While in Yangshou some of my friends (Tarah, Janai, and Laura) decided to go on a hot air balloon ride. We were soooo excited because Yangshou is absolutely gorgous, you've seen some pics now so I think you would agree. Anyways, the day of the ride, which was supposed to be for sunset, it was hazy and cloudy so we debated doing it because we knew the view woud not be that good, but we decided to do it.
We went up in the balloon. It was pretty, but not too much visibility. We reached close to 3000 ft (910 meters) so we were super high up. Being that high is such an amazing feeling. I have not felt that free since I went sky diving. When you are up that high it is so peaceful, well, except for the sound of the gas to light the flame of the balloon.
After about an hour we saw the other two balloons going down to land, so we figured our turn was next. Well, we were right and the balloon started to descend. Going down was so beautiful because we could see more and Yanghou is so green and the division fo the field and rice patties are gorgeous. As we went down our balloon passed over a village and we couls see and hear the children yelling "Hello" and "Ni hau" to us, so of course we were yelling back. I did not realize it, bu Tarah brought up the idea that maybe we weren't supposed to land here. As I thought about it, the thought made sense since I no longer saw the other balloons and the kids and adults were really excited to see the balloon so close (something they probably don't normally see). Well, tha balloon went down there was a tree. The pilot attempted to get the balloon to go higher but there was no luck and we brushed the top of it. To be honest, it was kind of funny to think we hit a tree in a balloon. Instead of continuing to go up we started to go down into a rice patty. The balloon hit the rice patty and we were soon horizontal in the basket. But, we didn't land here. The balloon picked up and in front of us were some houses. Thank God we cleared them, but on the other side of the houses was a tree that we were not so lucky to miss. And, as you can guess, the basket made a direct hit into the top of the tree and branches. We were ok, in fact we were laughing hysterically at this point. By now we realized that the liot made a wrong turn, but he didn't speak English so we couldn't ask him. On the other side of the tree was a field which we went down in. The landing was not smooth at all. We hit once, bounced up a bit, and landed again on the side.
Meanwhile, through our attempts to land and us hitting the trees the village which we were over ran to see what the heck was going on. As we climbed out of the basket, laughing so hard that I thought I was going to pee my pants, there were about 50 kids, not mention a bunch of adults around us. The kids were so happy to see us, some of the adults were happy too, some were curious as to who the heck we were and why we were there, and others were less than thrilled. However, we really couldn't do anything except stand in their field that we crashed landed into. It was funny because we had some old lady yelling at us. We figured the crops were probably hers, so she was not too happy with us.
We thought it was pretty awesome; definately an experience and it definately made the ride worthwhile (despite the lack of visiblity). I mean, how many people can say that they rode a hot air balloon in China, hit two trees, ran into a rice patty, and landed in some random field in a random village? Not too many I assume.
Finally the bus found us. We found out through a couple that was on the bus that they spent 45 minutes looking for us and some random boy had to get in the van to show the driver of the van where we were. Our hypothesis that we were not supposed to land there was correct, in fact we found out we missed the landing area by about 9 miles. Anyways, here are some pics from the air and from the ground. Enjoy!
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