Bertrand Piccard and his co-pilot Brian Jones were the first...

Bertrand Piccard and his co-pilot Brian Jones were the first people to fly around the Earth in a balloon non-stop in 1999.
I learnt to fly in a balloon in a race across the Atlantic Ocean in 1992 and became fascinated by the sport. In the same way that a mountain climber dreams of climbing the world's highest mountain, I dreamed about flying non-stop around the world.
I spent six years planning the flight and failed twice before we managed to succeed. Our route took us over China, but we could only get permission to travel over the south. This meant going first to North Africa to catch the right winds. That added 10,000 kilometers, and another week, to our journey. But because of this, our flight broke all the records for distance and time spent in the air.
My main memory of the trip is that we lived in the air for 20 days and the rising sun was the most amazing thing we saw. We had to go out of the balloon's capsule, in which we were transported, three times while in the air to repair the fuel system. We didn't have any safety equipment but when you are in a situation like that, you just do what you have to do without thinking about feeling afraid.
Landing was a fantastic moment. I remember when I got out of the capsule, I looked at my footprint in the sand. I remembered the astronaut Neil Armstrong who was so happy to put his footprint on the moon, so far away from Earth. At that moment, I was so happy to have my foot back on Earth! 

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 Why did the balloon fly over south China?