November 29, 2016
In November after Buddhist lent ends, the Burmese hold the fire balloon festival for the week leading into the full moon. There are a couple hundred thousand people that come out for this festival to watch these massive hot air balloons set on fire float into the air with fire works shooting out of them. It is completely mad, amazing and totally not safe! Before we went, everyone kept telling us that it would be safe because no one died last year…which was the first year no one died from crashing fire balloons.
The evening began with an hour and a half ride from Inle Lake to Taunggi in an overpacked mini bus. There’s a one way road leading into the festival and our driver took us as close to the entrance as possible and asked that we meet him back at the van at midnight. The festival is crowded, chaotic and the neon lights and fire balloons are sensory overload.
My travel buddies Dane, Alejandra, Bryan and I made our way to the games and rides first. After playing a few games and winning candy, soda and laundry detergent, we made our way to the man powered ferris wheel where these guys climb the ferris wheel to spin and stop it. Extremely fun once you get past being totally terrified. Thank you Bryan for capturing this moment!
After having our fill of games and rides, we made our way down to the main area where they launch the fire balloons. There are thousands of people standing close to the launch site which means if it fails to take off, people are running for cover. The first one we watched went up successfully and started shooting fire works out of it that we falling to the crowd below. The second one tried to go up but came crashing back down in a cloud of smoke.
Earlier in the night, Dane purchased Barry the zebra so we could all stay together through the crowds. This was extremely helpful since we kept getting separated due to constantly getting stopped by locals to have our pictures taken. Barry is now traveling the world with me.
At midnight we made our way slowly back to the van. There was a massive traffic jam leading to the entrance and the mini bus was stuck right in the middle of it. It wasn’t even a really traffic jam, it was the post apocalypse where everyone has abandoned there cars to never return. We all hung out by the bus drinking whisky thinking it would clear up in an hour. Then we waited another hour and another hour. We didn’t actually move until 6am and then it took us another 2 hours to get back to Inle Lake at 8am. I think the trauma may have bonded the 4 of us for life!
