Once again we have a fabulous hotel room, with a bathroom area to die for; his 'n' hers basins.
We were woken by a strange noise about 7am and thought it must be some kind of machinery until I looked out of the window and saw a balloon in the sky. Obviously is was the burn we could hear. Then I looked again and there was another balloon, and another. Turns out the field next to our hotel was a landing area and loads were making their way down.
And I'm booked on one tomorrow - yippee!!!
Ian had been quite bad in the night with yet another upset stomach and I wasn't feeling too bright so we had a quick chat with Nylon (the guide) and decided to give the morning's tour a miss and spend the time catching up on sleep. Unfortunately the afternoon trip to the farming village we really wanted to see was done that morning so people could have time by the pool - but we didn't mind as we had a nice relaxing day.
In the evening the itinerary talked of a private pagoda dinner - complete understatement - we drove back into the archaeological zone and arrived at a pagoda complex. The whole area was lit by tiny candles, there were torch bearers lining the walk to our private dinner. It was just beautiful and once again doesn't come out on the photos.
There were musicians and some dancers (bit naff) and what looked like delicious food. I decided against eating in case the hygiene wasn't good as I didn't want to put my US$380 balloon flight in jeopardy.
In the middle is Elma, one of our group.
It was an amazing spectacle to dine in such a place, albeit a little scary as legend has it the architects of the various pagodas were killed on completion so they couldn't design anything similarly beautiful. Also it seems VJV/Asian Trails (our tour co) are the only ones who have permission to put this kind of event on in a sacred place (no alcohol/beef/pork).