Blogs from Western Burma, Burma, Asia - page 3

So our next major destination is Bagan, but we wanted to break up the journey (normally a 14 hour overnight bus from Yangon) with a couple of stops along the way. Pyay is geographically about half way between Yangon and Bagan but the road conditions beyond Pyay mean that in actual travel time it’s a totally different story. The bus from Yangon to Pyay wasn’t too bad. It took us about 7 hours on a regular average bus with no A/C, but the driver made sure we had plenty of fresh air howling through the windows by doing his best to maintain maximum speed. We were again the only tourists on the bus and the entertainment consisted of soft, happy karaoke music and a cheesy Burmese sitcom with really bad acting. The city of Pyay (formerly ... read more

The cloudy flight from Thandwe afforded slight glimpses of the terrain below. A long quilted patchwork of brown-mottled fields of dry crops spread out across the vast plain beneath. Long, brown swirls of river snaked between the tortoise-shell-like landscape as the little twin-prop banked hard then landed at Sittwe. I was only one of a couple of foreigners to disembark and fought off the army of touts, vying for the small amount of business, to secure a taxi with another traveller, a German lady, to my hotel. The rain poured down on Sittwe as it had done in Ngapali with only short breaks between the showers. Sittwe is the main town of the Rakhaing province in western Myanmar, close to the border with Bangladesh. As a result of this the people here are visibly different to ... read more

Our morning taxi from Nyaungshwe arrived early for the 1-hour drive over the terrible road to the nearest airport. The diver appeared insistent that we leave so off we went weaving around potholes that could have swallowed a bus and road workers with the latest high tech machinery - "le sledge hammer". Yes, the roadworkers, 50% female, were breaking up stone for a new roadway with sledgehammers. A scene reminiscent of 1950s Louisiana (and likely present day as well) prison chain gangs. Hard work in the already blistering heat. Good thing we left for airport early as our scheduled 9:35 a.m. flight on Air Bagan left promptly at 8:45! We managed to scramble through customs and immigration (yes, need to go through these formalities for every internal flight in Burma) and board plane just before they ... read more

servas mitanand, servas die wadln! am freitag dem 30. maerz hatten wir unseren letzten tag bzw. unseren letzten sonnenuntergang bzw. unseren ersten sonnenaufgang in bagan. um 05.30 uhr sind wir richtung pagode aufgebrochen. dort angekommen sind wir gleich die dunklen und wirklich kleinen treppen in der pagode hinaufgestiegen. dank neuer technik, sprich stirnlampen, ist uns nichts passiert. so, jetzt zum eigentlichen: von oben hatten wir einen sensationellen ausblick. die sonne kam erst ein wenig spaet, aber sie kam. erst mit sozusagen vorwehen nur ein wenig rot, dann leicht terracotta farben im himmel mit leichten woelkchen zu sehen und dann als kroenung stiegen noch die heissluftballons auf und dann war sie da. sozusagen ein geschmeidisches ding am morgen. dauert laenger wie abends und ist auch schoener. man(n) merkt richtig, wie sie sich mit kraft vollsaugt und dann ... read more

The darkening evening has overtaken the bustling of the daytime and the streets should be quiet. But tonight is a special day in Sittwe, the Rhakine State of Western Myanmar. Although historically the pageantry of this area has been much bigger, tonight is a more modest occassion to celebrate and be happy with life. As a foreigner you have stumbled across the night's activity because it takes place only a block away from your hotel. Hundreds of locals are assembled, some costumed, others wearing the days work clothes. The young babies are wrapped up warmly and held tight. The bicycle rickshaws are parked on the outer edge of the crowd where people climb atop them to get a better view. Six commercial halogen lamps have been specially hung outside a local shop to indicate where ... read more