This page contains An Indian Odyssey Part II: North,a description of several months flying cross country from Billing on the edge of the Himalaya. This article was published in Paraglider Magazine in July 2004, Volume Three No. 2.
AN INDIAN ODYSSEY PART II
SITES AND SIGHTS OF NORTHERN INDIA
After working for two months in Sri Lanka, my wife Ursula and I bought tickets to Bangalore India. January and February were full of discovery and adventure, flying sites and exploring Southern India. The last two months in Asia passed quickly in the foothills of the Himalaya, paragliding from the world renowned launch at Billing. We traveled north across India, on trains for three days. The small village of Bir was the destination for the second half of our trip. Bir sits at the edge of the Dhaura Dhar Range below and just south of the Great Himalaya. The soaring site at Billing is perched on the first ridge of this range which rises from rolling hills, the flat expanse of Northern India's Punjab, and eventually the Great Indian Desert in Rajasthan.
We traveled during "Holi", a Hindu festival where paint and colored powders are thrown on people in celebration of the start of spring. Bags of red and blue paint thrown through open train windows are especially exciting. The slow narrow gauge railway carried us from Pathankot up the Kangra valley, which runs along the range of snowy peaks. As darkness fell, we arrived in Baijnath just short of Bir. In the morning we shopped for warmer gloves and sweat pants in the market before hopping on a bus to Bir. We arrived just in time to meet up with the local pilots as they headed up the hill. I tossed my wing on top of a jeep taxi and six of us drove out of town, winding up switchbacks past thousands of spring bloom red rhododendron trees.
Facets of the diverse religions of northern India are everywhere. In Baijnath we saw a fifteen hundred year old temple covered in intricately carved stonework. Even on the road to launch we found religion. Tucked between switchbacks, the Thermal Devda Temple has an altar with tridents dedicated to the Hindu God Shiva. Visit with respect. Remove shoes and leather before entering. Make an offering and ask for protection from collapses, help finding thermals, or whatever you need, then ring the bell as you leave. It's a good idea to visit and ask the local deity permission to play with such strong magic as flying. 
The Billing launch sits high on a ridge among a few small stone structures. Almost a thousand meters above the landing zone in Bir, the knob is a superb South to west facing launch. Even though the morning prevailing winds are from the East, pilots launch from the lee West side of the ridge. As with many morning mountain sites, the light nature of the early wind makes this practice safe. One of the stone buildings holds a small shop and teahouse run by a friendly older man affectionately known as Chachu, which means uncle in Hindi. A few minutes walk above Chachu's teashop is another launch facing East as well as West. Crouched next to the small earthen cook stove, Chachu cooks an excellent dal or lentils, a runny curry with a chickpea flour base, and of course lots of sweet dhud chai, which means milk tea in Hindi. 
To sit, drink chai and watch Gaddi shepherds wander by leading herds of sheep and goats is like a fantasy. Top landing is easy so launch remains social as pilots come and go through the day. Occasional taxis bring pilots up for the smooth evening glass off, arriving just as others get back from out and return cross-country flights.
Most pilots are European. Germans and Austrians describe flying and other pilots as "full crazy". Stories of deployed reserves, broken backs and pilots still missing bring moments of somber respect and perspective. We first met Mike, and Austrian pilot and one of our closest friends here, flying Panchgani in southern India. He returned from a massage course in Thailand, the same bag full of juggling balls on his shoulder. We also met Bruce, a Kiwi recovering from a hard tandem top landing on his ankle, in Panchgani. Andy, another long term Bir resident and superb pilot is originally from England. We also flew with Italians, Germans, Swiss, French and South Africans. Also many locals fly. Gurpreet is a paragliding instructor from the Punjab and Debu, who is from Manali, is the top ranked paraglider pilot in India and works as a paragliding guide. The community of pilots was positive, supportive, and always fun to hang out with.
First flight from Billing, I chased my new German friend Johannes almost to Dharamsala. I landed after thirty-six kilometers as he hopped ridges back. The day was dark with cloud base below the peaks we were flying under, and the snouts of glaciers sticking out from billowing cumulus. Later I realized the Dharamsala out and return flight is a standard cross-country day. It makes sense to wait for less developed higher cloud base days to go cross-country, but you don't have to since the ridges you transition between are popping with thermals. I often found myself close to the terrain, a granite strewn ridge on half my turn, on the other half five hundred meters of air. The red rhododendrons appeared on fire from dizzying circles that climb soaring ridges.
That first flight I had bird troubles. Huge white and grey eagles with white heads harassed me. One dive at my leading edge left a three-inch tear. I don't know if birds of prey see colors, but a bright red wing can't help. A couple days later Christophe, a Swiss pilot, had a mid-air with a bird. He managed to fly down and land; the bird left hanging by a claw, tangled in a b-line. Late one afternoon near the end of the trip, I was still a dozen ridges up the range when I saw a Mela (another Hindu festival) procession below. I pulled out my camera to photograph the ridge top temple from the air then looked up to see an eagle flying at my head. I screamed in terror. It tucked and flipped sideways through my risers, so close I could have touched it. No photo, but I got my bird story without losing a feather. The birds get particularly nasty during spring mating, and most upset when you're close to remote ridges. Once annoyed they follow gliders through valley crossings and climbs.
The close peaks clear 3,200 meters msl. When flying above that the views open into the heart of the Dhaula Dar Range and eventually to the Himalaya in the distance. Here is huge potential for exploring, and adventure for the initiated. Talking to veteran pilots about flights into the mountains, I listened to stories and contemplated "back here". I wanted the adventure; sure that sinking out would mean weeks trapped behind snowed in passes. My Lonely Planet Indian Himalaya Trekking Guide describes this terrain in the trek to Manali: "This trek covers one of the most remote corners of Himachal Pradesh... Apart from the occasional Gaddi Shepherds encampments there are no settlements until Bara Bhangal- a substantial village cut off by high passes for at least six months of the year." It rates the trek as demanding, with two high passes, requiring eleven days.
I happily flew a safe glider in these mountains. Midday conditions included strong thermal cores with subsequent asymmetrics and full frontals. These help keep pilots awake on long flights. Valley crossings were mellow, but five-hour cross-countries are bound to have some heads-up, hands-on flying. Out and return is the lazy way to log lots of miles here, skipping the long bus rides home. Dharamsala is forty kilometers by glider, eighty kilometers and seven hours by local bus. 
My unattained goal was Pathankot, bordering Kashmir and the Punjab at the northern end of the range, around one hundred kilometers distant. I couldn't remember my motivational mantra "the adventure begins when you land" and only flew past Dharamsala once. Beyond the hilltop residence of the Dalai Lama at Mcleod Ganj are forested rolling hills much lower then the main range. Beautiful clouds form over these but it's very tempting to turn back downwind to top land Billing. The prevailing morning wind is out of the east towards Dharamsala. At one or two in the afternoon the Kangra Valley wind sets up reversing the flow. Usually the return flight is the faster leg with stronger mid-afternoon conditions and quicker climbs. Exploration is almost unlimited between flying along the range, top landing snow covered summits, and heading into the mountains toward Manali. Really big flights still await the adventurous explorer beyond Manali to the Chenab River drainage, Zanskar and Ladakh. With a dedicated retrieve, the hills and low ridges south away from the mountains would be a great direction when the mountains overdevelop. The vast potential explains why almost all the pilots I met here have visited before. 
The power of the India experience conspires to keep visitors captivated as well. My first time in Kathmandu I was immediately shocked, intrigued and infatuated. Asia casts a spell with timeless traditional farming, crowded bazaars and ancient temples still used daily. There is a sense of great depth and agelessness in the culture and peoples lives. 
In the Bir Tibetan Colony we immersed ourselves in the rich culture of Tantric Buddhism. Our first weeks we observed men and women gather in the local schoolyard to recite and count prayers. We awoke to cymbals and monks' chants every morning. Monasteries, Rinpoches' private palaces, and centers of Buddhist study surround town. Interior courtyards are covered in intricate and beautiful artwork. The incredibly detailed thanka paintings symbolize the nature of experience and reality, are used as visualizations in meditation, and the act of painting itself is a practice of mindful meditation. Monks and laypeople with prayer beads or spinning prayer wheels walk the streets. We sat at breakfast with monks, dinner with the present reincarnation of long lineages of Rinpoches. Patient hours passed filled with explanations to our questions. 
We witnessed the Hindu spring festival or Mela in several different towns. The traveling caravan visits every village and temple in the region with fair rides, games, food and trinket stands. The noisy and colorful procession, with the local devda or Hindu deity, is a very important rite of spring. The god is taken from its temple and carried on a long palanquin covered in yellow and red scarves. Some devdas winter at lower temples then move up into the mountains when high pastures ridges and passes become accessible.
Spring paragliding season begins in March; the best weeks are at the end of April and beginning of May. The season ends by June when conditions get too strong. Post monsoon flying begins the end of August or beginning of September. Fall by contrast gets progressively weaker and colder. Winter sets in by the end of November.
Flying wasn't possible several days a week because of typical spring mountain weather, rain in town and snow on the peaks. Still there was no lack of things to do and places to explore. Ursula learned traditional Tibetan hand carpet weaving. She passed many days with balls of wool in front of a loom weaving a beautiful blue and white endless knot pattern sitting rug. Hearty Tibetan cuisine offered yet another choice on India's broad palate of tastes. Our favorite dishes were steamed momos or small egg roll style packets of potato, vegetables, or meat and thin thuk (pronounced tintuk), a rich meat soup with thick noodles.
A cultural window opened as new friends invited us to a Tibetan wedding where we presented ceremonial white scarves to the newlyweds. I was asked to throw small paper prayer flags from my paraglider for a young Tibetan who had just died. We attended teachings by His Holiness The Dalai Lama in Mcleod Ganj. During his translation and explanation of ancient texts, his humor and simple human kindness demonstrated a doctrine that emphasizes compassion for all sentient beings. His Holiness is a simple man who carries a message that is the manifestation of deep contemplation of human suffering. 
We rode bus roofs to Manali in the Kulu Valley northeast over the Dhaula Dar Range. Manali is the typical cross-country destination into the mountains. The low snowline meant it was too early for flying season in the higher regions. Above Manali, at the ancient Hindu temple Vashiste, large wet snow flakes fell as we bathed in the crowded stone tubs steaming with natural hot springs. Men in Kulu pillbox hats wandered down paths with drop-spindle and balls of thread in hand. Our stay ended before the high passes opened, Ladakh and Leh still inaccessible and remote. Looking down while flying I dreamed of ski treks over snow covered glaciers above green valleys. After three trips totaling eleven months in India, the more I see the more my desire to explore grows.
Billing is India's best-known flying site. Several international competitions have been held here and it gets regular coverage in paragliding magazines. Many pilots consider it the best in the country, and it's as good as any I've flown in my travels. But as with mountain sites everywhere, the weather can be less than perfect. A forty-five minute taxi ride on a good two-wheel drive road climbs above the rolling hills and the town of Bir. Most pilots stay in the nearby Bir Tibetan Colony. Here life takes on a different meaning and feeling. The Tantric Buddhism practiced in the four local monasteries fills the town with a special ambiance. People go about their daily activities counting prayers with strings of beads in hand or twirling a prayer wheel. Buddhism is a large part of the social fabric for Tibetans, prayer flags flapping and mantras floating in the air are constant reminders. 
The roads crowded with buses, rickshaws, people and goats, all swerving and veering with horns blaring, rarely have accidents. India is a place with a billion separate beings each vibrating at a different frequency, all adding up to a beautifully modulated hum, a land of vast differences with a universal undercurrent that goes back thousands of years. Paragliding in India, the adventure just begins when you land.
IF YOU ENJOYED THIS...
GO READ AN INDIAN ODYSSEY PART II: SOUTH OR
VISIT THE INDIA ARTICLES GALLERY FOR FULL SIZE PHOTOS FROM THIS ARTCLE!
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