19th Hot Air Balloon Festival

For Valentines Day this year I planned a road trip with my friends. Our first stop was the 19th Hot Air Balloon Festival held annually at Clark Pampanga.

We bought our tickets online via PayPal which costs PHP300. You can also buy tickets on site. The tickets serve as contribution to help deserving students study aviation related courses.

List of activities for February 14

The best time to catch the hot air balloons is around 5am. Unfortunately I'm not a morning person and so are my friends so we decided to just go after lunch time.

The next opportunity to see the hot air balloon is at around 5:30pm when they fly back in so we thought we could just see that one. We set off from Quezon City at around 10:00am and arrived at Clark around 12:00pm

On the way the picturesque Mt. Arayat will welcome you.

WARNING: The parking lot is sooo full of dust. If you washed your car to impress your date.. well good luck about that.

At the entrance, we presented a soft copy of the QR code tickets, they scanned it and let us pass.

On the venue, a lot of people are flying kites and setting up tents and blankets.

There are portable toilets around the venue which to my surprise is not that horrible.

There are also a lot of food concessionaires around the venue.

Kid flying a kite

Kites costs around PHP100 and up at the venue depending on the size.

Though I'm not sure how much this giant kite cost. Is it genie? I don't know it looks creepy the more you look at it floating above you. XD

Gliding with the kites

Air gliding demonstration. This looks really fun but dangerous at the same time

There were also jet exhibitions.

Contest for capturing the balloon. 

Sounds easy huh? Someone will release a balloon from the ground and the jets from different flight schools take turns to try and catch/grab the balloon. And some of them actually succeeded. See that small yellow dot in the picture? That's the balloon.

There were also jets and racing cars displayed at the venue.

Paragliding #morefuninthephilippines

You can experience this yourself at a certain cost. I actually enjoyed watching this more than the Hot Air Balloons and would like to try it for myself someday. Hot Air Balloon rides cost 300USD per person.

After 10 years only 1 hot air balloon came flying back in which was really disappointing.

When the sun has set they started setting up the hot air balloons for the night glow. Which didn't really last long because the winds were too strong.

After that the Jeepney TV concert started which we didn't watch. We all feel so filthy with all the dust around we just wanted to go home. And it took as an hour just to get out of the parking lot T_T

If ever I would go back, I would make it a point to go in the morning where more hot air balloons can be seen or even ride one myself. IF I go back. XD

Check out this site to learn more: http://www.philballoonfest.net