Myanmar

Yangon

Flew into Yangon international airport. Relatively small, but did the trick. We had been traveling for 20 hours, so we hired a taxi to the crumby hotel we booked for the night due to location only.

Next day we headed into the heart of Chinatown. Holy cow...people, taxis, and motorbikes. Seemed like a billion shops and food carts everywhere. I now know why the people here walk in the roadway. The sidewalks were completely covered with food options or goods for sale. Occasionally, the chaos would give way to a pagoda or a park. The parks were a great reprieve, if you could find your way in. Typically, they were completely fenced in and only had one entrance. “Crap, did we pass the entrance somewhere or did we just take the long way around the block, again?” A pagoda would only give relief from feeling overwhelmed if it was a local one, not a tourist attraction. 

Ok, I'm being unfair. Most pagodas are religious areas first, us crazy tourist invade making it a tourist attraction. It feels weird to me still that tourist pay to enter, only because the entire time I feel like I'm edging in on their religion as they make offerings and we stand admiring the surroundings. We visited Shwedagon Pagoda for about $12 USD. Huge and beautiful. There were entrances at each cardinal directions. I will let the pictures speak for themselves. I will however tell you something no one else does... The floors are often marble. Scorching hot in the sun and super slippery in the rain. More on Sara busting her ass later.

This is about the time I feel in love with Myanmar and it's people. They seemed to love tourist and weren't burnt out on tourism (yet). I, as a woman traveler, felt safer here compared to anywhere in the world, period! Literally, think if I was naked, laying in the street people would have come to my aid with the kindest of intentions and without expectation of anything in return. Having red hair and freckles made it a fun experience, too. Locals would often ask for pictures with me because I was different and they appreciated the diversity. I'll take a smiley person asking in broken English to take a photo with me, over creepy stares and the sound of the record screeching to a holt when I walk in.

We did a few other day trips in Yangon and lots of wandering around the city.  There are many markets, temples, and parks to explore.  During our time in Yangon we tried out different accommodations (hostels vs hotels), but all were ok.  Nothing spectacular but we were able to find cheaper options.  We tried some street food, of course.  It was fine, but we didn't get crazy with our choices.  Brian is more of a germaphobe then I remembered and with my dietary restrictions/sensitivity to gluten, it kept things pretty subdued for us.  On a positive note, we never ran into food poisoning.  The best meal we had was in a residential area and it was translated to chicken with gravy.  Brian won the award for best dish that day.  It was really more like spicy chicken and rice served with extra spicy sauce on top.  I still have no idea what it really was besides delicious.  The menu had about 50 things written in Myanmar to order and about 5 were ‘translated’ to english.

We made our way to Mandalay, Myanmar next via train.  I had read how much the train could suck, but with the right mindset it would be a fun and memorable experience.  I would say that it was a highlight of the trip for me, Brian may politely disagree.  We loved watching the fields of swampy crops pass by the window.  Most stops were quick and would leave you behind if you were unprepared.  The villages were mostly on stilts and ranged from shanty to classy shanty.  The streets that come up to the tracks were mostly mud, with occasional potholed pavement. During the daylight hours oxen pulling carts and motorbikes would be waiting to cross the tracks. We passed by many temples, seemingly random placement in the middle of a farmers field or butting up to the tracks.  And the lowlights may include the bumping down the track, however it somehow felt authentic to me. The train moves SLOW.  The squat toilets were less than ideal for bumpy tracks. We missed out on ordering food, because we didn’t know to order when we got on.  No dinner that night, but plenty of venders with snacks would venture on and off the train at the various stations.  The woman sitting across the aisle from us, talking on her phone into the wee hours of the night.  I’m merely guessing, but “mmm” in Myanmar must be the equivalent of “uhh huh” or “yay”.  And if that was the case, this woman was super agreeable!  Mmm.

We arrived in Mandalay at about 4:30 a.m. and conveniently I forget to look up the address before getting on the train.  I realized this before arriving, but it was all to late as we didn’t have anyway to look it up when we arrived.  We walked for a bit, until it was light out.  We basically waited for the bigger hotels to open for the day and asked them for directions. We stopped in and asked, but they had no idea.  They were kind enough to look it up for us and draw us a map.  I love Myanmar!  Eventually, we got to the right side of the tracks and found our hotel. Kaung Myint Hotel was the best!  Great customer service, clean, and had air con.  Brian ended up not feeling well during part of our stay (it was crazy hot and humid in Mandalay), they were awesome.  They allowed for us to add onto our stay and helped us call and reschedule bus tickets and hotel rooms, while he cooled down in their ac for a few extra days.

Before the heat tried to defeat Brian we checked out many fun sites in Mandalay. We hiked up and up and up Mandalay Hill. It reminded me of a 14’er with lots of false peaks, but instead of a dirt trail it was cement stairs barefoot. And, instead of trees, Buddha’s and temples.  It seemed we would never get to the top.  We walked by beautiful Buddha, after beautiful Buddha. Finally it lead to a view overlooking the whole city and, of course, the fee area.  We paid our dollar and headed into the final Buddha.  So this is where the slip and fall took place.  Marble tiles and rain tend to make for a super slick surface, especially barefoot.  I nearly did the splits, but saved my groin with a hand and elbow making contact with the ground first.  Ouch, not very appropriate words for a spiritual place followed. It confirmed my suspicion that we would take the elevator down.  It lead to a parking lot with taxis waiting.  Best $7 that I spent that day.  I would love to visit again, just without rain.

To reach the Hill we had walked along the canal, which was a moat for the Royal Palace. It was a rather long walk in the heat of the day, but very enjoyable.  Another evening, on our walk home from dinner and drinks they had a light/foundation show to music.  Not quite the Bellagio, but not bad for an end to the night.

We also checked out the Teak Bridge, or Bein Bridge.  It was a really long foot bridge that lead to an island of sorts.  It was incredibly hot this day, so we didn’t do the second leg of the bridge, but I am sure it was nice.  Like most places in Myanmar, locals were out and about enjoying their day. On the bridge there were a few spots with vendors selling anything from fried unidentifiable foods, to clothing, to palm readings.  On the island was heat like I have never experienced, I nearly puked at the site of a local guy walking around in jeans. The thought of jeans in the heat seemed like a sweaty feet to actually be able to pull up. Did I mention they were skinny jeans?  The bridge was beautiful and had occasional spots of disrepair.  Some of the patches made me more nervous then the places that were up next for repair. We sat on the bridge and enjoyed people strolling by, fishermen going after the catch of the day, and pictures with locals by request.

We ate out for all meals in Mandalay, food was fine.  We would get a kick out of any baked good because it would basically be bread dough, no matter the application. Pretty sure Brian ate a jelly doughnut that was bread filled with jelly.  At least they were trying to expand the menu options in most places. We really enjoyed a late evening meal at Super 81.  It was 3 levels with a rooftop overlooking the street. I would go back, but still afraid of the things that had bugs or organs in it. We split a veggie dish with rice.  Portions were huge.  I think if we had a way to cook it would have been fun to try several things I saw in the street market. Many things in their market were still unprepared foods, unlike the bigger city with lots of cooking vendors. Lots of rices, spices, veggies, fruits, and fresh (despite how they smelled) meats.

We were hoping to head to Bagan, but decided the temperatures in Inle Lake would be better.  We hopped on a bus to Inle Lake.  Like all other bus rides, several people got sick. Thankful it was never us getting sick.  Like most busses this was an overnight bus.  Trying to sleep on this bus was like sleeping on a wooden roller coaster except there was no guarantee that you would survive the ride.  

We arrived unscathed and in the wee hours of the morning.  This time we were more prepared and had the hotel marked on our phone GPS maps.  We thought to ourselves on immediate departure from the bus “we are going to like this place”.  The town looked as if it was 1000 years in the past with teak houses on stilts, dirt roads, a river running through the middle of town, longboats very loudly zooming by, monks walking to prayer, and people riding the first bicycles ever made.

As in the larger cities people were very friendly to the 2 white strangers that had invaded their small town.  We reached our hotel which was much nicer than we expected for about $25 a night.  We had a large room, pool, and free bicycles.  That morning we ate Myanmar pancakes at a small restaurant around the corner from our hotel. The pancakes tasted and looked like crepes and were not half bad.  That day we roamed around the charming town and got an idea of what we wanted to do while visiting.  We found some western food that day which was a nice change of pace.

The next day we hired a longboat and toured Inle lake.  Our guide/driver didn’t speak much english but he was nice.  We started off at a very noisy port on the river in the middle of town.  Our boat looked like it had been pieced together with bailing wire and duct tape, however we were excited about the adventure.  The weather was a little overcast but that was perfect to shade us from the heat.  We took off down the river and quickly reached the inlet to the lake.  When we got to the middle of the lake our boat all of the sudden stopped.  Our driver messed with the boat for some time with no luck.  After 30 minutes or so drifting another local pulled up next to us and offered to help.  Our driver apparently had identified the problem and asked the other local for an engine part.  Beyond our understanding, the other boater happened to have the part on his rickety boat and handed it to our guide.  In about 10 minutes our guide had the engine apart, replaced the part, and we were on our way.  We really enjoyed our stop because we got to watch the fisherman.  To paddle their boats they wrap leg around an oar, stand on the opposite leg, and throw nets into the water.  It was an impressive feat of balance.  We also watched many boats pass that were taking goods back and forth to the people that lived in the middle of the lake.  Sometimes left wondering how they didn’t sink, being filled to the brim with goods and nearly taking on water.  Surrounding this huge lake were mountains that came right down to the coastline.  It was a stunning view.

In the town in the middle of the lake we visited many sites like, a yarn mill where they made and died yarn. We visited a buddhist monastery that was floating on a large platform in the middle of the lake.  As we traveled from place to place we went down tiny canals that only our boat would fit through.  Lining the sides of these tiny canals were hyacinths and water farm foods growing.  This was one of our best days in Myanmar.

We spent a few more days in Inle Lake enjoying our pool and eating some great food.  After a few days we took a bus back to Yangon and planned our next country, Thailand.