March 27th - 29th

Saturday
The housing development was a popular landing site for the pilots. One reasons the city of Sentul wanted a balloon festival here was to draw attention to this growing city, and hopefully people would be interested in investing in one of the many housing developments
In the morning, the volunteers from the Air force, Paratrouper Division ( Not Army, as I thought) marched in for crewing duty. It's go good having 7 crew to lift everything!
Crew looking pleased with themselves after putting the balloon together.
View of launch site, just after take off.
Here is Akari ( Japanese friend) flying over the city of Sentul. We are approx 30 mins away from Jakarta.
Here is Philip from Belguim with his Orange balloon.
The villagers were in awe, as the balloons flew overhead. People were running down the street following them. It was great watching them, as we always knew where the balloon was!
Many Indonesians bury their family in the back garden. At least in this part of the country. This is just one of the many burial sites behind a house.
Derek landed on the 6th hole! Security for the golf course, led us out but was very dissapointed when we didn't have any cigarettes to give him. Must bring cigarettes next year as this must be a token of appreciation!
Saturday nights dinner was hosted by the mayor of Sentul city. This restaurant served traditional Indonesian food, which consisted of sticky rice wrapped in banana leafs, deep fried fish heads and tails, Giant pea pods, lamb satay and hot spicy soup all washed down by Bintang Beer.
Group photo of our very happy pilots .
Sunday
Dereks flight took off over the white Mosque, which was funded by Saudi money. Huge beautiful building.
He landed at another building development.
All the local people ran out to see the balloon. It's great having our crew and numerous other people to pack the balloon away.
The local kids love getting their photo taken. They were all asking what our name is and where did we come from. English is taught in the schools from Kindergarten onwards.
Balloon is packed away and even as this photo was being taken, more people were running into the field! We don't get this kind of reception when we land in America!!

The afternoon flight was cancelled due to the windy weather, and stormy conditions. It seems that afternoons are always rainy and scattered thunderstorms. We did tether for the afternoon, but only for 1 hr, before it poured down. Plenty of people attended this festival, so I think it was a success. Glad it wasn't cancelled, and hopefully there will be another festival next year. The people here are warm and friendly and we've had a great time. Weather was apprx 35c with humidity about 90%. Thunderstorms came every afternoon into the night, but still about 28c at night. This is the end of the event, so after tethering we packed the balloon ready for the shipment back to the States. We'll have an early night tonight, as we have to get up at 4am to get to the airport for our flight at 8am. Heading home to see our family back in the U.K.--Yeah!!

March 25th / 26th

Thursday

Everybody met at 10 am in the hotel lobby and bussed to the convention center where our balloons were waiting for us. We unpacked , but there was no propane so we were assured that propane would arrive overnight, ready for our flight in the morning. The rest of the day was spent relaxing by the pool.

Friday

Everyone met at 4.30am, and were taken back to the convention center. Propane had arrived, so the pilots busied themselves with refueling. Our crew were from the Indonesian Army, and every pilot had 6 soldiers assigned to them. We had police trucks and the local police as our drivers.

Dereks first flight at 7am. Quite a few people turned out to watch. Event seems to be going ahead even though it is unorganized, things seem to be coming together. We just have to work out finances and the pilots will be happy.

This is our crew and chase truck.

As we were leaving the launch field, I noticed this large poster advertising the event, hopefully there will be a good crowd here this weekend.

We are on the chase with another chase vehicle in front of us.

Going through some small villages.

The roads are really narrow through some of these places.

We had to stop a few times and asked for directions.

Passed by the local store.

Found Derek after a long chase. He landed in this Tapioca field, and most of the villagers had followed him to the landing site. He tethered about 30 kids, while he was waiting for us to arrive.

The kids that helped us pack the balloon away.

Good landing site, and for some of these kids it was the first time that they had seen a hot air balloon.

As there were no roads into this area, we had to carry the equipment out. Which was made more difficult because the bridges over many of their streams consisted of 2 bamboo trunks!!! The handrail was broken and the bamboo was covered with mud. Derek didn't fall in, but I was ready with the camera just in case!!!

The locals and our army crew all came together to get the basket and tanks across " the bridge".

Here's the basket being carried out to the road, thank goodness we have a lot of crew.

The village children watched us pack it away. The kids in uniform had run out of the school to see the balloon, so the teacher had to usher everyone back as we left. Great flight. After a lunch time of washing the mud out of our clothes, went back to the launch site for an afternoon flight, which only lasted 20 mins as a storm was coming in, and the landing site ( building development) was to good to give up.

March 22nd - 24th

Monday
Had a nice lay-in, lazed by the pool till check out at 2pm. Our crew driver drove us to K.L., where we checked in at Tune hotel. Walked to mall, where they had this Petronas formula one car on display.
Managed to get this shot in before the storm hit! Rained for about 1hr, but we had shelter in the mall. First time I've been in K.L. where it was comfortable walking around, normally it's too hot!
Caught the monorail to China town and walked around.
This is the Tune hotel in downtown K.L., right next to the Monorail.
Tuesday
Caught a bus to Batu caves. This is a Hindu Temple inside the Limestone Cliffs. There are apprx 260 steps up to the top, where there are numerous smaller shrines. About a million people climb these steps in January, on a holy pilgrimage.


The place is surrounded by monkeys, who are always on the hunt for food and drink. Pretty much like us!!!
Once you get to the top of the stairs, there are more stairs and more shrines! Beautiful sights, but quite tiring climbing all the stairs in this heat.
One of the monkeys drinking beer!
Some of them are quite tame, it's just the Alpha Males, that seem to dominate the group.
In the afternoon, we went to India Town, and had a lovely Banana leaf curry.
View of the towers from the back of our Tune Hotel.
Checked into the tune hotel by K.L. airport on Tuesday night , as our flight to Jakarta,Indonesia is early Wednesday morning.
Wednesday
Climbing up the stairs to fly to Jakarta. Thank goodness for cheap Air Asia flights.

Got picked up at the airport and taken to Novotel Hotel. This place is beautiful. Here's the main entrance. Lobby Area. Lobby again.
View from our room. You can just see the pool in the top of the picture. The gardens are fantastic. Very pleased with the hotel, concerned about the event, as the organizer tried to cancel the event yesterday!!!! All the pilots are worried about the payment and shipment of their balloons. We'll see what tomorrow brings, right now we're enjoying the scenery!