Arizona

[aster]

Lovely balloons everyone. Very impressive shots composition and colour wise...

Winston; your balloon has blends with its environment by sharing the same colour palette but stands out with its striped design. Good composition!

A belated happy birthday to David Kilpatrick and that's a very enchanting gift of the special day. Valley of the Kings is always interesting. Nice shot of the minaret and the baloon Shirley! I also like the contrast the village brings to the scene of the ancient land.

Dusty; looking forward to your kangaroo photo if you can find it.

Yildiz

[Shirley Kilpatrick]

When we were in Egypt in 2007 we went on a balloon trip for David’s birthday.

Balloon and the Valley of Kings.

Sunrise over Luxor. I waited until the balloon was over the minaret.

When I visited Luxor in '99, I don't remember any balloon rides being available.

What I'll never forget is the drawing of the kangaroo on the wall in one of the Pharaoh's tombs. Somewhere, thanks to some Konica 1600 film, I have a shot of that.

Dusty

I think Egypt has the cheapest balloon flights in the world. If I remember correctly it was £28 each and that included a T-shirt. The drawback was that the flight meant a 3:30 in the morning alarm call.

(Edit by David: I think the cheapest flight was £28 but you had to make your own way to the pickup point - we opted for flights at about £40 each, I am sure, because we had a taxi to the river quay then a ferryboat with coffee and a sort of breakfast cake-biscuit thing provided, then transport to the balloon launch field).

Another shot from the flight timed for when the burner was being fired.

[kingfisher]

very nice picture`s shirley

specially the balloon with the valley of kings

greeting gustav

[Dr. Harout]

According to Shirley's pictures, then I guess David's birthday is around March-April.
Excellent shots, Shirley and Winston.

[aster]

The exif info of Shirley's shot shows the photo to be taken on 28 September 2007 at 05:02.

I presume David's birthday is around that time.

Yildiz

[Dr. Harout]

Yildiz, wonderful, how didn't I think of that?

I made a wild guess from the greens and the sleeves of the shirts people wearing.

[Shirley Kilpatrick]

The exif info of Shirley shows the photo to be take on 28 September 2007 at 05:02.

I presume David's birthday is around that time.

Yildiz

Thank you kingfisher and Dr. Harout

David’s birthday is the 28th of September.

[Greg Beetham]

It's a tough call but I think Shirley's Valley of Kings photo is ahead by a nose, top shot.
Greg

[David Kilpatrick]

Yildiz, wonderful, how didn't I think of that?

I made a wild guess from the greens and the sleeves of the shirts people wearing.

The Nile valley, since the Aswan Dam was built and annual flooding ceased, has irrigation systems and 'two springs a year' - it's why Egypt is now so productive as a vegetable supplier to Europe. Apparently you can go almost any time apart from the height of summer and it's green. We stayed on Crocodile Island, the Movenpick hotel there which can be highly recommended for photographers - it is a far more photogenic location for river and wildlife photography than the town of Luxor or any of the other large out-of-town resort hotels. Most of the island is devoted to farming (organic, sustainable - part of the deal which enabled the hotel to be built).

David

[bakubo]

Although I have never ridden in a hot air balloon, I have a couple of photos. The first one is early in the morning over Angkor Wat in Cambodia and the second one is early in the morning over San Miguel de Allende, Mexico (the church below is La Parroquia de San Miguel Archangel):

[David Kilpatrick]

Angkor Wat is helium balloon - expensive and rare! Must be the air temperature there prevents hot air ballooning at the right times of day. We're hoping a balloon trip may be affordable in Mexico in March (Mayan riviera) but the way exchange rates are going, we'll be lucky to afford to eat. Car rental has turned out to be amazingly cheap at only £105 for the week, about half the price of some European countries.

David

[bakubo]

Angkor Wat is helium balloon - expensive and rare! Must be the air temperature there prevents hot air ballooning at the right times of day.

Yes, it is clearly not a hot air balloon, but until you mentioned it I hadn't thought about it. I don't know why they are not using a hot air balloon. It is hot and humid during the day, but early in the morning it wasn't bad. Actually, the morning I took this photo I got up about 4:00 AM in Siem Reap and had a cyclo driver I met the day before come pick me up at 5:00 to take me to Angkor Wat, Bayon, Ta Keo, etc. It was still very dark and half an hour later when we got to Angkor Wat it was still so dark I couldn't even see my hand in front of my face. I had a tiny flashlight (single AA battery) and I walked around for an hour or so until the sun started coming up. I was hoping for a spectacular sunrise like I have seen in some photos, but the sky just went from black to dark gray to middle gray to light gray to almost white. Almost no color at all. As I wrote in the other thread, timing and luck are so important! Here is what it looked like at sunrise:



I had him take me around to other temples until about 1:00 PM. By then it was very hot and humid. I had the cyclo driver pick me up the next morning too and he drove me around to some of the other temple complexes. There are so many in that area although outside Cambodia many people lump them all into the name Angkor Wat.

We're hoping a balloon trip may be affordable in Mexico in March (Mayan riviera) but the way exchange rates are going, we'll be lucky to afford to eat. Car rental has turned out to be amazingly cheap at only £105 for the week, about half the price of some European countries.

I don't know how much the balloon ride in San Miguel de Allende costs. The Mexican peso has dropped in value since we were there last spring. At that time it was US$1 = 10P, but now it is US$1 = 14.4P. We are hoping to get back to Mexico sometime in the next few months. Even at 10P travel was inexpensive in Mexico.

[Dusty]

The Nile valley, since the Aswan Dam was built and annual flooding ceased, has irrigation systems and 'two springs a year' - it's why Egypt is now so productive as a vegetable supplier to Europe. Apparently you can go almost any time apart from the height of summer and it's green. We stayed on Crocodile Island, the Movenpick hotel there which can be highly recommended for photographers - it is a far more photogenic location for river and wildlife photography than the town of Luxor or any of the other large out-of-town resort hotels. Most of the island is devoted to farming (organic, sustainable - part of the deal which enabled the hotel to be built).

David

When I was there the guide said that there is now enough water stored that they are planning a "New Nile" to the west . That will turn desert into fertile farmland, and increase the food production. It will be interesting to see if it happens.

Dusty

[bakubo]

When we were in Egypt in 2007 we went on a balloon trip for David’s birthday.

Here are three shots from that.

An early landing.

I like that first shot a lot! Great angle from above.