot sun. The village consisted of 5 houses, tucked away behind a ridge overlooking a small cirque of steep irrigated land planted with corn. We sat in the garden and ate cheese and chapatti and drank black thee. This is a summer village where they grow their crops and then descend to the main village for the winter. The inside of the house is Spartan, a woodstove, some pots and pans, some beds without mattress and a chest for their clothing and of cause a TV set. After lunch we met the other villagers which are all delighted to see themselves on the digital camera. Interaction is limited as the guide is the only one with a few words of English. Then we walk along the main water race to the next village were we meet another family on their balcony. After more chapatti and yoghurt and photos of everyone we return to the valley were we stay in the only guest house. Talking about water races. It is incredible the way they run the water for kilometres along the mountain sides in channels made of what ever material is available. In places they have carved out a passage in sheer cliff faces and in others they have build up the hill sides to create a level ground for the water to run. The water race is the life line for the whole community, no water, no crop. It would be interesting to find out how the building and maintenance is administrated.
In the evening we get a glimpse of what it is to live in a small community like this. There is about 250 people in the village. Every one knows every one and you cant do one step without somebody knowing about it. Just before dark the women come to the village centre to talk and the kids play in a heap of sand. Then they stoke up the fire and make dinner. We get our dinner served on the balcony and because we are outside the Muslim influence we try some of the local wine. Next day we hear that one of the police officers that is stationed in the village got into the wine as well and, drunk, tried to have his way with one of the local women. Quiet a scandal and a reminder of how great it is to have a society without alcohol.
26 june. We have been in Chitral for 3 weeks now and we are getting ready to move on. We had dinner with Farhad on Thursday night and witnessed an awesome thunderstorm with a severe downpour. Next day we got the sad news that 15 people died in the village due to a massive mud slide that engulfed their houses. All the hill sides are denuded of trees so that there is nothing to stop the soil from washing down. The road out of town is blocked by a landslide as well so we have to postpone our departure. I was not feeling that great anyway so a 5 hour trip in a jeep was not on top of the list of things to do. Today the weather is great so Grey has gone up with Mukrim and Farhad to fly. Dimitry is getting ready to travel back to Islamabad and Im still trying to get my guts under control. This may be the last blog for a week or two. We plan to go to Jasim valley and Im not sure if we have access to internet there. From Jasim valley we may visit the Polo festival on Chandur pass on the 7-8 of july and then move on to Karimabad. To be continued……..

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June 15. We wake up to a grey sky. Dimitry is in a bad way with the squirts so we all have another day to recover. With a copy of Dimitries computer programmes we figure out a way to download Greys track logs and the day is spent eating, washing, sleeping and a few hours on the internet. It’s a tough life! Have I told you yet how delicious the Mangos are around here? We eat kilos of the fruits and are now officially addicted to Mango shakes.

June 16 Mukrim has been away for 4 days now without news and we are starting to ask ourselves what can be the matter. Im of the opinion that there is nothing we can do and going to the police would only complicate matters for us. These mountains are so vast and rugged, a search is totally futile. We have demanded the opinion of the local pilots one of which has connections with the police. We have decided to formally sound the alarm on Sunday when he will have been away for a week. It is another non flyable day so Grey and Dimitry go to the hot pools a few hours drive from chitral. I need some time on my own away from every body so I stay at home.

June 17. The lost son has been found alive. Mukrim flew deep into the northern territories and will need a few days to get back. The police passed on a message by radio to the local pilot here to say that he was safe. Today is the finals of the polo tournament. It is a big event with thousands of spectators. It is free style polo so everything is permitted. It is a rough bunch of tartars but their riding skills are superb. They swing their polo sticks while riding at full speed and manage to either hit the ball or stop the opponent of doing so by hooking their stick behind the opponents one. The horses do get a beating, with the ball hitting their legs and the stray polo sticks flying in all directions. The crowd goes ballistic and the live music does its bit to excite them even more. The remarkable thing is that there is thousands of people but there is not a word of discontent.
Afterwards everybody walks home and there is no yelling or shouting or anti social behaviour. Im sure dying for a beer sometimes but a society without alcohol makes for very different behaviour. Now that Im remarking on the differences, here is another one.
There is no women on the street!!! And if there are they are covert up from top to tow. Now that I think about it I may already have remarked on this “no women” thing but it is so remarkable for us I have to say it again. It may have its positive sites as well. There seems to be no competition for women and so there is no jealousy or macho behaviour by the men. When we spent the night at the summer palace last week we only got a glimpse of the girls there and when I asked if I could take a photo of the family it was a definite NO.
Later the husband explained that if I took a photo of his wife the Imam in the village would be very upset. I guess it has to do with being vain or something. Now that we have been up there a few times and have drunk their thee and showed our good behaviour, the veil is slowly coming of and we are now allowed to see the women folks faces. It sure is different.

June 21. Time fly’s when you are having fun. I don’t remember what I did on the 18th. I think it was not flyable and I went for a walk around town. Met some trades people, sewing machine repair shop, woodworker, timber mill, and bakery. Had a cup of thee with the woodworker and tried to find out where the timber comes from. The forests are miles away and only accessible by foot. I guess the trees have been cut from the lower slopes long ago and now they have to walk for days to get their fire wood and timber. With the growing population in all the valleys it will not be long and they will have cut the last trees. Wood is still cheaper then gas so there is no incentive to move away from it. Last week we drove back to our hotel on sunset and got a good look at the smog that hangs over the valley at night. Now that Im sitting on my eco horse anyway I will tell you about the way they dispose of their rubbish here. It is nothing new really, it goes on everywhere in developing countries, but it keeps shocking me. The main shopping street has an open drain on both sides. All the rubbish gets dumped in those drains and once a day they open the flood gates at the top of the street and flush everything to the bottom of the street where it flows onto the river. With my European mind I just cant see how anyone can do that without any feeling of guild. In the back streets this system doesn’t work so well so there is piles of a mixture of plastic and paper and mud just sitting right in front of shop doors. I think this river eventually empties into the Indus and I wonder how the delta of the Indus looks like. We, in the rich countries, try to be clean, recycle, save energy, have carbon footprints and have emission control on our cars. It really is a joke when you realise how few we are in those rich countries and how many there is in the developing countries. 164 million in Pakistan alone. What saves the planet for the moment is that those developing countries don’t have much in the way of chemicals to dump in the rivers I think. Although the places to get your oil change done around here are conveniently close to the water……

On the 19th we went flying but the air was stable. With all my warm clothes on as usual I did sweat like a horse and gave up after a couple of hours scratching at low altitude.
Saturday looked great and I was feeling good, ready for a big flight. However, the wind aloft was strong which put us in the rotor of the big mountains behind the launch site. It made for unpleasant flying with Dimitry getting drilled into some canyon after which Grey and I decided to cross the valley and try the windward side. It worked much better but the conditions stayed unpredictable which made for frustrating flying for some and great flying for others. Me being the some and Grey being the other.

I set Sunday apart to take the Prince for a tandem. He is quiet a character by the way. In 1989 he was probably the first Pakistani ever to fly on a Para glider. In that year some Austrian tourist started doing flights from the hills here and Farhad, the prince, was quick to invite him to come and stay at his home. He ended up getting some ground handling lessons of this guy and doing his first short flights. It wasn’t till ten years later that he got his first wing and flung himself of the mountain. By then his mate had been to Islamabad to get some instruction and together they tried to kill themselves. He has spiralled out of the sky 3 times and has managed to survive all 3 without injury, falling on steep slopes or wrapping his glider around a huge rock and falling on his feet. There is about halve a dozen pilots here now which are sharing a few wings that are so old and trashed you look straight trough them. But it is all they have got and they do their top to bottoms with it, without reserve parachutes and no back protection what so ever. Allah must be with them.
It was a great looking day and Grey, Mukrim and Dimitry decided to have another go at the 7600 metre high Tirich Mir. I didn’t have a plan really but once we were in the air the conditions were so good that I decided to follow them. The approach is pretty straight forward. Get high, 5500, glide across a valley onto ridge and follow this ridge to the enormous mass of snow and ice. I was probably half an hour behind Grey and Dimitry, Mukrim having disappeared into some canyon, and the cloud base was at 6000metre. A cloud street over the ridge made for easy flying and I ventured into the clouds a bid. MISTAKE!!! The cloud was much bigger than anticipated and we got sucked up into it. For some reason I was not able to keep a straight course so that we spiralled upwards. Here I must clarify that I have been in cloud a few times and know how to deal with the total whiteout condition. It got bitterly cold and we got covered in hoarfrost. In eight minutes we climbed 1400 metres and popped out of the clouds at 7455 metres. The view of the mountain was obscured by masses of cloud so the sight seeing was over and we needed to get down into warmer air to defrost anyway. The blood circulation in my hands came back soon enough and with it the pain. Farhad, in the front seat, was in a worse way and had the shivers for quite a while. One of his fingers refused to come back to life and he said he was happy to make a b-line for the valley. That was still a long glide away though and with some exercise and time his digit started working again. There was still plenty of hours in the day and I was keen to try and make a tri angle out of the flight so we kept going. The scenery is out of this world on the east side of the chitral valley. The barren lower slopes turn thinly forested with altitude and then into snow covered peaks. Deep side valleys cut in, some with beautiful meadows grazed by herds of goats, with glaciers at higher altitude. We flew south till were the valley does a big S turn and the ridge drops away. We soared along the summit of the highest mountain of the valley and then did the long glide back to the launch site were we arrived with fifty metres to spare. Awesome!!!!!!!!!!

June 22. Grey landed in Booni yesterday so he is travelling back this morning and we have no news from Mukrim. The flying conditions look like a repeat of yesterday so Dimitry and myself try to be on the launch site an hour earlier. The plan is to get to Tirich Mir before the clouds develop so we can get a closer look at this beast of a mountain. I hope to fly a tri angle with Booni Zoom as a third turn point. The thermals are strong and some what erratic at first which results in a surprise frontal collapse that leaves me a bid shaken. Then we get in the groove and make good time. We stay together till we get to the mountain and then we loose each other. The landscape is so immense, if you take your eye from the other for a few turns it is very hard to connect again. I struggle with my camera to get a few photos and that is enough to loose sight of Dimitry. I push on alone to Booni Zoom and have a very enjoyable scenic flight back to Chitral where I arrive after 6 hours in the air. We are clocking up the hours, Grey has 39 hours of airtime in 10 flights, more then he would do in a year of free flying back home. I think it is going to be a rest day for me tomorrow, unless Grey wants to take me for a tandem. It’s a tough life this Para bumming.

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June 12. Bleu sky again and the taxi driver is late picking us up. Once on the launch site it is clear that we have wasted a few hours of flying time. The thermals are ripping through and the sky fills rapidly with puffies. It is Saturday so we have spectators. Dimitry gets dragged on launch and ends up in Mukrims glider doing some damage to his competition lines. We all take of and get hovered up to 5000 metres in now time .I don’t get the time to put my feet in the stirrup till I get to cloud base. Im in a hurry so I lead the way crossing the Chitral valley. The first part of the flight is going to be a repeat of the flight of two days ago so I fly straight to the thermal points I remember. The clouds are forming on the mountain range one valley back from our previous flight so I cross over into the next valley and fly from thermal to thermal, not bothering to climb out to cloud base. The thermals are very strong and entering them is like riding a wild bull. Several times my glider collapses and opens with a bang so loud, I have to look up to see if it hasn’t exploded. I get eight meters a second sustained climbs and Grey goes two better with 10 meters a second, averaged out over 10 seconds. On the glides I get time to adjust my gloves and to take in the scenery but over all it is rather intents flying. The views are spectacular. From our vantage point it is hard to get a grip on the scale of things. The valleys are at 1500 to 2000 metres altitude and when we get below 4000metres we feel that we are getting low. The valley is about 40km long and ends in a glaciated saddle at an altitude of about 5500 metres, We fly over the saddle into another valley that runs east for about 20km. At this stage Im flying with Dimitry, Grey is about 10km behind us and Mukrim has gone down to land in Chitral to repair his broken line. I cross the saddle with 150metres to spare and have to choose between the left and the right side of the valley. I choose left and get totally drilled. I drop like a brick and see a premature end to my flight looming together with a monster walk out through this desolate rock strewn desert. I manage to cross over to the south side and soar some little ridges on the 40km plus wind that is blowing down the valley. I jump from ridge to ridge flying back wards in dynamic air mixed with the occasional thermal. Then the valley floor drops away sharply where it connects with the next valley system. I stay very close to the true right hand side of the valley and find the life saving thermal that takes me all the way to 6200 metres and safety. Dimitry came over the saddle and chose the right side and flew straight into a thermal that kept him well above 4500 metre. He joined me in my life saving thermal and together we spiralled upwards. Then he glides of towards Mastuj with bad stomach cramps and ends his flight there. Now I look down on the Shandur pass and into the Ghizer valley that runs all the way to Gilgit. For the first time I get an impression of the scale of the landscape. Im at 6200 meters, some 2000 metres higher than Mt Blanc, but here Im soaring around the summits. The snow covered peaks dominate the view in all directions as far as the eye can see and the valleys, far below, are coloured by a patchwork of bright green irrigated fields surrounded by endless acres of barren rock. It is about 3 in the afternoon and I should have another 4 hours to fly the 200km to Gilgit. I try to raise Grey on the radio but get no reply. I don’t know if he made it over the pass so now it is each one for him self. With a light tail wind Im doing 45 to 50kmh and make good progress. The sky ahead is over developing but there is still enough sunshine on the ground to provide a climb every 10 km or so. Then Grey comes through on the radio. He has had a similar experience as me, coming over the pass, and is some 30km behind me. The kilometres tick away and Im getting in a rhythm of sorts, climbing, gliding, climbing, gliding. Every time I get over 5000 metres I turn on my Oxygen system to get a little squirt of gas with every breath. Its effect is almost instant and most noticeable in the fact that my hands and feet warm up again. At the 120km point the cloud cover increases and the climbs become more difficult. Grey comes back on the radio saying he is going to land. I push on another 10 km and then I fly into a headwind and strong sink. All of a sudden the ridges have rotor and I sink below 3500metres. Ahead the valley becomes narrow and it looks like the potential landing spots are far and few between. I try to get Grey on the radio to tell him that Im turning back to join him but I get no reply. At 130km I turn around and soar the cliffs in the valley breeze to maximize my return distance. I can see the poplar trees slowly swaying in the wind and my GPS indicates a 15kmh tailwind. I line up a nice green field and hover upwind for several minutes to check for gusts and power lines. It’s a real spider web down there but the wind is constant. My hovering has attracted the attention of everyone in the village and I land on the road in frond of the usual crowd. I pack quickly with the help of the English speaking local and Im ready just as a Jeep drives up. I get a ride on the roof and leave the stunned villagers behind. I hope Grey has kept his radio on so I will not drive past him. Every few minutes I try to raise him but get no reply. Then I come around a corner in the valley and my radio jumps to life. I tell Grey Im on a Jeep and instantly he sais that he can see me. I expect to see him on the ground but he is nowhere to be seen. He urges me to stop the car so I do. The car leaves and Im in front of a little shop on a empty road in the middle of nowhere. Grey is not answering my calls anymore and for a moment I start to question my sanity. Did I really talk to him? Why is he not answering? I climb the ladder that is standing against the shop wall and try again. A flustered Grey comes on the radio. He has just landed flying back wards and has taken a tumble. He was still flying when I came around the corner and he saw me on the roof of the Jeep. All is well and after a few minutes I walk into his welcoming crowd. While Grey packs his gear I stop every vehicle that is going back up the valley to get a ride to the nearest place to spent the night. Not that there is a lot of traffic though. The third car is a taxi, actually going in the opposite direction but for the price of a bus ticket from Islamabad to Chitral he will take us 10km up the road. We are tired and don’t fancy getting stuck where we are, so we pay the 500 rupees. The Lake view hotel in Phander is just perfect for us. Situated on a high point above the lake we have a great view over the valley. The public bus passes the next day at 2 o’clock to take us on the 5 hour ride to Mastuj where we spent another night and then take a taxi Jeep back to our hotel in Chitral. Cross country flying here is a test of endurance. We decide that our next flights are going to be tri angles or out and returns to cut out the retrieve drive.

June 15. We wake up to a grey sky. Dimitry is in a bad way with the squirts so we all have another day to recover. With a copy of Dimitries computer programmes we figure out a way to download Greys track logs and the day is spent eating, washing, sleeping and a few hours on the internet. It’s a tough life! Have I told you yet how delicious the Mangos are around here? We eat kilos of the fruits and are now officially addicted to Mango shakes.

June 16 Mukrim has been away for 4 days now without news and we are starting to ask ourselves what can be the matter. Im of the opinion that there is nothing we can do and going to the police would only complicate matters for us. These mountains are so vast and rugged, a search is totally futile. We have demanded the opinion of the local pilots on of which has connections with the police. We have decided to formally sound the alarm on Sunday when he will have been away for a week. It is another non flyable day so Grey and Dimitry go to the hot pools a few hours drive from chitral. I need some time on my own away from every body so I stay at home.

June 10. We wake to a bleu sky and it takes a while before the first puffy clouds develop.
Grey isn’t having any premonitions but I think it is going to be a good day. We all decide that shandur pass would be a good goal for the day with the town of Mastuj a good alternative. We launch at midday and it takes more then an hour to get to cloud base at 4500 meters. That sets the trend for the day. Somehow it takes us 6 hours to fly 80Km. The scenery is spectacular and the cloud base rises to 5500 which is not quiet enough to pop over to the shandur pass. On the way I spot a group of ibex at about 4000meters. I whip out my video camera and try to get some footage and almost kill myself in the process. Flying close to the terrain with one hand while in thermal and trying to point a camera at some goats is not a good idea. Due to the cloud we cant get over the mountain range that separates us from the valley that runs up to the shandur pass. We have lost Mukrim early in he flight and then Dimitry disappears after about 70km. Grey and I are together at 80km were we are a bid confused as to where the town of mastuj is situated. After a bid of calculating we decide that it is right underneath us. We are both pretty tired at this stage and Grey is happy to go and land. That is till I tell him that it is only another 17km to make the hundred. It is six o’clock by then and the shadows in the valley are getting longer. We squeeze out 4 more thermals and make it to the one hundred and one kilometre. We top up one more time and glide back the whole 15km to land on the polo ground where the usual crowd welcomes us. We hug and get our cameras out to film each other and the crowd. I have decided on a routine for those crowd landings. I ask if there is somebody that can speak English and get that person to do the crowd control. I ask for space to spread and pack my glider and get everything in the bag asap. Then it is time for some fouling around and finding out if there is a place to stay. This time the English speaking person also becomes our host. He guides us through the labyrinth of small fields and irrigation channels to his family house followed by a part of the crowd. Grey and I are exhausted and would have loved to eat and hit the sack but our host was much to happy to have some company. Dinner got served and I fell asleep before the thee arrived leaving Grey to do all the small talk. At 10pm I use a bid off my Dutch bluntness to make our host leave so we can crash.
June 11. We have to get up at 5am to catch the first jeep back to Chitral. The Mastuj- Booni road is under reconstruction so the ride is even more hair raising than usual. With 14 people in a land cruiser we are like sardines in a can and there would be no escape if we would end up going over the edge. Accidents don’t seem to happen very often though and one has to have a little bid of fait. We arrive back at our hotel after 5 hours to find Mukrim and Dimitri already there. They both landed a few kilometres short of Mastuj and stayed with some locals for the night. The rest of the day we wash, sleep and eat and recharge all our batteries for tomorrows flight.

31May One aspect of being in a Muslim country is that there is no women visible on the street or anywhere we get invited for that matter. The few that we see cover their face with their scarf as soon as men arrive or if adhering to the stricter Sunni group they wear the full burka. The streets are full of men and for us there is definitely something missing. We are amazed by the kindness of this people. Where ever we are people go out of their way to help us. We get invited for cups of thee and people on the streets greet and shake your hand. We may get charged a higher rate for certain food or services but there is non of the money oriented aggression that prevails in many other countries. I really have to pinch myself sometimes to check if I’m not dreaming. If only life at home could be so pleasant.
Today we have set ourselves the task to try and fly around Trichmir, the big mountain that dominates the valley towards the north. The weather is again perfect and all three of us are able to get to 5500 meter before we cross the valley onto the foot hills of this 7700 meter giant. About an hour into the flight we lose contact with each other. Some high clouds move in from the south-west and the top of the mountain disappears. We are all flying with our bivi gear so that we can camp out if necessary. I fly along the south face of Trichmir and fly across some spectacular glacier landscape on a easterly heading to end up in Booni, another Para Gliding base camp. The sky looks threatening towards the west and I decide against camping out. Again the unbelievable kindness of the people blows me away. I land on a soccer field and one of the young boys there takes charge of the situation. He makes contact with the local pilots and organizes a ride into the village for me. Once at his house he produces a huge dish with mulberries, which are in season at the moment and we talk about al kinds of things till one of the local pilots shows up to take me to a place to spent the night. I get fed and we talk paragliding and politics till after dark. The scene is paradisiacal, the stars are out, the honey suckle is spreading its strong fragrance trough the garden, the frogs are croaking and there is the noise of water running through the irrigation channels. I sit in the dark in this walled garden for quiet some time before going to bed and feel totally at peace.

June 1 .In the morning at seven I get woken up for breakfast. Muzafara runs a school and needs to go but I can stay as I wish. The sky is totally bleu apart from a few early thermal clouds. For a moment I regret not having landed in the mountains to be able to fly back to chitral today but then I wouldn’t have had the encounter with these nice people. Plenty of time for flying. The bus ride back is spectacular. The landscape is barren but for the places were people have diverted the water to irrigate the land. Channels, kilometres long, have been carved out and build on the mountainsides to bring the water to the fields. They have clearly been doing this for centuries as the villages and orchards are full of big trees. Higher up in the valley the fields are still green with growing wheat and barley but on the desend back to Chitral the grains are riper and the fields look like a patchwork of greens and yellows. Outside the alluvial fans that are used for irrigation the land is rocky and under constant attack of the elements. The erosion is visible everywhere and the river is running black with silt.
I come back to the hotel around lunch time to find Grey already there. He has had an adventure of his own, landing in some mountain village and staying with a local family. He caught a jeep ride back to the hotel. Mukrim arrives back later in the afternoon, having flown to Booni. He top landed on the local paragliding launch site and camped out but decided to fly down in the morning and catch the bus back to the hotel as he run out of battery power on his GPS.
June 2. A big cyclone in the Bay of Bengal is playing havoc with the weather and it looks like we are in for a few non flyable days. We need a day anyway to do some domestic chores, do some Emailing and enjoy walking through the town and soak up the local pace of life.
June 3. Grey is having a craving for toast and jam. The local breakfast of fried egg and chapatti is not agreeing with him. He has a point, as the eggs are swimming in cooking fat. We pay a visit to the one luxury hotel in town and sit at a table, eat with knife and fork and sip black thee from an almost un chipped cup. The place has 45 rooms and is almost empty. White toast, scrambled eggs, butter and jam and black thee for 2.5 $US doesn’t break the bank and gives our stomach a break in the morning. As the day doesn’t look flyable we organise ourselves a excursion to a valley about 40 km from chitral where the non Muslim tribe of the Kalash people live. Much of their culture is being preserved in the newly build community centre with museum, medical centre and school. The local building stile hasn’t been replaced by concrete yet and the place looks rather idyllic. I guess the biggest attraction are the women, as they dress in very colourful costumes and don’t hide behind scarves or burkas. Our visit was a bid to short to get a good look around but we had to take the last taxi back otherwise Grey would have ended up sleeping with one of these girls.

Jun 4. The weather will be upset by this cyclone for the coming days. Today was rainy and the temperature has dropped. Mukrim has made friends with the local bank manager who is very interested in our activities. In the evening he comes by to invite us to his place for lunch tomorrow. The day passes with eating, a visit to the internet café and an attempt to rewire the GPS cable so Grey and Mukrim can down load their track logs. Grey, yesterday, got a refund for our airline tickets for the flight from Islamabad to Chitral. Later he got a call that they gave us to much money and if we could please come and return the difference. Seen as that all the people seem so honest around here we popped in this afternoon to sort it out. We got the royal treatment with cups of thee and cake and biscuits and a nice chat with the PIA airlines manager and we returned the 600 rupees. It is clear that the people around here are desperate for tourist to return. The repeated request is that we please spread the message how beautiful and safe it is in this part of Pakistan once we return to our home countries.

June 5. I dropped off my Icebreaker jersey at the tailor yesterday to get new cuffs put on. As I went to check my Email this morning I picked it up next doors. When I asked him how much it cost he said it was up to me. He must have spend at least an hour unpicking and re-sewing the cuffs. When I gave him 150 rupees he only took 50, less then a New Zealand dollar.
The sky cleared in the morning and we decide to get our gear ready so that we can go for a flight after the bankers lunch. Im not feeling to great today as my head cold is really breaking through so I return to bed as Grey and Mukrim get picked up.

June 8. Grey and Mukrim never got to fly. Lunch turned into an afternoon affair as was to be expected. Next day I still didn’t feel that great so I stayed in bed till the afternoon. Grey and Mukrim went up for a flight and ended up in Booni, about 60km to the north, caught up with the local pilots there and got the last bus back to the hotel. June the 7th The weather is very unstable. The sky is bleu in the morning but very quickly the cumulus develop and by lunchtime there is big cumulo nimbus cells which bring thunder and rain. Just as we are ready to get in the taxi, Dimitri , a pilot from the Ukraine, walks into our hotel so now we are four We decide to try and fly a triangle. First we fly south as that is where the thunderstorms seem to develop earlier. The cloud base is low at 4000 meter and we hop from ridge to ridge. By the time we get to the fourth ridge, the one that separates us from the kalash village, the clouds get to threatening and we turn around. We fly back to the launch area and top land in the hope that it may clear later in the afternoon. On the way we loose Dimitri but he lands safely back at the hotel. The remnants of the palace on the launch area are guarded by a young family. We get offered thee and chapatti and we try to understand each other talking with our hands and feet. The weather doesn’t clear and we decide to stay the night. Doors get unlocked and we enter the main room of what once was a substantial walled complex. Inside we find some epoch furniture, a fireplace and mirrors on the wall all covered with a thick layer of dust. We drink more thee, go for a walk up the ridge to stretch our legs and get served dinner at eight. Not a bad spot for a first paragliding bivi.
At night it rains and the wind howls around the buildings but in the morning the sky is clear. Dimitri comes up with the taxi and after a breakfast of thee and chapatti we are ready to launch at half past ten. The conditions are the same as yesterday but we start two hours earlier. We have the same flight plan and I don’t mess around this time. With the base at 4000 I don’t even top out the thermals and lead the way hopping from ridge to ridge. We lose Dimitri again but the three of us stay fairly close together and help each other along. The landscape is wild and at some stage in the flight as we squeeze over a little saddle in the ridge, the ground falls away and we look down sheer cliffs several hundred meters high. The clouds thicken again and by the time we fly over the kalash valley the sun is gone and at times we fly through light snow. I push my luck trying to get over one more ridge but arrive to low and get hit by the rotor. By the time I get back to the wind ward side of the valley Iv lost a lot of height and have to do some serious scratching to gain a few hundred meters. In the mean time Grey has been waiting near cloud base and decides to fly back to the main chitral valley. Mukrim didn’t get the last climb and is hugging the walls to get out to the main valley as well. This is the place we visited by car only a few days ago so we know the lay of the land. Once in the main valley the sun is back but there is a 15km wind that is scattering the thermals. Grey and I land at the same spot and as usual a crowd forms in no time. At first there is no English speakers but then a big pick-up truck pulls up with two engineers from the local marble mine. They are on their way to Chitral, so our return ride is secured. The ten steps to the truck was even less then the walk to the launch site this morning. Allah must be with us on this trip! The weather forecast is good for tomorrow, maybe it is going to be the big one…… PS uploading photos is taking to long

31May One aspect of being in a Muslim country is that there is no women visible on the street or anywhere we get invited for that matter. The few that we see cover their face with their scarf as soon as men arrive or if adhering to the stricter Sunni group they wear the full burka. The streets are full of men and for us there is definitely something missing. We are amazed by the kindness of this people. Where ever we are people go out of their way to help us. We get invited for cups of thee and people on the streets greet and shake your hand. We may get charged a higher rate for certain food or services but there is non of the money oriented aggression that prevails in many other countries. I really have to pinch myself sometimes to check if I’m not dreaming. If only life at home could be so pleasant.
Today we have set ourselves the task to try and fly around Trichmir, the big mountain that dominates the valley towards the north. The weather is again perfect and all three of us are able to get to 5500 meter before we cross the valley onto the foot hills of this 7700 meter giant. About an hour into the flight we lose contact with each other. Some high clouds move in from the south-west and the top of the mountain disappears. We are all flying with our bivi gear so that we can camp out if necessary. I fly along the south face of Trichmir and fly across some spectacular glacier landscape on a easterly heading to end up in Booni, another Para Gliding base camp. The sky looks threatening towards the west and I decide against camping out. Again the unbelievable kindness of the people blows me away. I land on a soccer field and one of the young boys there takes charge of the situation. He makes contact with the local pilots and organizes a ride into the village for me. Once at his house he produces a huge dish with mulberries, which are in season at the moment and we talk about al kinds of things till one of the local pilots shows up to take me to a place to spent the night. I get fed and we talk paragliding and politics till after dark. The scene is paradisiacal, the stars are out, the honey suckle is spreading its strong fragrance trough the garden, the frogs are croaking and there is the noise of water running through the irrigation channels. I sit in the dark in this walled garden for quiet some time before going to bed and feel totally at peace.

June 1 .In the morning at seven I get woken up for breakfast. Muzafara runs a school and needs to go but I can stay as I wish. The sky is totally bleu apart from a few early thermal clouds. For a moment I regret not having landed in the mountains to be able to fly back to chitral today but then I wouldn’t have had the encounter with these nice people. Plenty of time for flying. The bus ride back is spectacular. The landscape is barren but for the places were people have diverted the water to irrigate the land. Channels, kilometres long, have been carved out and build on the mountainsides to bring the water to the fields. They have clearly been doing this for centuries as the villages and orchards are full of big trees. Higher up in the valley the fields are still green with growing wheat and barley but on the decent back to Chitral the grains are riper and the fields look like a patchwork of greens and yellows. Outside the alluvial fans that are used for irrigation the land is rocky and under constant attack of the elements. The erosion is visible everywhere and the river is running black with silt.
I come back to the hotel around lunch time to find Grey already there. He has had an adventure of his own, landing in some mountain village and staying with a local family. He caught a jeep ride back to the hotel. Mukrim arrives back later in the afternoon, having flown to Booni. He top landed on the local paragliding launch site and camped out but decided to fly down in the morning and catch the bus back to the hotel as he run out of battery power on his GPS.
June 2. A big cyclone in the Bay of Bengal is playing havoc with the weather and it looks like we are in for a few non flyable days. We need a day anyway to do some domestic chores, do some Emailing and enjoy walking through the town and soak up the local pace of life.
June 3. Grey is having a craving for toast and jam. The local breakfast of fried egg and chapatti is not agreeing with him. He has a point, as the eggs are swimming in cooking fat. We pay a visit to the one luxury hotel in town and sit at a table, eat with knife and fork and sip black thee from an almost un chipped cup. The place has 45 rooms and is almost empty. White toast, scrambled eggs, butter and jam and black thee for 2.5 $US doesn’t break the bank and gives our stomach a break in the morning. As the day doesn’t look flyable we organise ourselves a excursion to a valley about 40 km from chitral where the non Muslim tribe of the Kalash people live. Much of their culture is being preserved in the newly build community centre with museum, medical centre and school. The local building stile hasn’t been replaced by concrete yet and the place looks rather idyllic. I guess the biggest attraction are the women, as they dress in very colourful costumes and don’t hide behind scarves or burkas. Our visit was a bid to short to get a good look around but we had to take the last taxi back otherwise Grey would have ended up sleeping with one of these girls.