I jumped on P'Dao's invitation to go to the International Balloon Festival held in Khao Yai (literally means Big Mountain) National Park. It's a 2-hr drive from Bangkok. Road trip with one of my best friends and her lovely daughter (N'Maii) sounded like good fun.
En route we visited Lam Tad Khong dam in Nakhon Ratchasima province. We had lunch at a restaurant with a gorgeous view of the reservoir.
There were 2 launches of the balloons everyday - at 7am and 4pm. On our first day, we managed to catch the launch in the afternoon. There were 20+ balloons from all over the world, less than the organiser expected because some participants were affected by the protests at the Bangkok Survanabhumi airport in the preceding 2 weeks unfortunately.There was a daily lucky draw for visitors to fly on te balloon (which I thought was a great egalitarian idea, giving everyone a fair chance). N'Maii was very disappointed that we didn't win the draw...
