Back to Burma though - which I do not think I will ever be able to forget - from Mandalay, we took a bus to Bagan which inconveniently ate up one of the days we had. When possible, we tried to book night buses because then we could avoid staying another night in a hostel or shady hotel, but also we made progress traveling while we slept. Unlike other SEA countries, Burma is not a strong believer in the night bus, and rather insists on booking bus times very inconveniently (such as this one).
We got into Bagan in the afternoon, and we had to make a brief stop on the bus so that us foreigners could make the mandatory payment to the government to enter the Bagan area. Joss was still sleeping on the bus when we got off to pay, but the government officers made sure to come aboard and get his money too! We are still conflicted about these payments we made to the government, but I came up with a solution that I felt a little bit better about. Usually, these payments were not required to be made in dollars, but you could also pay in the local currency, the kiat. Since the kiat is practically worthless abroad, I paid in that currency when I could instead of in my brand-new, crisp US dollars. I am still unsure if this actually made any difference, but it helped alleviate some of the guilt I had from handing over the government money every few days or so.
Upon entering Bagan, we had decided to stay in the Nyaung-U neighborhood since it was where most of the cheapest places to eat and sleep were, and it was only a short bike ride away from Old Bagan (where the temples were located). We chose one of the hotels from the guidebook, and were carted there by horse and carriage like it was the Middle Ages! From the moment we arrived in Bagan, you got an old-world feel from the place with their dirt roads and rudimentary modes of transportation. I knew I was going to like this place!
That first night, we decided to stay around Nyaung-U and went to see the Shwezigon Paya there before eating dinner on Restaurant Row. The paya was beautiful, but I saw one of the most disturbing images of my life outside before entering. A small boy (not more than 5 years old) approached me - as many of them do - and I expected him to ask me for money. Instead, I noticed that he just wanted to show me that he was smoking a cigarette, and I was instantly in shock and extremely disturbed! This little boy had more age lines on his face than someone my age, and no one should have that kind of life at that age!
I tried to erase that image from my mind as we continued that night in Nyaung-U, but it was really difficult. The next day, after breakfast on the roof of our hotel (a Burmese tradition!), we rented bikes and rode to Old Bagan. I should mention here that after my motorbike accident in Vietnam, I was really worried that I would have to go home and have knee surgery. Over a month after the accident, the scabs were healing, but it was still really difficult to completely bend my right knee, meaning stretching out my leg awkwardly whenever I sat down. I was worried that I would not even be able to ride a bike with my leg's condition, but surprisingly, I actually credit the bike with helping me find the natural motion of my stride again! After a few days in Bagan, my knee seemed almost back to normal, and I no longer worried about long-term effects! Not to see that riding the bikes was not difficult - they were old-school and did not have any gear changers. This meant that riding uphill was a workout, and sometimes, Vic and I actually got off our bikes and pushed them to the top haha.
Riding around and looking at all of the temples over 2 days was really amazing, and I was glad to have my camera to capture everything. Since I had lost all of my photos of Angkor Wat in Cambodia when my camera was stolen, I was making sure to document everything. We saw countless temples, and were approached by many local children and their parents trying to sell us things. Some of the kids however, just wanted to ask us for things like shampoo and perfume, and I actually wished I had brought some with me to share with them. The most popular item for sale was sand paintings, and we were continually approached and made to stand and watch as each painting is shown to us. I think we all got suckered into buying at least one, but we figured they would make good souvenirs.
On both days, we made sure to go to temples with upstairs to watch the sunset, but we were not alone in this decision. On the first night, huge tour buses pulled up just before sunset and destroyed the peace we had experienced all day. Unlike Angkor Wat, Bagan is not really heavily touristed, so we were confused when all of these people came out of nowhere. And on the second night, there was some sort of school group, comprised of high school-aged kids. They were like the paparazzi towards us, and they would grow silent anytime any of us came near to them. It really was a wonder to have someone react that way to you just based on how you look!
Life in Bagan was really simple, and we really enjoyed exploring Old Bagan by bicycle. However, we only had a few days left in Burma, so we needed to move on to see some more, so we planned to go to Inle Lake next. Talk about inconvenient bus schedules! The only bus from Bagan to Inle Lake leaves Bagan at 4AM, so we needed to pay for another night at our hotel, even though we would be checking out super early! They did pack us really cute breakfast packages to take with us on our journey though.
This bus ride was definitely the worst I had experienced (and still to this day have experienced)! Not only was the time inconvenient, but everything about it was uncomfortable. The four of us were given the very back seat on the bus (even though that was not our actual seat assignment). We did not complain, because it seemed to be the most spacious seat, so we ended up sitting down and tried to get some sleep. I should mention that I noticed that the inside of this bus appeared to be like a schoolbus, with no seat belts or reclining seats that most overnight buses would have. And we soon discovered that our back seat was right over the bus' engine, which meant that we would grow very hot during the day. To make it worse, the bus operated like a local bus and stopped every few kilometers to let on local people. At one point, the bus was so full, that they stacked plastic chairs up the aisle of the bus and had people sitting in every available space! That being said, we did not have the luxury of the whole back seat to ourselves, but instead had to share it... I was annoyed, because we had actually paid a lot for these tickets, but the locals were not showing tickets or paying any fare. That is when I realized why we had to pay so much for our tickets - we provide the bus and everyone else is just along for a free ride!
I had to remind myself that these people already have more hardship in their lives than I will hopefully ever experience in order not to lose my patience and yell at someone. I mean no one was being harmed by them hitching a free ride on our bus, right? I just tried to sleep as much as I could, but we were just so incredibly uncomfortable! It did not make it any better that the road we were driving down was bumpy and windy to the max. We careened around corners, and I was scared more than once that we would actually fly over one of the many cliffs! I was definitely thankful when it was announced that we had reached Inle Lake safely, and I could get off of that bus from hell.
We had wasted another day on this bus ride, but thankfully we already knew where we were staying in Inle Lake. The owner of our hotel in Bagan had a friend who owned a hotel in Inle, so he came and picked us up from the bus station in the back of his pickup truck and brought us to our new home for the next 2 nights. After that crazy bus ride, we decided to treat ourselves to a nice dinner, which funnily enough, ended up being Italian food and mojitos. We found a cute restaurant that smelled delicious from the outside. We had not had much luck with Burmese food thus far, so we decided to branch out and try sometime different. We were already convinced that we should eat at this restaurant when the owner decided to come out and give us additional reasons to eat there. He gave us a personal tour of the kitchen, showing us all of their ingredients that are fresh and somehow still imported from Italy? Anyway, we were thoroughly convinced, and we enjoyed a nice meal (probably our first nice meal in Burma)!
The next morning, we booked a private tour by boat around Inle Lake for the day through our hotel. After breakfast, the hotel owner organized for us to be picked up (but we still had to walk) and taken to our boat docked in the river. The river connected to Inle Lake through a network of other narrow rivers and waterways, and we eventually found ourselves on the lake itself. Throughout the day, we witnessed the daily life of the people of Inle Lake, and it was really amazing. The houses were built on stilts in the lake, and the locals paddled around in boats similar to our own (although they used a paddling technique using their feet whereas we used a motor!). We stopped at a few shops to learn how different things were made such as silver, weaving, cigars, etc. At the weaving place, we learned how they turned lotus root into beautiful scarves and clothing. And at the cigar shop, we learned how they rolled cigars using banana leaves, whiskey, etc. and we even got to try a free sample! I decided that if I was somehow unfortunate enough to have been born in Burma, I would want to be one of these girls that worked in the cigar factory on Inle Lake. Their lives here seemed far enough removed from the government, and even though they were poor and had a monotonous job, they seemed to be happy and enjoyed their days as much as they could. It would be a simple life, but it would enough I think.
In the morning, we stopped at a local’s market. It was so local in fact that the boat driver could only take us so far, and we had to walk the rest of the way to even get to it. It was pretty far of a walk (imagine doing it with all of your goods to sell at the market!), and we had to cross some pretty scary bamboo bridges at some points along the walk. When we finally did reach the market, it was the most rustic thing I have ever seen, with water buffalo and carts standing around, and people selling literally everything while sitting on the ground on colorful mats. We even saw a guy getting his haircut at what appeared to be a pop-up barber shop at the market! It was quite a sight! We bought a couple of weird-looking food items at the market to try, and then we walked back to our boat. We were worried that we might not be able to find our boat driver, because there were literally hundreds of boats in the river way now, but he found us!
Later in the day, we went to lunch at a restaurant recommended to us by our boat driver, and we had our first decent Burmese meal in Burma. We had been told that Shan noodles were really good, but we were finally able to try them, and they actually are very delicious! After lunch, we decided to cross the lake by a bridge and visit a nearby paya that looked amazing from the outside. After Bagan, we were a little over payas, but we made an exception and decided to give this one a look. Then as we were driving in our boat down the lake further, we witnessed a race between two boats who each had over a hundred people on them. It was pretty exciting to see, and they all used the foot-paddling method during the race.
Before we headed back for the day, we drove past a floating garden that grew things such as tomatoes in the middle of the lake, and then we made an unusual last stop. There is a famous monastery on Inle Lake that is known for this woman who has trained cats to jump through a hoop by giving them treats. I am not really sure why this has become such a tourist attraction but it has, so we decided to stop off and see it for ourselves. It was weird to say the least, and we actually found it better entertainment to watch to see if tourists stepped in (and sometimes slipped on) cat poop on the floor of the monastery haha!
While in Inle Lake, we finally found an internet cafe that actually had gotten around the firewall of Burma, and we were able to read our emails for the first time. The reason I say read is that I could not even respond! I had known that my mom was going to be worried that I had not been able to get in contact with her thus far, but she had emailed me like 12 times, called and worried some of my best friends, and even called some of the embassies and possibly the senator?! (my brother told me this over facebook haha). She started worrying when my dad told her that on my airline’s website it had a blank next to where it should have said that our plane landed safely...thanks Dad! I am definitely thankful to have parents that care about my safety and whereabouts, but I ensured them that we were alright, but that we were in Burma and that nothing here is normal.
The next day, we would be leaving Inle Lake for our final destination in Burma (Kalaw) before heading back to Yangon for our return flight to Bangkok. We had heard that we could take a pick-up ride from Inle Lake to Kalaw, but having really no idea what this was, we did not know what to look for. The four of us waited at the bus stop in Inle Lake looking for a pick-up, and at times Nashy just flagged down everything that drove past. We were not really sure if hitchhiking was illegal in Burma, but we were getting some strange looks from drivers as they zoomed past. Finally after about an hour, Nashy was approached by a man on-foot asking if we wanted a pick-up ride to Kalaw. We said that yes, we were interested and then we followed him with our backpacks to a nearby truck. I am not even exaggerating when I saw that there were already over 20 people somehow fit into the back of this pickup truck (and on-top!), and they wanted to add the four of us and our bags! We marveled at how exactly this was going to work, and then Vic and I squeezed inside the back while the boys climbed on top with the other men and our bags. The ride was a little tight and uncomfortable for the two hour journey to Kalaw, but it was such an experience that we could not even care. We stopped every few kilometers or so to pick up or drop off locals, and people were carrying some random things with them. There was a lovely older lady who was sitting across from Vic and I for part of the journey who just kept smiling and laughing at us.
When we got into Kalaw, we were thankful for the ride experience (and it cost us a little over $2USD each!), and we went in search of a place to stay for the night. We would only be staying in Kalaw for one night, and we had one main purpose for the visit. We wanted to do a trek through the beautiful rice paddies and mountain villages that are found there. We found a hostel that was recommended in our guide book, ate lunch at a nearby restaurant, then booked our trek for the next morning. We walked around Kalaw a little bit, and visited a 500-year-old bamboo Buddha that was actually quite tacky. The experience was funny though, because we were led to the Buddha by a Buddhist monk who did not speak any English. We also checked out the market in Kalaw, but it was not that different from others we had seen.
I should preface the trek by saying that neither Nashy nor I had any proper shoes to be trekking in. Both of us had tossed our only proper shoes after our motorbike trip in Vietnam had dirtied them beyond recognition. So we were both doing the trek in flip flops, and it was pretty cold in Kalaw! We layered up to prepare for the walk, and left our hotel around 8AM. We made our way up into the mountains where the majority of the trek would take place, and we passed some beautiful scenery along the way. At some points, we had to cross through muddy patches, and somehow Nashy and I made it through with our flip flops haha. We stopped for lunch at a beautiful spot that overlooked the mountain valley, and then we continued in the afternoon to a small mountain village nearby.
As soon as we entered the village, we were greeted from afar by a bunch of local children. Our guide (who spoke English pretty well) told us that the children of this village usually married by about 14 years old, and they either farmed or worked in neighboring village, but they were all very poor. As they got closer, we realized that these kids were in fact very dirty, and they were the snottiest kids I have ever seen. I am not sure if they were getting over colds or always this snotty, but I kept my distance from them!
The trek was quite exhausting, and I think we ended up walking something like 17km in total before we made it back to our hotel. Vic and I decided that since we still had a few hours before we had to catch our bus back to Yangon that we would rent a room and take a nap. The boys decided to go get some beers while we slept, and in a few hours, we all met up and went to catch the bus that would take us overnight back to Yangon.
This overnight bus was nearly as pleasant as the first, with loud, music and television shows to entertain us in Burmese when we wished we were sleeping. At least these seats were more comfortable though, and we were able to get at least a few hours of sleep before we arrived in Yangon bright and early. We knew it was ridiculously early because the sun had not even risen yet when we got to the bus station. We were all still too tired to decide what to do with the day (our flight was not leaving until like 4PM), so we decided to sit at a coffee shop until we had formulated a plan.
While at the coffee shop, some young Burmese monks came in to beg for food and money, but we noticed that none of them would approach us. Vic and Joss had a lot of kiat left over, so we were determined to give some of it to the monks. It was a process even getting them to come over to us, but one finally did! I think he must have been disowned by his other monk friends though, but at least he was 1,000 kiat richer!
Back in Yangon, we came up with the genius plan to go to a really nice resort hotel and pretend like we were checking in later in the day, so that we could leave our big backpacks with them for the day, freeing us up to walk around and explore. It actually worked! We left our bags, and then we set out in search for a guy in the market that I had noticed fixing shoes when we were there last time. I had wanted to have him repair my shoes that had broken on NYE at the Full Moon Party, and I finally found him! He did a great job and asked me to give him whatever I could for the repair. I gave him 1,000 kiat which is a little over $1USD, and he was so thankful, it broke my heart. (He did such a good job with the repair that the shoes remain intact still today even after thousands of kilometers have been walked in them around SEA, Australia, and Japan).
While walking around, we started to run out of things to see and do in Yangon, so we decided that we try something a little controversial. We had heard that it was possible to go and see Aung San Suu Kyi’s house if you could find someone to take you there. That was the difficult part though, because Burmese people are forbidden by law for going to visit her. Luckily, we found a guy on the street who spoke English, and he negotiated with a taxi driver to take us to see her house. The taxi driver was so nervous about stopping to let us out near her house, that he literally kept driving as we jumped out and paid him! Not really sure what to do next, we walked up to the gates, but they were heavily guarded. We snapped a couple of pictures, but we expected to see more, so I decided to approach the guards and see if maybe we could go inside.
They said that no, we could not go inside, but we might be able to meet Aung San Suu Kyi in person if we were interested in going to the NLD (her political party) offices in another part of Yangon. They wrote down the address for us in Burmese, then we hailed a cab to take us there. The cab driver took one look at the piece of paper that I handed and him, turned to us, and said, “you want to go here?” We assured him that we did, and then he took us.
When we arrived, we walked right in to the headquarters of the NLD, and it was bustling and busy. It appeared to me to look like what I would imagine a presidential campaigning office to look like maybe in the 1970’s, and there were people everywhere. People kept approaching us and asking us where we were from and our interest in the political party and Aung San Suu Kyi. We asked if it would be possible to meet her, and they told us we might be able to, but she was very busy meeting with important diplomats from around the world. Since she had not been out from house arrest for long, it was very exciting for them to have her back at her office. She had a tribunal with the government in a few weeks, so she was preparing herself for that meeting. If we had made an appointment in advance, we could have gone up and actually had a dialogue with her in her office, but we were not even sure what we wanted to say to this woman. When she finally did come down from her office, we did not even really get to say hello to her, because she was mobbed with people as she walked past us and out the door to the waiting car. It would be taking her directly to her house - what a life this woman must lead! Excited that we even got to see this amazing woman in the flesh, we left satisfied and went to get our last meal in Burma before we caught our flight.
Not expecting much from our last meal, we went to a place where we could splurge and spend the rest of our kiat (since it was worthless outside of Burma.) We were pleasantly surprised and actually enjoyed an amazing last meal! Then we went back to pick up our bags from our fancy resort hotel, and then caught a taxi for the airport. Luckily, we all had kept a few crisp American dollars, because we had to pay an exit fee of $10 before we were allowed to leave the country. We were a little nervous that our early afternoon activity of stalking Aung San Suu Kyi could get us into trouble (actually, I should say the boys were nervous!), our passports were stamped, and we were on our way back to Thailand!
In Thailand, Joss would be catching a flight back to Australia directly, Vic would be staying a few days to explore Bangkok, and Nashy and I had not quite decided what we were going to do next. We were deciding if we should go to Chiangmai in northern Thailand or if we should go to Laos first. Laure and Dom (from our scuba diving group in Koh Tao) were on their way to Laos in the next few days, so we ultimately decided to join them there for a family reunion. We would spend the night in Bangkok though and take the night bus the following night, so we had one more full day in Bangkok to explore with Vic.
I am about to board my plane bound for Osaka and then Australia, so I will continue with Bangkok and Laos in the next entry. But to wrap up Burma, I would definitely recommend it as a vacation destination to those who do not like to know what they are going to get. Maybe wait until the government is not so terrible to the people to visit, but when you do, expect it to be like nothing you have ever seen. I mean, Burma is one of only three countries that does not have a McDonald’s if that gives you any clue (the others are Cuba and North Korea)! And the people of Burma are friendly and special, and they have endured so much hardship. Since they are not exposed to the outside world very often, they depend on travelers to inform them of news, trends, and important information. In short, visit Burma, you will never forget it!
No comments:
Post a Comment