Philippine International Balloon Festival Highlights

Wow beautiful Philippines! Can you put on a big and beautiful show or what?

If you did not visit the Philippine International Balloon Festival on Clark Field, Pampanga, then you missed possibly the most colorful display of beauty and grace in the the Philippines this year.



We left Parañaque at 3.30am and arrived on Clark Field at around 5.00am to find the especially created balloon festival car park already partially full with at least a thousand cars, neatly marshaled by attendants on foot and on horseback. Spectators were already arriving on foot, on bicycles and motor bikes through Friendship Gate. Scores more were disgorging from Jeepneys and by 5.30am the whole area around the Philippine Air Force hangers was abuzz with a festive atmosphere on a scale quite unlike anything I have seen at the balloon festival in previous years.



Following the “flag raising” -- more of a flag falling – ceremony, heralded by skydivers delivering the Philippine national flag from an aircraft thousands of feet above, almost thirty huge, hot-air balloons of all shapes, sizes and colors had gracefully (mostly) lifted off from Clark Field by 7.00am. Their objective was to pursue the first balloon and land nearest to the mark it laid, somewhere near the town of Porac, to the southeast. The balloons came from Japan, from England, from Holland, from Germany, from Switzerland and from almost everywhere where the sport of ballooning is enjoyed around the World. It was so beautiful and it was valentine's day and I would have given my valentine to have been able to fly in one of the balloons but they were all fully booked. Sayang! Next year I will find a way . . . especially if I can fly with the Dutch!

As the early morning sun tried to burn away the mists and thin cloud, that had enveloped Pampanga on this spectacular Saturday morning, the air was vibrating to the sounds of powered para-gliders (ppg) and ultra-light airplanes, flying in formation and in mock bombing runs to mark a festival of everything airborne.

Static displays of jet fighters, passenger aircraft, private airplanes, helicopters, gliders, ultra-light airplanes, historic army jeeps, modern military hardware and a photographic display of the work of news-photographers around the archipelago, kept the spectators amused, entertained and provided thousands upon thousands of photo opportunities for the kids.

Not all of the balloons were able to make it into the air because the air was already warm (a challenge for hot-air balloons) and the breeze was building all morning, making the take-off somewhat hazardous. The last to take-off were the larger caricature balloons – made in the shape of something other than a balloon.



The the Kellogg's Tiger, Nescafe coffee cup and Zucker beer-can made it safely away but for coca-cola the fizz went out of their day early. The towering rendition of a classic coke bottle finished its flight after less than a minute in a most spectacular “crash” (balloons don't move fast enough to really crash). Hardly leaving the ground it tottered and twisted before finally collapsing in a deflated mess. Someone nearby suggested that if it had been coke-light then it might have got off the ground more easily.

What was reported to be the World's largest balloon in the shape of an Indian elephant struggled to gain height and was last seen very close to the ground in the distant corner of Clark Field, I guess elephants just aren't supposed to fly except in Walt Disney cartoons.

I tore myself away from the beauty and spectacle in Clark to return to Manila for the rugby tournament at Nomad Sports Club, by this time the balloon festival car park was almost filled to overflowing with (I estimated) at least three thousands cars (may have been more). Arriving at Nomad Sports Club somehow the normal rush I get from watching powerful hunks, pumping with testosterone, chasing leather around the field did not do it for me today. I guess my valentine was still with the beauty and grace of the balloons on Clark Field that were still filling my senses.

Next year, if you have any appreciation for beauty and grace, be in Clark Field for the 15th Philippine International Balloon Festival . . . and be early.