Week 59 - Ko Lanta, Ko Phi Phi (Thailand)

The train steward woke us at 6:30am to fold away our beds although we had another 4 hours before we reached Trang. When we finally arrived, Alex the helium filled zebra in tow, we were pounced on by tour agents at the station offering us minivans to Ko Lanta Yai (the biggest island in the Ko Lanta group). The van took a couple of hours and took two short ferries before we finally reached the island and were met by our pick up truck to take us to our beach cottage. The 12 hour journey we’d prepared Karen for took 22 hours door to door. The cottage we were staying in was great, in it’s own little bay Klong Nin with only a couple of other hotels and small restaurants nearby. Our hotel bar was on top of a hill with views out to sea and we spent the first night there just enjoying being by the sea and out of the city. After me and Rhys went to bed Karen ended up checking out the bar next door and along with a new found drinking buddy ended up whiling away a couple of hours waiting for the storm to pass so she could make it back to the cottage.

As we’d not stopped since Karen arrived we left her at lunch time the next day to relax on the beach and headed out on a rented scooter to explore the island. It’s pretty big at 6km wide and 30km long and doesn’t have a road going all the way around so it took us a good 5 hours with a couple of stops, at the national park to swim and see the lighthouse, at a viewpoint restaurant for dinner, and at another viewpoint bar for a smoothie, to get back to the hotel. We passed through Lanta Old Town and the sea gypsy communities and Ban Saladan, the main tourist area which really didn’t look all that appealing (although Rhys stayed there last time and had a blast) and we were glad we’d chosen a cottage further south where it was more hilly and jungly. Back at the hotel, Rhys dropped me at a cocktail bar overlooking the beach and went to pick up Karen on the scooter, the trip home was masterfully done with three of us squashed on the bike. Later that night we headed onto the beach for a bonfire and to open the belated anniversary champagne Rhys had asked Karen to pick up in duty free, backpacking is a hard life! 

Rhys in the National Park, Ko Lanta.

Rhys on our scooter, Lanta Old Town pier, Ko Lanta.

1st Anniversary champers on the beach, Ko Lanta.

We booked a day trip for the following day and were picked up and transferred to a beach further south to board our long tail boat. The boat was pretty crowded after we picked up some extra passengers whose boat had broken down stranding them out at sea. We made four stops. The first was at Ko Kraden for snorkeling with hundreds of jellyfish tangling around your legs as you swam and giving little stings like stinging nettles. The second stop was at Ko Muk to swim through an 80m cave to an Emerald Lagoon in the centre of the island. Next was Ko Rok for more snorkeling with slightly less jellyfish and finally Ko Ngai for lunch and a bit of beach time. Ko Ngai was a stunning palm tree lined golden arch of sand dotted with basic bamboo huts, after a lot of talking we decided me and Rhys would return in a couple of weeks after Karen left us. By the time we were back at our cottage on Ko Lanta we were all pretty tired and found spots in hammocks and under bamboo shelters in our little cove to nap in the late afternoon sun. That night we headed back to the cocktail bar for a posh fish dinner, between us we tried shark, blue marlin and barracuda. With an early start the next day we headed to bed.

Karen swimming in to the Emerald Lagoon, Ko Muk.

Long boats on the beach, Ko Ngai.

Chilling back at our beach, Ko Lanta.

At 7:15am our expected 7:30am pick up turned up. Rhys rushed to get Karen out of bed and I collected our breakfast in takeout boxes (soft boiled eggs and toast, not ideal picnic food). After a downpour drenched our bags on the roof of the truck we made it to the Ko Phi Phi ferry with minutes to spare. The ferry ride was short and after a sudden shower making us all run inside for cover we arrived at the pier. Rhys’s bag was saturated to the point where, when he put it on, the runoff made him look like he’ wet himself (quite amusing for me and Karen, not so for Rhys). We propped Karen up in a cafe for breakfast while we went to the tourist booths to find somewhere to stay. We ended up in little cottages on top of a hill at the edge of town where we could just about see the sea and the windows didn’t quite fit. After drying out Rhys’s bag, Karen climbed over her balcony and on to ours to start the vodka to help cheer a wet Rhys up. 

We walked back into town to explore and stopped for a quick drink at the Irish Bar before a quick afternoon nap to prepare for a night out. The main town on Phi Phi is sandwiched between two mountains and two beaches, one beach is used as a port and the other is lined with bars. The warren of paved streets in between are a maze of bars, restaurants, cafes, shops, markets and tattoo shops with hundreds of tourists strutting around in swimwear and cyclists mowing them down. That night we visited the beach bars for cheap buckets and fire shows. The fire twirlers (for want of a better name) were incredible and had us mesmorised for an hour or so before we walked further down the beach to a quieter bar with mats out on the sand and two very friendly french bulldogs. Some BBQ chicken on the way home and we were in bed by 3am.

The next morning me and Rhys left Karen to potter around the cottages and went to the beach. Within 10 minutes of sitting down Rhys was bored and went for a walk to see what was in the next bay - apparently not much. He then headed off to find Karen who was chilling over a late breakfast in a beach bar. After lunch, me and Rhys wandered back for another afternoon nap and Karen returned to the beach before treating herself to a massage. The Spurs game was on at 7pm so we walked in to town to find a bar to watch it and ended up staying, spending the night playing Jenga with an Australian couple. 

Feeling a little fragile the next day we checked out of our cottages at 11am and set up camp on the beach to pass the time until we had to board our boat to Phi Phi Lei. For our wedding present Karen treated me and Rhys to a night on a sleep-a-board boat in Maya Bay. Since there’s no camping on the island it’s the closest you can get to overnighting on the beach from the movie ‘The Beach’. The boat left Phi Phi Don and made a short stop at some unexceptional Viking Caves, where there are apparently paintings inside but you can’t go in because it disrupts the swallows and they collect the birds nests to sell to the Chinese for soup. We then stopped at a little bay for snorkeling with thankfully less jellyfish than had been in Ko Lanta. The marine life was brilliant, a great array of fish and luminous patches of coral but the long tails roaring around with their engines made it a little scary. 

On route to Maya Bay, near Ko Phi Phi.

Our last stop of the day was at Maya Bay. It was a shame the sun wasn’t shining but it was still warm and it couldn’t take away from the beauty of the place despite the thousands of day trippers there. Luckily, we had until 10pm on the beach and slowly scenes from the movie were coming back to us. By about 6:30pm all the day trippers had left and the 26 of us sleeping in the bay were left. We had dinner and supper in a clearing behind the tree line and played drinking games and a vicious balloon popping game until we were packed back into our little speedboat and taken back out to our sleeping boat. We had 20 minutes to swim by the boat with the plankton, a bit like fairy dust that trails you in the water before we got back on board. It was then that the storm hit and we all had to crowd in to one of the two covered areas splitting mattresses one between two (fine for me and Rhys, but quite cosy for Karen with a random we’d only just met!). The bar closed and a few covert operations led only to the discovery of a bag of bread which the 11 of us up top munched down before turning in for the night.

Karen and Rhys at 'The Beach', Ko Phi Phi Lei.

We woke early at 6:30am with the sky a little clearer (Rhys had spent the last hour sitting on the front of the boat enjoying the sun rise). After a quick cup of coffee we were back in the speed boat and on the beach with only the park rangers for company. It really was a little slice of heaven. An early morning swim and a wander across the thin strip of jungle interior to a view point the other side and we were back on our main boat by the time the day trippers started flocking in. After breakfast, we fed the scraps to the fish by the boat and jumped in for a last snorkel. Again, there were so many different fish and all swimming so close to you that you barely even noticed the jellyfish stings. The boat headed back to Phi Phi Don and we were at our new hotel by 10am (next door to our last one but with windows that fit the rooms and a pool). 

Karen at day break overlooking Maya Bay, Ko Phi Phi Lei.

Us on 'The Beach', Maya Bay, Ko Phi Phi Lei.

Me and Rhys slept by the pool until check-in while Karen headed into town for a liquid breakfast. Once we checked in it was time for more sleeping. When we woke, Rhys was starting to feel a bit ill and decided to skip dinner. Me and Karen popped out for food and to wander around town then I left her in a bar with a boxing ring and headed back to check on Rhys. By that point he was really ill, the worst he’s been since we’ve been away (thankfully it turned out to just be a 24 hour thing), we stayed in the rest of the night. Karen was trapped out by a super strength storm and ended up staying in the bar watching the boxing for a couple of hours before having to wade back through the stream that had broken it’s banks near our hotel.

Week 58 - Nyaungshwe (Inle Lake), Yangon, Bangkok (Myanmar (Burma), Thailand)

We had to check out of our hotel at Inle Lake before heading to the sports field where we rented bikes. We took the track out of town, over the bridge and headed down to the lake past stilt houses and floating tomato fields. We intended to stop at the hotsprings but it was really expensive so we kept going, heading further south until we found a little pier and a guy with a long boat to take us across the lake. Just as our boat headed into one of the reed channels a boat coming the other way speeded past us and sent a tidal wave sweeping over the boat drenching us and our camera, no lasting damage luckily. We pulled up by a pier on the other side and lifted our bikes out of the boat before heading off to a forest monastery (up a very steep road) then on to a vineyard, the Red Mountain Estate, only the second vineyard in Burma, selling wines from 2010, managed by a french guy. We had a free tour before paying a bargain £1.25 for 4 samples of different wines. After lunch at the vineyard, with views over the valley and to the lake we grabbed our bikes and headed back in to town in time for our pick up and transfer to Shwenyaung junction to meet the overnight bus to Yangon. 

Stilt house, Inle Lake

Rhys ad the bikes in a long boat crossing Inle Lake

The road was pretty windy and despite the comfy lazy boy seats and the box of cakes they handed out we didn’t get much sleep. The Yangon bus station is quite a way out of town so we jumped in a cab and headed to our guesthouse where they let us check in and we got straight in to bed for a couple of hours nap. For lunch we wandered to the Bogyoke market where we ended up buying an oil painting that we’d spotted on our first trip to Yangon. That evening we decided to treat ourselves to happy hour cocktails at The Strand, a British colonial building that is one of the poshest hotels in Myanmar. It was such a contrast to the dirty streets outside and once they started bringing out bar snacks we were in our element. We were sensible and didn’t stay out late as we had a 6am taxi to the airport the next day.

The flight back to Bangkok was painless and we ended up picking up some stragglers at the airport and there were 5 of us on the bus to the Skytrain heading to Khao San Road. We had booked into a 16 bed dorm for Karen’s first 3 nights and had decided to break her into dorm living slowly and chose somewhere where the beds were all enclosed in these little cupboards with their own TV and sliding doors. We had a couple of chores and then headed back to the hostel to wait for Karen. A couple of hours after she was due to arrive, after we’d been checking the computer non-stop to see if we had any messages, finally a message came through to say she was on Khao San Road, couldn’t find the hostel and needed a drink (the directions even had photo instructions!). We ran out and tracked her down and brought her back to check in to her top bunk cupboard. We’d picked up some 80p rum in Myanmar and ended up sitting in the hostel drinking and catching up since there was a good common area and decent crowd. Tired from the journey, Karen took herself off to bed around midnight and we headed out to Khao San Road to watch the football with a bucket of vodka red bull.

We had a bit of a lie in the next day, I was feeling pretty ropey, before heading out to the Chatuchak weekend market. We wandered around the thousands of stalls, Karen bought some beautiful elephant trousers for temples and stopped for lunch before heading back to the hostel. After dropping Rhys off, me and Karen headed out to find a massage place (parlour makes it sound dirty). Around Khao San Road chairs line the streets spilling out of massage places where for a couple of pounds you can choose from a number of different massages. We went for 1/2 hour foot and 1/2 hour head, shoulders and back. I was laughing so much at Karen squirming, while the woman poked her feet with plastic sticks, that tears were rolling down my face. After we were done being pummeled from toe to groin (a foot massage?!?!) they took us into the back room where we laid on mattresses on the floors while the women straddled us, pushed our legs into positions they were never made to be in, then sent us on our way. It was all a little confusing, a little relaxing, a little painful and just all a bit unexpected. That night we ate street food then watched the Spurs game in a bar just off Khao San. On the way back to the hostel we stopped by a deep fried bug cart and bought a pick-a-mix of bugs, from wormy things to crickets. Karen and Rhys had a bug eating competition and washed it all down with copious amounts of rum. 

Another early start and I was given the ‘wake Karen’ duty, not easy when she’d only had 4 hours sleep. By 7am we were on a minibus for the 3 hour drive to an elephant camp. About an hour away we hopped out of the minibus and transferred into a private car. Once at the elephant camp me and Rhys climbed aboard an elephant and Karen clambered on top of hers. We only went off for a short walk and a paddle in the river, our elephant eating everything it could find along the way, before we changed in to our bikinis and joined another elephant down by the river for bath time. We climbed on top of him and spent the next hour being squirted and holding on to his ears playing ‘rodeo’ where he threw his head back and forth until we flew off, elephants are surprisingly graceful for such big, heavy animals. Back in the car we made a quick lunch stop before heading to Tiger Temple. We’d heard mixed reviews about the tigers, about how there are all drugged and dozy but it seemed to us to be a load of rubbish, they’re just happy, content tigers with no fear of humans as, the ones you can touch anyway, are hand reared. There are plenty of other tigers that you can’t go near because they don’t have the right temperament or relationship with humans. We had a great time and even paid extra for a ‘special’ photo shoot, a quick game of rock-paper-scissors to decide who got to craddle the tigers head and Karen came away with a snazzy fake tiger tooth necklace to prove how brave she was! On the way back to Bangkok we stopped at the bridge over the River Kwai for a leg stretch then spent the last hour of the journey watching the most bizarre music video ever. 

Elephant riding, near Bangkok.

Elephant bathing, near Bangkok.

Karen cuddling a tiger Tiger Temple, near Bangkok.

Rhys and a tiger tiger, Tiger Temple, near Bangkok.

We checked out of our hostel the next morning before heading off to find a tuktuk to the Grand Palace. The driver tried to tell us it wasn’t open until the afternoon so he could take us on a little tour of some shops but we headed over to the area anyhow and foudn out he was lying. After buying our tickets we were told Karen needed to buy a longer sleeve top and Rhys had to don some very fetching elephant pants (that he then wore for the next 24 hours). The palace was very beautiful and worth the £10 entry, lots of gold and painted tiles and sparkly bits. After a hour or so we grabbed lunch in the market by the river then walked over to Wat Pho, a huge reclining Buddha in another beautiful, peaceful complex, a real oasis of calm in a crazy city. Back at Khao San we stopped for beer and buckets, Rhys ate a fried scorpion and then it was time to pick up our bags to head to the train station. We had an overnight train to Trang, 16 hours away, having old Karen it was 12 hours. The train was perfectly comfy, we had bunk beds along a corridor with curtains and sheets. After a few drinks and some new eyebrows for Karen it was time to sleep.

Temple of the Emerald Buddha, Bangkok.

Temple of the Emerald Buddha, Bangkok.

Karen enjoying a few buckets, Khao San Road, Bangkok.

Rhys eating a scorpion, Khao San Road, Bangkok.

night cap on the train from Bangkok to Trang.

Week 57 - Mandalay, Bagan, Nyaungshwe (Myanmar (Burma))

We were up before breakfast to head to the ferry port. We got great seats on deck on the front of the boat and settled in for the 10 hour journey. The boat was pretty empty and there were only tourists on board. After breakfast we watched the world pass by, there were pagodas dotted about, little bamboo houses, fisherman and lots of tug boats pushing huge barges with hauls of teak. It was mostly agricultural land lining the banks but in some places there were strips of golden sand, where there were towns there was thick mud covered in rubbish as far as the eye could see. We pulled up at a couple of stops along the way where people came onboard to sell samosas and cloth. It wasn’t the most exciting journey but was very peaceful and far better than taking a bumpy bus (Even if it was also far more expensive).

View from the ferry on the way from Mandalay to Bagan.

Once in Nyaung U, we jumped on a rickshaw to take us to our hotel, New Park. After arranging for the rickshaw riders brother to pick us up in the morning we headed out for dinner. The choice of restaurants in the street near our hotel was amazing, it felt like a real backpacker area with lots of cafes with chairs spilling out on to the dirt street, all lit by lanterns. There weren’t that many backpackers about though. In general the tourism in Myanmar seems to be made up of package tourists on coach trips or older people (mostly French) and, as much of the country isn’t open to tourists yet or requires expensive permits and flights to access, all the tourists congregate in a few areas, Bagan and Inle being two of the main ones. It definitely isn’t anything like Thailand, there were only 1m tourists here last year and 1.8m expected this year compared to about 28m a year in Thailand and 3.8m in Laos (bear in mind Myanmar is the biggest country in Southeast Asia), but we’re seeing more tourists than we expected. It is nice though that locals are still curious and wave and smile at you when they see you in the street. The big influx of tourists since the boycott was dropped, has meant that demand for accommodation and transport completely outstrips supply in high season, we’ve been lucky as we’re just outside peak season and have had no problems.

The next day, we were collected from our hotel by Naing Naing, the rickshaw drivers brother, with his horse and cart. We spent 10 hours trunderling down the roads and sandy tracks visiting the main pagodas, monasteries and stupas. The Bagan plain covers 67 square kilometres and is scattered with more than 2,000 Buddhist structures, mostly built between 1084 and 1300. It’s a truely crazy place, everywhere you turn there is another pagoda, some are huge, the tallest was 61m high, others are tiny little buildings the size of kilns. At each one you leave your shoes by the door and explore. Some have beautiful wall paintings, some still have their original buddha statues (after the 1975 earthquake there has been a lot of restoration in the area and a lot of buddhas have been replaced), at some you can buy gold leaves to apply on Buddha statues, some are in ruins and overgrown and surrounded with brambles, at some the plaster has come off revealing the red bricks beneath and others are still coated in gold. Our favourites were the ones you could climb on with views over the plain and those that looked like fairytale castles with lots of spires. I couldn’t even begin to name the ones we visited. Our driver was brilliant and we covered a lot of ground and visited a lot of places with him giving us little tidbits of information along the way. 

The Bagan Plain.

Applying gold leaf to a Buddha statue, Bagan.

Everyone is so nice we’re rubbish at saying no, by the end of the day i’d bought a bracelet, Rhys had a miniature elephant and we both had our faces painted with thanaka. Everywhere you go in Myanmar you see people (mostly women) with their faces covered in this cream coloured ‘mud’ that comes from bark when mixed with water on a stone slab, sometimes they do nice little patterns but more often they just slap it on any old way and leave it to dry. It supposedly protects from the sun and pollution and keeps your skin soft. The locals all thought it was hilarious and were pointing us out to their friends, they thought it was brilliant. The trip ended at a small pagoda where we watched sun set, we’d heard the main temples get overrun by tour groups and were thankful to be away from the crowds. Sadly it’s not really the season for sunsets (it’s too cloudy) but it was pretty all the same and a great way to end the day. 

Rhys and a friendly monk, overlooking Bagan.

Sunset over Bagan.

Back at the hotel, after washing off all the dust from the day, we headed out to Weather Spoons. I think only Brits will appreciate the name but it was enough to draw us in, Rhys even had a fish finger sandwich. We got talking to the owner and he was telling us how he worked in a Wetherspoons in Bristol in the UK when he was doing his hot air balloon training and bought some of the recipes back to Bagan with him. It was really interesting to talk to him, all the political changes recently have made it ok for people to talk about the government without fear and the locals really are keen to tell you about it. Everyone who has spoken to us has shown so much hope for the 2015 Election. 

We had a lazy start the next day. After breakfast we wandered to the main street near the hotel and found somewhere renting electric bikes (I got a speedy sports one!). By the end of the day we were considering how much they’d cost at home they were so much fun, although a little scary on sand. They go at quite a speed and are pretty heavy (and therefore easy to drop...). We spent a couple of hours in the morning shooting around to see and climb some of the smaller temples we’d missed the previous day before heading back to our hotel for an afternoon siesta. While we were out we got coaxed in to a women’s house to try some doughnut type things they were cooking for the monks for a festival the following day and felt pretty bad when we didn’t want to buy any of her laquerware. After our siesta, we headed out again for a few more temples and to see if sunset was going to be a showstopper. We sat around for a bit before deciding sunset wasn’t worth it and headed back to give our bikes back. We found a little bar on the main road where lots of locals were drinking and settled in for the night, Rhys invited an English girl, Rebecca over to join us and we whiled away the evening.

Rhys on his electric bike, Bagan.

We had an early bus to Kalaw the following day and were up waiting for our transfer to the bus station at 7am. Our bus was fully booked with people sitting on plastic chairs in the aisles and the road was pretty bumpy, we were glad we didn’t chose to take a night bus. After a few stops along the way to stretch our legs and buy drinks we made it to Kalaw at 3pm in the pouring rain and checked in to the Pine Breeze Hotel. By far the nicest hotel we stayed at, the room was huge with super comfy beds and a balcony. After dropping off our bags we borrowed umbrellas and wandered into town to find Sam’s Family Trekking, a guide that had come with high recommendations. While waiting for him to finish talking with other backpackers we ordered dinner and had amazing super cheap curry and unlimited tea. By the time he came to chat with us we’d decided that the 3 day hike we’d intended to do was going to be absolutely no fun in the rain and on top of that Rhys was still poorly. Instead we discussed day hikes and decided we’d wait until the morning to see what the weather was doing. Back at the hotel Rhys watched TV and I had a very early night.

It had been raining all night and was showing no signs of stopping. Although the treks sounded amazing we decided that the rain would just make them miserable and we’d just be trekking for the sake of trekking. Instead we spent the day in our lovely hotel room, grateful we’d paid a little more than normal for a nice place. We popped out to find the train station and to have a quick wander through the market in the rain and again later for dinner, when we had a feast with different curries, tea leaf salad, soup, chapati and rice and bottomless tea all for £4, bargain.

We had a lazy start with a huge pancake breakfast on the roof terrace before catching a taxi to the train station only to find out that there had been a landslide and the trains weren’t running. We ended up walking back into town and luckily found a truck straight away to take us to Shwenyaung. Now the locals call these trucks buses but they’re more like pick-ups with the truck bed full of plastic egg boxes that you sit on cross legged, they cost the same price as the trains although they did get us there in half the time. I’m not sure how often the trucks run but one guy said he’d been waiting for hours so I think we were really lucky. The truck dropped us off at Shwenyaung and along with the other two westerners, we jumped in a shared taxi the rest of the way to Nyaungshwe. Again, we’d pre-booked our accommodation so checked straight in and headed out to explore the main street and book a bus ticket to Yangon. After a stop for iced coffee and samosas we headed back to chill at the hotel. That night we met up with Fabian, who we had arrived with and sat outdoors in a little cocktail bar on the main road for dinner and drinks.

By 6am the next morning we were up and on a long narrow boat with Fabian and the other guy from our taxi, for a trip out on to the lake. It was very calm and serene at that time of the morning and I don’t think many other tourists were out of bed so it felt like we had the lake to ourselves. The first part of the trip was through a wide part of the lake, our boat was surrounded by beautiful rolling green hills with clouds sitting in the valleys and the lake was dotted with fisherman who use a special leg rowing technique and throw big circular nets into the water. After that, our boat headed into little channels between the clumps of lotus leaves and reeds, chugging past the traditional stilt villages of the Intha people, the sound of our outboard motor almost deafening. 

Fisherman, early morning on Inle Lake.

We made many stops during our 8 hour trip including three workshops that refreshingly didn’t end with a heavy sell that always makes you feel so awkward. The first workshop was a silver smith, the second, a lotus fibre weaver in In Paw Khone, with about 10 looms all clacking away making various cloths. The third workshop was a cheroot making workshop in The Lay where the smell of honey and banana used in the herbal cigars was pretty enticing. We stopped to talk to some women of the Padaung tribe who wear dozens of heavy brass rings on their necks and at a market where there were the usual tourist souvenir stalls but also plenty of colourful fruit, veg, fish and meat stalls aimed at the locals. We visited Phaung Daw Oo Paya, a pagoda that houses five Buddhas that have had so much gold leaf applied that you can’t even tell what the statues are. 

Market day in a village on the banks of Inle Lake.

The brass neck rings of the Padang tribe, Inle Lake.

The most southerly stop we made was at Indein where a short walk up hill, there was a cluster of tired looking stupas that were nevertheless appealing for their remoteness (we had them to ourselves), their hillside position and the tinkling of their bells in the breeze. Our final stop, after passing through the ‘floating gardens’- rows and rows of tomato plants that are grown in the lake, was at the Leaping Cat Monastery. I’d already read that the cats are no longer trained to leap through hoops but we were a bit disappointed in the small number of cats actually there. We arrived back in town at about 2pm and other than one downpour that left us all a bit damp, we had been really lucky with the weather.

Reed house on stilts, Inle Lake.

The stupas at Indein, Inle Lake.

Back in town we stopped by the French Bakery for chocolate cake and iced coffee and then headed back to the room to chill before dinner when we returned to the French Bakery for sandwiches.

Week 56 - Bangkok, Yangon, Mandalay (Thailand, Myanmar (Burma))

As we had to collect our passports from the Myanmar Embassy in Bangkok at 3:30pm we hadn’t made any plans for the day. It has also been raining since 11pm the night before with a ferocious thunder storm so we didn’t have much desire to venture out. Instead of sightseeing we spent the day doing chores and we found a travel agency near the hostel that would change our Thai Bahts in to pristine US Dollars to take into Myanmar (Kyats are a closed currency that you can’t get outside of Myanmar and apparently the ATM’s there don’t accept foreign cards). After collecting our passports, shiny new Burmese visa in place, we headed for more Thai food for a late lunch. Other than popping out to get a haircut, we didn’t leave the hostel for the rest of the day and feasted on crisps in bed for dinner.

The next day we were up early for a 6:30am pick up for a trip to the Damnern Saduak floating market. As soon as we got in the van a storm hit and the rain was torrential. Luckily, 3 hours later, when we finally made it through the traffic and puddles to the market, the rain had stopped. The market was extremely touristy but good fun. When we got there we jumped in a paddle boat and were poled around the waterways to peer at the stalls with the proprietors hooking our boat and pulling us over to try to sell us hats and Buddha statues. We had a bit of time to wander around the markets on foot after the boat, before piling in to a motor boat for a bizarre trip down the waterways away from the market. It was a bit like if a tour bus took a route through deepest darkest Tottenham to show people the council estates and piles of rubbish. The boat dropped us off where, after a short wait, we were back in a minibus headed back to Bangkok. The bus dropped us at Khao San Road and after lunch we spent a bit of time wandering around the market before taking a tuktuk back to the hostel.

Damnern Saduak Floating Market.

On our last day in Bangkok we had another lay-in and headed out at noon to find the ferry pier for a boat ride along the Chao Phraya River to the Grand Palace, the former royal residence. Once we got to the the palace we saw the price of a ticket and the strict dress code and decided against going in. Wandering around instead we stumbled upon a Buddhist temple complex (after ducking into a museum when the rain started) with hardly any tourists and really friendly locals. The buildings were beautiful, very different from those in Korea and Taiwan, lots of white walls with gold roof details and statues. Back at the ferry pier we stopped by a little stall for lunch before catching the boat across the river. The boat dropped us at a market and from there we walked to another beautiful, small temple before catching motorbikes to Wat Arun, the Temple of the Dawn, an 82m high Khmer-style spire covered in tiny porcelain tiles. The buildings around the famous temple were just as spectacular as Wat Arun itself, we even stopped by a temple where a monk flicked some water at us and tied a bracelet around our wrists, it was very, very cool. When we bought our ticket for Wat Arun we climbed up some stupidly steep steps to the top of the tower for spectacular views across the river to the Grand Palace and the temples lining the river. After Wat Arun we caught the boat back to the pier near our hostel. Walking back we passed an Irish Bar and the thought of our first Magners in over a year drew us in. £6 a pint!!! Best £6 we’ve spent.

The Grand Palace (well the bit you can see without paying!), Bangkok.

The temple next to Wat Arun, Bangkok.

Me getting my bracelet from the monk, Bangkok.

We were up and on the tube by 8am the next day. At the end of the line, we found a bus to take us the rest of the way to Don Muang Airport. Our flight was delayed by an hour and a half and we landed in Yangon, Myanmar with only 30 minutes until we were due to meet a travel agent at our hotel. We rushed through immigration and took a taxi from the booth in arrivals. We were a little sceptical when we saw the entrance hall to our hotel, a really dirty, smelly stairwell with kids playing and old people sleeping in the corners, and were pleasantly surprised when we made it to the reception to find a decent guesthouse and really friendly staff. The tour agency rep had waited around for us and handed us our train tickets for the following night. Yangon, Myanmar’s former capital is pretty gritty but has a certain charm. The streets are filthy but every now and then you come across a spectacular temple or religious monument and there are British colonial buildings in states of disrepair scattered around. The people are also incredibly friendly, they all seem to want to say hello and practice their English (there is a lot of English spoken in Myanmar). 

Our first stop when we headed out to explore was the Sule Paya Stupa, a 2,000 year old golden temple around which the British redesigned the city layout, turning it into the primary traffic roundabout. We were very impressed as it was our first Burmese temple and the sheer amount of gold is incredible. After a few minutes a local came up to us to tell us a bit of the history of the site, show us around a little museum and help us find our birth day corners. Depending on what day you are born you go a different fountain and pour sacred water over the buddha standing in your corner and your animal while giving prayer and making wishes, Rhys is a guinea pig, i’m a dragon. He ended up asking for money as he was a student and we felt obliged to give him something. Having just had to make a donation to leave our shoes at the door we were starting to feel like we were going to get played at every corner - sad really because then you start to suspect it of everyone even when people are just being friendly - like the cab driver giving us bottles of water on the way from the airport and a guy teaching us some Burmese and taking us to our train carriage for our journey to Mandalay. 

At around 5pm we jumped in a taxi to the Shwedagon Paya Temple. As there was a festival of light that night it was jam packed with locals which made it all the more appealing. We got swept up with the crowds and after taking off our shoes headed up through one fo the four entrance corridors to the main platform. It was breathtaking, so much gold and glitz in one place and so different to temples we’ve seen elsewhere. The pagoda/stupa stands 105m high and has been added to by various kings and queens since it was first built over 2,500 years ago, to enshrine four relics; the staff of Kakusandha, the water filter of Koṇāgamana, a piece of the robe of Kassapa and eight strands of hair from Gautama, the historical Buddha. The crown of the stupa is topped with a massive 76 carat diamond (although you can’t see that from the ground) and it’s studded with thousands of rubies and smaller diamonds just to top off all the gold plate. The site is quite large with a further 82 buildings surrounding the main stupa and in the twilight it all looked quite magical, especially with all the candles and incense being lit for the festival. After an hour of sitting people watching we headed back down and jumped in a taxi to take us back to our guesthouse, popping out only briefly to buy some samosas from a street stall nearby. 

Shwedagon Paya, Yangon.

The crowds at Shwedagon Paya, Yangon.

Our train wasn’t until 5pm the following day so we had most of the day to while away exploring Yangon. After stopping by the tourist office to pick up a map we decided to head to the Bogyoke Aung San Market, primarily a tourist market with over 2,000 shops selling all manner of Myanmar handicrafts from wooden puppets to lacquerware, gemstones and longis. We nearly bought a painting but talked ourselves out of it since we’d have to carry it and we’re not sure how easy it is to use ATM’s here once our cash reserves run out. We stopped in the food court for a curry lunch just as the rain started. We ended up wandering around for another hour or so at a bit of a lose end trying to keep under the shelter before deciding we’d just head back to the guesthouse to wait for our train. Luckily the Arsenal game was on TV (they’re always watching premier league repeats here) so the time passed quickly and before we knew it we were in a taxi headed to the train station. We were befriended by a Myanmar man who put us on the train and wished us well and had the police guards come visit to make sure we knew they were around should we need them. We had a four bed cabin and shared with a quiet guy who pretty much just slept. As the train pulled out of the station we poured a celebratory drink which Rhys then practically threw everywhere once we hit the bumps. I’ve never been on a train like it, it was so crazily bumpy I can’t even describe it. Eating dinner was interesting and sleeping was practically impossible. Once the sun had gone down (after the most beautiful sunset over the bright green rice paddies) we weren’t left with much to do but try to sleep, reading was impossible. No joke, lying in bed I think a couple times I flew a good few inches above the mattress and being on the top bunk, that put me uncomfortably close to a big fat spider who I ended up jamming in his hole with a bit of paper. Although very basic, it was well worth it for the experience. Waking up at 6:30am and opening the window to see the fields passing by and a golden stupa or two in the distance, with local kids waving at you and men and women walking to their fields along the tracks, was just brilliant as were the fireflies in the cabin and the smell of wooden cooking fires wafting through the trains from the villages we passed on route.

Sunset from the train to Mandalay.

We arrived in Mandalay about an hour after schedule at 9:30am and headed straight to our hotel. We’d splashed out and got a decent room and they let us check in early. After washing the layers of grime off from the journey we climbed in to bed for a quick nap and to watch a bit of TV. At lunch time we headed out and wandered up through a hectic cloth market to a western cafe for lunch then skirted around the southern wall of the palace (now nothing more than a huge military base) debating whether the ripples in the moat were crocodiles or big slow fish. As Rhys was feeling a bit under the weather we headed back to the hotel to chill out, arranging a day out for the following day with a random man on the street on the way and booking our ferry ticket for the trip to Bagan. Mandalay is definitely cleaner than Yangon with plenty of Chinese investment, but lacks some of the charm. It is a relatively new city, founded in 1857 by King Mindon to show the British who were camped out in Yangon that the Burmese kingdom was still a mighty force. 

Our random man, Salmon picked us up from our hotel at 8am along with his friend and two motorbikes and we headed to our first stop of the day, Mahamuni Paya, the most important Buddhist site in the city. It’s a large temple complex with a 3.8 metre tall Buddha statue at the centre. Men can enter the alcove where the Buddha sits and cover it in gold leaves. There are also some Hindu figures taken from Angkor Wat. Once out of the temple we rode through an area of stone carvers and stopped by a marble workshop to watch people carving and polishing beautiful statues from giant pieces of white marble, although we ended up buying a tiny jade bowl it wasn’t a hard sell. The next stop was at another workshop, this time to show us how they make the huge bronze Buddha statues. One they were working on was about 6m high and would cost about $2,000 - $3,000 to buy, bargain! 

Next we headed to Amarapura, the journey alone being worth the trip with locals waving to us as we went past, with their cook fires and bamboo shacks lining the pothole ridden roads. Amarapura was the capital of Burma between 1783 and 1857 before it was moved to Mandalay. We stopped at U Bein’s Bridge, the longest teak bridge in the world at 1.2km long and over 200 years old, and spent 30 minutes watching the boats, the fisherman and the duck herders. Back on the bikes and our next stop was at the Mahaganayon Kyaung monastery where hundreds of monks queued to go in to lunch. It was a bit intrusive and quite touristy but fun to see all the same. 

View from U Bein Bridge, Amarapura.

Fisherman near U Bein Bridge, Amarapura.

Lunchtime for the monks, Mahaganayon Kyaung monastery.

Next, we headed to Sagaing, another old capital city, to climb Sagaing Hill. After a very hot and sticky climb up the covered stairway we reached the first temple, Soon U Ponya Shin Paya with views of the Ayeyarwady River and the surrounding stupa studded hills. Back on the bikes, we headed to the boat dock for the short trip to Inwa. Before crossing the water we ate a Myanmar feast with bowls of curry, soup, beans, fishy stuff and plates of peanuts and green vegetables. The boat only took 5 minutes to Inwa, yet another old capital city and then we jumped straight on a horse carriage for a 2 hour circuit along very muddy and bumpy tracks. It was a shame because 2 of the 5 places we stopped required the Mandalay tourist ticket to enter and we didn’t want to buy one (it was quite expensive at $10 each and all the money goes to the government, something we’re trying to limit, especially since we took the government owned train to Mandalay). We did stop at some beautiful, ruined stupas at Yedanasini Paya strewn across the grassy fields, a watch tower, and a very atmospheric ruined monastery, along the way we managed to buy a bronze mask, glad Karen is visiting us shortly so we don’t have to lug it around for long. The plan was to return to the U Bein Bridge for sunset but it had turned pretty cloudy so we figured it would be a waste of time, especially as Rhys was still feeling unwell. Instead we stopped at one final temple before heading back to the hotel.

Our horse and cart, Inwa.

Abandoned Buddha, Inwa.

Week 55 - Tainan, Kaohsiung, Bangkok (Taiwan, Thailand)

On our last day in Tainan we headed to Anping, the oldest area of the city a couple of kilometres from the centre along a smelly, dirty, yet fish filled waterway. We were pretty hot and sticky after the 45 minute walk in blistering heat and headed straight to Fort Zeelandia, the first castle to be built in Taiwan by the Dutch in the 17th century. After a refreshing drink in the shade of the walls we wandered around the fort and gardens. Our next stop was at the Anping Treehouse, a crazy old warehouse that has been completely taken over by Banyan trees. After a stroll around the area and a few photo stops at some brightly painted temples Rhys bought a giant bag of prawn crackers and we caught a bus back into the centre to our hostel. 

Banyan trees at Anping Treehouse, Tainan.

The next day we left Tainan and took the bus to the train station from where we caught a local train back to Kaohsiung. Kaohsiung is Taiwan’s second city and is pretty much just a big commercial harbour with limited attractions for the tourist. As we were flying out from Kaohsiung we thought it was worth a stop and spent 3 days in the city. The first night we ventured out to the Liuho Tourist Night Market. It was fantastic. We spent a couple of hours wandering up and down the busy street, lined with vendors selling all sorts of tasty curiosities, buying a variety of snacks as we went - dumplings, beef wraps, pork buns, Rhys even bought a chicken neck (or it might have been a pork penis, we’re not entirely sure, he thought he was buying a rib).

Liuho Tourist Night Market, Kaohsiung.

The next day we walked over to Shoushan. It was further than we thought and again we were pretty tired from the heat by the time we got to the start of the mountain trails. Nevertheless we spent an hour and a half walking around the forested slopes looking out for macaque monkeys. We’d only seen 3 when we decided we’d gone far enough and turned back, a little disappointed in the monkey turnout on the so called ‘Monkey Mountain’. Then we found a group of about 30 monkeys and a little further along the trail another 20 or so. Far happier with our monkey sightings we walked back, crossing Love River, to our hotel by the main station. On route we walked through a great little market selling all kinds of dried food (like Korea, dried food is very much the thing in Taiwan although there is less pickling) and Rhys treated himself to a kilo of beef jerky. Dinner was more dumplings from street stalls around the corner from our hotel.

Rhys's favourite monkey. Shoushan, Kaohsiung.

More monkeys, Shoushan, Kaohsiung.

Rhys buying jerky, Kaohsiung.

Our last day in Kaohsiung and in Taiwan we took the short 5 minute ferry ride over to Cijin Island where we hired bikes thinking it would be a really scenic ride along the beach. It wasn’t. There was a pretty cliff area at one end and a small stretch of grey sand, but after that we were either riding alongside building sites or commercial docks and steel works. After a couple of miles we realised it wasn’t going to get any more scenic and headed back to the ferry port. The main street was full of people it being a Saturday, all crowding around the hundreds of seafood stalls. On our way back to the hotel we stopped at Formosa Boulevard station to admire the Dome of Light, the world's largest stained glass installation created by Italian artist Narcissus Quagliata. We returned to the Liuho Tourist Night Market again for dinner, this time sausage in a sausage and slithers of pork belly, before turning in for an early night.

The Dome of Light, Formosa Boulevard, Kaohsiung.

We had a flight at 8:30am from Kaohsiung to Macau and jumped in a taxi to the airport. It took 40 minutes to check in due to some problem with our reservation and the flight was only 1.5 hours. We then had to wait 9 hours for our connecting flight to Bangkok which was delayed by an hour. Macau airport is tiny, not somewhere you really want to be stuck but the saving grace was the one restaurant did serve amazing dim sum. We made it to Bangkok, cleared immigration in record time and jumped on the MRT to our hostel. 

Taiwan isn’t somewhere we’ll be rushing back to, it’s not particularly backpacker friendly and although the scenery from the train was spectacular actually getting out to see some of it proved difficult without having our own transport or hiring a driver. The street food was a definite highlight and the people are really friendly but the lack of pavements and the necessity to get permits to hike anywhere kind of balanced it out.

We set the alarm for our first day in Bangkok and started the day queuing at the Myanmar embassy, forms filled out and passports in hand, ready to get our visas. It was a very speedy process, we were back at our hostel just up the road in about an hour and a half. Our next chore of the day was buying train tickets for a couple of weeks time when we go south to the islands. Another tuktuk ride and we were at the famed Khao San Road, backpacker central, stopping by tour agencies to find the best offer for a day trip with Karen and booking a floating market trip for us before Myanmar. After a delicious street side duck and pork lunch we headed back to our hostel across town. There was a Hindu festival focused on the temple next to our hostel that night and lining the streets nearby. It was absolutely hectic and ridiculously hot. We fought our way through the crowds marveling at all the people, candles, incense and gilded statues. There were lots of flower petals, limes and dancing, it was quite a sight. Once we emerged at the other side we carried on and walked to Patpong, a lively area of bars, market stalls and of course, as you would expect in Bangkok, strip clubs and ping pong shows. We stopped at a couple of bars before heading back to bed.

Hindu festival, Bangkok.

The next day we allocated to shopping. We jumped on the Skytrain and headed over to the MBK Centre, a huge shopping mall with one floor full of market stalls selling fake everythings. We’d given ourselves a budget and spent the next couple of hours renewing our wardrobes and treating ourselves to Paul Smith wallets and Mulberry purses. Clothes are so cheap here it’s ridiculous, we’re talking £2 for a really nice t-shirt and £4 for floaty hippy trousers. Back at our hostel with our piles of bags we chilled before heading out for dinner, Thai curry from a street stall.