(Kev) Mandalay was the perfect end to our Burma experience. We left Inle Lake at 5 in the morning and I was not looking forward to another 12-hour bus ride, however as it turned out this one was not so bad. I rode the majority of the ride atop the bus, and was able to enjoy the panorama of the mountains as we made our decent. It was really hot on the roof, but we got splashed with buckets of water every couple of minutes…so the heat was not a problem. Every April from the 13th to 17th the Burmese celebrate [View Full Entry]

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(Dustin) People always seem to comment on the buses and roads around Myanmar just saying they are TERRIBLE. Well even up until Bagan the roads weren't TOO horrible, mostly like versions of our logging roads back in Canada only they were paved. The one thing that proved to be the most miserable was in fact the buses themselves. On the way from Pyay to Bagan we got stuck in some sand and they spun the wheels right down to the wheel wells then after an hour or two digging out and driving another 5 minutes we found that because of sinking [View Full Entry]

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(Dustin) I don't know if you have a map in front of you but you might find that Pyay and Inle Lake aren't really smooth destinations considering Bagan in the Middle. Actually we just combined these two places because we didn't have a whole lot of pictures from either and they were both more small towns so we figured it would work out easier this way. Pyay turned out to be way more fun than we originally thought it would be, sure it has temples and historic stuff and those always hold some interest for us, but the people made the [View Full Entry]

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(Dustin) Well I had a new experience flying into Yangon….they don’t actually drop you off at the airport when they land, you get out of the plane and hop on a bus to the terminal. Well we spent a little more time at the carousel than normal, since well we never spend any time there cause our backs we haven’t checked till now but it was cool and we met the guy who gave us free transportation to their guest house there while waiting. These people really know how to treat tourists though. They brought us to their guest house on [View Full Entry]

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(Kev) I will dedicate my half of the blog to Swena. Matt is now back safe and sound at home, we had a blast traveling with him for about three months and have many adventures and memories to share for years to come. It has almost been a month now sense he has gone, time fly’s by so fast, I look forward to traveling and camping with you again Matt…lets not forget those goals we have set, and keep the adventures coming. Bangkok was the last place that all three of us were together. We spent over a week there, really [View Full Entry]

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(Kev) Its been about two weeks since we last updated the blog. during that time we have visited, Panang, the Perhentian Islands, Trang, Ko Mok, Au Nang, and the place we are now…Bangkok. We took a ferry from Medan to Panang. the ferry was supposd to only take about four hours…(but not surprisingly) it took much more than that (closer to 6 or 7). However the time was not a factor because I had a Robert Ludlum book that preoccupied me for the whole time. We arrived in Panang around sunset. I immediately felt a sense of peace, resulting from a [View Full Entry]

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(Matthew) So, after almost a month the the island of Borneo, the Malaysian part of it anyways. I was ready to move on to new things. we were supposed to fly out from Khota Kinabalu (K.K as the locals call it) through Air Asia. we had already booked our flights and we thought we were supposed to fly out at 11:00 am. but it turns out that we were supposed to leave closer to 9:00. so, we missed our flight and had no good excuse. we were all kicking ourselves, especially when we realized their was absolutely no way we could [View Full Entry]

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(Matthew) Lake Toba was great. in fact, i was a more than a little sad to leave it. but kevin told me about an orangatang convservation center up north and it sounded pretty cool. we got up fairly early to catch the first ferry back to the mainland and then, after a decent breakfest, we headed back to medan. we actually ended up chartering our own car. we never do that but we were able to do it for even less than what the mini bus from medan to lake toba had cost us. plus we all had our own seat. [View Full Entry]

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(Matthew) As often seems to be the case, we're writing two travel blogs back to back. Borneo has been a very busy place for us but it's been a lot of fun so i haven't minded. as i'm typing, we're sitting in the state library in Kota-Kinabalu. the internet here is cheaper than at the other places in town. plus it's nice and quiet. we left Brunei and caught an express boat to Kota Kinabalu. we had a fairly uneventful journey with only one stop. we arrived and went to check the places that Danny (from Brunei) recommended us to stay. [View Full Entry]

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(Kev) Brunei is unique from the other countries we have visited in South East Asia. The only comparable country in my mind is Singapore, which is also incredibly clean. Brunei however shows its wealth. The sultan is supposedly the third richest man in the world…though his actual rank is debatable. The display of wealth is remarkable and it is evident through the various fountains, parks, and mosques that make up Brunei. The mosques were an amazing sight and experience. The first mosque we visited was Bandar Mosque. We entered through the wrong door, it was ok though we were p [View Full Entry]

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