Myanmar/Burma part 2 - Mandalay and Pyin Oo Lwin

From Bagan we boarded a bus (fortunately not another night bus) and travelled the 8-10hrs or whatever it was to Mandalay. Mandalay was a laid out in a massive grid and therefore quite easy to navigate.  We spent our 4-days in Mandalay on motorbikes exploring not only the city but also the nearby towns. 

On the day we arrived we me a guy from England named Calum who shared a taxi with us from the bus station to downtown. We ended up hanging out with him while he was in town. That night he convinced me (Kiersten was not convinced) to watch the Euro 2012 England vs Italy match with him. Unfortunately because of our location the game started at 1:00am. There was only one area nearby playing the game. It was tea stall located on the street about seven blocks from our hotel. Upon arriving at the stall we were surprised that 30 to 40 locals were already gathered around the small TVs chewing betel nut and smoking cheroots waiting for the game to start. The Burmese like most people in the world loved soccer and were apparently really stoked for the game. They also seemed think it was cool to have and actual Englishman and a Canadian watching the game with them. There was some serious rain that night and the power kept going out but it added to the surreal experience of watching the game on the street in Myanmar. There is pretty much no nightlife in Mandalay so the streets were empty except for our massive crew. The game finally ended at 4:00am with Italy wining in a shootout. I was tired as hell but it was a fun experience. It was pretty obvious how late it was walking home because some people were already getting up and preparing for the day ahead.

Kids swimming in the streets after a big rain

The next day after sleeping in until 1pm, Kiersten, Calum, and I rented scooters and road up Mandalay hill to take in the view of the city. At the top of the hill (like many hills in Myanmar) there was a big Pagoda with a bunch of monks who liked to practice there english and talk about soccer with tourists (as well as meditate I guess). It was funny how much more a monk from Myanmar could know about the international soccer scene then I did.

Riding in Myanmar, like any big city in Asia, took a little getting used to. Major intersections, that in Canada would definitely have street lights, wouldn't even have a stop sign. You would just kind of roll up to them and squeak through as best you possibly could while trying not to get hit. After four days I was a pro but tt took more concentration then mountain biking and the stakes were a little higher. At the end of the day we road down to the Irrawaddy and walked among the slums that line the river. Almost instantly we were surrounded by kids that wanted nothing but to get there picture taken. We would take their picture then show them on the camera and would be overjoyed. None of the begged or asked for money. They just wanted to hang out. For kids that had so little in life, they were all so happy and had big smiles on their faces.

Awesome kids from Mandalay

The next day we rented bikes again and set out to find the U Bein bridge, the longest teak bridge in the world. Not really knowing how to get there we consulted a map and ended up on the highway that goes all the way back to Yangon. The traffic was intense and at one point we found ourselves on an overpass that was apparently only meant for cars. Almost immediately we were pulled over by the local traffic police and I was asked for my drivers license. Not having an international drivers license I handed them my BC license. This seemed to satisfy them and after paying a little fine (about $10 cdn - which was apparently a total rip off) we were back on our way. We did finally make it to the brige but later realised there was much easier way to get there.

Fishermen near the U Bein bridge

U Bein bridge - longest teak bridge in the world

U Bein bridge

Sea food was available in abundance in Mandalay

The following day we got on our bike and road even further out of town the ancient city of Innwa. It isn't much a city anymore, just dirt roads, small thatch huts, and ancient ruins. We explored what ruins we could without paying the government fee (we tried to support the Junta as little as possible while we were there). It was a nice quiet place with some interesting sites, including a massive teak monestary, old buildings left over from the British, and of course Pagodas.

Taking the ferry over to Innwa

Women selling sandlewood outside of the teak monestary

Women doing some intricate  hand weaving

On our last day of motorbike exploring we travelled across the Irrawaddy to another ex-capital called Saigaing. There wasn't any one site here that was the draw, it was really the city itself. The whole city is filled with golden pagodas.  We road around the small paved streets passing old colonial buildings and uncountable pagodas. We eventually made our way north of the city along the Irrawaddy, passing a number of small villages, before arriving at the town of Mingun. It was much more touristy then the other places we had visited due to the ferry that brought tourists from Mandalay, but nonetheless there were some cool things to see. It was the site of a massive partially built pagoda, that if finished would have been the largest in the world.

One of the bridges to Saigaing

A hill in Sagaing

A girl chopping beetle nut in a small village on the way Mingun

Ox-cart in Mingun

If finished, this would have been the world's largest pagoda

Saigaing

A religious ceremony in Saigaing

From Mandalay we made our way to the hill station of Pyin Oo Lwin, a summer retreat for the British in colonial times. It is most famous for the national botanical gardens which we explored by bicycle. The ride from Mandalay to the gardens was a lot of fun as well. Because it was only a few hours from Mandalay we took a shared jeep with a bunch of locals. I was invited to ride on the roof of the jeep with a couple chain betel-nut chewers. From the roof I got awesome views of the countryside and a lot of thumbs up from the people we passed. I also had my first experience chewing betel nut which my roof riding friends kept offering me. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be but it sure forced you to spit a lot. I wasn't nearly as good at spitting as they were so they gave me a little bag to spit in. The road up to Pyin Oo Lwin was a series of switchbacks that provided an awesome view of the countryside below. It was a great experience for me because I had been wanting to ride on the roof of a vehicle since Nepal

Botanical Gardens

All these side dishes are for one curry order.  The Burmese love their side dishes.

Myanmar/Burma part 1 - Yangon, Pyay, and Bagan

Getting prept for Myanmar took a few days of work in Bangkok before we could get on a flight. One difficult thing about travelling in the country is that they don't have any ATMs that accept foreign bank cards. It's basically a cash only economy and depending on where you spend your money you are either using USD or Burmese Kyat. It took us three days of taking out our max allowable limit of Baht in Bangkok and converting it to USD before we could leave. Another weird thing about Myanmar is that when paying in USD the bills have to be perfect, crisp, and printed after 2006. A few times we got denied because of the tiniest folds. Anyways after finally getting our visas and money together we boarded an Air Asia flight to Yangon and we were in Myanmar.

Yangon

We got off the plane and grabbed a cab to downtown Yangon. On the drive we passed men wearing the traditional longyi, basically a dark checkerd ankle length skirt that nearly 2/3rds of the men seem to wear, and women with thanka (white powder of growned sandlewood) covering their faces. It seemed strange at first but after a while it became totally normal. I actually thought the thanka looked pretty good on the women. I never did get around to wearing a longyi though. The city itself, while huge was much less developed than cities in Thailand, as could be expected. Upon arriving downtown an amazing thing happened: our driver knowing that we didn`t have a hotel didn`t take us somewhere he gets comission, he actually pointed out where a few cheap options were and wished us good luck. After travelling through India this was an amazing and unprecedented experience.

After checking in to a random cheap hotel, we set out to change some money and explore Yangon. We basically just walked around town and got lost. The people of Myanmar, less accustomed to tourists than other places we have visited (although that is going to change very very soon) were amazingly friendly and would just come up to talk to you. A lot of people spoke at least a little english and were excited to practice with us and learn.

A food market in downtown Yangon

View of Sule Pagoda from a pedestrian crossing

Awesome repair job

After a while we hopped on a random bus that we hoped would take us to the famous Shwedagon Pagoda. Fortunately it turned out that we were on the right bus and Kiersten met a friendly lady that said she was on her way to the Pagoda and would take us there. When we finally arrived I was blown away. Picture a 2600+ year old massive gold stupa 100 metres high surrounded by shrines, with people meditating and praying everywhere around it. We were some of the only tourists there at the time. We just roamed around, chatted to locals, and sat in the shade and just enjoyed being where we were. My pictures don`t really do the place justice.

Shwedagon

Kiersten the amazon

Tons of cute babies all over Myanmar

Some sort of ceremony that has to do with the day of the week you were born

Meeting the local kids

Me with a really nice monk

Pyay

After spending a few days checking out the markets, talking with locals, and generally exploring the city, we made our way out to the bus station (a strange place) and somehow managed to find the bus that would take us to Pyay, a small town located between Yangon and Bagan. Unfortunately I don`t have any pictures from Pyay because our camera was stolen before before I uploaded them to the computer. Pyay, an ex-capital was a small town along the Irrawaddy river with a pagoda smiliar to Swedagon as its main attraction for tourists. I think we were the only white people in town while we were there which made us quite entertaining for the locals. We did the same old stuff, wandered around, talked to people, drank some Myanmar lager, and got lost. Eventually we got so lost that a local turned up on a motor bike and asked us if we wanted a lift back to wherever we came from. We were more than happy to take him up on his offer.

It turned out that the only way for us to move north from Pyay was to take a train. We had heard mixed reviews about the train but we had little choice so we went for it. While waiting for the train at the station Kiersten and I decided to play a couple rounds of crib to pass the time. I never thought of crib as a spectator sport but after 5-min we were surrounded by locals apparently enthralled with our game. I thought they would lose interest quickly but the crowd just seemed to grow. It made for and entertaining wait.

Luckily when the train finally came we got a whole sleeping compartment to ourselves and 13hr or so ride turned out to be a breeze. The train did rock back and forth like crazy on the narrow track and a few times I thought we might derail, but overall it was great. I woke up 5am and decided to have a look out the window as the sun was just coming up and was greeted with amazing views of the Myanmar countryside. We passed tiny villages that looked like they hadn`t changed in thousands of years, where people got around on ox carts and lived in thatch huts. People came out from their huts to watch the train and would wave and point like crazy when they spotted me. Unfortunately I decided to take a couple pictures before I fell back asleep and forgot to put the camera back in my bag. When I woke back up it was gone. I blame myself and figure the guy who took must have been pretty desperate as there are really harsh penalties in Myanmar for stealing from tourists.

Bagan

After the long but rather enjoyable train ride (other than the fact our camera was flowed) we arrived in the ancient ruins of Bagan. During the 11th and 12th centuries Bagan had more 10 thousand temples in 100 square kilometers with about 2500 remaining today. We easily found a cheap hotel with air conditioning and while Kiersten hung out and relaxed I went on a camera finding mission. There was no way that we were going to travel through Myanmar without a camera. It took me a while to find one but I eventually found a decent digital point and shoot. I decided to celebrate with beer at one of the local drinking spots. After a couple sips a couple locals started to chat me up and offered me on of their Myanmar cigars called cheerots. The cheerot was suprisedly good and I later found out also ridiculously cheap. You can get about 40 for just over a dollar. As it was still early I then found a bike shop, rented a bike, and started exploring. It didn`t take more than 5 minutes before I was surrounded by temples. 

Kiersten and I spent the next four days riding bikes around Bagan. We could have spent a month and not seen all the temples. While some of the major ones can be crowded with tourists and souvenir vendors, it was really easy to find secluded areas with no one around. Again, pictures don`t really do this place justice.

Bagan ruins

Notice the ox-cart in the foreground

On our thrid day we shared a taxi with four other guys we met and went to Mt. Popa, a volcano with a picturesque monastery on the summit. Along the way we stopped at a little thatch hut factory where locals were making booze out of what I think was fermented palm sugar.

Making booze

Helping mom chop coconuts

Mount Popa

A lot of these fellas on Mt Popa