Gulf News takes a trip on a hot air balloon over the sand dunes of Dubai. Daily headlines from the UAE and around the world brought to you by Gulf News. See more at: http://gulfnews.com/gntv
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00:00Well, it's almost half past five in the morning and we're here at Mogam on the way to Al Ain.
00:12As you can see, they're currently blowing up the balloon behind us before we do the
00:16security talk and get the balloon up in the air.
00:20It's fair to say we're feeling a little bit tired and slightly nervous, if I'm honest
00:24as well.
00:25It seems fairly straightforward enough so far.
00:31Well, the last set of people have just arrived and it looks like there's quite a large number
00:37of them here.
00:38I'm a bit wondering how they're going to manage to fit all these people into the one balloon
00:42that was there, as you can see, but we're just going to have to wait and see what happens.
00:46The security talk is about to start, so let's see what they have to say.
00:50To eight knots take-off wind, it's about eight knots, but we try to inflate, so let's see
00:53what would happen.
00:54All right, get into basket, guys.
00:55Yalla, yalla, yalla, yalla.
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01:23Side, guys, no time to take pictures.
01:33Pull guys.
01:35Candy line pull.
01:37All right, good morning everybody.
01:39Good morning.
01:40That was a windy takeoff, yeah, wasn't it?
01:42Yeah.
01:43That's right, okay.
01:44Right, so that was a nervous takeoff.
01:46It took about ten minutes to get that up in the air, a little longer than I thought it
01:49would, and it seems I may have been wrong.
01:52There's a lot more space here than you'd think when you look at it from from down there
01:56The problem with getting up was that it was too windy, but to be honest now that you're up here
02:01It's a completely different perspective
02:03It seems so much more calm and serene and the fears that you have initially when rising just seem to fade away
02:11How do we go captain up to 4,000 feet today this depends always on the military permission
02:16But today captain Attila is the first pilot. He does all the communication basically with the airports
02:21Yeah, and so we simply have to follow
02:25So you've just been told we're gonna rise up to about 4,000 feet
02:28Which is 1 9th or 1 10th of how high an airplane goes so putting it into perspective
02:32It's pretty high
02:33But once again it feels pretty calm and stable when you're when you're up here for some reason
02:38Completely different to the to the takeoff and how we managed to rise is each time captain Mike in the center days
02:44Surrounded by six large gas canisters fires it up
02:47And you can feel the force of the fire coming back and that seems to rise it just a tad more
02:52We've just been told we're about 3,200 feet now, which is going over the Burj Khalifa
02:58Although it may just seem like a lot of sand
03:00We've actually just been told we're flying over the Dubai Desert Conservation Reserve or DDCR
03:05That's a national park set up by the government to try and protect wildlife and the nature you see here
03:10We've actually just seen some oryxes go past and some gazelles as well
03:18Well the name of the balloon we're traveling in we've just been told is the Shaggy Bob Balloon because of Captain Mike's
03:24Wonderful locks, but it's also a pretty special balloon one of the biggest you can find in the world
03:30500,000 cubic feet is the size of the envelope we're in and we've just been told as well that it's in the Guinness Book of World
03:37Records last year Skydive Dubai along with Balloon Adventures let 20 skydivers go out dropping from this very balloon here
03:45So we're in a bit of history as well
03:51We're getting ready to land now, and we're descending quite low so you can almost
03:56It feels like you can almost touch the sand now
03:59That main road you see over there. We're just about to cross over there into Al Madam and then make our landing down there
04:05Here we go. It's actually traveling at quite a quick speed
04:15Oh
04:26Definitely rocky and rolly for sure
04:36We're all on our back, so I think it's time to get out now, and there's sand all over my face as well
04:42As you can see people are coming out of the balloon looking back at the experience now
04:46we've been gone for about four to five minutes just under an hour and
04:51Quite a few things from from the experience that I'm gonna take first of all the calm and serenity up there was just remarkable
04:58In an airplane you're ten times as higher, but you don't have the openness
05:02Which I think makes this experience a bit more a great deal more enjoyable
05:06And it's also far more humbling as well once you're up there you sort of realize
05:10Just how inconsequential or how small you are all in all one certificate for the boy there we go
05:16And I survived the trip
05:20Thank you very much for a wonderful day, and I've got a certificate to prove it
05:24So yeah all in all a humbling experience an experience
05:27Which really opens your your mind up and shows you a side to the UAE which you really won't get to see anywhere else
05:39You