Fire Balloon Festival , Myanmar

The Balloon Festival in Taunggyi is not only the biggest event celebrated in the town in the whoe year but also unique in the country. That means lots of Myanmar people come from other parts of the country and streets get pretty noisy with singing, dancing and shouting. It's a big contrast with the quietness in the EC campus where I live. It lasts for nine days and I've had the chance to go several times, having varied and amusing experiences.

Opening Ceremony Day

 

I'm in a car with the College Principal and Head of Academic Dept. We are driving to the Festival field with another car a judge from Court of Justice and some other people. The school students will be performing in the traditional dances show. We managed to get very near the VVIP area, mainly because of the judge, but at some point we are stopped and told we can't go further. The point must obviously be that we are simply white teachers, which does not make us VVIP. We are allowed to stay in the VIP area, though. There's a great busy atmosphere, people eating inside cars, families sitting on the ground on blankets, groups of youngsters dancing, lots of stalls, flashing lights. As soon as it got dark, there were lots of fire lamps set out up in the sky followed by a beautiful fireworks display and the two first fire balloons.

Motorbike Day 

I'm excited about going on an adventure with someone who's not the principal, so three teachers and I head for the Festival riding two motorbikes in the early afternoon. It's funny to guess how they are trying to get away with accessing no-go areas by explaining they are teachers and come with a foreigner. But this time, it works. We are watching some balloons with animal shapes, having small chat and sitting comfortably under a roof when a policeman comes and starts chatting to us. It turns out he's the Higher Commander in charge of the security and besides, he's feeling chatty and in the mood for practising his English. So I listen patiently to his stories in the army and how much better it is to be a policeman. Then, another policeman joins us and it turns out he is a good pal of one of the teachers from university times. They offered us a car to come back the next day and the teachers are delighted at the idea. Imagine the prestige and honour of this invitation!!!

Police Car Day

It had pouring down for three hours in town, so we thought the invitation was cancelled.  But we were wrong and the car arrived punctually to pick us up. We didnt see the point of going to the festival in the stupid rain but didn't want to upset the police either, so we decided to go. Strangely enough, not a single drop of rain had fallen up there. We wandered about for a while looking at the stalls, the atmosphere was quite dead due to the rain, we  had a beer and decided to leave as nothing much was happening. Then, we met the policeman, Cherry's friend, and stayed for four more hours!!!. We were escorted by him to the first line in the field to witness the whole process of the balloons being prepared and launched up in the air. We were fed finger food and also drank beer with them and three other Myanmar people who spoke good English. At midnight we came back to the college, feeling we had to lie to the principal about our time and laughing like naughty little girls. It was exciting to see everything happening so close. They light hundreds of candles and attach them to the balloon while it's getting full of hot air from the burning parafine poles inside. They hold it from the bottom to attach the tail before letting it go up. If they succeed their enjoyment is shown in loud dancing and singing. If they fail and they balloon lands back on the field because it's too heavy or has not enough air to go up, it can be dangerous. On Friday 31st, 15 people were injured, some of them with serious burning and at least 2 have died.

Closing Ceremony Day

I was dragged to the event by the principal and anticipated a boring evening by the way she described it. But I didn't want to miss it as it was the last day and there might be more balloons and excitement. I was lucky there were some teachers who came to rescue me and took me for dinner, then hanged around with them . I stood up for too long and watched the awards given to best balloons, best photographs and even the winners of the Miss Tazaungmone beauty contest. Then traditional singing and dancing and extraordinary fire balloons going up, this time with no disappointments or accidents happenning.

Apart from the Fire Balloon Festival, there is also Tazaungmone, a festival of lights celebrated in the whole country. It is on the full moon day of the eigth month in the Myanmar calendar.. Lights were originally offered to the fire god, but now there is a strong Buddhist element to the festival that includes the Kahtein ceremony, in which special robes and other gifts are offered to the monks. Our college celebrated it with a procession along Taunggyi in which the trainees carried beautifully arranged offerings to the monastery.

It's been an amazing and eventful week and I've really had great fun. And of course, I'll never forget some surreal scenes like the beauty contest I was invited to when 20 contestants, 12 members of the jury and a crowd of relatives gathered at the local post office for the "catwalk show.