Holidays... : Ride in the Sky

Did you know that taking a ride up on a hot air ballon is a pretty scary experience?

A hah! You didn't? Well, allow me to describe it in detail.

First, you'd have to wake up extremely early to arrive at the destination. The departure point for the balloon has to be in an open area. Because the balloon is so huge that it requires a lot of space. In addition, when it flies up, it has to ensure that it wouldn't get stuck among any buildings. Naturally, in the UAE, the desert is the most ideal location.

Next, the ride has to be very early in the morning. Why? Because the balloon can only rise up when the air around it is cold. According to the theory of convection, hot air is less dense than cold air. If we heat up the air in the balloon during dawn, the balloon will rise. It won't rise up in the afternoon because the air will be too hot by then. How about night? It's extremely cold in the night, especially in the desert. One might argue. Yes, that's true. But there wouldn't be anything for you to look at in the night. So, dawn is the best time.

Whenever cartoons draw people riding up hot air balloons, they always forget to draw the most important thing. The fire. Hence, when I saw the team of experts, heating up the air in the balloon with gas tank and fire breathing out of it, I was scared. Geez! It's pure, naked flames! Imagine the ring of the balloon, just few metres away from the fire, and the team is heating the air up within the balloon, literally, with fire! What if the fire strikes the balloon?

A few years back, there was a hot air balloon ride that went bad. The wind was too strong and the balloon crashed. Oh my god! What did I get myself into this time? Was I even making the right decision? At that instant, I was thinking, Oh no... maybe I shouldn't fill my head with funny, weird ideas. Who cared about imaginary rides that would make me feel better? Is it worth the risk?

Nevertheless, since I came all the way, and even managed to persuade a friend to come along with me for the ride, I could not possibly back out now. Moments later, I discovered that the friend who came along with me, had actually ridden in one before! which made me feel worse, 'coz whoever in their right mind would take a scary ride like this, twice? And so, I stuck with it. Silently praying that nothing awful would happen.

To take my mind off, I looked on at the team with intent focus. The balloon was several metres long, as it lay almost 80% inflated on the ground. The straw/rattan basket was about 5 metres long, and perhaps 1 metre wide. It was divided into four compartments, which could accomodate about six people in each.

While the team heated up the air with the pure, naked flame, our pilot gave an intense, short safety briefing. "Once I say 'go', all of you rush and climb up the basket, hold on tight to the ropes. When we land, bend your knees, take off all loose items, keep your cameras in the pocket, hold the ropes, and lean right back. Don't get up until I say so."

That's it? Wow. That seems like a crash course on my offshore safety training.

When the pilot gave the green light, we climbed up and into the basket eagerly, like school kids going on a field trip. I suppose, that's how the phrase 'basket case' was coined. At that instant, I thought I must have been out of my mind to actually think of implementing a long harboured idea.

In the basket, in the centre of a crowd of 24 persons, stood our pilot. Anxiously shooting burning flames into the air, muttering, "We're late! We're late!" like the Rabbit of Alice in Wonderland. "All because somebody's car got stuck in the desert sand." (That somebody happened to be the car that my friend and I were travelling in. The team didn't warn us that we'd be driving in the desert, mind you. They just said, meet here. But they led us to the desert! Of course we got stuck.)

After several minutes of intermittent firing, the balloon began to rise up a few inches of the ground, gradually increasing, in the order of 1 to 10 to 100 metres. Did it reach thousands? I'm not sure, but I think it did. When I mean, gradual, I really mean gradual. It's so slow, you won't even realize it. What did you expect, Jean? That the balloon would rise up like a rocket shooting up hundreds of kilometres in a minute? Come on, be realistic.

As we flew up, the heat of the flames got to us. The heat was pretty intense. It had to be. Otherwise, it'd be impossible to heat up the air in the balloon which was probably about the height of a 5 storey building. I was afraid that the hair on my head would catch onto the heat and flame up too! "See! I told you that you didn't need the jacket up here. It's pretty hot, ain't it?!" teased the pilot as he continued shooting fire flames.

when we reached several hundreds metres away from the ground, the balloon turned and turned and turned, 360 degrees. The view was simply so amazing and so awesome! Ahead, we saw the sun rising, amidst the haze, which formed because of suspended solid particles in the air. Below, towards the west, we saw land divided into several even squares, filled with greens, probably date palms and other desert plants. Magnificent palaces, mosques and square residential villas dotted the landscape. I saw how the long, lonely roads eventually lead to one point. Towards the east, was just desert, miles and miles of it. Nobody lived there, but still, there were roads going through it. As we flew up further, we saw camel farms and camels having having those needle, pine trees as breakfast. Floated up further, and saw water reservoirs.

Once we reached about a thousand metres off the ground, I realized that the desert consisted of sand ripples, one upon another. You could probably look at the desert at zoom level of 1, x10, x100, x1000, and you'd see ripples at every scale. Ever heard of euletide? Where the peak and trough of the sea levels were in the order of 1,2,3... infinite? Here was proven physics, demonstrated by Mother Nature right in front of my eyes. It was simply magnificent.

As we flew away from the original point, the wind blew us towards a village called Sweihan. Now, that sounds distinctively familiar. Where had I heard it before? As I scavanged through my memory, it struck me. This, was the very place that the camel race and camel market were located! Now, it got me really excited.

"Oh! Look! There's a camel race going on!" our pilot breaks the silence as we absorb everything within around us in awe.

Oh! Yes! Yes! Yes! Where's the camel race? Where's the camel race? My eyes inadvertently scan the whole desert, to the left, right, up and down, trying to spot running camels, the size of elephants in my mind. Somehow I forgot that I was suspended thousands of metres in the air. When I eventually identified the running camels, I was a little surprised that they consisted of three specks of one centimetre creatures, running for their lives, as white 4WDs tailed behind.

Wow!!!! One of my dreams ever since coming to the UAE is to see camels racing! and here, it was happening live! Talk about destiny. It was simply exciting! So, this is how the camel race track looks like. It consists of several outlines of at least 4 pendant drops, one bigger than the other. The small, short track for baby camels, the bigger track for adults.

"Ok! Everybody! Smile!" the pilot cheerfuly nudges us to look at the camera suspended ahead of us, and snapped a picture of us.

"Guess what? We, are going to land right in the middle of the camel race track, so that you can all see the camels racing!" says the pilot.

Everyone's mind were blown away by now. Not only we got the opportunity to see camels racing from the top, now we'd get to be in the heart of it too? Cool! Let's do it!

As soon as we landed, all passengers scrambled out of the basket and began snapping pictures of camel herds, their humps covered in colourful cloths. Some of the herders rode on them, silently leading the camels towards the track or back to the farms.

All I can say is "Wow! Oh Wow!"

I am delightedly grateful to all the circumstances that landed me right here.

Workaholism - I might have lost my life, but at this moment? It makes it all worth it.