Burma I (Yangon, Mandalay, U-Bein's Bridge)

From the moment we arrived in Burma (or technically Union of Myanmar), I think we all realized that we were in a special place.  The weather was terrible and rainy, and of course it was the one time I did not put the rain cover on my backpack!  But even still, walking through the airport, none of us knew quite what to expect.  Unlike most of the other Southeast Asian countries, not many other backpackers venture into Burma, so we did not have the same insider information that we had had for other places.  We had heard some rumors - some that we hoped were not true - but we were ready for anything...

We flew into the capital of Yangon (or Rangoon as the Burmese call it), and we knew that we would want to quickly move on from there.  Walking around with our backpacks in the rain trying to find a place to stay that first night, confirmed that we would try and leave the next day if possible.  One of the first things we noticed while walking around was what a bad state the sidewalks and roads were in.  Without paying attention, you could easily find yourself neck-deep in sewage, and none of us wanted that to happen to us!  We decided to have a taxi take us from the airport to a hostel that we had read about in our guide book, but sadly, we discovered it was fully booked when we arrived.  The man working at reception was nice enough to offer to call another place for us to check availability, however phone service was cut off before he could complete the call.

The casual way that he turned to us and told us that the phones were dead should have been a clear indicator that “we were not in Kansas anymore.”  We were a little confused as to why the phones would just be turned off, and he just quickly explained that everything in Burma is like that, from phones to electricity to water.  The government decides when these things will be available, and turns them off with no warning for hours at a time.  Imagine trying to run a business!

We thanked him anyway, and he pointed us in the direction of some hotels we could walk to on foot to check availability.  We were all growing tired of carrying our bags, so we went into one of the first ones that we saw even though it looked to be out of our price range from the outside.  Once entering however, we realized that the hotel was actually quite old and rundown, so we could probably afford to stay there after all.  We convinced the man at reception to let the four of us share one room, and they brought in extra mattresses that we put on the floor.  Satisfied that at least we would have a home for one night in Burma, we decided to set out in search of dinner.

Before I talk about our first meal in Yangon, I want to quickly talk about the confusion of currency exchange that we encountered.  Normally, when you fly into an international airport in a new country, there are no shortage of currency exchange counters ready to rip you off.  However, none of us even noticed that there were not only none of these, but the current exchange rate was not shown anywhere either.  As I mentioned in my last entry, we had each brought $400 crisp US dollars with us, since we had heard that there are no ATM’s in Burma.  We felt like walking targets (as all tourists here must feel) because it was obvious that we would be carrying all of our money on us at all times.  Well, when we paid for our hotel, we were given an exchange rate of 780 kiat to 1 USD.  Having no other frame of reference, we agreed to this.  At dinner though, they only wanted to give us 750, so we were determined to better educate ourselves when we got back to our hotel, so we could avoid being ripped off.

In a nutshell, dinner was disgusting, and we were nervous about spending the next ten days eating in Burma.  Was all food going to smell and taste like a wet dog?  We had just come from Thailand so we were a little spoiled, but this first meal was not only expensive, it was vile.  The boys branched out and ate these chicken ball things (we are still not quite sure what they were) but Vic and I played it safe (we thought) and ordered chicken with pineapple, but all was inedible!

When we got back to the hotel, we used the internet there to try and put an end to the mystery about the exchange rate, however we were left with many more questions.  We should have known this would be the case when the guy at reception wished us “good luck” when we asked if we could use the internet.  We quickly discovered that very few sites were even accessible, and checking email and facebook were impossible as they were blocked by firewall.  And when we googled the exchange rate, the official one came back as 6.7 kiat to 1 USD, which further confused us!  Apparently, the government publishes this exchange rate to make it appear that the economy is doing better than it actually is, however the black market rate (which is what we would be negotiating during the remainder of our trip) could be anywhere from 700 - 850!!

Besides the currency exchange, we also did not feel that we had the same sense of trust for people in authority position that we might have in some other places.  What I mean by this is that even Lonely Planet warns that you might be followed by government officials at some point during your trip in Burma, and you might not even realize!  But also, when we went to the train station to try and decide how we should get to Mandalay, the ticket window workers wanted $90 USD each for a ticket (when the guide book said not to pay more than about $30)!  We decided they were probably just trying to make some extra side cash from ripping us off, so we did not buy our tickets from them, but instead kept looking.

We were not exactly sure where to buy bus tickets from, so it is a good thing that we met “Stephen.”  At any given time in Burma, people will approach you randomly to practice English, since it is obvious from the way you look that you are from the Western world.  Even though I try not to, I am still always suspicious of these people even though I usually end up chatting with them anyway.  In this case, “Stephen” (in quotes because his Burmese name was really something else but he goes by that to make it easier for us) really helped us out.  Not only did he help us find cheap bus tickets to Mandalay - he probably made a commission - but he also took the guys to exchange some money at the black market.  When a lot of Nashy’s money was refused upon first arriving into Burma, we were a little worried that we might run out of money.  However, Stephen let us know that you can always change the rejected money too - you might just have to take a lesser exchange rate.

While the boys were off dealing with the black market exchange people, Vic and I decided to wait at the bus ticket place.  As we were sitting there, an old man came and sat next to me reading the newspaper.  I had heard that the news in Burma was restricted by the government as to what the people are actually privy to, so I was interested to see that he had a newspaper.  That is until I noticed that he was reading the sports section, and that the latest news was that Spain had won the World Cup (and this was January!)!

As we were waiting, Vic and I started to grow a little suspicious of Stephen when the boys were gone over an hour.  We were starting to get really nervous, when we heard them approaching.  Apparently it had been a long and sketchy walk, but they had exchanged their money at a place that fronted as a t-shirt store (it is illegal to trade money with foreigners on the black market adding yet another dangerous aspect to our trip).

With our bus tickets figured out, we knew we had a way out of Yangon, so we decided to make the most of our day in the city.  We walked through the streets and shopped at the markets there.  We mostly just bought weird fruit that we wanted to sample and observed everything else that was going on.  The women and young men in Burma all had this yellowish paint on their faces, and we wanted to know what it was.  When we found someone that spoke English, we asked them, and they let us know that it was like a type of natural sunscreen or makeup that is made from the bark of trees.  Also while at the market, I saw some cute puppies for sale.  I tried to convince Nashy to buy me one, but then we realized that they might not be for sale to keep as pets...  And final observation of the market - the men in Burma wear skirts.  As a throwback to tradition (and also because they are probably more comfortable than pants), the men tie a piece of cloth around their lower half and leave the house that way.  Okay, I lied!  One final observation while we were walking - there were some really nice buildings in between the slums in Yangon, and we started to realize that these were government buildings or the houses of government officials.  They would be fenced, sometimes heavily guarded, but always surrounded with walls and barbed wire.

When we went to the indoor market, we were surprised to see monks in pink robes with yellow sashes.  We are still unsure to this day, but we think that these were either the girl version of monks (is that a thing?) or male monks in training (that were really feminine looking).  The reason for the confusion is that male monks wear red robes, even when they are really young - which is why we think that these must have been female.  We also noticed that a lot of the shops in the market proudly displayed signs letting us know that they were government registered.  This is actually a double-edged sword however, because if you are government registered, you are recognized as being a legitimate business in the eyes of the government, but you have to pay them in order to be.  And further, many tourists might choose to go to a different shop with the fear that they would be financing the government by shopping there.

After we browsed the markets, we made a beeline for the Shwedigon (sp?) Paya (paya is the word for pagoda in Burmese), which we had heard is one of the most impressive pagodas in all of Burma.  It was definitely enormous with lots to see, and we got an introduction to what we would see a lot of during the remainder of our time in Burma.  First, there is Buddha.  I cannot tell you for sure how many Buddha statues I have encountered in my travels, but I would say that Burma had the most amount of Buddhas I had ever seen.  For those of you who do not know, Buddha is not actually a god, but rather is a representation of the different types of stages that people go through.  This is why Buddha is sometimes androgynous, since it represents both male and female.  You can see Buddha statues that are peaceful and calm, but you can also (although not as often) see Buddha statues that appear to be suffering or in pain.  People can relate to this second Buddha but can aspire to be like the first example.  The variety of Buddha that I enjoyed in Burma (although it is extremely tacky!) is disco Buddha.  Surrounded by Las Vegas style disco lights, these statues were hard to miss.

The second thing that we noticed (which is actually related to the first) is that there is no such thing as over the top for pagodas in Burma.  These things are decorated to the max, and everywhere you look, there is gold detailing or etching.  The gold adds an impressive quality to the pagoda, but on a sunny day, it makes for some crazy glare haha!

And finally, there are those Burmese monks dressed in red - they are everywhere!  We had heard somewhere that they beg for their keep, but we had not yet seen this in action.  So when they approached us to practice English at the pagoda, we were doubly as suspicious.  I actually had a great conversation with one of them while Vic and I were resting our feet as we waited for the boys.  He was from the Shan province in the north of Burma, and he had been a monk since he was six years old.  We understood that he became a monk because his family was poor, and he wanted to lessen the burden that adding an extra mouth to feed would cause.  It is still unclear to us though if at the age of six, he made this decision himself, or if he was forced to leave his home.  In the end, he did not ask us for any money, but I still left our conversation not entirely trusting of these men dressed in red robes...

That night, we would be catching an overnight bus to Mandalay, which is pretty much the farthest north that tourists can go currently in Burma.  There is a lot of fighting and conflicts - like civil wars - going on with the government and people in the north, east, and south (and probably even the west), so we were restricted to where we could go.  We also knew where the good things were to see, and luckily, they were mostly in the areas that were deemed safe.

Unlike in many other Southeast Asian countries, the buses in Burma appeared to run on-time, and we were on our way to Mandalay.  We were even given small care packages for the ride including bottled water, disgusting strawberry cream rolls, and toothbrushes!  The seats seemed pretty comfortable, and we thought that we might actually get a decent night’s sleep.  Then as the lights went out, the TV turned on, and for the rest of the night, either crazy Burmese tv shows or loud, Burmese music was pumped over the loud speakers.  And at some point, there was even subliminal messaging about Buddhism - something like turning to Buddhism “will eliminate mental and physical suffering” - and that was actually in English!  I think at some point the music turned off, but I did not feel like I had gotten a complete night’s sleep when we arrived in Mandalay.

As we got off the bus in Mandalay (on-time!) in the morning, we were surrounded by people trying to convince us to go to their hotel.  We had read about one that sounded good, and someone from there was at the bus.  We tried to negotiate with him over the cab price to the hotel since we knew that it was not very far away, but he was not having it.  We decided to find our own cab and go to the hotel instead, and we found someone willing to lower their price.  However, as we pulled up at the hotel, someone came out and told us that they were full!  Clearly, they were not actually full but the guy from the bus station had called ahead and told them not to accept us!  We could not believe it, but we were actually glad, because we ended up staying in a place that looked better from the outside and the staff was actually friendly.

On that initial taxi ride from the bus station, we actually got a ride in a tiny pickup truck with all of our big backpacks.  The other three sat in the back with the bags, and I had to sit up front with the driver.  The truck felt like it would fall apart at any time, but luckily we made it to our destination.  At one point along the ride, a procession of Buddhist monks crossed the street in front of us.  They appeared to be arranged in order of height, and I think they were actually on their way out or back to/from begging.  It was a surreal sight!

Even though none of us had gotten a good night’s sleep, we decided to make the most of our first day in Mandalay, so we set out to find the Royal Palace.  We had read in the guidebook that when you visit the palace, you have to give your money to the government.  We were not happy about this part, but we thought it sounded like something we should see, so we went anyway.  Looking back, I do not think I would have paid to go inside, knowing now what I do.  We were blasted with government propaganda before we even entered the place, and we were actually not even allowed to see much.  There was a map which showed the areas where foreigners are allowed to go, and the rest was shown in red.  Apparently, much of the palace was built with forced labor, and this may still be going on today in the red areas of the map.  And in the end, it was not really worth the visit to be honest.

Determined to forget the Royal Palace experience, we did a walking tour around Mandalay that took us to a couple of paya, a teahouse (where we ate lunch and had improved Burmese food), and an ice cream shop before we ended up at a local market.  That night, we had plans to go - by trishaw (a bike which two people can also ride at the same time) - to Mandalay Hill to watch the sunset and then to the Mustache Brothers’ Show.

First things first, the Mandalay Hill experience was like climbing a never-ending staircase into the sky or at least that is how it felt.  Everytime we thought that we were literally about to climb up into the clouds, there was another staircase that would lead us further upward.  I do not know exactly how many stairs in total there actually were, but it was probably in the thousands.  And we were constantly surrounded by Buddhist monks who wanted to practice their English with us.  I felt bad, but I tried to ditch them as often as I could.  I was trying to enjoy my time at this place, and they were interrupting!  The sunset was nice, and the view over Mandalay was alright, but then we had to climb back down all of the stairs, and oh yeah, we were barefoot!

Now the Mustache Brothers’ Show...  After dinner, we were taken by our trishaw drivers to the house of the Mustache Brothers (named Par Par Lay, Lu Zaw, and Lu Maw).  Apparently, speaking out about the hardships of the Burmese people and saying what you really think is illegal in Burma, unless it is done in the privacy of your own home.  The Mustache Brothers used to be a popular, comedy troupe in Burma before the government made any form of comedy illegal, so they came up with the idea to continue their show in their living room.  The content of the show is pretty controversial, and you are not really sure if you can actually be in trouble for being in their house.

When we entered the living room and sat down, I was immediately told that I was sitting in a special seat.  Apparently when Aung San Suu Kyi was in Mandalay visiting, she had sat in that very same seat.  For those of you who do not know her, Aung San Suu Kyi is the leader of the National League of Democracy in Burma, and she was recently released from house arrest after 20-some odd years.  She is actually very popular among the people, but the government has insured that she will never control the country, and they lock her up in her house when she gets close.  The only reason that she has been let out now is that the government just won re-election, and as the Mustache Brothers say “it is a different bottle of wine from the outside but filled with the same old thing on the inside” (or something like that), meaning that even though they may have a new leader, they are still puppets of the military...  The show was entertaining, and in between hearing their controversial opinions about Burma, the Mustache Brothers taught us some traditional Burmese customs.  At one point, they even show a scene from the movie, “About a Boy,” where they mention Par Par Lay.  He gained fame when he was actually arrested after telling a joke in Aung San Suu Kyi’s house that the government did not like.  After his arrest, he spent 7 years in a labor prison away from his family and all for telling a joke!  It is crazy that he still continues the show today knowing the dangers of what the government could do to him.

The next morning, we planned to leave Mandalay for Bagan, and we had already booked our bus.  We did not realize until it was too late that there are actually a few things around Mandalay that we should see including U-Bein’s Bridge.  We were struggling with what to do since we could not refund our bus tickets, but then we came up with a solution that had us waking up at 4AM in order to catch sunrise at U-Bein’s Bridge and then still make our bus to Bagan.  U-Bein’s Bridge is one of the longest teak bridges in the world, and for many people, it is their daily commute to work or school on foot or bicycle.  We had seen some pictures of the bridge which convinced us that we should definitely rise early and make the journey out to see it.  It was incredible, and even though it was wobbly and scary to walk across, we spent a few hours taking pictures and just observing the life of the commuters who make that long walk (both ways!) each day.

I think now is a good time to post what I have written so far about Burma, but there is still much more to come.  My computer is about to die, and once again I am on the Shinkansen bullet train from Kyoto to Tokyo in Japan (this time with Humme!), so I will have to say goodbye for now!

Thailand II (Koh Tao, Koh Phi Phi, Phuket, Bangkok)

It is weird to remember back to the time I spent in Thailand while I am currently on the Shinkansen (bullet train) from Kobe to Tokyo in Japan.  At this rate, I probably won’t even be writing about Japan until after I get home, but I will not leave anything out, don’t worry!

To pick up where I left off though in Thailand... we had spend our first day on Koh Tao at the police station filing our police reports so that we could get some money for our stolen belongings from our travel insurance companies.  We decided to go to bed early that first night, because not only had we only had a couple hours of sleep in the last few nights combined, but we had to start scuba diving classes the next day.

As anyone who has been certified in scuba diving knows, the first couple of days are usually spent in the classroom.  You have to watch videos and take quizzes to prove that you are actually listening to the material being taught.  We were introduced to the others who would be in our group for the open water certification class, and we all struggled to stay awake for all of the lessons.

After we all passed our final exams (although we were allowed to talk to each other during it), we finally moved from the classroom to the swimming pool.  Donned with all of our scuba gear, we spent hours freezing in the swimming pool showing that we could not only do well on tests, but we could also demonstrate some of the skills we had learned.  Before we could actually go anywhere near the ocean though, we all had to do a swimming test to show that we could actually swim.  It was actually pretty difficult!  We had to swim out about 300m and then float for ten minutes before we all passed.  By the way, we were starting to become close with the rest of the people in our group since we spent so much time together.  There was Nashy and I, a French girl (Laure), a Swiss guy although he sounds like a Kiwi (Dom), and five Israeli guys (Scheidy, Omer, Stav, Tsvika, and Nathanel).  The Israeli guys were hilarious with their jokes and accents, but Dom, Laure, Nashy, and I became really close - they would become our Koh Tao family!

January 4th was the first day that we would actually go scuba diving in the ocean, and it was also Nashy’s birthday.  Aude also came to meet us from Koh Phangan, even though she never got the approval from her doctor so she wouldn’t be able to scuba dive with us.  Our first couple of dives were a little rough.  Rather than really being able to enjoy our surroundings and the marine life, we had to demonstrate our skills again (the same ones from the pool) and show that we could control our breathing and buoyancy.  We did get to see a few things though, and it was really exciting to be spending so much time underwater.  And to end the first day, the entire boat sang happy birthday to Nashy, and I think he must have heard it in about 5 languages!

I quickly became obsessed with scuba diving, and when some of the others said they might stay on a few extra days and do the advanced course, I knew that I wanted to as well.  It was a little tricky though, because we had planned to meet both Nashy’s dad and some of his friends (who we would be going to Burma with) on the east coast of Thailand.  In the end, we both decided that we should stay though, so we put off going to the east coast for a few more days.  

Besides our amazing group that we were in, we also had a great instructor, Nathan, and some dive masters to help us, Mitch and Andrew.  Mitch and I pretty much bonded instantly when I learned that he was 25 and he had plans to travel until he was 30.  He was from England, and he was also doing a working holiday visa in Australia after he finished his dive master training in Koh Tao.  It was really inspiring to meet so many other people who had the same interest in traveling that I did.  And it was nice to know that I was not the only crazy one leaving family and friends behind to do a little bit of selfish traveling!

To celebrate completing our open water certification course, a group of us bought tickets to go see a muay thai boxing match.  It was quite entertaining watching that style of fighting for a few rounds (we saw many a knockout!), but it was starting to get a little old and we wanted to go out after.  However, one of the guys from the dive center had told us that his Swedish friend would be in the final fight, so we wanted to stay until the end and see.  It was really weird to watch the first couple of rounds - it seemed to us that the first fighters were really young (maybe even 12?) and then they progressively got older as the rounds continued.  You could tell that they were all very well trained, and they were all Thai.  When it was the Swedish guy’s turn to fight, he definitely stood out since he was the only non-Thai competitor.  I do not think anyone even thought he stood a chance, but in the end, he was the champion!  It was exciting (and a surprise) to see him win, because we had been told that he had only been training for a couple of weeks.  It was a good end to the fight though, and we were glad that we stayed.

A bunch of people from the dive center were going out down by the beach, so we all joined them after the fight.  It was so much fun dancing and just letting loose, that none of us wanted to think about how we had to be down at the dive center at 10AM the next morning.  It seemed like the only nights that we actually went out were the ones when we had to be there semi-early the next morning to prepare for a day of diving.  Well, it turns out that Nashy and I both thought it would be a good idea to party all throughout the night (with others of course) and neither of us made it home or got any sleep that night.  Aude actually went to Nathan, our instructor, and told him she was worried when neither of us came home!  But both of us showed up on time to scuba diving, and he just laughed when he saw us.

Needless to say, the next day was a rough one for all of us.  None of us had gotten enough sleep, some people were hungover, and the water was really rough on our way out to the deep dive site we would be going that day.  I do not normally get seasick, but I gladly accepted a tablet from our instructor as did many of the others.  The deep dive was one of my favorites thus far, and even though we did not get to see whale sharks (a  lot of the other groups had been seeing them!), we did see a lot of things we had not seen before.

That day would also continue to be rough, because not only were we doing two day dives (as usual), but we would also be doing a night dive that evening.  The night dive was really cool and different from the others.  We each had a flashlight that we carried with us, and sometimes you could not even see that things were right in front of you until you shone some light on them!  Everything looked completely different in the dark, and if Nashy was not my buddy and next to me the entire time, I might have been a little bit scared.

It came time for our last day in Koh Tao, and Nashy and I were extremely sad to say goodbye to our new friends.  We had spent a week with everyone, and so far in SEA, that was the longest we had stayed in any one place.  We would be taking the night boat/bus across Thailand to catch another boat to Koh Phi Phi, where we would finally meet up with Victoire and Joss, who we would be going to Burma with in a few days.

The boat trip was really interesting, because when Nashy and I boarded, there were no more beds left inside as far as we could see.  We decided to go up on deck and make the most out of the wooden ground that we could claim as our bed for the night.  Neither of us got a lot of sleep that night, and we were woken in a few hours when we would move from the boat to the bus.  However, as we were leaving the boat, we noticed a room downstairs that we had not seen on the way in.  Completely filled with Thai people, there were a few beds that had not been used.  We could not believe that we could have had beds instead of sleeping under the stars, but it was kind of nice...

Since a lot of people had come to Thailand for the Full Moon Party, there were still a lot of backpackers since they had not left yet.  The bus across Thailand that we took was completely full, and when we boarded the boat across to Koh Phi Phi, everyone was crammed up on the top deck, with little room to even sit down.  Once again, we had not booked accommodation ahead of time, and we were a little worried when we saw all of the people also going the same way.  Vic and Joss were also on that boat with us, but they were on the other side of the deck, so it was difficult to make our way across to them.  Of course it was a beautiful day, and the sun beat down on us as we sailed across to Koh Phi Phi.

One scary thing happened on our trip across from one side of Thailand to the other, but luckily it ended up alright.  It is a law in Thailand that all foreigners must carry their passports on them at all times, but neither Nashy nor I knew this (obviously since we left our passports at the Burmese Embassy in Bangkok).  Well, on this bus ride, we were stopped by a policeman at a checkpoint, and they opened the door to the bus and started randomly asking people for passports.  I pretended to be sleeping, and I could hear my heart beating like crazy as they checked the guy next to mine.  Luckily, they decided they had seen enough and let us continue on our way, phew!

We ended up finding a place to stay, although it was a dorm and not very nice, but we would only be staying for one night, so we didn’t mind.  After eating lunch, we made our way directly to the beach and took a nap in the sun - it was glorious!  Before sunset, we climbed our way up to a famous lookout and saw Koh Phi Phi in all of its glory.  And later that night, we booked a snorkeling trip for the next day that would take us to Maya Bay, which is “the beach” from the movie, “The Beach.”  We all went to dinner, and then went out for a couple of drinks, but none of us wanted to stay out too late since we would be waking up early for our trip the next morning.  And I was a little bit over the Australian guy crowd that dominated Thailand’s bars and beaches...

Waking up the next morning was rough for a few of us, but we made it to the longtail boat that would be taking us around the islands.  To start the morning, we would be snorkeling with sharks!  They were only black-tip reef sharks, but it was my first time snorkeling with them, and it was exciting!  It was a little sad though to see how badly they treat the coral in Koh Phi Phi.  Even though the water and the scenery was beautiful, the coral underwater appeared to be mostly bleached and dead.  At one point during the boat trip, Joss jumped over the side and we thought that maybe he had gotten sick.  It turns out he had, but not in the way that we originally thought (and that is all I am going to say about that haha)!

We spent a few hours on Maya Bay, but it was really touristy even though it was beautiful.  And they had given us tuna sandwiches for lunch (with mayonnaise when there was no refrigerator in sight!) and none of us felt well after that.  On the way back to Koh Phi Phi, we stopped at a beach where monkeys come down from the trees.  It was entertaining to see until we realized that the guys from the boat were feeding the monkeys whiskey and anything they could find on the boat!  The poor little guys were probably wasted!

Later that day, we caught another boat to Phuket, and we all took a nap the entire journey.  We would be flying that night to Bangkok and then to Yangon, Burma the next day, so we only had a few hours.  We watched the sunset from one of the beaches then had some dinner before heading back to the airport.  Since our flight was late that night (and it was delayed), Nashy and I planned to just sleep in the airport.  Vic and Joss would be flying in the next morning, and we would all have just a few hours in Bangkok before we left for Burma.  It was actually pretty nerve-wracking going to catch our flight, because I did not have any identification on me!  Since my driver’s license had been stolen in my wallet, and my passport was still at the embassy in Bangkok, I had to convince them to let me board the flight with only a copy of my passport.  And since Nashy is both a British and Australian citizen, he had his passport, which only made things more confusing haha.

Sleeping in the airport was terrible (as usual), and I do not even know what state Nashy and I were in when Vic and Joss arrived.  I had a mission for our few hours in Bangkok - Nashy and I had to go pick up our passports from the Burmese embassy, and I wanted to buy a new camera.  I found the better version of my same camera (this one could go underwater to 10m instead of 3m), and it was the same price that I had paid.  I was just so excited to have my own camera instead of relying on others, and I vowed to take better care of this one than I had with the others...

We also decided to change money for Burma - we had heard that we needed to have crisp, new US dollars with us (since there are no ATM’s in Burma), so we tried to find some.  It was a struggle!  For some reason, all of the currency exchange places were out of US dollars, so we ended up cutting it a little close to catch our flight!  We ran through the airport - well the others ran, and I half-hobbled haha - and ended up just making it!

This would not be the end for us and Thailand, because we knew that we wanted to see more.  After Burma, we would be flying back to Bangkok and had plans to go to the north and visit Chiangmai, but we had not planned anything definitely yet.  None of us had any idea what to expect in Burma, but I can honestly say, it was one of the most unique (if not the most!) places I have ever been.  And even though it was a constant struggle and a question mark, I loved our experiences there.  I cannot wait to start writing about the wonderfully weird place that is Burma, and I hope to post it soon.

Thailand I (Bangkok, Koh Phangan, Koh Tao...)

Oh, Thailand!  Just thinking back to these crazy but fun times make me smile as I am once again back in Southeast Asia.  This time I am at the airport in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia on a very inconvenient stopover from Bali to Japan.  That is what happens when you fly Air Asia (but I do have to say that they are pretty good value minus the ridiculous flight plans and waits at random airports).  I had been hoping to catch up a lot on my blog while I was in Bali, but somehow I ended up being very busy as happens when traveling in SEA.  Only a few more weeks of traveling left before I come back home in the beginning of June, and I am going to try and update more frequently before then.

Where did I leave off?  I was on my own, on an overnight bus from Cambodia to Thailand with some Brazilian guys I had just met.  With little sleep, we had to wait at the border for awhile for everyone to get their visas.  I had a scare moment when I thought that I lost my ticket and was asked to show it, but I found it in one of my secret hiding places!  Then, we transferred from our large, comfortable coach bus to a much smaller, cramped minivan that would take us the rest of the way into Bangkok.  Once again, I was given the best seat so that I could stretch out my bum leg, even though the Brazilian guys were much taller than me.

When we arrived in Bangkok, we were literally dropped off in the middle of a roundabout near Khoa San Rd, which is a popular backpacker area.  The Brazilian guys had been to Bangkok earlier in their travels, so they made a recommendation on a hostel for me and then were headed straight down to Koh Phangan for the Full Moon Party.  Many people had gotten scared and booked ahead, because they had heard that there was not going to be enough accommodation for all of the people planning to show up for New Years Eve.  The bad thing with booking ahead was that the hotels all required you to stay at least a 5-night minimum, and they charged a higher rate.  Since neither of us had been to Thailand before, we did not know where we would want to stay once we reached the island, so Nashy and I decided to gamble and just turn up hoping that there would be something left.

Immediately upon stepping out of the minivan in Bangkok, I knew that I wanted to leave ASAP.  I had had enough with big Asian cities with their crazy traffic, no driving laws, and insane tourist traps.  I was ready to head to the beach, and I even thought myself about getting an earlier bus down to the islands.  When I went to go check-in to the hostel the Brazilians had recommended, the lady at reception informed me that they were full for the night.  I think the look on my face and the dejected shrug of my shoulders must have made her reconsider (or she saw my ridiculous bright blue brace) because she told me that I could leave my backpack there and come back later in the afternoon.  They might have a cancellation, and then I could take that person’s spot.  I hoped for the best and went to go investigate Bangkok even though I didn’t really want to.  Nashy had messaged me the place where he was staying, so I decided to see if I could find it and meet up with him.  I found him, and he wanted to move to the other hostel if he was able to get a bed because he did not like the one he was at.  We were both lucky and got beds even though they were supposedly full!  And I was glad it had been recommended to me too, there was air-conditioning, hot showers and really comfortable beds!  All of those things are hard to come by in SEA and begin to become luxuries sadly.

Nashy shared my opinion of Bangkok, so we decided to try and leave the next day and started to get prices for buses/boats down to Koh Phangan.  We were planning to go to Burma (we had already booked our flights and would meet some of Nashy’s friends from university in Thailand and then go there), so we also had to go to the Burmese Embassy in order to apply for our visas.  Unfortunately, by the time found a taxi to take us to the embassy, we had missed the visa application hours by literally 2 minutes, and the officials would not even hear about taking our applications.  They told us to come back the next day, so it looked like we would be stuck in Bangkok for one more night, and the island paradise I had in my mind seemed to be getting further and further away.

We made the most of our forced time in Bangkok, eating delicious Thai food for ridiculously cheap prices.  My favorite things so far were the fresh fruit smoothies for less than a dollar that I enjoyed at each meal as well as the fresh fruit vendors that caught my eye for breakfast.  There was also good, cheap shopping, and so many things that caught my eye.  It did not seem like I could take enough pictures to capture everything that is Bangkok.  I had never seen such things; it was definitely an over-stimulation of the senses!

While we had time, we went to a few of the temples in Bangkok city including going to see the Golden Buddha in Chinatown and the Reclining Buddha at Wat Pho.  I was a little annoyed with Nashy though this day, because we had been to so many places and gone to so many temples that he should have been prepared.  He had forgotten that he would need to cover his shoulders out of respect to enter the temple, and he was only wearing a singlet.  He went in search of a t-shirt to buy, but it took him over an hour before he returned.  He was just unlucky and had gone the wrong way in search of a clothing store, because when we left the temple, we found one pretty much straightaway!

We continued to get around by our favorite mode of transportation, the tuk tuk, but we were wary of the drivers in Bangkok because we had heard they are likely to try and scam tourists.  One of their favorite things to do is to charge you a really cheap fare, and then insist that in order to get it, you must go to a gem store and go shop around.  They are paid on commission by these types of stores to bring them customers, and it is really annoying!  Some backpackers actually don’t mind the unnecessary stop though if it means a cheaper fare, because you are not actually required to buy anything.  However for me, it always seemed that I wanted to get somewhere quickly, so sometimes I opted for the hot pink taxis over the tuk tuk.  This was not always a safe option either though, because even though it is against the law for the drivers not to use the meter, we found some drivers who wanted still tried to rip us off...  That’s Thailand for you!

There are literally hundreds of tour companies on Khoa San Road, so we decided to go to as many as we could to make sure that we were getting a good price for our trip down south to Koh Phangan.  The only problem was that the first few we asked told us that all of the transportation was fully sold out until after New Years, and we started to get a little nervous!  I definitely did not want to be in Bangkok for NYE, so we were determined to find a way down to the islands.  We found that there were actually some seats available on bus, train, speedboat, or plane, but the cheapest route (even though it would have been cheaper if it was not December 30th!) was a combination bus/boat ticket.  We would take the bus overnight and arrive around 11AM on the 30th.  Satisfied that we were getting the best price we could, we purchased our tickets and then continued to make the most of our time in Bangkok.

One night in Bangkok, I tried pad thai cooked at a food stall for about $1 and chased it down with a ice cold Chang beer while watching an NFL football game out of the back of a pickup truck.  We decided to get a few drinks at one of the many bars with live music on Khoa San or Rambuttri Road.  While we were sitting there, we thought that one of the guys at the next table over looked familiar, and we thought it could be crazy Richy that we had met in Hanoi!  However, he looked much too sober and drug-free to be the Richy we knew, so we decided to go over and talk to him.  It ended up it was Richy, but I think he was drug-free because it took him a few minutes to even remember ever meeting Nashy and me.  It turns out that he was also going down to Koh Pgangan at the same time as us, so we said we would see him on the bus.  I loved that even though we were in the crazy city that is Bangkok, we still ran into someone that we had met along our travels!

I do not know what came over me, but I let Nashy hold the tickets for the bus/boat to Koh Phangan, but this would be the last time!  We had made it as far as the ferry terminal when we were told that we would need to show our boat tickets to re-confirm our seat on the boat.  Nashy was still half-asleep, but he had no idea where the tickets were and did not think he had ever been given any.  We were forced to buy new tickets which was so frustrating!  And we had to wait for hours until someone randomly let us know our boat was leaving (keep in mind this is between the hours of ~4-7AM).  The system of travel in Thailand is to put different color stickers on people’s clothing based on the destination where they are going.  Unfortunately, a lot of times people lose their stickers and then have to beg to still be let on!  We tried to watch for people that had our same color sticker, and we planned to board the boat when they did, but it was chaos as usual!  I should mention though that Richy was on our bus and boat, and we planned to share a taxi with him upon arrival in Koh Phangan.  He had been to the island (and the full moon party before) so we were counting upon his advice.

After a stop in Koh Samui, we were finally at Koh Phangan but both Nashy and I were getting really nervous about our chances to get accommodation since there were so many backpackers!  We made a plan that he would grab our big backpacks, and I would go in search of a taxi to take us to the famous Haad Rin Beach where the Full Moon Party would be held the next night.  I found a taxi for 100 Baht each, and found Nashy through the crowd and waved him over.  We had no idea where Richy was though, and we felt bad as the taxi pulled away, but we figured we would run into him again randomly.  On the taxi ride to the beach, we discovered there was a French girl (with amazing English!) who also did not have accommodation booked, and since she was traveling alone, we offered for her to come with us.  There was another girl in the taxi who worked for one of the local dive shops, and she said she would try and help us find a place.

We were dropped off at her dive shop, and it only took a minute for us to find an available place to stay just feet from the beach!  Needless to say, the place was a dump and all of the other people staying there were guys (and still sleeping even though it was nearing 1PM!), but we figured at least we could use it as a back-up plan in case we could not find anything better.  It turned out that this place actually only had beds for all 3 of us on the night of December 30th, but we considered just storing our bags there on NYE and partying all night...  We thought we could walk around a little bit more though and see if we found anything better before we fully committed though.

Without our big backpacks, it was a lot easier to walk around and even though we were turned away from most places because they were full, we were not going to give up hope easily.  It is a good thing that the girl from the dive shop was with us, because she ended up finding us some amazing bungalows that overlooked Haad Rin Beach and were actually really nice accommodation.  The only downside is that they were having a New Years Eve Party at the hotel that we were required to pay for that would include a buffet dinner, drinks and a show.  We figured it might be fun to do that before we went down to the beach, so we went back to get our bags and had our own little private bungalow, amazing!  And the best part was that we were not restricted to any minimums for staying there, so we could leave whenever we wanted to.

All three of us (Nashy, the French girl Aude, and I) really wanted to get scuba diving certified, and we thought that we would look into it while in Thailand since it is one of the cheapest places in the world.  We started our search at the dive shop that helped us find our accommodation, but we also wanted to make sure we were going with a good place so we checked some other options as well.  When we were satisfied that they were the best, we booked in with Crystal Dive Shop and would be leaving the afternoon of January 1 to go to neighboring island, Koh Tao, where we would learn and dive over the next four days.  Aude had had some medical problems in the past, so she was not sure if was going to be okay to dive, and she had to get a letter from her doctor in Japan.

The night before New Years, we decided to go down to the beach to get a preview of the craziness that would be the famous Full Moon Party.  In my opinion, this night was actually better than the real thing, because there were all of the iconic full moon party things (fire jump roping, fluorescent body paint, ridiculously cheap alcohol served in buckets with straws, and tons of Australian douche bags) but the beach was not entirely full and there was still room to move around and dance.  Nashy, Aude and I were in awe of the spectacle that was going on at the beach.  There were bars for as far as we could see, and they were each playing different music to draw in a different type of crowd.  We watched countless backpackers try their hand at jumproping a piece of rope that is doused in oil and then lit on fire, and many of them walked away with burn marks on their legs!  At one point, Aude and I had lost Nashy and she wanted to go into a foam party that had just started on the beach.  I am not really sure how, but I also lost her and was a little concerned if I would find either of them again when I bumped into Nashy.  We did not end up finding Aude again that night, but Nashy and I had a good time and decided not to party all night but to save some energy for the next day.

Aude came back the next morning and was not even upset that she had spent most of the night by herself.  She had run into some friends that she had met traveling elsewhere and had ended up spending the night with them.  We went on a mission that day to find something to wear for the night, and Aude and I ended up buying casual dresses that we would wear over our bathing suits.  This was definitely going to be a lot more laid-back for New Years than I had spent the last few years or at least I thought...

The party at our hotel was nice, and we ate lots of food and watched a fire dance, traditional dancers, and Muay Thai fighting while meeting some other backpackers.  We met a German girl and guy that we walked down to the beach with around 10PM.  As soon as we left our hotel, a tropical storm came out of nowhere and it poured rain down on us when there was nowhere to run and hide for cover!  We were completely drenched by the time we found a place to duck into, but it strangely did not rain for the rest of the night.  As soon as we got down to the beach, the German girl Kim and I decided to get fluorescent body painted and got flowers on our arms.  It only really glowed when you were in the black light, but we thought it looked cool.

For the first few hours of the night, we managed to stick together with everyone or find people when they were lost.  I was having a great time drinking buckets, dancing, and chatting with random people.  At one point, I met a guy who was from Melbourne, and I was putting his phone number in Nashy’s phone when I was bumped from behind pretty hard.  I was holding my Hobo clutch under my arm (with my camera inside) and it fell to the ground.  In all of the confusion that ensued, it was gone before I knew it - it all happened so fast!  Kim said she saw a short Thai ladyboy bump into me and then another one grabbed my wallet and ran away.  I was devastated!  Not because my money or debit card were in there, but my memory card in my camera contained all of our pictures from our motorbike trip in Sapa, Cambodia, and Thailand up until now!  That explains why the last few blog entries have been short on photos!  I was really upset, and tried to shake it off and enjoy the rest of the party, but I had the crazy idea in my mind that I would somehow be able to find my wallet somewhere on the beach.  The Australian guy and his friend were so nice and helped me look (and even offered me money! to tide me over), but we never found it.

When I realized that hundreds of other people were also having their stuff stolen, I realized that I should have been more careful.  While looking on the beach for my wallet, there were tons of other discarded wallets that had all of their valuables removed and were just thrown down.  I had explained to the Australian guy that my wallet was red, and at one point, he came running up to me with a red wallet in his hands, excited that he had found mine.  Sadly, it was not, but I ended up keeping it.  I felt bad, but I needed a place to keep my money, didn’t I?!

To make me feel better, everyone kept buying me drinks all night, so it was not a complete disaster of a night.  I called and cancelled my debit card at some stage, luckily before Nashy realized that he had also been pick pocketed and his cell phone and money had also been taken!  We also lost Aude again and the German guy, but he told us he would message us on his iPhone to meet up later.  When we found him again the next morning, it turns out his iPhone had also been stolen!

I had heard horror stories about things like this happening at the Full Moon Party, so I should not have been surprised.  Even though our hotel was pretty far from the beach, we had padlocked our bungalow so that our backpacks would not get stolen.  And since I am usually the most responsible person, I had the key to both the padlock and the actual hotel room in my wallet which was taken!  I had lost Nashy and Kim at some point in the night, so the Australian guys learned of my dilemma and offered to walk me to my hotel and help me break into my room.  I forgot to mention that although really nice, the entrance to our hotel was still under construction, and the easiest way to actually get to our room was on a dark, shady looking path.  Well I had just met these guys that night, and they thought I was going to steal their kidneys as I led them along in the dark to my “hotel.”  When they realized I was legit, they switched into McGyver mode and together, we tried to find a way into our bungalow.

They found a piece of wood on the ground, and after a few smashes, the padlock flew off.  This probably does not say much about how strong the padlock was, but that is beside the point.  Then we realized that the window was actually unlocked, and we could stick the piece of wood inside and jiggle the doorknob.  We were actually able to open the room in about 15 minutes, which means that even though we had gone out feeling secure about how we had locked it, someone could have been able to get in pretty easily.  All of our other stuff was safe though, and I tried to forget about my lost pictures and get some sleep.

In the morning, I decided to take one last walk on the beach in search of my wallet, but I did not have any luck finding anything.  Sadly, there were still people partying on the beach (definitely on drugs!) even though it was 12PM, and the entire beach was covered in trash.  We would be leaving on the afternoon boat at 2PM, and the guy at the dive shop (who happened to be a British Ambassador) told us we should get police reports at Koh Tao instead of Koh Phangan because the line would be ridiculously long.  I was curious how many people had died the night before and had their belongings stolen, because he told us that the hospital and the police station were both jam packed!

Aude ended up staying on Koh Phangan and planned to meet Nashy and I in Koh Tao in a few days since she had never heard from her doctor.  We dreaded getting on the completely packed boat to Koh Tao, because even though it was only a few hours trip, the water looked rough and everyone was hungover.  It was not a pretty sight!

When we arrived at Koh Tao, we checked into our dive center, and the guy at reception immediately told Nashy and I that we looked like crap haha.  We both wanted to just go to sleep and recover, but we knew that we had to go to the police station and report our stolen belongings if there was any hope of us getting any money from the travel insurance companies.

I went in to talk first, and I communicated everything that had been stolen to the police officer while he translated it into Thai for his report.  I didn’t even realize that I had been sitting next to a holding cell the entire time, until a French guy and girl came in looking for their friend.  The holding cell was tiny (not even waste level) and inside were the French guy (their friend) and a Thai guy.  Apparently, their friend had thought it was a good idea to try and steal a bottle of alcohol from one of the bars the night before but had been caught and spent the rest of the night in prison!  I was able to get my police report with no problems and so was Nashy, but as we watched, the bar manager came in and brought the police officer a nice bottle of whiskey right in front of us.  We could not believe he then continued to bribe the French guy and girl for money in order to release their friend.  When he left, he was threatening to not let him out for less than 300,000 Baht which is like $10,000USD!  Nashy and I left when we were finished with our business, and we never learned the fate of the French people...

It is nearly time for me to board my flight to Japan, so I want to post this Thailand entry to start and then I will continue with the rest the next time I find internet.  More to come soon, promise!