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Published: January 6th 2011
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I arrived late into Yangon and after a long drive in a taxi, I had the daunting task of finding a place to stay which proved harder than I expected. I met another American on the flight in from Bangkok, he was...interesting to say the least, not the worst travel partner in the world, but not my first choice. We finally found a place and had to pay $16 for a room, a lot more than I was expecting and glad I was splitting it with someone else. In Myanmar they only take cash and only the cleanest newest US dollar bills. In contrast their money is so bad the only thing of value is the tape that is holding the bill together. I brought what I hoped would be enough money with me but I was worried about the condition of the money. You could change money with what seemed like anyone on the street there were reports of scams where people gave the money changer a US$100 and after some back and forth they left with a US$1. I don't know how you can mix the two up, but it seemed like some unwarranted stress to some Europeans who
like their bills different colors.
Yangon use to be the capital until a witch doctor told the military junta to change the capital to another city. I don't even remember the name of the new capital, and I never went to check it out. Yangon was boring enough. We did a lot of walking, and it was very hot in the area. We decided to get a bus right away to Mandalay that night. The buses in Myanmar leave at the most inconvenient hour and arrive at even worse times. I think that is why a lot of people fly. On the bus they stop every two hours in the night to let people go to the bathroom or eat and they make you get off the bus. It was 3:30am and they stopped and I decided that I would sleep rather than get out. The driver came up to me and told me I had to get off they were stopping to eat and I couldn't be on the bus. 3:30am breakfast you had to be kidding, like everywhere else in Asia, they eat the same thing for breakfast as they do lunch and dinner. Then at least
every few hours there is a military check point where you have to get out and walk across showing your passport so they can write it down in some book that will never be looked at again. Needless to say the transportation in the country was not the highlight.
Mandalay was a nice enough place the real attractions are in three surrounding towns just outside. We decided to get a driver for the day to take us around and see: Inwa to see some leaning tower, Amarapura to see some old wooden bridge, and Sagaing where we walked up a hill to see a pagoda. Myanmar has thousands of pagodas and I saw enough for a life time. We were suppose to take a boat ride to Bagan and the night before I woke up to my travel companion throwing up. He had decided to go with the fish curry for dinner the night before and was now paying the price. He said that he felt so bad that he was going to fly back to Bangkok after only a couple days in the country. We said our goodbyes and I left for Bagan on the 5am boat.
When you enter Bagan just like anywhere else of interest in Myanmar you have to pay the government a fee. This was the first time I had to pay it just to see a city though. I tried telling them that wouldn't look at anything if I didn't have to pay but they didn't go for it. So instead I was able to pass off one of my "unacceptable" $10 because they knew they were just going to give it back as change to someone else. The city was actually really amazing, and if it weren't raining the entire time I would have really enjoyed the place. I went and saw the ancient temples and pagodas that they have all over the area. I read they had 4000 or something like that. If I didn't have a flight back I would have stayed longer, but I had to continue onwards to Inle Lake.
The 4am 10hr bus to Inle Lake had to be the worst looking bus I had ever seen. In fact the journey really made me question if I wanted to continue traveling anymore. When I got to the lake it almost seemed worth the trip it
was that nice. I took a boat tour of the lake. It cost the same amount of money to take the tour as it did to just go onto the lake. The tour looked like crap to me but I figured that I might as well see it. It predictably took me to shops were I could buy useless gifts. Then the highlight was a monastery that had trained cats to jump. I'm not really sure what I was expecting, something like a circus I think, but when I got there I realized that this was the biggest scam since the democratic elections in Myanmar. The cats weren't jumping they were just being cats. Which is just plain lazy. I was very upset, but each cat had four or five people around it trying to pursued it to jump or at least move, I probably wouldn't have been in the mood to jump either.
I had an extra couple days until my flight back to Bangkok so I went to The Golden Rock. I don't know the real name of the place. Regardless I'm not sure that it was worth my time and energy to see the place. When
I got off the truck at the bottom of the hill the road split, one onto a dirt path and the other a road. I went along the dirt path, it was a mistake. While they both take you to the same place the dirt path is more of a straight up approach while the road is what I would assume was much easier. I was exhausted when I got there, dripping in sweat and wasn't in the mood to stay long, the last thing I wanted to do was miss the last truck that would take me back to town and be forced to walk back. It was a gold rock with a pagoda on it, I am not really sure how it became such a holy sight.
I then went back to Yangon to fly out of Myanmar. My time here was short and I did not run out of money although I almost ran out of acceptable bills. Despite some of my complaints I really enjoyed the country, it probably had the most friendly people I've come across and the country really was beautiful. The transportation, infrastructure, and food were awful, but I guess that is
what you get with the military regime in place. Or I guess after the recent elections they are called something else.
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