(Day 314 on the road)Picture a tropical island with lush palm trees, a beach front bungalow about three metres away from the sea, an underwater world with abundant fish and great visibility, and you pretty much get the idea of how Jawad and I have spent the last week. It was pure heaven. If you get the picture, you can stop reading now. If you want a few more details, read on. Tioman was once voted among the ten most beautiful islands of the world, and it really is gorgeous. It is pretty big, but only the small coastal strip can be inhabited, as mountains rise steep from the coast. The the inland is thick mountainous jungle, mostly left to itself. All the life thus resolves around a very narrow strip of land right by the ... read more

(Day 299 on the road)From Kuala Lumpur, it was a painless four-hour bus ride northeast to the Cameron Highlands, at 1500 meters famous for its cooler temperatures than the rest of the country and the perfect climate for growing tea. They are named after a British surveyor of the name William Cameron, who supposedly "discovered" them in 1885. Today, they are a popular holiday and weekend destination for Malaysians, as we soon found out with most of the (affordable) accommodation solidly booked out. It was the week after Chinese New Year, and it seemed that half of Kuala Lumpur was here with us. The weather wasn't too kind on us either, as it was raining frequently, mainly in the afternoons. But we were not so easily deterred. We spent a relaxing day in and around the ... read more

(Day 290 on the road)Arriving back in Bangkok from Yangon, I spent two "medical days" there, visiting the hospital (to get a vaccination) and a dentist (for a checkup). As soon as that was over and done with, I caught a night bus and a ferry to the island of Ko Tao on Thailand's east coast. The ferry crossing to Ko Tao was plain awful: The sea was rough and the catamaran was bouncing on the waves like crazy. I don't think there were many people who were not sick, and the staff could hardly hand out plastic bags as quickly as passengers needed them. I managed to fill four of these bags, and thus arrived on the island with a pretty empty stomach. I wish I had been a bit better to take a video ... read more

(Day 272 on the road)From Mandalay, it is possible to take a slow boat (14 hours) to Bagan down the mighty river Ayeyarwady. The boat was due to leave at 0530h, and we arrived 45 minutes early to be on the safe side with tickets. The taxi drivers to the jetty ripped us off blatantly, charging four times the normal rate we had paid previously, and at the boat we had to pay 20 times as much as the locals do for the ride (it was goverment-owned boat, so the extra money didn't even go to the local people). On top of that, the boat didn't leave until 0630. Not the best start into the day. The boat ride however was great. I had imagined it to be a foreigner boat with maybe a few locals ... read more

(Day 265 on the road)I arrived in Inle Lake, famous for its people living on and close to the water, on a gruesome 16 hour overnight journey from Bago. The roads were awful, as was the state of the bus and the temperature inside (close to freezing, especially since they left the main door open at all times for some strange reason). We arrived here at the ungodly hour of four in the morning, but luckily we quickly found a nice bungalow by the canal in the town of Nyaungshwe (of where we moved out later however due to the incredible noise by the motorboats plying the waterway). Electricity in the town (like everywhere in Myanmar so far, including Yangon) is patchy to say the least and more often than not not available except for a ... read more