Sunset in the Sea

We were desperate to see the beaches in Myanmar before we left the country so we embarked on a 24 hour journey that involved travelling in the back of pick up truck, an overnight bus, two taxis, a very cramped local bus and the back of a motor bike! We were sweaty and exhausted by the time we got to Ngwe Saung beach and Paula and I were pleased to find some reasonably priced beach huts to stay in. We arrived just in time for sunset so we chucked our stuff in the room, grabbed beers and ran into the sea in all our clothes and watched the sun go down whilst bobbing about in the warm, calm water.

The most luxurious bus I've ever been in - it had air con, blankets, comfy seats and even a waitress who gave out free coffee and snacks.

We couldn't believe how many people they'd crammed into this tin can of a bus, they also decided to stop at a petrol station for an hour for no reason - it was sweltering!

Our view when we arrived.

Sunset in the sea.

Whilst we were in the sea some people came and told us there was a fire show in a Japanese restaurant on a hill and whilst we were there we met a local band and some other travellers so we ended up having a lock-in after the bar closed. The party later moved on to the beach by our hotel and, whilst the Myanmar guys were playing their guitars and singing, we all danced on the sand and in the sea. Jagged streaks of lightening peppered the horizon in the distance creating dramatic reflections on the water. Myanmar music is adorable and they often cover western songs in their language; when we got a taxi to the airport I was singing along to the driver's music so much that he gave me the CD as a souvenir!

Fire show.

Gathering on the beach.

Ngwe Saung beach.

After leaving Myanmar and flying to Thailand Paula and parted ways as we both had different plans so I stayed in a hostel in Bangkok and got a bus and a boat to Koh Tao (an island off the south east coast of Thailand) the next evening. Bangkok tuk tuks are quite pricey compared to what I've been used to in India so I wanted to save myself the money by walking to the bus stop; what I didn't realise is that it would take me an hour an a half because of my heavy backpack, the evening humidity and all the people in the way buying street food - it felt like some kind of army bootcamp! I'd left myself a lot of time so when I got there I grabbed a Chang beer and got a foot massage on the street next to the meeting point and I still hadn't spent even half as much as I would have on a taxi there!

Beer and a massage!

My first glimpse of Thailand's islands as the sun rose.

After getting the overnight bus we arrived at the ferry port at 5am in the dark. I sat on a deck chair and fell asleep by the sea and when I woke up it was daylight! I was so worried that I'd missed my ferry as half the people had gone but luckily mine hadn't arrived yet. The ferry passed loads of mini islands as the sun was rising and I was getting really excited about my first visit to a paradise island in Thailand!!

Hot Air Balloon Festival

After three days on the trek we were very tired when we reached the jetty at Inle Lake. The lake is nestled amongst mountains and it's one of the most famous sights in Myanmar because the houses are built on stilts and the traditional fisherman balance on one foot whilst holding their net with the other.

This is the local post office!

Mountain views. 

Exhausted after the trek.

I had a mammoth hot shower after wearing the same clothes for three days. We found this traditional hat on a tree in the town.

We spent the next two nights recovering and went to a restaurant that served only one set Shan meal (Inle is in the Shan state of Myanmar) which was homecooked by the most friendly and smiley lady; it was a Myanmar beef curry, my favourite, as well as cookies and toffees that are commonly eaten here - it was one of the best meals I've had in Asia so far. The lady told us there was a hot air balloon festival happening in a nearby town called Taunggyi so we booked a taxi there for the next evening. Our 'taxi' picked us up (it was actually a pick up truck with fifteen people crammed into the back) and we could see the bright lights of the festival for miles as we approached - there was a fun fair, music rigs with dance floors and many beer and food stalls. We jumped off the truck and ran to get a well earned beer. I thought the hot air balloons would be the type people are carried in but they were more like giant floating lanterns that were carried into the crowded fields and lit in processions with massive fire sticks. Everyone screamed and cheered as they floated off into the starry sky and then fireworks would explode out the bottom of them and into the crowds.

Lighting the balloon.

Many of the balloons were intricately decorated.

I heard that people have sadly been killed by the balloons in the past.

There weren't many tourists there and so everybody was staring at us, I felt like I was back in India! At one rig we found a small group of tourists dancing like mad to loud music whilst the locals crowded round and watched - naturally we joined in, as did one fun loving Myanmar lady! Before we left Paula spotted our driver guzzling whiskey and, thankfully, persuaded him to change to Red Bull.

The locals were filming all the tourists dancing.

Fancy a snack of fried chicken feet?

Crazy Myanmar lady!

A Pregnant Dragon

Not long after the monkey poo soup incident our bus arrived at a town called Kalaw which is a lot colder than the rest of the country because of its high altitude. We'd come here to trek - my last trek was three months ago in the Indian Himalayas and I was ready for another one despite the tough conditions and not being able to wash for many days! We spent one night in a guesthouse in the town (with holes in the walls for windows but no glass? It was a chilly night!) and embarked on our trek the next morning with very small bags whilst, thankfully, our guesthouse transported our big backpacks to our next destination; the trek was for three days and two nights and would eventually take us to Inle Lake where we'd collect our bags and continue with our travels around Myanmar. 

This is our 20yr old local guide, Yelay. He told us our fans are actually meant to be given out at funerals but we'd been fanning ourselves with them in the street blissfully unaware!

The countryside in Myanmar is stunning! 

We'd often pass little farms and villages.

We walked past crops of cauliflower, ginger, chili peppers, potatoes, tea, rice, corn, peas and many more...the smells were amazing!

The first day was mainly uphill but it was the most rewarding for views! On one side we could see an endless cloak of multi coloured crops dotted with bamboo huts and buffalo and on the other side was a valley within which you could see the giant ripples in the earth where the mountains had formed all covered in trees in umpteen different shades of green. We got talking to our guide Yelay who was so friendly and funny, he really made the trip for us because he was always making little jokes and pointing out interesting things along the way such as shrines, crops and explaining village traditions. One of these explanations was about why the remote village people wear bright orange turbans...now, I didn't completely follow the story but it had something to do with a forest, a pregnant dragon and two eggs with humans inside!! We stayed in a tiny village that night and we were the only foreigners for miles; our beds were blankets on the first floor of a farmhouse with the family sleeping on the other side of the room. The villagers speak a different language to the rest of the Myanmar people so we couldn't communicate with them very well however they were all very curious to see who the new strangers were! Yelay cooked us dinner - we were ravenous after walking for seven hours - so we sat cross legged at the low table and he wouldn't let us start until he'd delivered all ten platefuls of different vegetable curries, rice, stir fried veg and noodles. He was an incredible cook (cooking is his "number three hobby after roller skating and photography") and I particularly loved the pumpkin curry.

Eating chili pepppers as I trek!

Often Myanmar people will carry umbrellas to protect themselves from the sun.

There were locals at work in the fields, sometimes you could only see their pointy, conical hats or their turbans sticking out of the crops.

Under the dinner table lived a family of cats, one little scruffy kitten would not leave me alone and refused to get off my lap for hours.

We woke up as the sun was rising, had rice and mandarin oranges for breakfast and had a 'wash' in the ice cold, murky water in the bucket next to the squat toilet at the end of the garden; this water is meant for chucking down the hole to 'flush' it but we had no other option - how the locals wash remains a mystery to us! Our journey that day began with a descent into a valley, the morning mist had gathered in between the mountains and as we walked down it felt like we were walking into clouds, it was breathtaking!

Descending into the clouds!!

Chilies are laid out in villages to dry in the sun.

Exerting ourselves all day in the sun was hot work so we had a bath in a river!

Strong as an Ox! 

We stayed in another village on the second night and there were quite a few other people on treks staying there from all around the world, some of them we'd bumped in to along the way. We had another feast cooked for us and stayed up chatting for hours enjoying Myanmar beers from the tiny local shop. Our sleeping arrangements that night were quite unconventional...we slept in a monastery! It was a large, wooden building with just one massive room inside housing a shrine and numerous Buddha statutes - the girls slept on the floor of one side of the room and the males and monks slept on the other! Yelay told us we weren't allowed to wear shoes inside, walk fast or talk loud however we were woken up at 4am by a load of monks running around, shouting and chanting at the top of their voices!! On the third day we finally reached the lake, this was by far the hottest day and we were disgustingly sweaty, muddy, tired and stinky when we arrived at the jetty.

Outside the monastery you can see the monks' burgundy robes drying on washing lines.

The interior of the creepy monastery we slept in - it also had many windows with no glass or curtains!

Two friendly Czech girls tagged along with us during the last day.

Once we had clambered in to a long boat the driver took us on the hour-long journey up the lake to a town full of guesthouses. 

Monkey Poo

The city of Bagan and the surrounding area is an archaeological zone protected by UNESCO world heritage because it contains thousands of pagodas; we found out that Buddhists believe it is a holy site and so they built temples over 2500 years ago as an offering to Buddha. On our first day there we rented bicycles to explore the area and pedaled around for hours under the blazing sun.

The female monks are dressed in pink.

This is a Bagan lady wearing the traditional neck rings. The yellow make-up on her face is natural sunscreen that most Myanmar men and women wear daily. 

Here you can see about 14 of the temples but there were many more in the distance that the camera didn't pick up.

There are Buddha statues around every corner. 

A large golden pagoda by the river.

That night we went to a bar full of locals and drank Myanmar beer for about 40p a glass and ate barbecue food outside. A table of locals sent us over beer and watermelon and spent the next half an hour giving us thumbs up from across the restaurant! Later on we biked back to our guesthouse and the streets were deserted, I fell off my bike and a Myanmar lady appeared out of the shadows and offered her hand to help me up; I cannot believe how sweet-natured the Myanmar people are, more so than anywhere I've been in the world, and I really hope the sudden influx of tourism here that will undoubtedly continue to gain momentum doesn't ruin their gentle, friendly nature and their beautiful country.

We'd planned an early start to see a small mountain the next morning however after twelve beers each the night before we were feeling awful. On the way our taxi took us to a whiskey plantation where they also harvest palm oil used for cooking and in most cosmetics, even though I was hungover I thought a sample of the whiskey would be a good idea. It wasn't. We arrived at Mount Popa, a volcano that hasn't been active for thousands of years, and began the climb up; I was a little disappointed because I'd put my walking boots on preparing for a challenge but they'd built steps all the way up and made us take off our shoes because of the temple at the top - shoes must always be removed before going into any temple here. I was beginning to think I was going to have to change the name of my blog to 'somethingaboutcows' considering how many of them I'd seen in India but I'm pleased/traumatised to say that I have had a new monkey encounter. On the steps up to Mt.Popa there were hundreds of aggressive monkeys running around and defecating everywhere (at this point I'll remind you that we were barefoot...) and at one point we were stuck in the middle of a violent fight between ten massive monkeys and we were seriously worried about being bitten. Once we'd climbed up, seen the temple at the top and come back down again we sat in a restaurant to have a cold drink but we were overcome with the stench of monkey poo. The smell was everywhere. It also seemed to be coming out of the kitchen so we quickly left and got a taxi back to our hotel.

Here we saw a cow grinding peanuts to make peanut oil for cooking.

Mt Popa has a protruding shape - it's in the distance so looks small behind the Pagoda in the foreground but you can see the temple at the top.

Part of the temple on the mountain.

View of the volcano from the top.

Monkeys everywhere!!!

The following day, after three nights in Bagan, we got an early bus to a town called Kalaw and our bus stopped at a Myanmar roadside cafe for lunch on the way. The Myanmar food that I have had so far has been amazingly delicious, particularly the traditional beef curry, and it usually comes with rice, pickle, a platter of raw and cooked veg as well as a small bowl of soup. This all got delivered to our table and to our horror the soup had that same stench of monkey poo that had made us gag the day before.

Edit: I later found out that a fermented fish sauce commonly used in Burmese cooking is responsible for the smell - it really is similar to monkey poo! Westerners tend to find this very unappealing, just like Burmese people can't stand the smell and taste of dairy.

This is what usually happens when you order a curry and Myanmar food is some of the best I've ever tasted...usually.

The (Bumpy) Road to Mandalay

After three nights in Yangon we decided to move up the country to Mandalay. We had to get a overnight cross-country train there which took 18 hours and left at 3pm in the afternoon. After a sweaty walk to the train station with our backpacks we arrived and couldn't find our train because everything was in Burmese, even the train numbers and times were written in indeterminable Burmese script so we wandered around trying to find someone to help. Eventually we were led to our carriage and shown to a cabin with four beds (two tiers on either side), quite different from the three-tiered bunk bed/open plan style of the Indian trains. Don't get me wrong, the train was extremely rickety and run down but we were so pleased with our little cabin because we ended up having it all to ourselves; once we were settled a man with stained brown teeth knocked on the door (pan, a form of chewable tobacco, is popular here as well as India and it stains the teeth and causes saliva to be acidic hence why you see a lot of the men spitting red liquid on to the street) and said he was our waiter and offered us beer...we were loving life! There was one problem however....the train was ridiculously bumpy! Paula said that she got up once in the middle of the night and said I was literally flying off the bed. Going to the loo was the real problem because, not only was I being thrown around the smelly, urine covered cubicle but the lock kept being rattled undone because of the bumps which meant the door would spring open. I'm surprised I didn't end up sprawled in the corridor unconscious with my trousers round my ankles - now that would have been blog material!

There was a real risk of chipping a tooth whilst I held the glass of Myanmar beer up to my mouth, never mind about all the spillages! 

Friendly Myanmar people unobtrusively trying to sell fruit at the stations.

The Myanmar country side is dotted with golden pagodas.

We arrived at our destination at 5am and got a ride through the dark streets on what looked like a wheelchair attached to a bike - called a trishaw - to the backpacker district of Mandalay and quickly found a guesthouse so we could get a few hours sleep. When we emerged hours later we decided to try and find Mandalay hill which is a shrine on top of a hill that overlooks the city; we used a map from a guidebook but still hadn't found it after an hour of walking, it turned out we'd gone in the exact opposite direction, this was probably down to the fact that there are hardly any road signs here!

Mystery street food for breakfast - fried quails eggs with some unknown beige balls!

A typical street in Myanmar - market stalls and, of course, a golden pagoda at the end.

They LOVE disco Buddhas here!

This is the view from the top of Mandalay hill - the temple was covered in pink and gold mirror mosaics.

Paula got her palm 'read' by a complete nutter. Look closely top centre and you can see a chubby, blue woman milking a cow with her mouth...as you do. 

I bought a mini kettle from Thailand so I can have tea when I want and eat packet noodles to save money!

It is much more expensive here compared to neighbouring India and Thailand so we're trying to fit in as much as we can by only spending 2-3 nights in each place. There wasn't very much to do in Mandalay so we caught an all day boat to our next destination at 5am in the morning. All these early starts, long journeys and constant moving from town to town has left us exhausted...it's such a hard life being a traveller...! Half asleep on the boat I went to the toilet which was by the noisy engine and because the handle was broken I got stuck inside! I thought I was going to be there all day since it was so loud that nobody could hear my banging and Paula was dozing on the deck chairs outside. Luckily, for some unknown reason, Paula looked behind her from the other room and saw a door handle going round and round. She grabbed a crew member who eventually let me out and 'helpfully' showed me how the lock works whilst laughing.

He wasn't laughing when he had to fix the door later on in the day after other people got stuck in there!

We watched the sun rise from the boat.

More pagodas....

Sunset on the boat! Yes, the pointy things you can see are Pagodas.

After a nine hour boat journey we arrived in Bagan and the only way to get to the guesthouse area was by horse and cart!