Varkala, Kerala

I was in Varkala in late January 2009 for five days and never got a chance to fly. Strong north cross-winds every day. But a few weeks ago in the first week of February, Salim called me from Varkala to tell me conditions were amazing ...

I really needed to fly. I changed the lineset on my glider last November, and hadn't done anything more than one evening soaring flight from Nandi 2 to verify the overhaul was in fact an improvement (it was).

So decided to try my luck as soon as I could get away. The 5:15PM Kochuveli Express from Bangalore City Jn. got me to Kollam by 7:30am the next day. Varkala is the next station on the line, and there was a convenient train making the stop in the next half an hour. So I was in my hotel at Varkala before 10am.

Salim had informed me about a French pilot Aurelien, who was staying in the village of Kayikkara. I tracked Aurelien down by the simple but effective method of asking some locals "Parachute? French?" and flapping my arms. They stepped back warily, but pointed in the right direction.

By 11:30am I was with Aurelien at the designated launch in front of one of the gaps in the railing on the edge of the "Helipad". He turned out to be a great resource and good buddy. Also an experienced professional instructor and tandem pilot in France. He showed me the day's magic spot to lay out my glider - just so, not a metre to the left or right. Luckily the wind was head on, and maneouvring the glider through the gap and launching was a breeze. Was wondering why Aurelien had been repeatedly warning me that the launch site was not "normal". Found out why in the next few days, when the wind was a bit southish, a bit northish etc. That made launching a lot more "interesting". Some of the spectators were clearly more agonized by the thrashing/collapsing of the wing in the swirling rotor than the pilots themselves.

But once clear, there's 4km of cliffs to soar in laminar air. The north cliff and south cliff are separated by the Papanasam beach (a dip is supposed to wash away your sins). I was forced to land on Papanasam beach one day after the wind turned completely north and full speed-bar couldn't safely get me through the gap between the cliffs. But on my other flights there was never a reason to land, other than getting tired or thirsty. It was launchable by 11:30am almost every day that it was flyable.

I was told this is not the norm, that it can be un-flyable for days on end. So am happy for the 5 safely launchable days out of the 7 days I was there.

Wide range of hotels, from the Taj Garden Retreat to home-stays catering to back-packers. I stayed in the Prashanthi Garden (the Green Resort), a bit further back from the cliff. A brand new place, Rs 350/night, bed and bogs very clean and comfortable. Tel : 9995460134, 9495983083. The hotels near the cliff were charging around Rs 500/night.

Wide variety of restaurants - you can get anything in the range from traditional Kerala dishes to biryani to calamari pizza to steak to "Tibetan seafood" (wtf ?!).

An uncommonly large number of pilots were there for flying company. On some days as many as four (FOUR!!) wings were in the air simultaneously.

For the first couple of days I was entertained by Aurelien playing with his old, worn-out Airwave Magic competition glider. Later, Anita and Asa of Flying Effect fame showed up. They were on their last stop in India on their around-the-world adventure. They turned out to be remarkably normal - for Icelandic, female, paragliding pilots. As my skin turned progressively more chocolate in the broiling sun, they opted for neon lobster red.

The copper/white Brahminy and common kites sharing the skies with us were sometimes a handful. One flew into the lines of Aurelien's glider, struggling for half a minute before extricating himself. Another chased Anita, forcing her to land. The same young kite buzzed me afterwards as well. He finally satisfied his curiosity by surfing my leading edge for a while - after that I was left alone.

I had my trusty Creative Vado vidcam with me. My new modified-sock wrist-mount trial proved to be unsuccessful. I felt nauseous editing the video, got cross-eyed watching the shakes and shimmies in full resolution. But I managed to extract a few seconds of somewhat shake-free clips and put this video together.

Soaring the cliffs of Varkala from Hari Nair on Vimeo.

Ending this trip report with some lyrics from the perennial favourite - Hotel Keralafornia. Written by a Shri KM Arjun, forwarded to me by Lt. Col. BanditAsh ....

On the road to Trivaandrum
Goconut oil in my hair
Warm smell of aviyal
Rising appu through the air
...
Buxom girls in paavadas
Selling banana chips
Some roll their eyes
And some roll their hips
...
The rest of the lyrics weren't very complimentary, going from bad to verse.