Around the World with Hardy(T)Around the World with Hardy(T)Kathmandu. 20th November 1996.
On my final day in Kathmandu, I did something very, very stupid, particularly for someone with an abject fear of heights... I went on a balloon flight! We actually went out to the launch site on the previous day, but it was too foggy to take off. It wasn't too foggy, however, for me to sit there for three hours worrying myself sick about the prospect of hovering above Kathmandu in a glorified picnic hamper attached to a large piece of cloth inflated by a big bunsen burner!
On the day of the actual take off,
I was hung over, and we got off the ground pretty much straight away, so
I didn't have time to worry. The first thousand feet are the worst. I guess
subliminally you tell yourself you could end up paraplegic rather than dead
if you fell from this height. Above 1000 feet you've got no chance, so you
stop worrying about it and just watch the people and buildings below shrink
to Subbuteo proportions. By this time you are just floating beautifully
up towards the clouds. It's the weirdest sensation. You feel as though you
are hardly moving, but the pilot said we were ascending as fast as a freefall
parachutist descends, and probably travelling along the ground at about
15 knots. I had no idea how high we were going to go, 1-2000 feet maybe,
but as we broke through the cloud, Nigel told us he expected to get to 10,500
feet that day! The view from above the cloud was like nothing I'd
ever seen. Everest and the Himalayas were clearly visible, but it was as
if they were just poking their heads above the clouds like the tips of icebergs.
Unforgettable. We stayed at this altitude for about 15 minutes, but it seemed
like an eternity before we finally drifted back down to planet Earth. Buildings
became visible again. Then people. Then, luckily, the criss-cross network
of power cables came into view as our chances of a successful landing depended
on not hitting any of these! Then, finally, we hit the ground with the gentlest
of bumps and the hoardes of small children awaiting our landing rushed squealing
towards the basket.
There was barely time to pick up our things from the hotel before rushing out to the airport and taking an altogether less satisfactory form of air transport to our next destination, Singapore.