The Balloon Festival: Nothing for the faint-hearted
At the reception in the hotel we meet a nice couple, which is still undecided whether it should go to the balloon festival tonight or not. Of course we invite them to share the taxi with us. After all, $80 is a very expensive fun and I personally would like to save something. After half an hour of small talk it turns out that they are also German. We leave at quarter to four.
Of course we meet punctually like the Germans at 3:45 pm at the reception. The Balloon Festival is in a small neighbouring town called Taunggy, which is located at about 2,000 metres in the mountains. Google Maps says it takes us about an hour to get there, but three hours is more realistic. We shall soon find out why. The first stretch along the lake works quite well and shortly after we pass Nyaung Shwe, the next village, it becomes clear that from here the festival traffic starts.
And I’m telling you, an 80 kilometer traffic jam on a German highway is shit against it. The serpentine road up to Taunggy is quickly converted into a one-way street, after all, everyone wants to go in the same direction, oncoming traffic doesn’t make sense anyway. On a two-lane serpentine road without crash barrier, cars, mopeds and pickups are fully loaded with people in 4 rows, sometimes even 5 rows.
The pickups are stacked on top of each other, one half on the bottom of the loading area and the other half with luggage sits on a breathtaking construction of boards and bars on a second built-in level or, if there is a fixed structure on the pickup, the roof is also sufficient. It really is a mystery to me how this can work from the statics alone. 40 people on a fucking pickup truck. I’m telling you, I found the seventh engineering wonder in Burma.
Today, anything with at least 2 wheels is used as a means of transport. Every vegetable truck is converted into a taxi and is on its way to the festival. And since it can be a pleasant 19 degrees in the mountains at night, the Burmese arrive in fur caps and winter coats. The first time I see here not only flip flops but also sneakers on local feet. 19 degrees seem to be almost wintry temperatures here.
This festival is celebrated every year to the seventh full moon of the Myanmar calendar. Some of the villages prepare for months with their balloons and invest a lot of money. Such a balloon can easily cost up to 5,000 dollars and that is a lot of money in Myanmar. So it’s no wonder people are all totally freaked out. Incidentally, the end of the rainy season is celebrated and evil spirits are to be driven out with the fire balloons. A little like our New Year’s, only in crazy. At least for German eyes.
The closer we get to the festival grounds, the denser the traffic. Thousands of mopeds and pickups are crowded next to each other and the stench of exhaust fumes is unbearable. Meanwhile, we are only moving forward by centimetres and the concentration of fine dust in the air has reached the consistency of terry towels. Fortunately, our expensive taxi has air conditioning and an air filter. Even though our driver understands almost zero English, we can somehow make him understand that we would now like to have windows up and air conditioning on. The atmosphere in the car is terrific, we are incredibly excited what awaits us and also the people on the mopeds and pickups next to us wave at us again and again and smile and at us. As Europeans, we have really achieved celebrity status here. A cool Myanmar beer does the rest.
Meanwhile, our driver’s cell phone keeps ringing. There is only one explanation for this, either he is a call center agent, film star or CEO. Nobody can get that many calls. In Germany, he would have had his flat rate cancelled three times and of course his driver’s license revoked. If in Myanmar it is forbidden to make calls at the wheel, then you can always cancel the fact that you are using two phones at the same time. Oh, yes, he can, and yet our taxi is still moving forward. We ram a moped, but that doesn’t bother him any further. In the meantime, Mirko has started a small field study. Do you know which lamp is guaranteed to glow in every vehicle here? The seatbelt light!
On the street the people seem to be standing up for a procession with colourful costumes and lights and a lot of Tam Tam. There is also Buddhist or Burmese drum music. People are in a great mood.
We keep pushing forward and I wonder where the hell all these cars and the armies of mopeds are supposed to park. Let me put it this way: Buddha will fix it. And he does. As if by magic every moped finds a parking place, close to each other, that one could think we are on Domino Day. And to make sure that you can find your own ride, every moped has a number attached to it. Not so stupid at all.
Finally we pass a street above the festival area and can take a first look at what is waiting for us.
I’m totally freaked out. A huge area like an old-fashioned hustle and bustle with ferris wheel and boat swing, all wildly illuminated with LEDs and certainly also TÜV tested. I thought I was prepared for anything. But I really didn’t expect so many people and on such a scale! 80,000 people in Dortmund’s stadium seem to me like a joke against this chaos.
A constant stream of vehicles and pedestrians crowd close to cars already parked. How the hell are we ever supposed to find a parking space here and one we can get down from when we get home? The Burmese traffic ballet is blowing my mind. And the amazing thing is that no one here is complaining. People wait calmly for another centimetre forward, nobody screams or argues, but everyone honks naturally and even in traffic jams they still try to overtake each other. In Europe, on the other hand, there would have been at least 28 fights, people would have yelled at each other and probably deliberately driven in the back of the car in front of them.
As if by magic we arrive as planned after exactly 3 hours at a parking lot. I honestly can hardly believe it. Because we know nothing here of course, our driver makes us understand with his hands and feet that he is taking us to the terrain. First, he’s obviously trying it on the VIP grandstand. I’ve read before that foreigners are often sent to the VIP tribune because it’s the safest place on the festival grounds, but the grim military man on the other side of the fence is probably less cheerful and shakes his head mutteringly.
So we go in single file after our driver and off into the crowd. To the right and left of the roadside there are food stalls everywhere and people just sit on the lawn. There must be thousands of them. Of course we have to stop here and there as well, because people would like to take pictures with us. Celebrety status check!
Safety first
Our driver guides us into a kind of corrugated iron covered beer stand where there are food and drinks. A short time later his son appears out of nowhere, who speaks some English and now translates. He tells us to stay here because we are safe here and his father now goes to sleep in the car until we are finished. In case we can’t find our way back to the car, the driver gives me his mobile number. I wonder how the conversation should go if the worst comes to the worst?
Maybe: „Hello, hello?“ .… „Nyaung meuss lau lele!“ „Ah, okay okay“
Well, it’s probably meant well, but in an emergency it’s probably completely unsuitable. There is only one thing to do: We have to remember the way, a piece of cake considering that I still regularly get lost on the way to work. And I’ve worked for the same company for over 10 years!
The driver leaves us to our fate and we order whiskey and beer. Our table neighbours do not need long until they want to talk to us and of course also want to take photos. We should really start taking money for this. The holiday would then be virtually free.
The atmosphere is really exuberant and the conversations with our neighbours are similar to those described above. Most of them only speak extremely little English, but it is often enough for „Bayern München“ and a little sign language. My earrings seem to be the hit, too, by the way.
Outside our safe beer stand everything is extremely chaotic. However these crowds move through the area in all directions without a single security fence, security or let alone an emergency plan with an escape plan. In 100% of the cases a mass panic with deaths would have already broken out at the same event in Germany.
Then it’s time, we see how the first fire balloon is made ready for take-off. Quite shocked I realize that the balloon is on the one hand really close to our shelter and on the other hand the part is let out of the crowd.
I mean, sure, what did I expect? A safety zone around the balloon and barrier tape, someone who pushes the spectators away from the spectacle, perhaps also the TÜV Rheinland, who inspects the homemade fireworks once again or even the fire brigade? Of course there’s no such thing, I haven’t even seen an ambulance yet.
A little later the balloon rises slowly and meter by meter into the sky and naturally looks insanely great. When it is about 5 meters high in the air, the fireworks suddenly start much too early and burning fireworks and missile remains rain down into the crowd. Rocket bullets are firing in all directions and in the next second I hear them coming down on the corrugated iron roof of our safe haven. Mirko falls a burning balloon part right in front of the flip flop. It’s time to say a prayer.
Apparently, miraculously, no one is seriously injured. Whereby, even if there was an ambulance, then this one would not get through anyway so it would be completely unnecessary to call one. I mean, no one’s probably read the security memo here. After that, it’s time to drink more whiskey, much more whiskey to be exact. After I cleaned the dirtiest glasses in the world with good German Sagrotan cloths and poured about four glasses of good Grand Royal into me, my safety concerns are already only half as big. Finally, welcome to the Asian security standard.
Shortly thereafter, another balloon burns down directly on the ground in the crowd, fortunately no fireworks this time. In general it seems to be totally normal that the fireworks always go down on people. You don’t know where they get their rockets from, certainly not from good German workmanship with examination by the blasting master. Probably all this stuff comes from China and we know how well the Chinese can handle fireworks since 2015, when an entire fireworks factory burned down there. Somehow I can’t decide if I find it totally fascinating or just horrible. One thing is for sure, this is the most irresponsible, reckless, insane and dangerous thing I have ever done in my life. But unfortunately cool. And I can already say: I would do it again.
Around 12 o’clock we decide to take a lap around the banister and then wake our driver. We want to walk towards the carnival and see what else there is to see.
Fair in Myanmar
I can’t believe my eyes. Beside colourful plush teddy bears in lottery stalls there are ring throwing stalls where you have to throw rings on cigarette boxes. Note that the rings are so small that you can never hit the box. Then there’s some kind of can throwing roulette and something weird with car tires. It is unbelievable how a whole fair is set up from the simplest means.
From the direction of the Viking swing and Ferris wheel there is an incredibly loud techno music and I have such a strange humming in my ear all the time that I ask if this is probably the diesel engine with which they start the ship’s swing or maybe a power cable which at regular intervals gives deadly electric shocks from a loose end of itself.
By the way, the Ferris wheel is still operated without electricity and therefore with human resources. Yeah, you read it right. Inside the Ferris wheel there are climbers who climb up the poles and make the device turn by their body weight. This is also the reason why it turns so incredibly fast and therefore looks more like a carousel.
Another highlight is a visit to the ladies‘ toilet. There is only a hole in the ground and I brought the finest Asian hiking equipment as footwear. I’d love some disinfectant for my toes right now. In the end, however, the hole in the ground may not be such a stupid idea, at least nobody would pee next to it and nobody would sit down anyway.
After all four of us meet safely again at a food stall we turn into another festival street and reach the tattoo street. Here you can find tattoo shops next to tattoo shops and above the stands there are lots of great pictures with things that you can get tattoos today. Before I can even think about what tattoo I’m indulging in today, I notice that people are stabbing here with non-sterile needles and without gloves. I think I should postpone the tattoo one more time until we leave the country.
At the end of Tattoo Street there is a small fenced area where loud music is played and people dance to boisterous techno beats. I’d like to join them right away. When we turn back into the main street, which runs parallel to the festival meadow, the food stand is next to the book shop and the picture shop and as always there are all kinds of exciting people and things to discover.
Meanwhile, the procession of a village comes loudly from behind, which are allowed to fly their balloon right away. The whole village arrives on pickups on the usual 2 levels including Burmese drum music. Certainly 8 or 10 pickups squeeze through the crowd and it is again a miracle that nobody gets hurt. On one of the cars there is the balloon and the fireworks. I didn’t expect such a huge amount of explosives. That actually explains a lot.
Suddenly an ambulance comes from behind. There really is an ambulance! At the same time, a lonely traffic policeman walks by with a whistle and tries to pilot the ambulance past the procession and the hundreds of pedestrians. It just gets incredibly narrow and you can’t avoid to the right or to the left. It takes 20 minutes for the ambulance to get past the parade. 20 long minutes, in which I believe all the time that now is the time for a mass panic. But nothing happens, everyone stays calm and squeezes themselves a little closer together. One thing becomes crystal clear to me at this moment, if something happens to any of us here then you can only see for yourself how to get away as quickly as possible. You can wait hours for an ambulance.
Searching for the taxi
Afterwards we decide to make a detour over the parking lot to get to our car faster. On the so-called parking lot the pickups stand close together. People sleep either on the loading areas or simply next to each other on the muddy lawn wrapped in a blanket.
Of course I am totally stunned about the conditions and about how self-evident all this is. Here again, I wonder what I had expected, „The Northface tents“ and camping stoves? Caravans, awnings and mowed lawns? Running water maybe? This country is simply madness. But in a good way, it just amazes me every second.
When we return to the road, the next traffic jam has broken out. Namely the festival traffic towards home. To be honest, I’m almost happy about it, because if everyone drives in the same direction, we have at least a small chance to get away from here.
I never thought such a traffic jam was possible in my life. As a pedestrian the crowd is almost unbearable, the fine dust load has now reached a consistency of camel hair wool blanket and I am actually standing in a traffic jam as a pedestrian on a main road. 50 minutes long. There is simply zero chance to squeeze through and all we can do is wait patiently like everyone else. Of course you should always keep a watchful eye, because when things get a centimetre forward you don’t want a car to run over your flip flop.
In the meantime, another new balloon takes off towards the sky and spits its fireworks over people’s heads. This time the wind is so unfavourable that the balloon is blowing in our direction. In the first moment I am again close to panic tackle because I believe that burning rocket residue immediately pelt down on us. But the divine coincidence shows that the balloon is now high enough for us to be spared. I’ll say another prayer. It won’t hurt.
After standing in a pedestrian jam for 50 minutes, a traffic policeman suddenly appears out of nowhere with a whistle and regulates the traffic. Within 5 minutes we have now passed the eye of the needle and can search relaxed the car of our driver. Where the hell did he come from? Did Buddha himself rip open the sky and send the little traffic policeman on duty?
Learning how to park out
A short time later we find our driver sleepy, but still in a good mood in the parking lot. It’s a miracle that we ever found him again, after all, I lost my bearings hours ago.
I just wonder how the hell are we supposed to get the car out of this fully parked parking space? Mathematically, that can’t even work. To be on the safe side I measure our gab with German engineer eyes and calculate that we have to ram at least 3 cars and probably have to put up with a dented fender to park out.
What can I say, our driver manages to get the car out of the gap in 15 minutes without a single scratch and he can even drive a whole centimetre towards the exit. We are stuck in traffic again. After another hour the car has moved exactly 6 centimetres and I calculate if it is theoretically still possible to reach our plane the next morning.
Our airport taxi arrives at 8:00 am, if we need another 60 minutes for the next 6 centimeters, we can probably forget the beach stay.
Buddha will fix it. And he does. Another lonely traffic policeman appears and as if by magic we progress several meters with one blow. I really didn’t believe in that anymore. To be honest I already had different strategies in mind, e.g. walking to the hotel, ordering a helicopter or just crying and calling my mom.
Fortunately I can throw all my plans overboard again, because in no less than 2 hours we are safe and alive again at the hotel. That’s actually too many miracles for a single day.
When we arrive in our room Mirko realizes: His mobile phone is in the car with our driver. AGIAN!
And again we can follow the phone in real time via google maps. That can’t really be true! Not far from our hotel it suddenly stops, which of course gives us hope that our driver lives there and that we can get the thing back again. That would be miracle number 12,000 in this country.