Sky limit for Darjeeling tourists

Darjeeling, July 11: Holidaymakers who want to add a dash of adventure to their trip to Darjeeling will have reasons to feel happy as paragliding is all set to make its debut here.

A group of 10 local youths is planning to introduce “extreme adventure tourism” from October this year to provide a fun-filled experience to visitors.

Sangay Sherpa, the founder of Off Roads, said he thought of starting the sport after conducting a survey on profiles of tourists in Darjeeling and what they like to do here while on a holiday.

The findings suggested that more than 80 per cent of the visitors fall within the 20-40 year age group, he said.

“Our survey suggested that these people are not too enthused in visiting places like the zoo and parks. These facts prompted us to take the initiative to start extreme adventure tourism,” said Sangay.

He said paragliding would initially start in three places.

“We have identified the Tiger Hill-Lebong, Batasia-Rock garden and Chitray-Maneybhanjyan route to start paragliding. It will be a 40 minute flight and we will charge Rs 2,500 for each trip,” said Sangay.

Off Roads, with its trained paragliders, have already conducted a flight along these routes.

“We will have six trained professionals from Manali all of whom have completed around 1,000 flights and we are of the opinion that given the panoramic view of the region, Darjeeling will be the best destination for paragliding in the country,” Sangay said.

Tourists will have a co-pilot to assist them during the flight.

Sangay said his agency has already bought three paraglides each costing around Rs 1.8 lakh.

“We will also be introducing zorbing ball which is a big hit among adventure enthusiasts,” said Sangay.

A person has to sit inside the ball that will then be rolled around.

“We have not finalised the place where we will keep the zorbing ball. Options are open for us as we can start zorbing ball even on the banks along the Teesta,” said Sangay.

He added that the group has bought one such ball that costs Rs 60,000.

Off Roads also plans to introduce other adventure sport like paint ball.

In this game, individuals try and “eliminate” their opponents by hitting them with capsules containing food colouring ingredients that are fired from a “gun”.

“This is a very good sport to de-stress and is a hit among those employed in the corporate sector. A set of 12 guns will cost around Rs 1.4 lakh and we are also looking at introducing this sport along with the paragliding project,” said Sangay.

“We do not need to build an infrastructure to start games like paint ball while at the same time the sport would provide the tourists with more reasons to enjoy the stay in the hills,” said Sangay.

-The Telegraph