A 4:30 AM wake-up call as Gerry, Sue and I wanted to do the hot air balloon over the Bagan. Yvonne had tried ballooning once and found the fear of heights (she has no fear in flying in airplanes) was too much for her so she passed on the opportunity. Her excuse was someone had to be in charge of transferring the bodies back to the USA if something went wrong!

At 5:30 we were transported to the nearby launch site, the local golf course. The whole program was well orchestrated. When we arrived we were told which table to go to for coffee, tea and pastries. Each table was named after your pilot for the day. Our pilot was Donna, the first time I have seen a female balloon pilot. She is from Perth, Australia and works winters here and goes back to Perth during the local rainy season. Her husband is also a balloon pilot in Bangkok. There were 11 in our group. After having the coffee it was light enough to proceed to the area where our balloon and basket lay on the ground ready to be inflated. We got to watch the trained team of about 12 people use a fan to partially inflate the balloon that allows Donna to fire up the gas burners and complete the job. It is fascinating to watch. We were given assigned locations in the basket and we all climbed in with the assistance of the team. The balloon was fully inflated by this time and tethered to a tractor to prevent it from taking off. Moments later we were given clearance (from the local airport) and we were released to gently float into the sky, ably captained by Donna.

By this time the sun was fully up and we could see off into the distance as we floated to the area where many of the temples were located. Unfortunately there was a haze in the area this morning so my pictures were not the best.  The camera cannot adequately record the scene below anyway. Ballooning, especially in an area like Bagan is a marvelous experience. There were a total of 18 balloons in the air this morning, from three separate companies so the mixture of different colored balloons made for a colorful palette. The gentle winds took us up and over dozens of temples as we spent the next hour flying over the plains of Bagan.

Our flight path brought us near our hotel so Yvonne got to see and hear the balloons. Unfortunately she had no knowledge of which one we were in. We landed safely nearby by and were treated to champagne (a ballooning tradition) and receiving our flight certificate before being returned to our hotel at 8:30, just in time to meet Yvonne and have breakfast together.

At 9:30 we were off with Lama for yet more exploring of the area. Today we were taken to Mount Popa, located about 30 miles from Bagan to see a Buddha shrine dedicated to “nats”, which seem to be similar to saints in the Catholic Church. Buddhists often pray to one of these nats when they need a favor!  Mt. Popa is also the site of Buddhist shrines located atop a butte, reachable by climbing 774 steps. Luckily that was not on our travel agenda. We did have lunch at a nearby mountain resort that overlooked the Mt. Popa complex.

Before we got to Mt. Popa we stopped to see how the sap from sugar palms is harvested and converted into sugar, candies, beer and “moonshine”. We tried several versions of the candy but passed when offered the beer and moonshine.

At the same location we got to see how oxen are used to extract peanut oil from peanuts, resulting in both the oil and a peanut paste. By the way, the peanuts here are awesome, probably because they are so fresh. They are smaller in size than ours and are grown in Bagan fields. Rather than being cooked in oil they are roasted in hot sand, of all things. And no, I never ran into any mixed sand while eating them so the separation process is outstanding.

 

That evening we were taken on a sunset boat ride on the Irrawaddy River, the major waterway that traverses Myanmar. The river is quite low now in dry season and we walked across quite a bit of sand to get to the water.  We were amazed when told how far the river rises during the monsoon season; the land we were walking on would be under 20-30 feet of water during the rainy season! There were many other small boats out on the river as we all waited for the sun to set behind the distant hills across the river.  A humorous episode was Sue and Yvonne were approached by young girls trying to sell them bracelets even before we boarded the boat. The young girls bantered and tried to convince them to buy.  Sue and Yvonne put them off, hoping that they would be gone by the time we returned, but no such luck. They met us as we docked and pestered our wives in a humorous way that we ended up with a dozen lacquered bracelets and a lot of laughs about how good these sales people are at such a young age.