Thanks for sharing your experiences Shailendra, Vinod and Priti. Earlier, Navin Guliya had shared his experience about his trip to the highest motorable road in another thread. Mr. Khalkhande had also written about a Jat who went to Antartica. I know that a lot of other Jats, mostly with military background, have been at the forefront of adventure sports.
I got involved with paragliding in the beginning of 98 when I moved to San Diego in Calif from the East Coast. I learnt sailing first, since San Diego is also next to water. After a while I started paragliding also. Since, I could not put in time for both sports so gave up sailing after 6 months.
I learnt paragliding at the famous Torrey Pines gliderport, located in La Jolla, slightly north of San Diego city. It is a very historic gliderport, as it still has an old runway that was used by Charles Lindbergh when he used to fly sailplanes before he became world famous for the first solo flight across the Atlantic. Anyways, there is hardly any sailplanes nowadays and have been replaced by hang-gliders and paragliders along with hobbyists flyling their RCs (radio controlled model planes). The gliderport itself is on a cliff overlooking the ocean, about 200-300 ft high above the beach. It is also next to the world famous Torrey Pines golf course, where PGA tournament takes place. I have seen all the famous golfers from about 100 to 200 ft above while they were actually playing in that tournament, two years in a row. That used to give me quite a kick! The gliderport itself is very famous and pilots from all over the world tarvel here because it offers almost all year round flying conditions for both hang and para gliders. You can read about it here:
www.flytorrey.com
I got my advanced pilot rating in 2000 from USHGA (US Hanggliding Association:
http://www.ushga.org/) and continued flying for a few years more and may have logged 500+ hours. I have flown at many sites in the US (both coastal as well as inland), Mexico and Canada. Once I even brought my glider back with me to Jaipur but did not get enough time to fly. For some time I was the only pilot from our part of the world flying here on the west coast of the US.
In US till three years ago, paragliding or hangliding was still not recognized by any govt agency as it was considered part of extreme sports. Europe was a little better in that regard where government bodies oversea this activity and German pilots mostly win or used to win world championships.
One of the main reasons I left it was because my instructor, who was from Israel, got killed in an accident while performing a maneuver over the same cliffs where we learnt to fly. Secondly, 9/11 grounded all of us for a few days. Slowly, for a few other reasons, I lost interest.
I will be more than happy to share more with members if they want.
)... per anyways, yhaan Beach Towns ka ek faydaa to hai; Water sports are huge; Have tried Jetsking (aare wa paani main motorcycle si chalaana!!! 
)a lot recently... It is an awesome high making the turns with the water being sprinkled high...(even the tumbles are fun, cause the Jetski immediately shuts itself off and allows one to get back on...although if you are not comfortable with swimming and the sea water, it's probably not a sport for you!)...
My latest passion is equestrian. Its feel so great but here they teach slowly. I am stuck at trotting for a long time, want to move on to cantering(becuz speed is sexiest thing). 
