Bagan and the Irrawaddy

Our second day in Bagan was pretty low key. We had explored a lot with the E-bike on the first day and my GI is giving me some trouble so didn't want to stray too far. I imagine I picked some little intestinal friends from something we ate or drank in Yangon.

The first night we walked quite a way though the busy dirty main road on Nyaung U to find a place that came well recommended called Weatherspoons. It was on a street that lots of restaurants, most seeming a bit higher class than elsewhere in town. Weatherspoons was full, and virtually everyone was a westerner. That was a first for us on this trip.

An obvious reason appeared to be a meniu that included hamburgers, fries and pizza. However, while it wasn't bad, it wasn't that great either. We had a ginger salad and a Burmese fish curry which was heavily over salted. The Myanmar Mule was pretty good though

Next day we lazed around, but eventually went to the local market. Linda got some $3 pyjama pants (altered on the spot) and bangles and I picked up a couple of elephants. Small wood carved ones, that is.

Later we grabbed another E-bike (5000 kyat per day, about $5) and went for a short ride. No temples, just toodled about enjoying the breeze and also found the spot where the boat leaves for Mandalay. We didn't want to have to guess where it was as we were going to be walking there at 4:30am.

For a small lunch and last nights supper we went back to the restaurant street as it just appeared cleaner. With my gut issues I actually had a small simple pizza at one place. Not special at all but ok. I had a lassi with it; maybe some good bacteria from the yoghurt might help. Supper was grilled meaty things, okra, tofu and lotus. Not bad at all but I kind of picked at it.

Next morning came early. Thankfully the overnight torrential rain had stopped but it was mucky and dripping for our 25 minute walk though nearly deserted streets.

Today is a do nothing kind of day as the boat to Mandalay takes at least 10 or 12 hours. It's reasonably comfortable with reclining seats, some deck chairs, a dining room. It seems to have a capacity if about 100 or so and is not even half full. Some French, a large group of young Germans on a tour (rolling suitcases and everything)and the first Canadians we have met, a slightly older couple from Quebec.

The Irrawaddy River is one of the great rivers of Asia. It's long, wide and slow. Right now is just after the rainy season so it's fairly high but I have heard that this boat has run aground at least a few times. Hopefully not today.

Yangon to Bagan

We decided to leave Yagon a day early, or rather a half day. We had planned to stay 3 nights but the bustle of city was wearing on us pretty fast. Plus we decided to save some money and take an overnight bus rather than fly to Bagan. Bus would be about 10 hours or so, leaving at 9pm, and was about 37,000 kyat or about $40.

However the bus station was a 2 hour taxi ride away. It should have taken less but traffic was insane.

The reclining seats were nice enough, blankets pillows and snacks were provided. We got a bit of sleep and arrived at the bus station outside Nyaung U about 7am. Pushy taxi drivers abounded but we took a horse.

Our driver had his young son with who he was teaching how to handle the buggy. They had to get up at 2am and after working for several hours the kid had to go to school. 

We checked out a couple of places and went back to the first, the $22 Eden Motel. The girl running it is lovely and very helpful. I say "girl" but that's not fair. She has 2 cute kids of 3 and 5 years old, but she looks very young. 

Nyaung U is just a short distance from the main sites of Bagan. However, that's underestimating the scope of what this area is. There are literally thousands of temples and related structures scattered for miles across the countryside. You could spend weeks here and still miss some. We will be templed out in 2 days I'm sure.

We opted for an E-bike, the yellow one in the background. It's hot and I don't want to bother getting up from my chair to get a better pic. For $5 a day it's a good bargain. We covered a lot of ground, maybe 30km on it. Seeing stuff such as below:

I'd upload more pictures but the battery on my phone is low, and the power is out on our street (it went out in Yangon at our hotel too). Later..

Some pictures from Yangon

Again not too much commentary.

Barefoot and wearing a longyi to cover my legs while visiting a pagoda, a grasshopper between my feet.

Chinatown night market food.

Avocado juice for me and pomelo for Linda.

Linda pouring water over the Buddha for her day. She's a Friday girl making her a guinea pig. I of course am a tiger. 

Street vendor making betel chews.

A great big reclining Buddha

Bangkok to Yangon

Yesterday in Bangkok we went to the massive Chucatuchak market early in the morning. Taking a taxi was a bit pricey compared to trains or buses but got us there fast.

Early meant avoiding the later crowds which were really buiding by the time we left, but some vendors were not even open. But with 8000 stalls to choose from we could miss a few. We also never found the grilled platybus food stall again when we decided it was time to eat. Maybe it was just as well. We did find some great squid though and other snacks like coconut juice from the shell.

From the market we took the skytrain to the Jim Thompson House. Thompson was an entrepreneur who did more to advance the Thai silk trade than anyone else. I'll edit in a bit more about him later. 

His home was a rambling array of teak houses he had moved to their current location in central Bangkok and amalgamated into an estate for himself, modernizing a bit as he went. It was a refreshing change from the bustle outside and our only real "museumy" thing we did in the 3 days in Bangkok. It was well worth it. 

We tuk-tuked home, showered for the 5th or 6th time in a couple of days, drank beer while it dumped with rain again and went back to the street for food later.

We had made an arrangement for a taxi to take us to the airport early but he cancelled on us. He had the courtesy to call the desk at least so we knew and soon we had another around 7:30am. 

Getting to Yangon was not that difficult. We had all the right paperwork, the flight was short and more or less on time, and in the arrival airport we very soon had a SIM card and 300,000 in kyat (the local currency, about 900 to $1 CAD). We overpaid slightly for a taxi to the MGM hotel (paid 10000 when 5-6000 should have been the rate), but I don't sweat that stuff much. I sweat enough from the heat. 

Different here than Bangkok, that's for sure. Traffic is louder and pushier (hardly a horn was used in BKK, not the case here), the streets are a lot dirtier and stinkier, the infrastructure more rundown. It feels more like some of the parts of Cambodia and China we've been too. 

However, it's not like we expected luxury. People are friendly and helpful, things seem to mostly work, the hotel staff jump to open doors and carry bags. I ask before I take many of my pictures and nobody minds. The big nose gets stared at of course but I'm used to that. I'm not quite sure the guy waving his ass and other bits at us was being friendly though. 

A lot of walking took us though parts of Chinatown, a rather dingy waterfront area, past a classic English style hospital building, into an air conditioned mall to cool down, through crowded market streets and then a visit to the Sule stupa right in the heart of downtown. We plan to visit it's much bigger brother tomorrow. 

A few pics from Bangkok

I've managed to transfer some photos from the camera to the phone. The memory card I started with seems to have issues so I switched yesterday but might have lost a few.

Little commentary for now...




Slow day at the cactus store





Even the cats wear black ribbons for the king

















Sweet potato friends








Floating market





Green Onions





Namaste Ronald

Day 1 in Transit, Day 2 in Bangkok

The view from the front steps of our $30 per night Hostel kind of sucks doesn't it?

That's just the first picture; the others are some sort of free taxi service and silk "fashion" in a shopping center. Wih this blogging app I'm not sure how to insert pictures anywhere but the top.









That's Wat Pho just across the road from Arom D. We got in very late last night, after a 12 hour flight to Shanghai, and 4 plus hours to Bangkok. The first flight was spot on time but the second had a delay with little explanation and when we finally did get on the bus to take a mile long route on the tarmac at Pudong, it was not because anyone did announce it. We saw a bus with open doors at our gate and jumped on.

Tight spacing on the seats (and way too much money to upgrade - 1000RMB for an exit row seat!) so I ended up with cramped legs and bruised knees. My sneaky little bag  of 2 oz liquor bottles wasn't allowed by China security guys at Shanghai though I did consume 2 at least on the Vancouver leg.

We didn't arrive in Thailand until at least 11pm local time and with getting through customs, baggage and exchanging some USD for baht the outside we only reached by nearly midnight. At this point we had no energy to take buses or trains so got a taxi. It's an hour easily into the city and we probably got taken somewhat on the fare but the guy also had to pay 2 tolls plus airport fee and he got us to the door with no wrong turns. The staff person had to get out of bed to check us in around 1am.

Sleep? What's that? Neither of us got much on the flights and only 2 or 3 hours in the beds at Arom D and were up by about 7am.

Wandering the streets by 8, noodles in a local market, walking some more. We found a bank machine that would give us cash but had no luck with finding a SIM card that worked in my phone until much later.

This being a Saturday there seemed to be many events bringing Thai people from all over to visit the Royal Palace. The king of course recently died and the entire country is in mourning. Black is almost the universal clothing right now. Ours isn't quite all black but we are not wearing anything bright while here, plus picked up some black ribbons to pin to our shirts.

All around the palace, which we couldn't go in as we are not Thai, it was almost a carnival atmosphere. Free water and food was everywhere, ice cream, cold juices, cookies. Later on we got free gyoza, curries with rice, chicken wings. We resisted lots of it too but it easily was lunch. We didn't get to buy any critters on a stick.

Our splurge so far was on a private boat tour of the river and a floating market. Expensive, but we did get it for just over half the original price quoted. I'll post a few pics from that and the rest of the day later.


Edit: It's 5:45 am local time and I've been awake for quite a while. It's mid afternoon in Vancouver and my body knows this.

Monsoon quality rain struck last night just after we got back to our room, so it was just as well we didn't stay out.

Today's trip to the big Chucatuchak market might end up dampened.

Later yesterday it was street food including our first spicey Papaya salad. It was just great and so was our host.

Note that I'm trying to do this blogging stuff from a phone. Addings pics can be awkward when most are on the camera. Also the Blogger app on the phone is inconsistent at connecting. I might end up with odd double post because right now I'm not using the app.

More Gadgetry And Prep

Samsung S7 Edge, Bluetooth keyboard, & battery with Kindle and Innate waterproof bag in the background.

As we get closer to leaving (the trip being just over 2 weeks away), the gear is coming together.

My phone and other electronics are chargeable with my new 20000mah powerbank. That should provide lots of life on the flights, between wall plugs that work, and other situations.  I can connect easily with the Bluetooth keyboard or the camera, but (note to self) not both at the same time. I have a picture on the camera I just took and of course with the keyboard in use I can't transfer that image so will do that later.

We probably will end up taking our slightly larger packs as our man in Laos reminded us that last year it got pretty cold there and even snowed in the northern area, and with us planning to spend 2 days on an open boat (for example) we think discretion might be the better part of carry-on. Some warmer clothing will come along for the ride as well as my compact down sleeping bag. It's a barrel bag so can open like a blanket but still can compress well, probably down to about 3 litres.

It also won't hurt to have a little extra space for stuff we might buy along the way and allows us the space to bring along some stuff for our friend. So far that includes some underwear (!) and a bulb for his movie projector (!!). If he says he would like a jar of peanut butter or something to go with that I think we wll draw the line.

We have picked up a few of the other important travel commodities. Pills for the lower GI distress that sometimes happens, some bug juice and sunscreen, hand sanitizer etc. The Travel clinic had a visit where we updated a couple of our shots, we have the passports ready, the visa letters for Myanmar, the extra photos for other visas. Laos you usually get at the point of entry for example.

We are still itineraizing. The main points will be Bangkok, Yangoon, Mandalay, Bagan, and then on to Laos. The plan would be to fly if we can from Mandalay to Chiang Mai in Thailand and from there make it by bus to Chiang Rai and the border (name of the crossing escapes me) where will get the 2 day boat on the Mekong and travel to Luang Prabang. From there down to Vientiane and Savannakhet where Dave is. Leaving there for Thailand again we will bus across the border and back to Bangkok to fly home.

That's roughly it. We can't be sure from here if that will all work out as it's hard to see or book airfare on some sections from here and the travel times will be kind of rough estimates from here. Of course there will be side trips and other stops along the way and who knows what contingencies.

  

Testing Some New Gadgets

We are trying to travel lighter this trip than our last few, not that we tend to travel heavy on most trips.

Typically we are carry-on types but can push past that into checked baggage, and of course we sometimes don't want or need to carry our bags anyway. Our backpacks have been around the 45 litre size and if not overfilled we can sometimes get away with that, but this trip we are going to try to be in the 30s.

That means careful and compact packing. And proper gadget selection...

I like gadgets, and no travel these days is complete without a selection of tools. Obvious ones are cameras. I decided that my Nikon DSLR with lenses was too much, and bam! There goes at least a kilo and a couple of liters. However I will be taking a camera of course and it should prove to be a good alternative, my new Lumix ZS60. Linda will pack my Canon G11 which is a great one too, and both will take about the same space as the Nikon body only.

We also will have my phone. It is no slouch in the picture taking department either, beng the latest Samsung Galaxy S7...no, not the Note. We probably won't set any planes on fire.

The phone I hope to be a major tool in many ways. For example I am typing this right now with the phone, albeit with an external keyboard. The keyboard is a wireless one, connected by Bluetooth, and is about the same size as a small tablet, or my Kindle, at around 8'' wide by 4 high. If I can successfully post the next couple of updates before leaving with this combo, I think that will be the computer for this trip.

As mentioned, there will be E-readers, my Kindle and Linda's Kobo. We can't do without those. Mp3 players? Likely, though I can use my phone but battery life is best saved on that. I have an old iPod 30gig and Linda thinks she has one somewhere. If not we will find her something.

All of this of course means chargers and cables. I might grab a battery powerbank thingy to charge between wall plugs. Thankfully USB is finally becoming pretty universal so most things can run from the same cables and chargers.

Headlamps are de rigeur. Reading on buses or planes, or when you just can't sleep, or walking in the dark or exploring caves and stuff.

What else? More on that later...

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Another Trip To South East Asia

It's been a while.

It's been a while since I posted, largely because it's been awhile since we really traveled. Yes we made a trip to New Brunswick for an impromptu family reunion of sorts a couple of years (3?) ago, but it hardly counts. Ok I did finally get to Grand Manan Island where I have never been despite having lived there for about 8 months. That was a bit of fun, as was the rest of the trip but it wasn't a long or exotic one...



However the next one is coming up. This time it will be Thailand, Myanmar and Laos. We only plan to spend a few days in Thailand with close to 2 weeks in each of Myanmar and Laos, about a month total. We leave Vancouver late in October and get back near the end of November.

We have not traveled much the last few years largely because of the somewhat precarious health of Linda's mother. That and Enzo the Jack Russell. However with Ma doing well these last months and with Enzo having departed us a year ago :( we are more free to get away.  

So far we have booked a few things, and have a very loose itinerary mapped out with a few must see places in mind and a few "let's not bother" places as well. One thing we have learned is that we don't want to be moving all the time and another is that we are not fans of chicken buses.

I'm not sure they use the expression chicken bus in Asia as much as in other places but if you have traveled in Central America and other developing regions you know what I mean. Hot, crowded, bumpy, slow and full of just about anything that moves on 2 legs, or 2 wings or possibly more appendages. Schedules that barely make sense or are adhered to, nasty bathrooms on the buses if they exist at all, or just as nasty at the stops they might make along the way. Cheap though and that's about the only endearing quality.

Anyway, our departure flight will take us from Vancouver (YVR) to Bangkok (BKK) via Shanghai. The stopover will be just a couple of hours. That's the perfect length; enough to handle slight delays but quick enough to not make you go crazy in the airport.

Three nights in BKK at the Arom d Hostel and then on to Myanmar. The Hostel was suggested by my old friend and onetime roommate Sarah, who has been living in BKK for many years. We hope to meet her for drinks and snacks while in the city.

I've never been to Thailand and really this trip won't be the best introduction to the country I'm sure, but we don't have a really long time to spend there and it will be there for another trip later.

One reason we don't plan to spend a long time is that we d want to see the recently opening up country of Myanmar before it becomes too crowded and potentially spoiled by westerners (yeah, like us).    
 
That really all I have to start off with for now, but I will be back soon with some more preliminary info.  

3 Days in Lisbon

From Sintra to Lisbon the trains are frequent and quick, making the trip in about 40 minutes.

Lisbon is not terribly hard to navigate in some districts but not so in others, such as the Alfama district where we were staying. The Baixa district is more grid-like in layout having mostly been rebuilt after the 1755 earthquake and it is in this area that the main train station, Rossio, is located. It's also the main shopping and tourist area. Alfama is not far but is a twisting turning up and down sector with streets that are as little as about 10 feet wide (maybe less). Getting up to the Largo Das Portos Do Sol in the picture above to meet the owner of the apartment we were renting we decided to do by taxi to save the navigation hassle and our feet.

Alfama is one of the poorer neighbourhoods of Lisbon but quite vibrant. Getting around is not really all that hard, but it helps if you can get out in the open once in a while to either catch sight of a landmark like the river, a large church or the castle that overlooks it. Or you can follow the tram tracks and sometimes find your way home. Oh, what the heck, just get lost. Eventually you will come out somewhere. Just watch out for the dog poo.

It's an old city but has all mod cons as well. The downtown is busy and full of ritzy shops but the barrios (neighbourhoods) have lots of character. For every ancient church or funky market there is a tacky souvenir shop or artistic spray bomb graffiti. The rickety trams and modern subway get you around very nicely.

We had pretty much burnt out on castles by now but we did visit the Castle of São Jorge which was just above us. We actually went there twice as we escorted an American couple up there at night after meeting them over sardines and wine at the smoky grilling stand on the steps of a church not far from our apartment. We sat on a castle wall and caught the last of a concert that was going on inside.

Even though it was faster paced and louder, we did enjoy Lisbon. The prices had gone up a bit, but our apartment was well priced and we kept costs down by eating at home a few times. The apartment was tiny but efficient. I could just barely avoid hitting the ceiling at places and had to practically step in the toilet to get out of the shower but it all worked well...mostly. The owner was also very helpful (maybe too talkative) and nice. We also could not beat the location...as long as we would avoid the dog poo.

We checked out a couple of cool museums in Lisbon including one devoted to modern design and another that was a private collection from an Armenian oil billionaire and donated to Portugal as they promised it a permanent and high quality venue. The Gulbenkian Museum was a bit out of the way for us but worth the trip.

We really enjoyed Lisbon even though the pace was a bit higher than that elsewhere in Portugal. Three days was just enough to get a good taste of it, but a week would be not too much time.