River Cruise on Irawaddy River

Early rise on Saturday 28th January at 5.30 am as we have to be ready for the taxi at 6.00 am to take us to the ferry for a 10 hour river cruise up to Bagan. This was nice and leisurely and lots of sunshine of course.  Ian was in his element as we were by water.

There is a lot of activity on the river. On the barges we passed there are two guys each side at the bow (front to those of you who are non sailors lol)  with long sticks which are marked, dipping them in the water checking the depth.   There are a lot of sandbanks in the river. Reminiscent of the Thames.  The boat we were on did go aground at one stage, even though it only draws 1.4 meters. We meandered from side to side of the river following the channel.

We arrived in Bagan and disembarked onto long wooden planks to get ashore. Then up a really sandy stoney slope and then steps to the taxis.  This is the first time I wished I hadn’t had a suitcase! We managed to negotiate a taxi fare and shared with a Scottish couple to keep the price down which was 8000 kyat per couple (approx £5). He wanted twice that to start with. Ian’s frugal side is coming out now we are retirees and he drives a hard bargain. We arrived at the hotel about 30 minutes later which looked lovely and it was. A bit noisy though as we were on a main road.

The Bagan Temples

Sunday 29th January we decided to hire bikes to go off exploring the temples, approx 2000 of them in the area. Unfortunately the area suffered an earthquake in August 2016 and received lots of damage. It was 8 on the ritcher scale. We hired bikes from the reception that we thought were push bikes that were electrically assisted. They were electric bikes but more like a moped with a crash helmet. Now those who know me well will know there is no way I’m getting on one of these. Despite Ian trying to convince me that it was the same as an electrically assisted pushbike but without the peddles I was not convinced and was not getting on it. So we had the standard pushbike.

It was amazing to ride around sand track roads (well most were paths rather than roads) and see so many temples and pagodas.

We visited one of the larger temples and saw a line of about 30 novice monks (ranging from 7 – 12/13 in age) going in. Buddhist monks are a normal sight walking around, many with their mobile phones in hand.    The reason for so many is that every man is expected to serve as a monk twice in his life: once as a novice and once as an ordained monk. After that time he returns to a normal life.   The link below gives some interesting information about the monks in Myanmar.

http://factsanddetails.com/southeast-asia/Myanmar/sub5_5c/entry-3035.html

My photos don’t do the temples justice this is a picture I found on the web that gives a better idea of them.

We also paid a visit to another royal palace, “Bagan Thirzayayabyumi Golden Palace”.  This is a reconstruction of King Anawrahata’s, the first king of Myanmar (reigned 1044-77), palace. He introduced his people to Theravada Buddhism.

 

We stopped at a local restaurant before having a relaxing evening (well needed after cycling).   Monday we are off back to Mandalay on an air conditioned coach for 6/7 hours for one night before leaving Myanmar for our flight to Chiangmai.

The Film Star

Ian is now looking like a film star wearing his sunglasses all the time (no celebrity status hasn’t gone to his head) regardless of whether it’s sunny as he’s managed to lose his glasses.  So will have to visit an optician once we visit Hanoi, Vietnam, which could be a challenge!

26th & 27th January 2017

Having had such a long journey the day before we decided to chill out by the pool which we had all to ourselves. The pool was very inviting but freezing.

Early evening and we decided to go to the U-Bein Bridge, which is about a 20 minute taxi drive away and is the longest and oldest (built around 1850) teak bridge in the world. It is three quarters of a mile long and crosses the Taung Tha Man Lake. We arrived just after sunset. We meant to get there before but lost track of time so that was that.

 

A big tourist trap and it was packed, lots of coaches bringing people there. We walked along underneath the bridge to the middle part, obviously where there was no water to this part, and had a local beer watching across as the orange of the sun sat on the horizon. When we took a walk back across the bridge most people had gone.

Ian asked the taxi driver, to take us to a restaurant that wasn’t too far from our hotel so we could walk back. He dropped us at a typical Myanmar restaurant. We sat down and within five minutes our table was filled with little dishes of food, salad and also rice. We ordered some pork and chicken to go with it. It appeared that it was a restaurant that the whole family was involved in, grandmothers, mothers, daughters and granddaughters and one grandson, you had to have some sympathy surrounded by all those women! While we ate they sat and watched us! It was like being at the zoo but we were the ones in the cage. They were really friendly and really wanted to impress. Ian took their photo and they were so chuffed.

Celebrities at the Grand Palace, Mandalay

The following day we needed to go and get our tickets for the Shwekeinnery Ferry that would take us to Bagan on Saturday. We bought these from the tourist office at the train station, ($40 each) which we walked past as we hadn’t realised it was under a hotel as it was dark when we arrived the previous day.  Ian said it was only about a 25/30 minute walk, but like those “only take ten minutes” jobs it took much longer.  It’s hot but not so humid here.  We got our tickets and then walked onto the palace wandering about the back streets  where we came across a European restaurant. So had a cool drink and said “we will back” which we were having  a nice chicken in sauce with veggies. It was nice to have something that wasn’t curry, stir fry, rice or noodles.

We walked on to go to the Mandalay Palace and enter via  the South entrance to discover that this wasn’t accessible to “foreigners”. There is quite a lot of reference to foreigners. The East entrance was another half an hour or more walk. So off we went.  We paid our money and into the grounds of the palace we went.  A notice for Foreigners, keep to the road, not allowed to go off main road and only take photos in the Palace area. As we walked down to the Palace the Military Band started to play. The Palace and its grounds are enormous inside a great wall and is surrounded by a big moat.

We wandered around the Palace which has a vast number of buildings. Now being a blonde bird and a ginger geezer we stand out like sore thumbs. So there was a large group of school children who were fascinated by us and all called out hi, hello, waving at us. One little group started shaking my hand, crikey I then had a queue. So this was our celebrity status. It was weird.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The alarm went off at 5 am this morning (Wednesday 25th January) for our trip to Mandalay. The hotel provided us with a breakfast box and off we went to Yangon central rail station for our 6 am train.  Upper class no less, lots of leg room, wide reclining seat, foot rest and window, what more could you want. The train has a constant flow of people selling food, water and beer!  It was very hot and the only way to get respite from this was to stand by the open doors which were on each side of the carriages.  We managed to find a supermarket in Yangon before we left, which are rare, and bought Pringles, crackers and cheese slices for our journey. We took pity on a young girl travelling on her own who welcomed our cheese and crackers. A glass of red wine and we’d have been in our element but you can’t have everything!

                     Our carriage                                                                  Leg room

Most of the journey is through rural countryside. Paddy fields to start with and then crops with water buffalo,  oxen and goats.The train travelled, on average 33 miles mph, and going up slight hills slowed it down to 22 mph. It sounds like a steam train and if you are feeling a bit tired it will rock you to sleep as it swings from side to side only to be disturbed regularly by the whistle of the train to warn not just people but animals alongside of the train approaching.  It certainly made its departure known from Yangon.At each of the stations we stopped at along the way, no matter how big or small, there was always lots of noise with the sounds of the locals shouting to one another and a new lot of people boarding the train to sell. There is continuous activity.

As we neared Mandalay it’s now dark, really dark as the carriage lights keep going out. Finally 20 minutes until our arrival got ready in preparation for getting off.  Thankfully nearly there, our naivety  again, 5 minutes later we stop and here we sat listening to someone chanting for the next 30 minutes. TORTURE after being on this train for nearly 15 hours! We began to wonder if we would ever get there!  We eventually arrived at 9.30pm. Then got a taxi driver who didn’t know where the hotel was.  Eventually arrived at the hotel where the reception looked very blankly at us. To our relief they found our  booking. We got to the hotel and decided that dinner would be our cheese slices and crackers and a beer from the mini bar (this is a first) as we were too tired to do anything else.

Had a great nights sleep and woke to the sound of the locals going about their business, radios playing and of course the bibbing of hooters. They are constant here in Myanmar and in Bangkok, must be part of the driving test. Interestingly they drive on the right here but have right hand drive cars.

 

 

We arrived in Yangon on Sunday 22nd January after a short 80 minute flight.  We were both surprised how green it was and clean although we later discovered this is not the case in most parts.  We are staying at the Clover Hotel, which is OK, the plus is the view from the hotel restaurant of the top of the Shwedagon Pagoda, more on this later.

 

After breakfast, at which Ian decided to eat what the locals do,  egg, bacon and chicken sausage in egg fried rice (I stuck to the egg on toast) we took a taxi to the Central Train Station to buy our ticket to Mandalay on Wednesday.  The advanced booking office is on the other side and it looks like you are walking through a farm yard.  There are various counters and we went to the first lane to be told that it is lane 7 we need to go to.  The office behind the counters is one office.  We arrived at lane 7 to be greeted by the same guy who now let us buy our tickets who obviously walked quicker than us. A bit like some comedy sketch. The train journey is 15 hours and the cost was 9,300 Kyats each which is about £6.00, that’s upper class too!

We then decided to take a ride on the Yangon circular train which gives you an insight to Yangon and how some of the people live.  We couldn’t quite believe that a ticket for a 3 hour trip was just 200 Kyats, 13 pence, yes you did read that correctly!

There are many traders that get on and off the train selling various things including water, sweetcorn, vegetables,peanuts and it went on.  This is one of those places where some of the women balance their wares on a tray on their head, great posture and balance.  The journey was quite an eye opener, I think there are going to be quite a lot of those during this trip.

Along the railway tracks seems to be home for the poorer people.  The piles of rubbish everywhere is a shock.  Once we got further out we passed paddy fields alongside lots of buildings not just in open fields, where people were up to their waists in water.  There was lots of activity as each of the stations, some didn’t even look like stations, people cooking food on the platforms.

This picture was one of the stations.  One family who boarded at this station looked like they had bought up half the market, with big sacks of vegetables.  A student sat with us for a while as he wanted to practice his English.  We managed to communicate a little with him.

We arrived back at Yangoon central station where the train stopped at its final destination.  Ian and I looked at each other wondering how long we had to wait for it to move along so we could get off at a platform.  How green we were.  It wasn’t going anywhere, so we followed the locals who climbed down the steps onto the track side, back up the steps of the next train along side the track, through the train carriage and finally down the steps to the platform.

We later visited the Shwedagon Pagoda, which is an amazing  sight and it’s hard to grasp the enormity of  it and the area around it without seeing it.   In addition to the Pagoda there is a complex of Buddha shrines.  The photos only show a small part of it. Standing close to 110 metres, the umbrella or crown called “hti” is tipped with 4,351 diamonds and 2,317 rubies.  The very top, the diamond bud called “sein bu” is tipped with a 72 carat diamond.  It is covered with hundreds of gold plates.

 

Ian showed his feminine side in a skirt to cover his knobbly knees!

My GoPro really came into its own with the wide angled lens. Thanks guys at JLT.

Tuesday 24th January, we had a lazy day.  Attempted to take a walk around Inya Lake which proved more difficult as there were parts of it that couldn’t be accessed.  We did make it to the Yangon Sailing Club though although they wouldn’t let us in as we weren’t members. Ian’s RYA didn’t do the trick of getting us access either.  We are going to see how many sailing clubs we can visit on our travels now and when we are on the boat.

 

We were all set up to do some culture but what we didn’t know was that the Grand Palace and Wat Arun were both closed on Friday 20th and Saturday 21st January in respect of the King who had died quite recently.  We only found this out when attempting to get on the ferry.

So we decided instead to take a trip around the canals on a long tailed boat.  These boats go through a lock.  There are four of us rafted alongside each other, us in the middle.  “Who do you think is going to go through first?” I ask.  As soon as the lock gate was just high enough to get through we were under it.  Bit of deja vu  me thinks!  This is one of Ian’s tricks.  Ironic!  The canals around the city is whole world away from the hustle and bustle of Bangkok.  Saw a couple of monitor lizards, one sunning himself on a jetty.

There are lots of food stalls to choose from in Chinatown but passing by one I was drawn to the prawns cooking.  This place was R & L Seafood.  So we took our seats on the side of the street, taking in all the fumes of the traffic and had a lovely curry and stir fry.  We enjoyed it so much so we went back the following evening.

So our time in Bangkok, at least for now, has come to an end, so we’ve now travelled to Yangon, Myanmar (aka Burma) a short flight away.  Made the most of the flight as our next mode of transport, in a few days time, will be a long ride on an “express” train.  The express journey time is 15 hours, not sure where the express comes into it!

 

 

We left on Tuesday 17th January 2017 at 11.00 waved off by Johnny and Prim, no that’s not exactly true,they were jumping up and down with their hands in the air.  WE WILL BE BACK!!

We arrived at the airport, courtesy of Cuthbertson Cabs, ie John and Irene, to discover the flight was already delayed.  Ian hates being at airports early so this scuppered him getting us there as late as possible.

We arrived in Bangkok at just before 11.30am.  Now that we are retirees we decided that we ought to get the train, even though we were  both tired from the long flight and lack of sleep. The train and subway was easy enough (£4 for the two of us as for about a 40 minute journey) it was the 25 minute walk, the longway round, hot, humid and lots of traffic that wasn’t so clever.  We are at the Royal Hotel Bangkok which is right in the middle of Chinatown and quite a nice place to stay.

We were tired but had to try and stay awake until at least 9pm or we would be up half the night (I did wake at about 3am and only finally went back to sleep sometime after 530).  We ventured out for some dinner and were enticed to have some street food by a Frenchman with a pint of beer each all for £8 including a tip.  Takes some getting used to crossing the roads which is a case of walking out in front of anything moving and holding your hand out, a bit like the Lollypop Lady does BUT without the lollypop, and having faith they will stop before they hit you.

Looking at the electrical wires we now realise why there’s a torch in our hotel room!

Today, Thursday, we have had a mooch around, been on and off the subway to various places including Lumphini Park  and a food market which was quite an eye opener.  We went along to Patpong’s Night Market and Ian did some great bartering.  He’s never been propositioned so many times,  but only be the girls from the Go-Go clubs which are alongside the market.

How does this GoPro work?                  Alternative Zumba session

Tomorrow we are going to be a bit more cultural and Saturday off on a river trip.  Also must get sometime by the pool to get the tan going.