When I first received my itinerary from “Hotel by the Red Canal,Mandalay”, for my ballooning trip through the Mandalay I skimmed it quickly, city tour here, nice hotel there, cooking class there……. What the heck is that I thought? I would soon learn on my trip and love it…. but as I kept going down the list the thing that got me the most excited out of everything on the list was taking a HOT AIR BALLOON RIDE with Oriental Ballooning!! I would be going hot air ballooning for the first time in Mandalay,Myanmar!
Our flight was with “Oriental Ballooning”, an awesome hot air ballooning company in Myanmar that does flights over the Mandalay, Bagan, Inle and Ngapali. The night before our flight I didn’t sleep much as I was a bit anxious for some reason. Hot air ballooning is something that has ALWAYS been at the top of my bucket list and “Hotel by the Red Canal” arranged for that.
I was picked up from our hotel on-time at 5.45am and transferred to the balloon site where we were met personally by the all pilots and given a breakfast of the best pastries we had in Myanmar and coffee and tea. Following a short safety briefing by our pilot (Allie Dunnington with many years balloon piloting experience in many countries), we watched the balloons inflate and then climbed aboard.
We’re going how high today? I said to the pilot of our hot air balloon told us we’d be reaching an altitude of 3000 feet. That’s 1 km in the air!
We’d be going way up, I started to feel my knees go weak.
There were four of us plus our pilot in our balloon, squished in snuggly with just enough room. Our flight took off from a random field up-wind from the monastry call ” Mahar Wi Thode Dar Yone” located in the area of “Nan Shae” near Nan Shae Market. It was early morning with a heavy fog just lifting which gave us some spectacularly epic scenes to capture and the royal moat was as still as could be. It was almost fairy tale like.
The experience was magical as we floated low over near “Kuthodaw Pagoda” and “Mandalay Hill” in every direction, the early morning sun just beginning to bathe them in colour. The peace and tranquillity, the unbelievable sights just below, the strangeness of the situation. This was the highlight of our trip to Myanmar.
It was so calm and smooth, it was as if we were hardly moving. Aside from the off and on loud roar of the propane cylinders firing to keep us in the air and the beep of the altimeter it was a very peaceful experience. That was until I remembered that we still had to land the darn thing… however this also turned out to be quite smooth and easy.
After about an hour or so of soaring and up and down over the clouds and fog our pilot began searching for a nice place to land. This is when I then realized that since hot air balloons can’t really steer in any particular direction and they just float along with the air streams that they also don’t always have a designated landing spot. Or at all. Ever. They just find a piece of land that looks clear, hope for the best and hope the land owners don’t mind.
Our hot air ballooning experience in Lithuania wasn’t over yet though. We were then told about a hot air ballooning tradition after ones first flight. Apparently over 200 years ago in France the first hot air balloon was successfully piloted and upon landing one of the men fell out and got dirt on his face and the other accidentally singed his hair on the ignition in the balloon and to celebrate their successful flight they toasted with champagne. Because of this there is a tradition that is almost like a knighting ceremony in a way. Each of us were asked to get down on one knee and the pilots then proceed to singe some of our hair, put some dirt on our faces and then pour champagne on our heads! This was definitely a new tradition for me.
This was my first ever hot air ballooning trip, and it was absolutely magic! Oriental Ballooning are great operators, being extremely safety conscious and with the most experienced British pilots -ours had been flying over Bagan, Myanmar since 2000! Drifting for an hour or so over the hundreds of Pagodas of the Irrawaddy River plains during sunrise was an experience not to be missed and can book via “Hotel by the Red Canal” tour desk. They can organize for you very well.
Other people that were with me who had hot air ballooned in other parts of the world had never experienced this before, who knows. However it was all in good fun and we all got to celebrate afterwards with a nice glass of champagne.
Now I can’t wait to do it again somewhere else in Myanmar! Have you ever flown in a hot air balloon? Where did you do it?
May Malar Win