Adventures in Myanmar

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After a long time and travels to Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia and Singapore I find myself in a guest house in Myanmar. You might ask why the hell Myanmar and my answer is why the hell not?

My ultimate travelling dream is to see Mt. Popa and I wanted to experience the country before tourists turn it into other Angor Wat or Vang Vieng,....

Cambodia and Angor Wat were spectacular (what else to expect from a 'floating' temple). Laos was great (I got stuck in a cave), saw the amazing Vang Vieng.... Malaysia brought me an amazing new friend and two beautiful sarees :-) .

If I will have more time I will get back to those some other time.

Now to my current trip. With my stay in Southeast Asia coming the end I decided to travel as much as possible (with 20 days of holiday left, you can travel alot) so I decided to book a flight to Myanmar. My first intention was only 4days but somehow I will travel for 10 days ( I think it is due to ticket prices). I will visit Mandalay, Inle, Bagan and Yangon. I am currently in Mandalay waiting for my bus to Inle.

Before leaving I made sure I got all the information (my colleague is from Maynmar), had crispy clean dollars ready ( this includes euros as well) and some Thai baht - according to my colleague no problem to change but how wrong he was.

My trip started in Yangon where I changed the local currency and learnt that no Thai baht excepted, luckily I changed it on the 'black market'. I made my way to the bus station but Jesus what kind of bus station it was, I didn’t have high expectations about the bus but here I was wrong again. Brand new Scania with TV arrived and as usual I was the only white person on board.....

Maybe the colour of my skin fascinates them or what because everybody feels the need to feed me on this bus rides- and I cannot find it in my heart to tell them sorry I cannot eat stuff from the street if I am traveling with overnight bus so i took I huge gulp of slivovica and ate the most amazing cake ever and some other stuff I don’t even want to know about. I settled nicely and decided to sleep the whole journey, in the station they told me it takes 12hours. I was having a great dream when suddenly I am woken up - we are in Mandalay, I open my half asleep eyes and look at the clock which wakes me up instantly - it was 3am. So the journey from Yangon to Mandalay didn’t take expected 12hours but only 9, I sincerely think this can only happen in Myanmar - bus arriving 3hours earlier. Luckily the bus driver saw my confusion and arranged a taxi to the city for me and even called a hotel which wad full unfortunately.

The taxi driver was so nice that he drove me around until we found a hotel with free room. I couldn’t check in until 9am but that didn’t stop me from sleeping on a sofa however I was woken up 1hour later by a knock on a door when a desperate Taiwanese girl was looking for room. I took the last one so I offered to share (would save me $5) and she agreed.

After checking in we went to check out the palace and climb the Mandalay hill. The entrance for 5days is $10 but it is not worth it. In order o climb the hill you need to walk without shoes - in Thailand everything is clean in temples and such if you have to walk with bare feet, but here it is very dirty and along the way there are many small shops with beverages, shoes, and more. The view from top is amazing and worth the climb. During my stay the Irrawaddy river looked like its flooded. After the walk back to the guesthouse we took well deserved shower and went for dinner. I went to the restaurant from lonely planet and the food was amazing and very cheap (only cheap think so far, Myanmar is more expensive than other countries).

The next day we decided to rent a motorbike - driving in Mandalay is crazy and I am lucky to say I survived my driving without any harm :-) . We went to the ancient cities around and I apparently I was the main tourist attraction - people honking and whistling at us plus people stopping me to take pictures with me. I have to come to Myanmar to be celebrity?!

Finding the ancients cities has proven to be a little bit challenging but we managed and upon taking a short boat ride to Inwa I felt like I stepped into Anne of Green gables movie set. This island is best explored on a horse drawn carriage, yes Katka that is ture :-) We took 1,5 hour toor around some more temples and monasteries with very different architecture each. The second ancient city is scattered around several hills and since I have visited many similar temples and was fed up if taking my shoes off ( in principle have nothing against it but the places were filthy not like in Thailand where its squeaky clean).

On one motor bike were 1monk and 2 of his friends which we later meet in Amarapura (the longest teak bridge in the world) and talked for 1hour. The crossing of the bridge was quite interesting to say the least since apparently I was bigger attraction than the bridge since I was stopped 5times to take picture with me and was entrapped by a big group of monks who wanted to chat with me as well as parents pointing their children at me. After a journey back , dinner and sleep I find myself waiting for bus and writing this. Please enjoy and wait for more adventures from Inle, Bagan ( I want to see Mt.Popa and hopefully I will) and Yangon.

See you soon

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Photos

Mandalay palace
Not worth the $10 entrance fee

Photo 3
one of the parents pointing the child at me }I think they havent seen that many white people)

Amarapura Bridge
The longest Teak bridge in the world