Ballooning in Nepal

Memories of ballooning experiences are as varied as people. That is the nature of the sport, "Every flight is an adventure." Combine the vagaries and unpredictability of balloon flight with the inherent surprises encountered in a far away and ancient kingdom, and one has the essence of the romance of ballooning.

So many of one’s most unforgettable ballooning adventures have their beginning in the most prosaic, off hand and unexpected ways. In a briefing tent at the Bristol International Balloon Fiesta we were just finishing our final breakfast with our crew. We were saying sad farewells after a successful week-end of ballooning over and around that historic English city. Phil Dunnington, of Cameron Balloons, who had directed the meet, stopped by our table to say goodbye. In the course of the brief conversation he happened to mention that the Kingdom of Nepal was in the process of celebrating its 50th year of civil aviation. The government had just waived its severe restrictions on entry of foreign aircraft, including balloons. Outside of the high altitude ballooning adventure of some years ago in the peaks of the Himalayas (Seen by few individuals outside of TV camera crews), no balloons had ever flown in Nepal. Now here, I opined, was a challenge. Thereby hangs a tale.

The details of the ensuing planning, government negotiations and logistic arrangements are worthy of a separate narrative. Suffice to note that in the end the relaxed restrictions enabled our hastily arranged UK/US three person contingent of two balloon pilots and one balloon owner, to take an AX 8 balloon to Nepal. There we joined, initially, with an Austrian group of five balloons sponsored by an Austrian television network focused on filming a documentary on ballooning in Nepal.

Our balloon owner, Todd Challenger of Yeti Tours (UK), is an aspiring balloon pilot. He has acquired the Yeti balloon as a potential tour incentive. He wanted to test the waters. It was he who arranged our Nepal contacts for transportation (Elephants and all), ground crew, and housing. Phil Dunnington and I alternated as the balloon pilots. Sometimes we were the only ones in the basket when conditions and terrain were particularly daunting.

Nepal was not what I had expected. Some years earlier I had been in Tibet, a geographic neighbor with a contiguous border. I had a vision of a high, cold, mostly mountainous country. I had not considered the median latitude of less than 28 N or the extremely stable high that seems to control the weather during the month of December. The Himalayan range is always close and awesome with its permanent mantle of snow. However, there are also broad plains, tortuous, deep valleys and thick jungles along the southern border with India. The days were sunny and warm, often reaching over 70 F, with fog on some days into mid-morning. There were consistently low ground winds.

The lack of understanding of the nature of ballooning on the part of the country’s aviation authorities was even more troublesome than balloonists often encounter throughout the world. Our inaugural launch site obviously had been preselected by non balloonists. After a long and arduous ride out of Katmandu, we arrived at one of the most magnificent rural settings I have ever encountered. It was a shelf of land looking across a 2000 foot deep canyon to the spectacular Himalayan range on the other side. The wind was blowing directly across the miles of canyon that dropped off steeply from the grassy knoll. There was not a road to be seen. Our proud hosts were perplexed when we asked how we could possibly get to the balloons for recovery. I guess the answer for them was, "Fly them back."

The brilliant morning was warm. The Austrian contingent, always ready to make the most of an impossible situation, unpacked a long buffet table and gleaming china and stem ware. They proceeded to prepare a fabulous breakfast to be enjoyed in one of the most breathtaking settings imaginable. Later, the documentary camera crew was placated with tethered inflations for the cameras. We also obliged the cameramen with one short hop across the knoll. The wind shifted just long enough for the Yeti balloon to make a somewhat tenuous five minute free flight away from the canyon.

The next day, after some interesting discussions with the civil aviation authorities, we arranged for more "logical" launch sites. The subsequent flights were safely conducted over ever changing and exotic scenery. However, the recovery crews, traversing the few and virtually impassable roads, sometimes arrived hours after the balloons had landed.

The ultimate goal of the Austrian balloons and TV crew was to use the marvelous backdrop of the Himalayas for their filming. Therefore, after a few days flying in the vicinity of Katmandu we headed for Pokhara. That city serves as a staging site for the famous trekking and mountain climbing area of the Himalayan chain. This particular region is dominated by the world renowned Annapurna. There we ballooned in the shadow of those towering peaks with a few problematical landings across the lake in the valley below. Luckily, the traditional stories about Nepal Sherpas proved accurate. We never lacked willing and competent hands to recover the balloon, occasionally piece by piece.

At that point we left the Austrians, who declared their ballooning completed. They opted for traditional trekking out of the Annapurna base camp. Our ballooning adventures had only just begun. We headed south to our base camp at Temple Tiger deep in the jungle. There we were to log over four hours on elephants (More than I recommend for this mode of transportation); pole across seemingly impassable rivers in canoes; and confront rhinos, wild peacocks, crocodiles and other jungle beasts. I also acquired one of my most cherished ballooning pictures. It has no colorful balloon floating over unusual terrain. Rather, it recalls the sight of a balloon basket and bagged envelope jutting out precariously over the sides of a dugout canoe, with less than two feet of freeboard, being poled across a very wide and swift river en route to our jungle camp. A site that we sometimes reached only by extensive elephant treks. Now that’s a memory to savor.

And what of jungle ballooning? It was nothing like the commercial ballooning in the game parks of Kenya. We tried to explain to the manager of our jungle camp just how difficult a recovery would be in the dense forest, or in the twenty foot high elephant grass, or on the other side of the swift flowing rivers. He countered with the assurance that he currently had working for him a construction crew of sixty workers. He would assign all of them as our recovery crew. He also had six elephants at his disposal. Said he, "I want to fly in a balloon and I guarantee we will recover the balloon, no matter where it lands."

It turned out we did get him in the air, and had no need for what I would guess would have been one of the largest chase crews in modern ballooning history. One flight along the river was particularly "iffy". As we flew parallel to the river we had only a slim rocky strip at the edge of the water or a narrow trail through a marshy area covered with elephant grass for landing areas. Otherwise, we faced deep almost impenetrable jungle. With the luck of fools and balloonists, we ultimately maneuvered to the middle of the dirt track. I’m sure our Nepalese friends wondered what all the discussion of a difficult recovery had been about.

Modern balloonists become used to large crowds of spectators at major balloon meets. However, those gatherings are quite different from the thousands, literally, that walked for miles under our flight path during our last flight over open agricultural terrain. Of course, the farm families had never seen a balloon. I would guess most had never even heard of such a contraption. A two mile an hour surface wind turned a low and slow balloon flight into a latter day Pied Piper extravaganza. The highly concentrated population streamed from their homes and fields. There seemed to be nothing more important for any of them that sunny morning than to follow the balloon. With no vehicles other than our chase truck, a vast wave of humanity grew steadily and marched along under the balloon holding back the recovery vehicle. The landing among a sea of up turned faces was as frightening as I can remember.

After our ballooning we returned to Katmandu for a concentrated look at the contemporary culture and history of this fascinating kingdom. We found there is surprisingly little difference between the present and historical culture. There are pockets of modern, state of the art businesses and first rate hotels in the few larger cities such as Katmandu and Pokhara, that serve the tourist and the international business traveler. However, much of the country seems to live and work almost without change since the second and third centuries. The predominant Buddhist religion and architecture dominates the culture. That translates into marvelously preserved temples and shrines. Classic art is still maintained. For most, the life style continues mean and difficult. It is possible to walk through some streets that appear to westerners as carefully crafted movie sets of a medieval oriental city, complete with authentic character actors. The startling fact is that this is the real thing and it has been this exact same way over the centuries.

The opportunity to introduce ballooning to Nepal was a never to be forgotten event. Of course, we decided we must return when we spied a banner stretched across a road in Bharatpur reading 13TH WORLD ELEPHANT POLO CHAMPIONSHIP, 1994. We’ll teach them how to fly balloons if they will teach us how to play elephant polo.

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