15th Philippine International Hot Air Balloon Fiesta part 1

It’s been a grueling day, from Sunrise to Sundown. I’ve been meaning to go to Philippine Hot Air Balloon Fiesta year after year but for some reason I wasn’t able to. Finally this weekend I was  able to go. We woke up 3am in the morning and left house at 4am. The Hot Air Balloon Fiesta is in Clark Airfield in Pampanga, some 100 kilometers from our house. We just cruised at the expressway between 100 to 140 kilometers depending on the traffic and reached the place at 5:10 am but traffic is bad at the Clark Airfield Gate. It took us 20 minutes from the gate to the field which is less than 6 kilometers.

It’s 5:30 when we reached the parking lot which was full of cars (maybe a couple of thousands) and got a space about 200 meters from the main entry of the event. I was walking when the first parachute jump happened and I wasn’t able to capture the army guy with Philippine Flag tied to his foot. The line to the ticket booth is uber long, the longest line I’ve seen in my life so far. From the end of the line, you can see the balloons starting to fill up so I decided to take pictures first. Luckily I chance upon a small group of people outside running a travel agency and they got spare ticketd so I asked if they can sell some to me. They are friendly and sold me three tickets at a regular price of 150 pesos each. They are from Discover Asia International and they offer good deals for local tourist destination like Sagada up in the north which I might try soon.

We got inside and the tickets saved us at least half an hour standing in line. Kites are flying everywhere, people camping from all directions and ultra light planes just took off for their formation flight. Only people with official ID’s are allowed inside the field but we decided to climb the fence so we can get good vantage point. Let me post the first batch of pictures I got while I’m still outside.

The 2nd pic shows balloons are ready to go in a few minutes so I broke out of the line to the ticket booth to catch some pictures. There are German, Swedish balloons in the pictures and some cool balloons as well like the Barn, Turtle, Beer bottle and the Sun. Toyota and Caltex have their own balloons too. Once we are inside we were greeted with more people like 5 thousand more with a thousand left outside lining to the booth.

Eight ultralight planes are now flying in formation. They are trying to “bomb” the Ford truck with water balloons down below. Some flew just 10 feet above the ground just to hit the truck but no one able get lucky. These are really ultralight planes and it can fly at low speed, maybe at 25 knots or 46 kilometers per hour. You can actually fly these things for only P1.6k or $35 for 12 minutes. Check the rates at Angeles Flying Club for more options.

Check out the eight pictures of ultralight planes in action below.

We took some more pictures while inside the field before heading out to the public area. I checked the time and its only 8:00 in the morning. We decided to take snacks and drinks at the hot dog boot and sit down for the first time. I brought small folding chairs for the three of us and we took a quick rest while munching on our snacks. Here are more pictures while we were inside the field.

As you can see one of the ultralight plane flying so low just to hit the truck with water balloon “bomb”, he missed. The 2nd pic looked like an invasion of ultralight planes. Then there’s the para glider and our self portrait with one of the balloon in the background.

I’ll post part two tomorrow of our trip to 15th Philippine International Hot Air Balloon Fiesta.