Myanmar
Blijf op de hoogte en volg Bram
28 November 2015 | Myanmar, Rangoon
Mingalaba,
As you had to wait so long for news on my weblog, you get two updates on the same time!!
After the Himalaya tracking I spent some days in Chitwan Nat Park in the south of Nepal, watching rhinos and crocodiles from a jeep and also from the back of an elephant. (The latter felt very touristic, 4 people squished in a bucket on top of the elephant, walking in a row with other elephants through a small part of the jungle.) Fortunately the elephants are treated nice in Nepal.
More specially was sitting on the back of an elephant while she was bathing in the river (same river where the crocodiles swim).
Then it was time to leave Nepal after two months and fly to Thailand. I spent 3 days in Bangkok and got shocked by the difference with Nepal. Infrastructure is much better, temple complexes are beautiful, but there’s too many tourists in Bangkok, all with big tattoos, smoking and drinking in the noisy bars of Khao San road (a very popular street in downtown Bangkok). But worst of all, most Thai people in Bangkok are NOT SMILING, but actually very rude to you. Apart from their terrible way of speaking English, while most don’t speak or understand English at all. This was really different from how I expected Thailand. So I was happy to leave Bangkok and fly to Myanmar.
In Myanmar, people are dressed very beautiful, are very friendly and helpful and especially young people speak very good English. Yangon downtown is a combination of traditional Burmese living and developing accommodations and services for the tourists. Some food and streetlife is similar to Thailand, but there not so much fish and seafood stalls on the street. Most noticeable are groups of religious young people going with huge amplifiers on the street forming a procession for Buddha and collecting money.
After Yangon I went to Bagan with a nightbus. Unfortunately I was getting a real cold from the airco in the planes and buses, so my nose and ears were blocked and I was coughing more every day. In Bagan I went to see a doctor who gave me 3 types of medicine to take for 5 days. This together with some little rest and a pot of honey from a Australian girl helped me out quite well.
Bagan is an ancient city with thousands of small and some bigger Buddhist temples spread out through the area. Some are very touristic but small smaller ones are very desolated laying in the field far from anything. I mostly remember sitting on top of a temple during sunrise. All of a sudden I saw some weird spherical shaped trees appearing just before the sun was rising. The things popped up like funghi and were growing very fast. Then I realized I was watching a bunch of hot air balloons that were about to take off. Eventually there were 21 balloons going into the air.
After Bagan in went to Kalaw and from there did a 2day hike through colourful fields with different crops and flowers, towards Inle lake. We had some traditional food and slept in a real bamboo house on the floor in a tiny village. This was a good way to recover from my illness.
Inle lake is a big and touristic lake with several floating villages and floating gardens. Beautiful, but the enormous amount of engine-driven boats full of tourists made it a bit disappointing.
Because of the full moon, there was a big 7 day festival close to Inle lake where people from whole Myanmar come together to release beautiful hot air balloons filled with fireworks. I was walking around on the festival area with 2 other dutch women, feeling the only foreigners there and seeing many people smiling to us as they saw us enjoying their festival.
From Inle lake I decided to take the train back to Yangon. This would take a total of 30 hours! Trains in Myanmar are very slow, shake terrible and stop on every station in the middle of nowhere. At every station there appears a trading market of selling and buying food, vegetables, flowers and whatsoever. Also the cargo parts of the train are used for transport of vegetables throughout the country, like trucks do in Europe. It was an interesting experience, being the only foreigner on most of the trip while hardly anyone speaks English. At some stations the train stopped for more than one hour, but I never knew when so didn’t dare to leave to train. Fortunately at the end of the first day in the train somebody came to me who talked some English and told me sometimes how long I could get out. At 20.00h that day, after sitting in the train for 12 hours, me and that other guy had to get out of the train and wait for 2 hours to get the next one towards Yangon. We went for a dinner at a local traditional restaurant. The other guy ordered some rice and vegetables for us, but while eating I started doubting if it was real vegetarian. One hour later my stomach told me that it didn’t like the food at all. So I had to get in the next train for another 16 hours of travelling and shaking, while I felt really miserable even without the train moving. Spending the night laying on two chairs I did even sleep quite okay.
At 14.00h next day I arrived in Yangon and walked to the guesthouse (the same one I stayed when I arrived in Myanmar because people were really nice and breakfast really good). The walking woke up my intestines so arriving at the guesthouse the diarrhea really started. I’ll safe you the details but it was a tough afternoon and night for me. Luckily one of the girls from the guesthouse gave me some ORS (rehydration salts) which really helped me getting some energy back after not being able to eat for 24 hours.
Next day I flew back to BKK. I didn’t make it to travel directly to the next place I wanted to go, so had to spend the night there. A guy from a small guesthouse close to the one I stayed before offered me an acceptable room for a nice price. He spoke good English and first appeared to be quite okay and funny so I accepted it. After that he started hugging and punching me, so I’m pretty sure he must be gay. After I showed him I was not so interested, he still didn’t completely stop it, but at least didn’t go further than I would have accepted.
The evening I spent walking at the river, where the annually Loi Krathong was celebrated because of the full moon (apparently more countries here celebrate full moons). All people have a handmade flower ornament that they let float in the water with some incence and candles, giving good luck to them.
Next day I went to the ancient city of Ayutthaya. But that’s for another report as you’ve read enough now.
Bye bye!!
As you had to wait so long for news on my weblog, you get two updates on the same time!!
After the Himalaya tracking I spent some days in Chitwan Nat Park in the south of Nepal, watching rhinos and crocodiles from a jeep and also from the back of an elephant. (The latter felt very touristic, 4 people squished in a bucket on top of the elephant, walking in a row with other elephants through a small part of the jungle.) Fortunately the elephants are treated nice in Nepal.
More specially was sitting on the back of an elephant while she was bathing in the river (same river where the crocodiles swim).
Then it was time to leave Nepal after two months and fly to Thailand. I spent 3 days in Bangkok and got shocked by the difference with Nepal. Infrastructure is much better, temple complexes are beautiful, but there’s too many tourists in Bangkok, all with big tattoos, smoking and drinking in the noisy bars of Khao San road (a very popular street in downtown Bangkok). But worst of all, most Thai people in Bangkok are NOT SMILING, but actually very rude to you. Apart from their terrible way of speaking English, while most don’t speak or understand English at all. This was really different from how I expected Thailand. So I was happy to leave Bangkok and fly to Myanmar.
In Myanmar, people are dressed very beautiful, are very friendly and helpful and especially young people speak very good English. Yangon downtown is a combination of traditional Burmese living and developing accommodations and services for the tourists. Some food and streetlife is similar to Thailand, but there not so much fish and seafood stalls on the street. Most noticeable are groups of religious young people going with huge amplifiers on the street forming a procession for Buddha and collecting money.
After Yangon I went to Bagan with a nightbus. Unfortunately I was getting a real cold from the airco in the planes and buses, so my nose and ears were blocked and I was coughing more every day. In Bagan I went to see a doctor who gave me 3 types of medicine to take for 5 days. This together with some little rest and a pot of honey from a Australian girl helped me out quite well.
Bagan is an ancient city with thousands of small and some bigger Buddhist temples spread out through the area. Some are very touristic but small smaller ones are very desolated laying in the field far from anything. I mostly remember sitting on top of a temple during sunrise. All of a sudden I saw some weird spherical shaped trees appearing just before the sun was rising. The things popped up like funghi and were growing very fast. Then I realized I was watching a bunch of hot air balloons that were about to take off. Eventually there were 21 balloons going into the air.
After Bagan in went to Kalaw and from there did a 2day hike through colourful fields with different crops and flowers, towards Inle lake. We had some traditional food and slept in a real bamboo house on the floor in a tiny village. This was a good way to recover from my illness.
Inle lake is a big and touristic lake with several floating villages and floating gardens. Beautiful, but the enormous amount of engine-driven boats full of tourists made it a bit disappointing.
Because of the full moon, there was a big 7 day festival close to Inle lake where people from whole Myanmar come together to release beautiful hot air balloons filled with fireworks. I was walking around on the festival area with 2 other dutch women, feeling the only foreigners there and seeing many people smiling to us as they saw us enjoying their festival.
From Inle lake I decided to take the train back to Yangon. This would take a total of 30 hours! Trains in Myanmar are very slow, shake terrible and stop on every station in the middle of nowhere. At every station there appears a trading market of selling and buying food, vegetables, flowers and whatsoever. Also the cargo parts of the train are used for transport of vegetables throughout the country, like trucks do in Europe. It was an interesting experience, being the only foreigner on most of the trip while hardly anyone speaks English. At some stations the train stopped for more than one hour, but I never knew when so didn’t dare to leave to train. Fortunately at the end of the first day in the train somebody came to me who talked some English and told me sometimes how long I could get out. At 20.00h that day, after sitting in the train for 12 hours, me and that other guy had to get out of the train and wait for 2 hours to get the next one towards Yangon. We went for a dinner at a local traditional restaurant. The other guy ordered some rice and vegetables for us, but while eating I started doubting if it was real vegetarian. One hour later my stomach told me that it didn’t like the food at all. So I had to get in the next train for another 16 hours of travelling and shaking, while I felt really miserable even without the train moving. Spending the night laying on two chairs I did even sleep quite okay.
At 14.00h next day I arrived in Yangon and walked to the guesthouse (the same one I stayed when I arrived in Myanmar because people were really nice and breakfast really good). The walking woke up my intestines so arriving at the guesthouse the diarrhea really started. I’ll safe you the details but it was a tough afternoon and night for me. Luckily one of the girls from the guesthouse gave me some ORS (rehydration salts) which really helped me getting some energy back after not being able to eat for 24 hours.
Next day I flew back to BKK. I didn’t make it to travel directly to the next place I wanted to go, so had to spend the night there. A guy from a small guesthouse close to the one I stayed before offered me an acceptable room for a nice price. He spoke good English and first appeared to be quite okay and funny so I accepted it. After that he started hugging and punching me, so I’m pretty sure he must be gay. After I showed him I was not so interested, he still didn’t completely stop it, but at least didn’t go further than I would have accepted.
The evening I spent walking at the river, where the annually Loi Krathong was celebrated because of the full moon (apparently more countries here celebrate full moons). All people have a handmade flower ornament that they let float in the water with some incence and candles, giving good luck to them.
Next day I went to the ancient city of Ayutthaya. But that’s for another report as you’ve read enough now.
Bye bye!!
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Je kunt nu ook Smileys gebruiken. Via de toolbar, toetsenbord of door eerst : te typen en dan een woord bijvoorbeeld :smiley
