Southern Burma (schnichla)

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Hallo dear readers!!

After another overnight busride we arrived first in Yangoon again!! This city will never be my favourite, despite it is greener than all the others and has a lot of nice old buildings. We spent a night in Yangoon, first we went to the stupa next to Shwedagon, there we run into some locals. We went together for vegetarian food where they try to fake the meat by using soya and flavours- disgusting, especially for me who likes a good peace of real steak!!

So we took another busride to Mawlamyine for around 10 hours. Hard to believe, there where little parts of forest, wow, and a lot of rubber plantation along the road. But I liked to come closer to the beach, another way of life is in the air. Also a lot of hope because small elections where short before. The people everywhere sold T-shirts, stickers with their hero Aung San Suu Kyi from the NLD, the democratic party of Burma. The feeling of change is laying in the air, but for sure it needs a long time, that this country will have changes and I personally fear the risk of even higher exploitation from outer countries in the future. But for the freedom of the people it would be a first step to get all the 48 seats in this election!!

Mawlamyine - part of the Mon state- itsself full of Pagodas and laying along the western coast where a river joins the ocean. The people slightly different from the other regions were still welcoming and friendly. We walked around, visited the pagodas and stupas, had small talk to a monk, enjoyed the fresh air and went on the next day to the island called oger island. The boatride itsself was worth the trip. The first boat was full of locals transporting all kinds of goods, from motorbikes to little chicken in boxes alive. The boat was loaded, not to say overloaded and started the journey of normally one hour to the island, but after 15min the engine had problems, so another boat lined us up and brought us back to the mainland, we changed the boat, also unloading and reloading a huge amount of things and restarted the boat ride after more than one hour delay. On the other side we were welcomed by a nice officer that reminds us of the last ferry going back to the mainland we had to take, because it's not legal to stay overnight on the island. With our already shortened time, we decided to take motorbike taxis, that showed us in two hours nice parts of the island, including fields and extremly authentic friendly people in the villages, offering coconut and mango and smiles on their faces unforgetable, before we took the last ferry back to the mailand. There the people were in party mood, because Aung San Suu Kyi with the NLD won 45 seats of the election. People were happy swinging flags of the NLD and Aung San Suu Kyi and invited us to take pictures of the election area and they wanted to be on pictures with us. I hope the best for their future!!

The next morning we went on a nice 3 hour boat ride to Hpa An a little north from Mawlamyine. Because no local boats drive this route any more since 9 months we had to charter a boat with other tourists. Hpa An I really liked it from the beginning, nice atmosphere, limestoneformations arround the area and we met Mike from Scotland again - a great man bringing Scottish culture to the locals. Everywhere he went he played the backpipes in his traditional kilt - the locals stood astonished arround him watching his unusual way to entertain people.

One day we went with local transport and motorbike taxis into the countryside arround Hpa An, saw a nice cave and got pretty wet, because some local kids started the waterfestival a little too early - it was great fun. But I looked forward the beach a lot- my energy for Burma was almost finished - we took another bus to Golden Rock - hahahaha - we wanted to get there but we finally arrived in Yangoon in the middle of the night because they forgot to stop even we tried to remind them a lot!! I didn't care too much - only two nights more until the plane to Kuala Lumpur.

In Yangoon we did a little shopping, went to a city lake with a old lady and finally we went to the airport.

After all,an interesting country with a lot of hope for the future and outstanding great people. If they open up the very south I will come back, but for the moment I have seen enough - and for the next days and weeks I definetly won't look for places with stupas or monasteries - Burma is full of it. But I really don't regret that I went to this country!

Flying with airasia is uncomplicated, great - I really enjoy the airline!!!

Next chapter: Malaysia!!! Juhuuuuuu!

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