Blogs from Bago, Yangon Region, Burma, Asia

Five hours on a bus is a long time if the woman next to you is puking the entire way. I feel badly for her. She's young and pretty and pale and sweaty. She's going to Yangon, I'm getting down at Bago so she can puke in private. The motor cycle taxi driver tells me it's 10,000 kyats to get me from the bus stop to my hotel. Outrageous!! I can't do...then we straighten it out--he means 1,500 kyats. Okay, good. The bag and I get on his bike, and we drive through a noisy, crowded, dusty, busy town with horns blaring. I catch glimpses of gold pagodas. I know this town is full of them and can't wait to fill the next few hours with touring them. The room at the Bago Star is dark ... read more

Another location I couldn't find in the website's database! This time I was in Taungoo in Central Myanmar, just slightly under halfway between Yangon and Mandalay. I'd decided to stop here to break up the nightmarish 12h+ direct ride, but I ended up staying just a little longer than I'd originally planned. I'd arrived mid-afternoon, and was hoping to catch an early bus to Mandalay the next morning, so that I could arrive sometime in the afternoon. However it turned out the buses only left in the evenings, arriving in Mandalay at an unearthly hour. I was initially somewhat annoyed by this as it put paid to some original plans I had. But I have to say the helpfulness of the manager of Myanmar Beauty Guest House where I stayed really put things into perspective. He ... read more

The bus ride from Inle lake to Bago was a lengthy fifteen hour stint. Our plan was to escape the tourist trail and venture down south of Burma in hope we might find even more untouched areas of this formidable country. The bus journey itself filled me with dread when I learnt we would be retracing our steps back over the same route we took in to Inle lake, the one where I witnessed a deeply upsetting incident in the mountains. With no other option but to take this route, we clambered on board a spacious bus with reclining seats, water bottles and flannels. So far so good; I was starting to get used to the inside of tin boxes with plastic seats in the aisles and over loaded above clearly defying gravity. We settled in ... read more

While waiting for our Indian visa to get sorted, we decided to use the extra time to spend an overnight stay at the nearby small town of Bago. The main draw for visitors in this relatively rustic region is the dozens of unique temples and statues that are scattered in its small area. There are some old sites but there are also many newly built creations to set our eyes on. We arrived in the late afternoon, planning to use the following day to hire a tuk-tuk to explore them. However, on setting out for food, we were informed by helpful tuk-tuk drivers that if we were to go later that afternoon, we could see all the sights but avoid having to pay the heavy government fees that are lumped on them, since their counters close ... read more

Bago is a couple of hours south of Yangon and like many Burmese towns gold seems to be the predominant colour of the stuppas and Buddahs which adorn every corner. While some of this is just gold paint much of it is actual gold leaf which locals paste onto holy objects. One such holy object is Golden Rock which is a sweaty five hour uphill walk from a town called Kinpun. Buddhists believe that the rock which teeters at the top of the mountain is supported by two of Buddahs hairs so local men adorn the rock with gold - while the women just look on from afar. With so much poverty and deprivation I have found it hard to accept gold being pasted onto rocks and other objects which are accorded significance. However pasting rocks ... read more