Monday 13 October 2008

Vol Bivouac, Sky Safari’s, Personal bests, peeing in the air.




It's been another fantastic flying week in Himalayas: 7 days on the trot.
We've discovered new bivy sites which wouldn’t look out of place in the next Lord of the Rings. Had a wonderful 5 star safari, explored yet more of the range, stopped for pees on isolated mountaintops, adapted condoms for peeing, flown to Dahramsala and back, landed in Mandi - a significant enough city to get ourselves on regional television and learnt more about pressure flows whilst using condoms designed for inflight bladder relief, and all us (guides included) have had some of the most memorable flying of our lives.

To crown it all, after doing a tour with us Miha Ratzinger came 3rd in the Pre PWC winning enough money to cover over half of the costs of the trip.


The central building is the Dalai Lama's palace in Mcleod Gange. It is considered disrespectful to fly above any temple whilst wearing shoes. This is extremely difficult to do as there are so many temples along the Dhauladhar. According to the local flying permit you are technically in breach of contract if you fly above the palace at all.



The problem about landing for a pee is it's often difficult to get privacy.



Miha and Debu needing one


After regular flights of over 4 hours Jim was forced to try his specially adapted peeing condoms. A sagly word of advice is "remember if you tape it on you've got to remove the tape at the end of the flight and if you don't tape you may as well not have it on, at all". As he learnt to his embarassment when he let flow with particular gusto prior shrtly before landing.

A vulture getting very close to Miha.


Vultures in a more relaxed mood at the Shire


Arriving in Mandi. The landing zone ie the cricket pitch middle left in picture

Miha and Chewie landing in cricket ground and being interviewed by local media.



Chewie over the back in Barot valley

Miha flying high beyond Barot

Miha at Hobbiton's landing


Supper with the shepherds. We had some ingredients for the dish plus a crucial bag of sugar. The shepherds were concerned about not being able to have sweet milk chai for a week before they could next buy supplies.

2 comments:

Galvo said...

Guys a great blog but after reading this post and being married to a nurse she recommended something to help with the peeing issue (and me being a pilot listened to what she had to say for a change)What you need is called a URIDOME and a spigot for it so instead of attaching a bag for your pee you just attach a tube long enough to hang below the harness, anyway here is a link to what they are widely used in the medical industry for incontinence.

http://www.ilcaustralia.org/home/search4.asp?State=SA&MC=13&MinC=16&Item=602&page=1

I love the look of your guided trps and will work on getting my hours up and skill level this year to possibbly joining you on an adventure.
Galvo
www.thegalvinsadventure.blogspot.com

Ps I found your website from a post on topica by Greg Walsh

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the advice Galvo. I did in fact already have a tube, but the first time I used it I didn't tape on the condom (as I had been advised to do), with predictable results... Once I got the system working, though, it was great.