what a day !

it's funny how this goes. have had so many awesome days flying in the last year, saw many places, met lots of people. but what makes me come back to my computer and stop, at least for a moment, being super lazy in writing this blog, is almost ordinary conversation.
on my way back from the dinner, walking to my room, i meet my hotel's manager. we exchange a hello, a few jokes and i almost keep on walking as usual. but for some reason i just sit on the stairs and we talk for a long time. talk about kings, tigers, rhinos, maoists and random things from "ordinary" life in Nepal.
today started just like any other day, after "the same" breakfast i took a friend's kid for a flight. "the same" is really the same, same breakfast i get every day at the same place, The Family Garden Restaurant in Lakeside. friend's kid is this funny easygoing 6year old named Cameron, who i enjoy taking flying just for his company. a flight was in fairly strong mid-day conditions, thermaling way over the take-off, super light on my wing, a bit nervous about that, but having a great flight.
then the day got more interesting, as this american asshole walks into the office. i've had a few thousand tandem passengers, and most i feel like i understand pretty well. some are straight up awesome, some not so much. but this guy was a gem. afterwards my buddy said he was one in a million. not sure about the statistics of assholes in the world, but he was hands down biggest douche i've met in the last 5 years. maybe longer. ya, probably way longer. but thanks to him i got to see a local public hospital, got to meet a couple of very nice Nepalese, and realized how some of us look sometimes, ignoring the local culture and local people.
thanks to Mr. American Tourist i got to see how they are really perceived. how even for Nepalese, the money earned with such attitude is not worth it. how the locals are willing to give up a couple hundred bucks of income to safe their integrity and good spirit. how they won't let one tourist with a chip on his shoulder to ruin their day. and most importantly i again realized i'm not being looked at as one of "those" tourists.
so sitting on the freezing cold stone staircase, in a company of my hotel's manager, i'm really enjoying his company as we talk story. in the back of my mind is "the tourist", with whom i speak the same language, but there is no way in hell i could ever have a conversation with.
and so we keep on talking.
about him growing up in Chitwan in southern Nepal. his simple house getting almost pushed over by a rhino which came to scratch itself. about the asian black bear ripping the face off of his brother in law.
about how him and his wife got attacked by a rhino. she couldn't climb up the tree even though he keeps trying to push her up. they know if they run they will probably get killed. so together they hide behind the tree, only to feel wind blow by as the charging rhino runs by, unable to stop or turn fast enough.
about a group of villagers carrying a sick neighbor through the jungle to see a doctor. but half way through their journey they encounter a tiger. everybody gets scared so they climb up the trees, leaving the sick person in the stretcher on the path. and so they watch, as they are all terrified for their own lives, how the tiger slowly approaches the sick person on the stretcher and eats him.
we talk about the faith of Nepal, royal family, current politics. where the english isn't good enough we use gesturing and body language until he has to get back to work and i start feeling too tired and cold.
so as i'm typing this, again i'm reminding myself how very glad i am to be in a cold room with candles for light and sporadic internet connection. how good it feels to walk on the street and having a bunch of kids knowing and screaming my name. and how proud i am not to be one of those assholes from out there.

... and right back where i finished ...

... in Nepal that is, another rainy day.
Due to my laziness, i put one entry in the blog, and never came back to write some more. i'll try to keep up the updates, we'll see how successfully ...
About 5 months after the first blog, i'm back in Nepal. Left here in the middle of June, and spent some really fun time in Europe. Now i'm back to Pokhara, flying/working every day, for Sarangkot Paragliding. I arrived here at the end of september, about 2 weeks ago, and except for 3 rainy days - today being one of them - we've been pretty busy. Had some slower days, with cloudy/rainy weather in the am, but still managed to squeeze in a couple of flights, after the weather cleared. Also had one amazing day, really good lift all day long, really nice high and long flights, with the views of Himalayas, a couple of pretty girls and some good conversations in the air.
Picked up a new work toy while in Czech, Gradient BiGolden 2 in custom colors and loving it so far. Besides working every day, we also managed to do a shoot with Gradient wings, with Herve Cerutti and his XC tandem, hopefully there is more to come, pictures will be posted here : http://public.fotki.com/volfik/gradient-gliders-in/
We didn't have any good light for this one, there should be some better shots next time.

it's raining today ...

... so, after i accidentally erased about 140 GBs from my ipod last night, i woke up to another day of rain this morning. no flying, no music, no shit to do. i guess i might as well try this blog thing, shit, even my buddy Cameron is doing it. i guess it's time to join in the 21st century.

a couple of years ago, after an exceptionally shitty winter, while living in Victor, Idaho for the season, i decided i've had enough of cold, want to get more into flying and put riding on hold for a while. i still love skiing powder, there aren't many things that are better than that, but i can't stand all those dry cold days with frozen snowpack and shitty riding conditions.
it also got harder and harder to talk to my parents after what happened to Paul, not being able to ever talk about skiing or an epic day in a backcountry.

i chose to spend summers in Jackson and winters in Hawaii, mostly just to keep flying year round, but also to change the scene, do something different, after 10 years in JHole.

the 2007 was the beginning of my ENDLESS SUMMER

i've been to Hawaiian Islands a couple of times before, but always only passing thru the main one, Oahu. never really liked it, always seemed to me too busy and dirty compare to the other islands. this time i decided to stay there, because Oahu is the only island in the Hawaiian chain, that has good paragliding.
it only took me about 2 weeks to completely fall in love with it though, because of it's diversity. i've met some people on North Shore, set up a base there, bought a van and started exploring the island, looking for work and paragliding every day.

van died on me, had to buy another one. kept getting reports about an epic winter in JH ( which turned out to be an epic record setting 600" season ), couldn't find any work for a while and went completely broke. also flew in shorts and a t-shirt every day, and every full moon night, did a bit of surfing, lots of mountain biking, tried sky diving, kite surfing, did a bunch of sailing, flew in small airplanes around the island ... and couldn't have cared less about the epic season they were having back home in Jackson.

went back to JH in June of 2008, worked hard all summer, did a lot of good flying, had some good times going down the Snake River again, hangin' out with some good friends and when the winter came had a few really good days riding powder on The Mountain. also had some bad experiences with the american law system and to top it off, crashed my beloved Toyota Previa. by the end of the year i decided i've had enough and after 13 years of living in the US, i decided it was time to go.

i remember sitting in an airplane from Jackson to Chicago ( after packing 13 years of my life into 7 bags - my boards, gliders, cameras and a bit of clothes and paying some ridiculous excess baggage fees ), thinking that i might not see this place ever again. taking off and looking at Sleeping Indian, Golf and Tennis, Snow King, Town, the buttes south of town, Rafter J and Melody, Snake River .... and feeling really sad to be leaving the place i still call home. and also excited about what's coming.

never been into planning too much, but the immediate "plan" was to visit the family, spend a bit of time in The Czech and head out to Nepal, to hopefully get into tandem business and start working.

spent a month in Czech, which turned out to be a bit disappointing for me, picked up a brand new glider from Gradient, the best paragliding company in the world, and started packing my bags again.

so, here i am, sitting on the porch of Frontiers Paragliding office in Pokhara, Nepal, just downstairs from where i live, typing away with my two index fingers, wearing shorts, a hoodie and "22" baseball cap from my buddy Tommie, watching the rain coming down hard and about to have a smoke ...