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!!