Thailand

On 8 January 2010 I departed on what would be one of the greatest journeys of my life, but surely not the last. The original plan was supposed to be my Korean friends and I traveling together but things didn’t work out at the last minute so I ended up going by myself. That was ok though because I already had some friends there that I met at the 2009 Deajeon balloon festival and powered paragliding comp. I was to meet Jerome in Pattaya along with some of his friends, Mathieu, Emilia, George, and Dream. I have been to Thailand before on a couple of occasions but this was by far the most anticipated trip that I have taken. The only place that I had flown paramotor before was in Korea, so you can imagine my excitement to be afforded the opportunity to fly in another place, let alone an exotic tropical country such as Thailand. After arriving in Bangkok I found a taxi for about 1500 bot and started on my way to Pattaya. After finding a nice place to settle down I packed it in for the night anticipating a very exciting day the next day. After speaking with Jerome and through the help of George who speaks Thai I finally made my way to his airfield. George is an awesome guy. He owns his own shop at the airfield and takes tourists for rides everyday on his trikes. The amazing thing is about George is that even though he didn’t know me from adam, we were immediately friends because of our love of flying. He hooked me up with and engine and set me on my way. Of course the first engine he gave me decided to quit about 8 minutes into the flight and I had to execute an emergency landing, but I cant say that he didn’t warn me that that might happen before I took off!! Mathieu, there is only one word to describe the way he flies, amazing. I know I haven’t been in the sport that long, but wow, I have never seen anyone master the wing and motor and create such a beautiful dance in the air. Watch my Thailand paramotor video and you will see what I mean. Just amazing… For next four days we flew and flew, to the beach, flying up and down waving at all the onlookers, I wonder how many people that saw us would go home and google paramotor and eventually learn to fly? The beach was awesome, the water and air were clear, the smell of the thai ocean was amazing. Palm trees lined the coast with tall resort buildings in the background. Jet skis towing hot dog shaped floats packed full of tourists… Mathieu and Emelia dipped in low to get a closer look, flying back and forth right over top, I stayed up high within glide distance of the beach, I didn’t think the risk was worth it with a borrowed engine should it go out putting it in the ocean, so I just filmed from above. The flights back to the airfield were awesome, just relaxing and enjoying the view. Once I found an elephant farm for tourist rides, I didn’t get too close but it was amazing to see these huge gentle giants strolling around. One flight back Mathieu decided to get in close apparently to mess with me because his wing went right under mine about a quarter of the way… it kind of scared the crap out of me but it was still awesome!! It was a great trip for paramotor, we all had a great time. I must give a huge thanks out to Dream who let me borrow his own personal engine and would absolutely not accept anything in return. I hope one day very soon to fly again with the whole crew. It was great to party with Jerome and Dream and Lenny and his Irish crew….If any of you have ever been to Pattaya you know what im talking about… After flying for a few days I felt like it was time to go and experience something new, I felt as though those four days of flying were as good as it gets, and I didn’t want to take a chance of messing it up so I got on a bus and traveled to Cambodia. Crossing the border from Thailand into Cambodia you could definitely see a difference in the culture and the people. I would travel to Siem Riep and to Angkor Wat to see the great ancient temples that the Kram people built over a thousand years ago. Here is a short video of that AWESOME ADVENTURE!!

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