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Published: September 17th 2006
Woo Woo!!!!
Phils back alive and well, some people thought I wouldn't make it out alive and even my own brother arranged a funeral for more fearing, or even hoping for, the worst.
But Burma did not defeat the man of steel and after 28 days he returns to Bangkok! I boarded the plane in India heading for Rangoon the capital of Burma. However they forgot to tell me that the direct flight had changed to an indirect one so I was pretty suprised when the plane landed in Bangkok. But I arrived in Burma safe and sound a few hours later.
12 towns in 28 days accumulated nearly 100 hours of traveling in or on top of a bus or pick-up but I had an amazing time. Burma was the land of smiles and most would go way out of their way to help you andf not want anything in return.
I had some random guy lead me for 45 minutes through rice fields on one of my expeditions to find a waterfall in Hsipaw because I did not know what way to go and the map I had was pretty useless. I had another guy
lead me back to my guest house when I was lost on my bike journey round the sites of Hpa-an. Another drove me round on his motor bike to see the sites of one of the towns I stayed in, and two others took me round and showed me their town and even invited me into their homes.
Obviously there not all nice, I had one guy follow me basically. We had a little chat and I bought him a coffee cause I thought he was just being friendly as most people. But on the way back he demanded 1000 Kyat, which is about 50 pence. He was pretty persistant and wouldn't leave me alone so I turned him around and said to go away otherwise I would pay one of the armed guards near us 1000 Kyat to shoot him. He never bothered me again.
Before I came I heard that you it was pretty extreme, people do drive round horse carts and the govenment restricts pretty much all internet sites and if you bad mouth them you end up in jail or killed like in 1988 when 3000 people were masacred by the military in control
of the country when the public held large pro-democracy demonstrations.
But I was quite amazed that Myanmar is quite well developed for what I expected. everyone watches the engllish premiership and are obsessed with football and the english premiere league, they also get BBC World and CNN so they can keep track of whats going on in the world, the government or military have eased up on the tourism industry in the country so its easy for people to come in and travel around.
Yet there are many places you can't go and roads you are not allowed though, whatever they do there probably isn't good. They have killed many people and burned down many villages to rid Burma of the ethnic minorities that live there, forced child and adult labour and there is supposidly mass drug productions and export going on.
I tryed my best to avoid any govenment owned guest houses, and did not travel on the govenment owned trains or fly with their airlines, so I feel I have contributed much more to the public than I have the govenement.
But all in all it is an incredible place and I didn't want
to leave, even after a month there were many places unexplored and I would definately go back. Most things were extremely cheap and now I'm in Thailand everything seems expensive.
But I'm going to enjoy my time here now in Bangkok and wait for my Brother and my friend Jammo and his mate Gary who fly in in a couple of days course its party time again and I haven't had any alcohol for about 2 months. Bangkok seems so much more like home, I have never seen so many foriegners and the place is full of restaraunts showing the latest pirated films and supermarkets open for 24hrs. Everything here is so much more convienient and easy, its a nice break.
till next time
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