Ballooning over Bagan

The journey is getting there and this trip getting there proved a challenge. With late flights close connections etc. we took an extra day getting to our tour which started the largest city in Myanmar, Yangon.  So by the time we got to Yangon our group had left so we took a 2 stop small prop plane to meet them in Bagan. After days of travel we had dinner and met our enjoyable group on Monday the 27th.

We had scheduled a balloon ride over Bagan, which left at 5 am the next morning, so with a few hours of sleep we were off in a World War II era Canadian bus used to transport soldiers, now in Myanmar transporting tourists. We meet our pilot and 14 others that will be in our balloon and with first lights the journey begins.

Bagan is beyond description, even if you have read all the descriptions and seen all the pictures.  Bagan was once the largest and most splendid city ever built in Burma and it was a rival to Angkor Wat in Cambodia. Its pure Hinayana Buddhism had no rituals, no sacrifices and no priests; only monks, vowed to poverty and meditation. Across 40 sq. km there stand thousands of pagodas and temples with dirt paths connecting them, some surrounded by vegetation.  When viewed from the balloon it is inspiring.

We land in a field and our bus and ground crew arrive with pastries and champagne even though its about 8 in the morning.  After some fun discussion with our balloon mates its back to the hotel where our travel group is having breakfast.  We were the only people in our group to sign up for the balloon ride.  We have some breakfast and are ready for our day touring the temples and pagodas.

Myanmar, Laos and Thailand

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails.”  -Mark Twain

First stop Myanmar

"This is Burma and it is unlike any land you know."  Rudyard Kipling