Paragliding over Mt Sarangkot

Today Rob gave me my belated valentine present ' A paragliding session!!!!
We were collected by minibus early in the morning. There was a feeling of great excitement as everybody was celebrating the colour festival of Holi. The paragliding pilots all had their faces painted with brightly coloured powder paint. Many of them rode on the roof of the mini-bus throwing coloured powder paint and water filled balloons at the passers by (many of them retaliated in a similar way)!! We were taken to the very top of mt Sarangkot, a beautiful spot which overlooks the whole of Pokhara. I was given my pilot Armand (a wiry little french man) He seemed very pleasant and explained the rules to me; 'when we take off, you must keep on running even when we leave the top of the mountain' (EEK)!! He told me how to lean to the left and the right when we were in the air and showed me a picture of the birds we might see while we were in the air; Vultures and Eagles!!
I was strapped into my harness, the parachute was unfurled and Armand had his harness on and, before I had time to be too worried, we were running towards the edge of the mountain!! The parachute dragged us back but we still ran then all of a sudden, we were flying way above the top of the mountain, looking down on the paddy fields below us!! Ahmand told me the weather conditions were perfect (the previous day there had been strong winds and many people had vomited!!) We soared way above the mountain and spiralled up into the thermals with an enormous vulture! Luckily Armand did not have another flight so we were able to stay in the air for longer than usual. All too soon, we were heading towards the lake side where we were to land. I did feel slightly dizzy as we spiralled down towards the lake, I did not fancy the idea of a wet landing!! The landing was good. However, I forgot to keep running and flopped down onto my knees. We quickly packed away the parachute and walked a few yards back to the office. A fantastic day!! What a great Valentine present!!!