Paragliding in Manali, India (Aug 2008)

Finally, a clear morning.

I’ve been stalking the adventure sports outfits in Manali for two days, waiting for a morning without monsoon rains so that I can jump off a mountain with a sheet tied around my neck. I’ve never been paragliding before, and I’m not sure it would have ever occurred to me as a thing to do until I read in my guidebook that Manali was a major center for paragliding. My guidebook wasn’t entirely sure that it still would be, as the operation was shut down for a few years after a few tourists jumped off mountains with sheets tied around their necks and failed to fly, instead dropping into the valley below in a distinctly non-superhero fashion. My luck is in, though, or out depending on your perspective, and the industry for dumbass tourists to leap to their probable deaths is back up and running. Of course, it’s pouring buckets of rain all day every day, and on the only clear morning we’ve had so far the jump shops were all closed for some reason. I’m leaving today, already booked my bus ticket on to McLeod Ganj for this evening, and I was afraid I’d wake up to rain again, no reason to expect otherwise. But fortune has smiled—or frowned, again depends on your perspective—and I am hovering outside the jump shop up the street from my hostel in Old Manali for an hour before someone finally shows up.

While I’m waiting, hunched on a slight stoop and trying to keep my feet out of the way of the motorcycle traffic occasionally roaring up this narrow alley, I am joined by others, waiting for who knows what, this is a country where people wait, especially tourists who can’t let go of that idea that things will actually happen when they are supposed to. We don’t talk, at least not to each other although the Israeli kids who came up here to party for the full moon are exuberant as they tease each other about being afraid of the snake guy. Said snake guy has pulled up a section of dirty stoop right next to me and spread out his baskets and bags of reptiles, and take a break from caressing his cobra to offer it to the Israelis, look ma I played with deadly snakes in India. He’s offered it to me as well, I didn’t jump away, I’m not scared of snakes and I know this one doesn’t have venom anymore but I have no interest in holding a cobra while someone takes the obligatory picture. The snake guy is impressed by my nonchalance, and when the larger snake slithers off his arm for a moment to explore the gal sitting next to him he is even more impressed when I absently stroke it’s satiny scales and then hand it back. He asks for a cigarette and I give it to him, then turn away slightly, I’m really not in the mood to gesture through a conversation right now I just want the dude running the jump shop to show the fuck up.

Only half an hour later he shows up, that ain’t too bad for India. I follow him in eagerly as he raises the metal curtain over the windows, “I want to jump today.” He looks around at the clearing skies and offers me a few price options, the cheapest jump isn’t going to end up so cheap for me since I’m going alone and I’d need to take a cab to the jump site, if it’s a few people going the company springs for it but not for just one. We talk about the high jump, it’s a little more expensive but he says he’ll include transportation for that one so it works out and I am going to jump from high over the valley, flight time should be around 20 minutes.

He has to call the pilot, and I have to check out of my hotel since I won’t be back before checkout, at least not reliably as we’ve learned nothing is reliable here. I throw my pack together and leave it in the hostel office pending my return, I’ll need to change clothes when I get back before my night bus ride. Back to the office and my pilot is waiting, he’s a little shorter than me and very fit, we don’t talk much as he leads me away from the office to our ride in a nearby parking lot, and by parking lot I mean abandoned corner of concrete somehow wedged into the alley.

It’s a motorcycle, the ubiquitous Enfield Bullet, and I am grinning on the inside while maintaining a solemn demeanor, I wish Gina and Maarten hadn’t left this morning so I could share the joke with them. These old British bikes are the transit of choice for machismo’d out locals and tourists alike, and the day before we’d seen a flyer advertising a Bullet for sale, touting amongst it’s many virtues the bike’s capacity as a “Babe Magnet.” This in turn led to a spirited discussion of how the magnet might function, if the babes were only magnetized when they were on the bike and thus the owner would be required to remain on the bike at all times, rendering some difficulties in reaping the benefits of said magnetic effects. Was the bike calibrated to a specific kind of babe, and if not would such calibration be possible or would the owner be saddled with magnetic babes of all stripes despite his personal babe inclinations?

I climb astride the Babe Magnet, and I must admit I do feel a little magnetized. We’re now part of that roaring motorcycle traffic and tourists leap out of the way to preserve their toes for another day, heading down the steep slope from Old Manali to the new town. Naturally there are no helmets, these roads are shit and my driver along with all the others drives like a madman, I’d hate to crack my skull open on the road, I’d like to save my skull-cracking for the mountain.

Through the old town and then turn up the road to the pass, I have no idea where we’re going but it’s a beautiful day and the wind is in my hair and I’m gawking around at the glorious beauty of this Himalayan valley with the sun on my face and a huge grin stretching my cheeks, what my dad would call a bug-catcher grin. We roar along passing the occasional TATA truck, and WOW what was that I give a brief shout of delight, off to our right in a roadside ditch a young boy is rinsing off a weary-looking elephant with a hose, it’s my first elephant sighting in India I wish I had my camera out but we are already going past, I am craning my neck backwards but its gone already, my pilot is aware that I am reacting to something and he smiles a little when he realizes what, silly tourist but I don’t care I finally saw an elephant. This ride is worth it already, I’d much rather be going up the mountain to my probable death riding pillion on a Babe Magnet and nearly falling off when I see an elephant than crammed into the back of a cab with three other people.

We pull over at turnout, we are waiting for something but I don’t know what. My pilot points to a knob of rock far above us, that is where we will jump from. We hover in the sunlight, I’m smoking nervously and then another car pulls up and disgorges four other guys, I guess this is what we’ve been waiting for, the parachute. There is some discussion amongst them and then he gestures me back to the bike, they will follow us or meet us there or I’m not sure exactly what the plan is but apparently there is a plan. Back we go up the twisty road, climbing back up towards the Rohtang Pass. I came over that pass three days ago in blinding rain, the name of the pass literally translates to “Piles of Dead Bodies,” which was naturally immensely comforting, especially when we stopped because a bulldozer had to squeeze alongside us on the narrow road to make repairs before we went over it. Today is clear so far, but the clouds are moving back in and it will probably rain before the day is out and I would like to not be on this road on a motorcycle when that happens, I tested my luck quite enough when I survived it the first time.

This, of course, from a woman who is heading up for the specific purpose of jumping off the mountain.

Up, and onwards, up the switchbacks and then we pull over at a roadside chai stand, we are waiting again, we beat the guys with the parachutes. My pilot buys me a chai, we make a little small talk but I’m not really in the mood and he’s not either. There are a few other people up here for the same reason and I have a chance to watch them jump, they fly over my head and into the valley with whoops of delight. Soon that will be me, and I am comforted by seeing them not-die, not-plummet-like-a-rock-to-their-inevitable-and-painful-death.

The other group has cleared the jump site now, and our chute has shown up, it’s my turn. We cross the road and climb up a steep hill for a few minutes, the track is muddy and slick. I’m carrying my day bag, containing everything I wasn’t comfortable leaving in the hostel office, like my passport, money, guidebook, and it looks like I threw a spare sweater in there too. Said day bag wasn’t designed for this purpose, it’s actually a handbag I picked up at a street fair in Brooklyn earlier this summer, and it slides off my shoulder, unsettling my precarious balance. I stumble and slide sideways in the mud, this is awesome. My only task was to walk ten meters up the hill, most people who come out here do multi-day treks and I am falling down already. My pilot comes back and picks me up, takes my bag in addition to the giant parachute-containing backpack he is also carrying. I am glad I am not with a group, there is noone to witness this particular iteration of clumsy incompetence except the pilot and his friend and I am sure they expected it anyway.

They spread out the chute on the mountainside, it’s blue. My guy takes my bag and shoves it into the back of the harness, suits me up with a helmet. He explains that after he gets in the harness I will strap on in front of him, when he says “go” we will run in tandem down the mountain for a minute or two and then jump as the parachute lifts into the thermals. He takes my camera and attaches the lanyard to the harness, and we buckle in.

I’m nervous, and scared, and excited—I don’t have a fear of heights but I do have a fear of falling, with good reason as I manage to fall down on a regular basis, and now I am going to fall on purpose. He gives me the signal and here we go, run run run and slip on the mud and I fall down sure enough, but its too soon to fall down he is urging me back up we still need to run so up and run run run and

Im flying over the chai stand and the highway and woosh to my left a huge bird wingspan must be three feet at least and we are sharing the same air the same thermal he cruising along just as we are and its so quiet up here no sounds just the softest of ssssh sounds from the wind and Im looking down between my boots at the valley below us carved by the silver ribbon of the river and tilt we are angling over to the cliff face and whoosh back over the valley on the other side and the wind is still making that ssssh sound and I am making little sounds of ecstasy Im flying now flying look up at the blue canopy darker than the blue of the sky beyond the bird is gone flew off somewhere else from where we are flying I am flying dropping gently through the air swaying slightly from side to side as we ride the winds down around the shoulders of the hills I am reaching out to try and touch the clouds the way a baby clumsily grasps for a bright toy I want to feel the clouds we are flying and down gently down slowly down and whoosh and rocking side to side as my pilot zeros in on our landing zone I want to stay up here forever and down the rocky expanse hes chosen for us getting ever closer hes explained that he will just set up gently down butts on the ground and we will slide to a stop I don’t want this to stop ever ground getting closer and close and bumping down on the ground sliding gently to a stop and I am still making those little noises but they are sad now because its over.