Sunday, March 24, 2013

Balloons over Bagan Part 1…

Hmm so the internet is bad bad bad and this post is split up in the wrong order and all over the place. You will have just have to bear with me.

The Ballooning day started distressingly early when we were picked up from our hotel in a “vintage” bus. We then bumped around the place picking up other balloonists from their hotels.

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When we arrived at the launch field we enjoyed cups of tea, biscuits and watched the balloons get fired up. Was interesting watching them turn from flat material on the ground to huge towering balloons stretching on their ropes, ready to fly. It was all very slick. British Pilots and British balloons. God Save the Queen.

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Soon enough we were up up up in the air floating above endless red brick temples. To start with we went up very high. We were in the first balloon up so I think it was testing the weather a bit. After a while we flew lower, much closer to the temples…

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Here we are in the balloon… surrounded by middle aged people! There are backpackers in Myanmar, but it is definitely full of a LOT of retired tourists. In fact in Bagan we encountered quite a few elderly types. A German Lady using a Zimmer to get around the temples, an 85 year old British lady who apparently was clambering up the temples (this was reported, we only saw her drinking palm whiskey in a village), and a very frail man who was almost lifted into his tourist bus. Legends!

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