Burmese Days - Kinpun

Yangon - Kinpun Day 4

Up early this morning at 7:00 in time for breakfast before making our way to the bus station. There was a greek and an indian staying in our dorm, and they were already chatting when I woke up. They were berating India:

Greek: "India is a shithole"
Indian: "Yea. All these people talk about how wonderful India is. I say fuck Mother India. Try living there"
Greek: "Tourists pay $10 to stay in a cockroach-infested room. India; the toilet of the world"
Me: "Toilet of the world? Why do you say that?"
Greek: "Almost a billion people and no sanitation. Its a fucking toilet"
Me: "Hmm"
Greek: "Where did you fly in from?"
Me: "Bangkok"
Greek: "Bangkok? Slut of the world"

I chuckled my way out the door. I was pretty rough, having only had about 4hrs drunk sleep or so. Bob was in a better way. We took a $8 taxi to the bus station, it really started to feel like India at this point. The bus station was a big dusty sprawl, there were people milling about everywhere. We were surrounded in an instant by young smiling girls selling their wares, wearing the traditional Burmese makeup of a creamy paste, usually smeared on both cheeks. Sometimes they wear more, sometimes less. It takes a while to get used to, at first it looked pretty disgusting, but now, depending on how it is applied it can look OK. A little line of it under both eyes is my favourite look. It took me and Bob a while to figure out what it is, we thought maybe it was sun protection. Burmese girls are generally quite pretty, we both prefer their look to Thai, in general. It was funny standing there, smoking a cigarette with these shoulder height girls encircling us. They werent pushy at all, just curious. At some point, the military turned up and all our girls scattered behind the bus. The whole place definetly got quieter. They left eventually without drama and the place returned to normal. Curious.
The bus wasn't bad, we were directed to the front seats (Im sure we pay a foreigner premium as with most things in Burma, so being elevated to the same bus seat status of a monk, who get priority everywhere here, is fine by me). The french guy from our dorm was sitting across from us, his english was pretty bad (he was french after all), but his smile was hearty. He said he got the bus to the bus station and not an 8 dollar taxi. I asked him not to tell us how much he had paid. Doh! The landscape during the journey was extremely flat for the first 3/4. As the lonely planet says, the prime colours here are green and gold. Gold from the stupas scattered everywhere.
At one of the stops we met a little crazy guy. Crazies here and in Thailand seem to have a certain look. They are usually very small and skinny and have massive smiles on their faces, almost constantly. They are always good for a laugh, and always good at helping breaking the ice in a situation where its, me, Bob and a bunch of Burmese who cant speak English, so I always try to catch their eye, not difficult as most people are usually staring at you anyway!
The bus journey came to a premature end after about 4 hours, the bus dude said "Sorry, I not make it today". Ok... He got off and organised 2 motorcycle taxi drivers to take us the rest of the way. We had no idea where we were of course. After 5 minutes we were dropped off in a big dusty clearing surrounded by huts, people sitting about everywhere and a few covered pickups in the middle. The driver said "here, here". Ok... A dude came up and hustled us on to the back of a pickup. We sat there waiting, looking at the scene, we were definitely getting further and further from modern life with every step.. The stares were getting more frequent and conversation-stopping, which I assume is directly related to the amount of foreigners that have passed through before. 5 minutes later they huddled us onto a different pickup. It filled up including one military dude, complete with revolver and a uniform that looked like it could have come from a costume shop, garish and crude. A few goods were loaded on to the pickup and we set off. We stopped every 5 minutes loading and unloading. The contents of the pickup got more and more curious. A basket of wood, a karaoke speaker system, a massive chest freezer precariously tied to the back, a plate of glass on top of it, two massive sheets of plywood on the roof and about 5 guys sittin on top of those. We were constantly reminded of their presence by the big gobs of red betel juice that would appear from above. This erratic journey continued for about 20mins until we found ourselves...back at the start point. Doh! Bob and I resigned ourselves to a potentially long last leg of this journey. No problem, we always find ourselves smiling and laughing at these moments. More stuff loaded and unloaded and we were underway again, this time we reached our destination, right outside the Sea Sar guesthouse.
We were in a proper backwater village, although not totally rural.

The proper rural people here live in even more rickety huts than we saw in the jungle in Thailand; some made completely of straw. We saw one on the bus journey that looked for all the world like the big bad wolf had blown it in, wish I had had my camera ready. The room in Sea Sar was an unexpected little touch of luxury. A massive room in a pretty brick building, clean and spacious. High-five! No TV, a broken fridge, an airconditioner that sounded like a jet-engine taking off and a fan that sounded like it was saying "Billy" a la Gremlins every time it turned could not dampen our spirits! We had reached a little piece of nowhere, our ultimate destination, and we were going to be sleeping there in comfort :)
Nonetheless, we had heard good things about another hotel in the area called the Golden Sunrise that had bamboo and brick huts and had apparently nice views over gardens. We went to find it and I thought it was just round the corner, but it turned out to be about a kilometre away and it was still roasting so we ended up sweating again. It turned out the rooms there were 50 dollars, so it was 2km in the sun for nothing. Oh well..By this time it was getting dark (and I do mean dark, no streetlights here, the only lights came from huts that were selling something) and we were pumped, especially me, so we headed down to the attached restaurant for dinner. One sardine curry, one pork with lentils and two beers later and we were knackered. Time for Trailer Park Boys and a good kip.

Kinpun - Day 5

We slept like babies. Today was the day of the mountain climb. Mount Kyaiktiyo was the goal, 1100m up to the Golden Rock, according to the Lonely Planet between 4 and 6 hours up a jungle trail. The route is a traditional buddhist pilgrimage, so we expected some hardship. Its not a pilgrimage without a little suffering, right? There is also a fat/old/lazy option of getting a pick-up up the road and walking the last 45 minutes. Pff.
We got up at 8 for our breakfast of omelette and toast. The white bread in Myanmar/Thailand is very sweet, but does taste a little better toasted. We set off through the village centre of Kunpin which we hadn't seen yet. Lots of little shop huts selling crisps, nuts, and curiously, electrolyte powder.

Le Centre Ville. Yup.

...quickly turned into not-a-lot

After a couple of hundred metres the jungle closed in and the gradient increased, and it didnt let up. I counted the steps on the way up just for something to do, there were 2000. Steps were about 10-20% of the whole surface..

Bob lookin sweaty and a bit knackered already...this is step no. 1!

It was hot hot hot, always between 30-35 degrees, and the humidity was off the scale. It was definetly the sweatiest day I have ever had, and not far from the hottest. We were drenched in sweat within half an hour, and there was little respite. The smallest patch of shade, tiny breeze or cloud was always very welcome. The trail switched between stairs and rough, rivuleted red earth. I can imagine during the rainy season that a small river runs down the middle of it. We passed hundreds of small huts along the way with locals sitting about, some of the huts had been converted into little restaurants/shops.  We made good use of our only Burmese word "Mingalaba", hello. The locals stare at you, not sure what to make of you, but saying the word is almost always received with a chorus of hearty Mingalaba's and smiles.

I was determined to make a good time, and secretly to beat the Lonely Planets 4hr minimum, so I set a fast pace.

Sweaty happy!

More stairs?!

Soaked thru

Pilgrim Bob

Help ma Boab

We met a French dude same age as us halfway up who had got a bus up (different road) and was now walking down and had a local guide to carry his backpack. We stopped after a couple of hours to refuel and sat in a little rest stop for half an hour.

Gave the wee feller a mint and was trying to show him "Eat"!

Got any mints?

I was still watching the clock so we didnt dilly-dally. We reached the temple area entrance, I checked the watch..exactly 4hrs. Dammit!
The area was a nice contrast to the closeness of the jungle, the temple area was basically perched upon the mountain and perfectly flat, so at the edges of the plateau all you could see beyond was sky or misty mountain tops.

At the far end of the complex was the ultimate goal, the Golden Rock, which was impressive.

A monk sat huddled in the corner with his forehead against it, mouthing prayer.

People were attaching very thin gold leaf to the rock and a Chinese guy offered me a piece which i clumsily plastered mostly over my fingers and a little on to the rock.

Pilgrimage complete. I took a hundred pictures and then, as Bob was starting to fade,

we made our exit and got a sugar boost.
The way back was a short walk down the road to the pick-up stop. Funny how different the atmosphere is in such a short distance, something we have noticed time and time again, the locals didnt bat an eyelid at us, and there was little shops and traces of commerce everywhere. This is the main route the tourists walk up and down to and from the pick-up stop, so they are well accustomed to the likes of us. Only 300-400m away round the mountain a bit it was stares, smiles and bamboo huts. There were basic sedans lining the road here too; it is possible to get 4 Burmese guys to hump you up the road, which is a bloody steep 45 mins, sitting on a chair on bamboo poles. Blimey.

A veritable train of lazy bastards

The pick-up stop reminded me of the bus station at Yangon, dusty, with people milling about hawking their wares. A woman came up and invited us to sit in her restaurant, which we gladly did because we were starving. It wasnt bad, Bob had fried goat and I had fried chicken, mine was much nicer. A couple of drinks, and the bill was $11. Another mini-fleecing. We were warned in advance that the pickup truck does not leave until it is full, so we kept our eye on it from the relative comfort of the restaurant. When it seemed to start to fill up we joined the throng. It had tightly packed wooden beams set across it to act as benches. As I sat down the Chinese guy who had given me the golden leaf inspected the tattoo on my arm. He called across to the monk on the pick-up who turned out to be a woman and asked her to translate it for me.

She spoke pretty good English and translated it as meaning "No leader, very happy, something about a place that can only be reached through meditation". I like my tattoo more and more every time it gets translated and each translation is different and always a little vague. I like the mystery. We sat there watching boys playing chinlon, a national pastime a bit like hacky-sack. Basically keepy-uppys with a hollow plastic ball, the more advanced version has a net, but they will play it anywhere without.

We sat for ages, changed pick-ups once (seems to be standard fare that the pick-up you get onto will not be the one you leave on), watched the world go by. Three military police sat in the pick up for a bit, realised it wasnt going anywhere soon, and got off, telling the bus dude to call them when it was full. Pff. There was a wee outpost on the hill in front of the stop with a massive megaphone that would crackle into life every now and again, god only knows what they were saying. I always imagine "come in No. 12, your time is up". In the time we sat there we must have seen 10 full pickups arrive at different times. The average age of white tourist was about 50, with none younger than 40. Some of them made the 45 min trek up the hill, and the lazy and infirm got the sedans up the hill. One white woman had the traditional burmese make-up on, then got a sedan up the hill. Eh? Take a bath, you confused hippy.
The pick-up finally started to fill and just when I thought it was full they crammed another 5 people on. We were 5 abreast, maybe 8 benches, a couple hanging off the back, and a couple of boys sitting on the cab itself.

The pick-up took off and we realised this was going to be a tough journey. For those in the middle like me and Bob there was nothing to hold on to at all, and the road was very steep and winding. To stop ourselves falling forward we had to wedge our knees up against the bench in front, which meant Bob found himself in the unusual position of having his knee wedged cosily between the buttocks of a military policeman. Surely a world first! I had mine either side of a woman, not a world first, snigger. As usual, the randomness of the situation meant me and Bob were grinning like Cheshire cats all the way home.

Woohoo, check out the two bemused souls behind us

 The view was great as well, lush mountain scenery. Our knees are still bruised today, two days laterWhen we arrived back in Kinpun there was a slightly edgy atmosphere, almost tribal. Someone had lit a fire on the street and the smoke was just hanging in the village. There was a lot of noise, and street dogs silhouetted in the smoke. Someone was shouting something over a megaphone. The impression only lasted for a second, but it felt like Africa for a second. Again, I've never been, just a feeling!
We were looking forward to the cool of the airconditioned room, but it wasn't to be. Yet another power brownout meant we had light but no air-con. We were about to head out, and it suddenly came back on, so we chilled with a couple of Trailer Park Boys.

Bob worshipping the only God that matters. The God of Air Con.
One of my favourite photos :)

We went into the village after for something to eat, and surprisingly heard rock guitar emanating from a little local place overhanging the stream at the bottom of the village. They even had blue and red lights and a TV (flat screen no less!) with an image of a guitar on it, this was definetly the place for us! We were greeted by Coco, a very polite young Burmese dude with some of the best English we have encountered so far. He brought us double whiskies (another first in Burma) and beer. We were home. He brought us a little plate of vegetables for free just to try and they were delicious. We asked for the menu and he said there was none, so we asked for a little fried pork and vegetables, which was delicious. The band on the TV turned out to be Iron Cross, Burmas biggest rock band. We had seen them advertised in Yangon to play on the 27th October, way past our original planned leaving date (although not our current planned leaving date!). We asked Coco about them and he said that most Burmese pop(ular) music is covers of Western, Japanese and Chinese songs with Burmese lyrics. We saw Iron Cross do Bon Jovi and Offspring, didnt recognise the rest. The buses always have music videos playing too, and on our various bus trips we saw Killing Me Softly and bizarrely, Tie A Yellow Ribbon Round The Old Oak Tree. Twice. Getting merrily drunk, Coco joined us and started to tell us a little more about his life, music and Burma. The Belgian couple we had met in Yangon appeared out of nowhere. They joined us, and we asked Coco if we could try the omnipresent betel nut. In no time he produced 4 leaf packages. The betel nut is smeared in a lime paste and then wrapped in a betel leaf. We couldnt really see the nut because it was too dark. You put it in the side of your mouth and basically try to pass your saliva through it. Unfortunately none of us could stand the taste long enough to produce the seminal red gob. We discussed potential plans with the Belgians as they were also headed to Mawlamyine, one day after us.

Burmese Days - Yangon

Bangkok - Yangon Day 1

All Burma pictures can be found here.
It all began, as the starts of holidays often do, even holidays within holidays, with a hangover. Frank Ritchie and Soi Cowboy have to accept partial blame for that. Our flight was 16:50, I managed to drag Bob out of bed at 11:30. We still had to change our money, not as straightforward as usual as there are no ATMs in Myanmar, not for non-local banks anyway, so the money you take is the money you have for your entire trip.
Not only this but the money you take in must be in pristine US dollars ( Singapore dollars and FEC, Foreign Exchange Certificates, whatever they are, are also accepted); no tears, cuts, folds or markings on the notes. Rife are tales of unwary tourists taking in $1000 and only $200 being accepted. We even heard a tale of one foolhardy tourist who made is way into Myanmar with no money. He made it as far as Mawlamyine though, so he must have been a resourceful fellow. There are three general ways to exchange your money once you get to Myanmar into the local currency, khat. Holding on to some of the US dollars is advisable, as most guesthouses seem to prefer them to khat. Number one, do it at the "official" airport exchange counter. Number two, do it a shopping market or the hotel. Number three, the black market guys in the street in the centre of town. Before we arrived the rumours were that the airport exchange gives you an almost unbelievably low 8 khat to the dollar, where exchange rate officially at the moment is about 850 (this nugget of info is also in the lonely planet). The other rumour we heard was the black marketeers offer the best rates.
Anyway,we set off on our mission to change Baht into US dollars. The first hurdle was the fact that Bob realised he had exhausted his travel funds after visits to a couple of different ATMs. A loan from big brother sorted out that problem. We walked into the first bank and asked for US dollars. No have. Time ticking away fast before we had to get to the airport. Fuck. 5 non-compliant banks and half an hour later, a bank security guard pointed us to a money exchange place. He offered us a decent rate based on what we had Googled so we handed over our brick of Baht and he disappeared for 5 minutes out the shop, to return with a paltry few $100 dollar bills in return. Dollars have changed since I last saw one so I wasnt even sure if they were real or not...watermark was there though and our time was running out so we were back to Phong tower to speed-pack our gear, a quick goodbye to Craig and we were taxi bound with a sweaty sigh of relief.
We left Bangkok in a media blaze, not for us this time, but it turns out the Thai Prime Minister was at the airport, something to do with the opening of the airport which had only been open 10 days. She walked within yelling distance as I was standing at passport control, waving at the queues of people...leaving her beloved country. She looked nice.
We arrived in Myanmar shattered and hanging after our 1 hour 15 minute flight. We spent half the flight filling out the customs declaration and arrival and destination cards, then the smell of fried Thai stuff drifted over as some of the guests who felt it necessary to pre-order food for a flight as long as a bus to Glasgow were served, and we were down. Airports are airports, although the immigrations officer was one of the grimmest puses I have seen in a long time. We saw the aforementioned exchange counter, but the rate was 848 khat to the dollar, not the paltry sum we had heard about. Ever cautious, we exchanged only $200, just to be on the safe side. Turns out later this was just about the best exchange rate available. The government must have wisened up.
We met our hotel dude (first time ever I have seen my name on piece of paper at an airport, yaas living the dream) and with a bunch of other tourists we left the airport for the bus. The first thing I saw was a massive Pepsi billboard with Messi's pus looking down at us. Strange, I thought, the West has arrived indeed.. But hey, Coke reaches the farthest corners of the planet, does it not? Edit: much much later I read in a newspaper advert that Coke and Pepsi is about the only western product to have made into Burma..very recently, so there you have it. The next thing we noticed is 90% of the men wear ankle length purple skirts. The Burmese people look somewhere between Thai and Indian, which geographically makes pretty good sense! We walked past a number of fairly luxurious looking coaches. One was filling up, and as everybody got on there was a guy taking pictures of every single passenger as they boarded. First signs of Big Brother. We continued walking past the luxurious coaches and got to the last bus, a battered indian style chankmobile, laughed, and climbed on. A dude got on and snapped a couple of photos, I thought he was government too, turns out he was just a snap happy, he stayed in the same hotel as us. He looked a bit like an Asian Jonah Lomu.
The bus journey was a good hour and a half and took us through the heart of Yangon, which was great, normally you have to pay for that stuff. It gave us a little bit of bearing. The windows were open and we sat staring into the night...and I do mean night. The streets were lit and the streetside buildings mostly had lights, but beyond the street side the city disappeared into darkness. Hard to know what was behind the brightly-lit facade. I guess it has something to do with the dodgy electricity here; some hotels advertise proudly "24 hour electricity" as a selling point...and only the expensive ones. Its alot quieter than Bangkok and it smells much better. There are patches of stink, and they mostly coincide with where the wide crumbling pavements have collapsed in upon themselves, sometimes as deep as the raw sewage channels below. There was a haze in the air we couldnt tell was dust or smog. People in the other cars were staring, laughing and smiling, we are definetly not in tourist land! We drove past two places where we saw foreigners, pocketed together in restaurants. We drove from the outskirts, through the centre where a big temple straddling the street made us all gasp, and we could see a massive golden pagoda at the top of the hill. We came out the other side of the centre and into a rundown neighbourhood on the other side of town, and lo and behold, there was the hostel. The bus had about 15 other people on it including a bunch of Chinese so we decided to sack the chaos of check-in queues for the time being and ordered and a beer and sat down outside. We got talking to a Dutch dental hygienist called Rhianna. She had been on the road for 38 hours so soon took her leave for zzzzs. Amazingly she only managed to sleep 1.5 hours that night, but still seemed to have the same energy the next day! We eventually checked in (paying half the price we originally thought, bonus), got some grub and sat down for another beer. Accomodation in Yangon (Myanmar in general so I'm told, we will know soon enough) is fairly sparse and ranges from slightly pricey guesthouse ($20-50) to astronomical luxury hotel prices ($200-1000). There is definetly a lower-mid end gap, and probably a $50-100 gap too. Accomodation is sparse because of the decade long reluctance of the government towards tourists and the trouble in Myanmar making it an undesirable destination, which are worsening as I edit this 4 weeks later; Rakhine states problems spreading far enough to cause some panic in Yangon. After the ruling junta clocked the financial benefits of tourism and squeezed the borders open, Suu Kyi immediately stood up and discouraged tourism, for exactly the reason the government wanted more; money in the coffers. Eventually she conceded a little but warned that responsible tourism was necessary to avoid filling the military's armouries any further. The government does take a cut of nearly everything, but the general (no pun intended) rule of thumb seems to be, the simpler you live, the less they receive. So buying street food for example would involve a 0 government cut, but eating at a flashy hotel is a different story. The reason for the prices I think is the immaturity of the tourist industry here. Basically at the moment it is seen as OK to fleece tourists. The high priced hotels are either owned by or are very close to members of the junta, so they offer the biggest cut to the military.
Our hostel in Yangon, Mother Land Inn 2, is a very sociable little guesthouse, mainly because we are a real little pocket of foreigners in a not-so-nice neighbourhood, so evenings everyone converges here. We noticed in contrast to Thailand, all the service/restaurant staff were boys, not girls. This proved itself the next day too when wandering about town. It's the most foreigner contact Bob and me have had. Before long, another couple of girls stopped by, one was a western botanist studying in Chiang Mai and Lucy who who had just been on a longer tour, through India and the like. She told us of how she went to an Ashram for a retreat, belonging to Amma, the hugging mother. She was there for three days and started describing it to us as being a little cult-ish and weird, but by the time she was done she conceded it was probably the most interesting thing she had done on her travels! Reiterating my maxim; all experiences are good experiences as long as you can walk in the morning. When everyone drifted off we retired to our non-airconditioned room. It didnt feel too bad, but we woke in the morning drowning in sweat because the room was south facing and on the second floor, a little suntrap. It was upwards of 35 degrees in there. Like sleeping in a tent in the open, once the sun is up, get the f**k out.

Yangon Day 2

Out of the sauna and into the blissful cold shower/toilet room (you don't mind straddling a toilet to shower after a wake-up like that), a quick included breakfast and we were out to explore the streets of Yangon.

This pavement gets a 7/10 for quality in Yangon

This was the first time we had been up before noon in a while unless necessary, and it was blisteringly hot. We were drenched in sweat within half an hour and it didnt let up.

Burma style - water truck leaking?
No problem we'll use it to wash our  dishes

We knew generally where we wanted to go, but the hand-drawn maps scale was misleading and we found after an hour we still werent much closer to what we thought was the centre, Shewadegon Pagoda; the pagoda we saw from the bus the night before. We diverted towards the nearby park for some cool down and green. $2 entry, so we named it $2 Park. Im pretty sure all this goes to the government which is a shame, but it is only $2.. It was worth it though. The park has a small lake and on it was the grandest boat i have ever seen.

 It looks like two massive gold-gilded ducks towing a pagoda on a double scorpion-tailed boat. We walked along a winding bridge for over a km to reach it.

Same boat from the back

Artistic impression of Bob

Unfortunately we had to pay more money to get close (less this time, but with a camera charge), more money in the governments pocket. You couldnt actually board it during the day, and at night they used it for pricey traditional dance show and buffet type affairs. Bollocks to that. We sat down for a bite to eat but they took so long to bring our drinks we didn't bother and left.

We left the park with the intention of visiting two pagodas close by. We skirted the park and took a street called Bogyote Museum road. Sounds grand on the map, but it was nothing of the sort, it was a winding dusty road mostly with 6ft walls on both sides. The walls were to enclose the grand properties in the area, some spotless colonial type buildings, sometimes painted in bright colours. Same same eveywhere, huh? At this point we started to mull the idea of renting a car and driving through Myanmar. We found a second hand Toyota van type effort not long after on the roadside for sale. 137,000km, $20,000 dollars (it took us a long time to figure out the conversion!). I think not. There was a car dealership a little further up the road, and we went in to speak to the owner, who also brought his 10yr old son in to help with some of the translation. He only dealt in new cars so he couldnt help us directly. He gave us the same basic info, that second hand cars were usually half the price of the new ones. We asked about rental and he said best thing to do is ask the hotel, they might also be able to fix a better rate. By this time I was planning in my head what we would need; a decent map (we tried earlier in the day to no avail), possibly a tent, blankets, spare petrol, a dose of luck, a compass and faith in navigator Bob ;)

Bob had found a little restaurant on the handdrawn map called The Guitar Man, so we hailed a taxi and went for it. The taxi driver got close, got confused and asked a couple who said it had moved. He stopped again a couple of times to ask where the new one was, and before we knew it we were back in the park (paid again!), not 200m from where we were sitting before at the house boat..anyway the menu sucked and we gave up and marched off in search of something to eat. By this time we were sweaty, tired and hungry. We hadnt seen many places to eat apart from the crappy places in the park, not even alot of street food. We hailed a taxi and he took us to the big pagoda we had been aiming for originally. He dropped us high up; the pagoda sits on a hill with four entrances; grand roofed decorative staircases with murals and massive golden pillars, filled with trinket shops, the first we had seen. At the bottom we could see the ubiquitous umbrellas of street vendors so we set off in search of grub. We came off the main drag and walked for a little bit, and although I know it's not true, it seemed like no foreigner had been here before..the stares were everywhere! Again proving you only need to come a tiny bit off the main drag and it feels like you are in a different town. We sat down on little brightly coloured kiddie stools on the street where a woman had a big pot of soup cooking. The restaurant was full of older woman, and we got a smile from each of them, they were laughing too, this obviously being something of a spectacle, these two big foreigners hunched on these tiny stools, slurping soup. We have since got used to it :)

Street Food. We would eat this all the time if we didnt like burgers so much :p

 It was deeeelicious, some of the best food I've had in Asia so far. Not spicy and aromatic like Thai, but wholesome and hearty. The men sitting all around were watching us too, and it occured to me perhaps we had sat down at an old wifeys restaurant, anyway it was funny.The next part wasn't so funny. We re-entered the drag up to the pagoda. I had just bought a little bag of lemonade for me and Bob to share. We were immediately accosted by two kids who thrust plastic bags into our hands (shoes are forbidden in the temple), saying shoe bags! shoe bags! They then accompanied us on our walk to the temple. I offered the wee guy some of my lemonade and he took the bag, enjoyed it but never gave it back. Fair enough. They didn't leave us and as we got to the foot of the stairs the mood changed, and the wee boy started saying plastic money! plastic money! I guess the really small denominations are plastic. Knowing Bob had the money and there was only 1000 khat ($1) bills, I said sorry, no money.He was insistent, but so was I. By this point a couple of adults had chimed in plastic money, plastic money, and a flower lady was thrusting massive flowers under my nose, saying pagoda flower! pagoda flower! She wouldn't take no for an answer either. But, I stuck to my guns, at this point I saw Bob handing the little bag girl 1000khat and asking for change...we never saw her again. It also didn't help me. Eventually, with my hand on my shoes to make sure he didnt scarper with them, the little boy ripped the bag from around shoes and stormed off. Fuck you pal. I was pissed off, but it got worse. We got to the top of the steps and there was a shoe deposit area. I turned to show the woman my shoes were safely in the backpack but she said no shoes in the temple area. We gave our shoes and she said "Shoe money donation please". I said sorry I have only have big notes, i will give you donation after. She said "no, now". I thought, well its not a bloody donation then. We changed a note and gave her 500 khat. We thought this was a safe amount to prevent our shoes being "lost" or gobbed in. I wasn't best pleased though.
Anyway, the pagoda and temple area was amazing.

The walk up to the temple

Allegedly the most stunning in Southeast Asia (since heard that about various
temples, of course).

 Monks meditating and sitting about talking to tourists, boy monks with their bright pink robes, and just a general bustle, but calm atmosphere. The massive glittering pagoda (150 feet or so) is impressive alone but the terrace went all around the pagoda, filled with non-stop temples, shrines and statues. The love for Buddha was unmistakable.
We headed home after, pumped and sweaty. Rhianna joined us again, and the driving idea was still in my head, so I asked to see her lonely planet. By this time I was starting slightly to regret the stubborn decision at Bangkok airport to not get the lonely planet for Myanmar. Rhianna's lonely planet revealed a key point; driving in Myanmar is only possible with a driver or a local accompanying at all times. Expenses up, freedom down, fuck that plan. At the same time a new plan started to emerge. I probably hadn't done enough research into Myanmar and had really only heard about the big four; Mandalay, Bagan, Lake Inle and Yangon. Everything is massive distances to the north by flaky public transport. Yangon fair enough, its the only realistic gateway to the country. On top of that we had only heard the other tourists in the guesthouse talking about exactly these places. Bus times this, train times that bla bla. Same conversation over and over. Its going on around me again as I write this. My stubborness, our desire to go off the beaten track a little, combined with our love of nature, not-so-much-love of cities and too many foreigners doing the same thing (Mandalay is not the Shangri-La many people think, I fear), we decided to go to the less explored south instead; mountains, trekking and beaches. Plan formed. We would head to tiny Kinpun at the base of Mt Kyaiktiyo, home of the Golden Rock. After that, although not cast in stone, probably Mawlamyine or Hpa-an, where beaches, caves and ferry rides on the Irrawaddy await. The walk to the Golden Rock is a pilgrimage and is four to six hours up a mountain in the blaaazing sun.
By this point me and Bob were sitting by ourselves and I was thinking we really need a lonely planet. I knew that there was a departure from the guesthouse to the airport about 10pm every night so I put a notice up on the board asking for lonely planet donations, and kept an eagle eye out for people leaving. A little later, I went to reception and asked them to point leaving guests towards me and Bob. She said they had a spare copy and gave it to me. Score! Lucy joined us for a while and said she had met an English guy walking through Yangon and had decided to travel on to Bagan, the classic next stop, together the next morning. We yapped for a bit then helped her back-up her photographs and she went off to bed. She told us she had booked for the next night but as she was leaving we could maybe have her room, because the hotel was booked out, meaning we would have to search around for new digs the next day, as our plan had only just blossomed and it was too late to put it into action. Turns out she only had a dorm bed booked, but another one came up the net morning, so me and Bob were destined to get out the sweatbox the following night and into something hopefully cooler. Rhianna was also about for a bit and we gave her her lonely planet back and said our thanks and goodbyes, she was meeting up with her 20 day 3000 Euro Belgian tour group the next day. Bob said she reminded him of the receptionist from the american version of "The Office". After that, it was back to the sweatbox for a sauna, Trailer Park Boys and sleep!

Yangon Day 3

The heat leaving us no choice, we were up at 9:30. The first thing we did was try to use the flaky internet. As soon as we sat down, there was another powercut, although for some strange reason Bobs PC didnt go off. Mine did. I left him to it and managed to squeeze a quick email in to Katie after, before one of the receptionists arrived and announced the internet connection was dead, come back later. Myanmar life.
By this time it was almost midday and we were soaked in sweat again mainly just from moving our stuff from the sweatbox to the dorm, which thankfully, was a lot cooler. We considered going to one of the expensive hotels to use their pool to cool down. But we thought better of cooling down before exploration and set off into Yangon once more. We had thought the Shewadega Pagoda was the centre of town but the lonely planet told us otherwise. We headed for the centre and traced a rough path of a tour around the main city buildings. The Shua Pagoda, the City Hall, a Big Ben lookalike and a few other impressive governmental buildings, all in the old colonial British style, alot of them with massive Grecian-style columns outside.

An old man pushing his sugar cane crusher in front of Sula Pagoda. A notorious black market money exchange and rip-off spot

Along the way we encountered what the Burmese refer to as the open-air library, booksellers lining the streets with some of the most random book selections I have seen.

Some very old English volumes on engineering, some Burmese books, some Burmese history, some English language teaching, all sorts! I bought George Orwells Burmese Days, perhaps the most famous english language book about Burma. As with alot of the books there it was a (good) photocopy. There were plenty of people just sitting about reading, I guess thats where the name came from.
We tried to walk along the river, but a wall separated us from a view, and beyond only seemed to be port and industry, so we gave up.

We walked past a police building that had 3 or 4 vans parked outside, with the riot shields hanging on the vans. They were battered and well used. I couldnt take a picture without it being obvious, so considering the circumstances, I didn't. Damn.
We found a restaurant down a narrow, high sidestreet that was recommended by lonely planet as the best burmese restaurant in Yangon.

We walked in, a basic, clean restaurant and were ushered to the back where all the curries and veg were on display. This was definetly more Indian inspired cuisine. We chose a curry each (I had mutton, lovely) and pointed at a couple of different veggies. They put a big plate of garnishes on the table for us, a la street food, brought us two plates of soup, rice and then our dishes and vegetables. I stuffed myself good n proper. It wasnt the cheapest at $7 for both of us, but it was delicious and there was loads.

The little crocodile clips that people use to haul small stuff up to their apartments

Little Buddha lady sitting on the market corner

We walked through a long tightly packed open-air fruit market, with lots of readied pink grapefruit and apples on sale, to reach Bogyoke market. Ive seen a few markets in Thailand already, but this was the best market I've been to so far. Bob has just informed me we didnt even see half of it, there are over 2000 "shops" in it. There was a small art gallery (Tai Win) on the upper floor and every single painting in it was vibrant, colourful and just amazing. If I ever settle down, I will return here, buy the bloody lot and decorate my house with them. Chiang Mai is famed for its artisans and handicrafts, but I saw nothing there to rival this. On top of that the womens clothes were similarly the most vibrant colours and designs I have ever seen.

 It was a female shoppers paradise. Bob and me kept seeing Katie everywhere :) I didn't take a lot of pictures because I think its rude to take pictures of someone unawares and equally of their wares, and the few times I've asked they usually say no...so you just have to take my word for it, or go!
Bob just showed me an article in the lonely planet talking about the censorship in Myanmar. One artist released a song called "Everythings Going To Be Good", and the censors forced him to change it to "Everything's Good", hahaha. The biggest rock band in Myanmar, Iron Cross, released a song called "Very Wild Wind", and the censors forced them to call it "Breeze". Mahahahahhaha. Myanmar is the second most corrupt country in the world, after Somalia.
After Bogyoke we returned home and booked our bus and accommodation for Kinpun. We settled down outside the hostel, me to write this and Bob to read the lonely planet. There was tables of foreigners to our left and right. They were annoying me as this was our third night, and the conversation was starting to grate. Everybody starts in Yangon, and goes to same the places already mentioned, and as the faces changed every night the same conversation would start anew every night, like an endless tape loop. Meeeh. Anyway we just kept our heads down and eventually the loudest filtered off which brought a quiet German couple to our table. They were drawing to the end of 14 months of worldwide travel and they had a slightly shell-shocked look about them. I'm not sure if it was the preceding 14 months that caused it, or the thought of going home! They were heading back to the cold of Dresden via the supercold of Moscow. Just as they left and me and Bob were heading to bed, the group to the other side of us started talking to us, so we sat down with them and had a beer. A Belgian couple, an Ozzie and a French lad. They were all in the early stages of pishdom so we pulled up stools and yapped away. We drank the hostel dry, so one of the boys went to the shop just down the road. One trip later we had drunk the shop dry too. Bob went to bed at this point, in preparation for travelling tomorrow. It was too late for me, self-control was gone, I figured i could sleep on the bus, and I could feel the drunken politics conversation coming on. Which it did, until an hour later we all agreed to disagree, and went to bed.