hi all, our last day in Myanmar we spent in Bago, a town 50 km from Yangon which mostly serves as a stop to go to Kyaiktyo (golden rock pagoda). But it is also the home to what they say the biggest snake in the world and some temples. The city is not really my favourite, it's very noisy and the electricity is very unstable. When we arrived they told us there would be electricity from 11 pm till 12 am, that was what the government promised them. In reality we had electricity from 22.30 till 23.45 and from 1.00 till 1.05 and some more times for five minutes during the night. Which is really irritating since there is this automatic all lights on, so you wake up everytime the electricity goes on and then you have to shut down the lights :p.
Next morning we went to complain to the hotel owner and he told us that this is normal, but offered us a nicer room and a discount so I guess it was ok. We went out to see the temples, they were different than the once we had seen until now (trust me, I have seen quite a lot of temples so far) but these where colourful (chinese influence), less maintained (grass and dirt everywhere, which was the result of the very poor people that live here) and they had the strict laws of the birmese tradition. We walked quite far and we didn't want to walk back from the last temple so we asked a group of college students if we could ride with them to the city center. They didn't speak a lot of English but it seemed like they understood and they even shared us some of their snacks.
A nice day to end our trip in Myanmar!
the pictures below are some pictures of the typical transport in Myanmar
the last two nights of my parents' trip was spent in luxuary, thanks to the mother of Patchara and Supinya we could stay in a 6 and 5 star hotel. The best hotel we've ever had and an even better breakfast (3 star michelin chef), this translated in some specially designed dishes: an eye-opener (a very tasty strawberry mix with some extra's to prepare your mouth for breakfast), smoked salmon with cheese and a sauce, mached been roll, ... and of course a very big buffet. We spent 2 hours enjoying the breakfast so that we didn't need lunch and I wasn't even that hungry for dinner. I had an amazing dinner as well, the first time I met the father of Supinya and Patchara, we went to Lin Fa restaurant inside Siam City hotel (the five star hotel we stayed at). We had Peking Duck and Hongkong steak and some other dishes, the Hongkong steak was amazing: I've never had a steak that was that soft and tasty, hmm!
we've also visited the weekend market, a crowded market full of souvenirs, clothes, drinks,... My mom enjoyed buying things while my dad's wallet became thinner and thinner... :P Then it was time to say goodbye and move to the appartment in the house of the family Piampongsant, not that big a change in matter of luxuary. In the morning the cook prepares a nice breakfast, after that we can go to a museum or to an activity in town and in the evening there is again a royal meal to enjoy! The days flew by and we visited Vimanmek Mansion in the rain, which was nice and refreshing, next day we went to suan Pakkard Palace and Jim Thompson's House, the day after that we went biking in a park with a nice butterfly garden, thursday I took Patchara to old town via the subway and then we walked past some temples (where there was a funeral going on) through the gun street to old siam shopping center followed by a walk to the golden mountain with a stop at two other temples which were pretty interesting, then we went to the beach of Cha-am and Hua Hin where we went swimming in a pool in a very nice hotel, saterday we stayed at home and tryed to cook (it didn't turn out as it's supposed to be but the taste was great and that's the most important), sunday I could go with to a cousins' cousins'
buddhist ceremony and then there was a family reunion. The last day we spent at Bang pa in, a palace close to ayutthaya: the weather was great so time for a photoshoot!
in the attachment you can find my experiences in Bagan for the second day (in dutch) we went by bicycle to some less known ruins but they had some fascinating frescoes and murals inside! so enjoy...
the next day we got up very early since there was a slight chance that we could go on the morning flight, we got picked up from the hotel at 6.15 but before we reached the airport we got a phonecall that it was not necessary because the plane was full. We would have to take the evening flight. Since we had an entire day, we planned a trip to mount popa: a monastry with a lot of monkeys on a high peak near an extinct vulcano. On the way there we stopped at a local factory where they made oil from peanuts, however this time no motors were used, just manpower and a cow! It was very interesting to see the difference with a few days ago. They also artisanly made palm sugar, palm wine, palm alcohol,... A nice stop! We continued the road and on the way we could see the desert-like landscape change towards a tropical forest, it gave amazing views.
Mount popa itself was more a thing that is nice to see, but not really something incredible. It is nice to think about how they got all the bricks and building material up the rock and whether they first build the staircase or the monastry...
In the evening we took the plane to Yangon and got a taxi to Bago.
since we didn't make it to Mingun the previous day, we got up early and tried to get there today. It is a site where they have the largest uncracked bell in the world, something worth to see, no? Another attraction of Mingun is the unfinished Pagoda, only the square base was finished and that one is already 70 meter high! Now it's a ruin since it was severely damaged by an earthquake and despite there is nothing really buddhist about it, you have to climb it barefooted. This is more painfull than it looks: it's very hot and the red stones are just burning your feet, I was 'lucky' since I sprained my anckle an hour before we were climbing this pagoda. I could wear one shoe so that it wouldn't hurt that much. Getting up there was still painful, I can tell you, but the view that you get up there is definately worth it! The surrounding landscape is flat with some hills at one side and the river at the other side. My parents were able to walk around on the top while resting on some leaves from time to time. It is the only way to cool down your feet on these burning rocks!
we didn't do much for the rest of the day until we went for the train to go to bagan, the train was another experience. We had a ticket for a first class sleeper, but it didn't really turn out to be a sleeper, it was more a big cinema seat which was rather comfortable. The train was not that comfortable, the rails here are not flat so it was a bumpy ride! The sunrise from the train was amazing, there were some very small long clouds that were changing color every few minutes from blue to red to yellow, just amazing to see this sky above the dry landscape. Before the sunrise the farmers were already working the field since it was getting way too hot during the day.
Since we didn't sleep a lot, we rented a horse cart and went to the temples of Bangan, for me the best cultural heritage from our trip! It was soo worth it, our guide stopped at the temples that I asked him to go to and even added some interesting ones to the trip. Not only the temples stick out of the desert here though, everywhere you go, you see souvenir salesmen, women and children trying to get you to buy from them. We bought several paintings and some postcards, while we were enjoying the temples. I do have to admit that they have a nice selling technique here: they first guide you around the temple and explain some things about it, after that they ask you to take a look at their shop. I think it's a nice way of selling things, at least you learn something!
so the third day in Mandalay we tried to go to Mingun, another ancient city. To go there you have to take a boat across the river, we decided to walk there and see if we could hire a private boat since the government boat already left (it only goes once a day). On the road we saw a factory that made oil from peanuts, a factory might be a bit exaggerated: there were some rusty motors and cilinders and it kind of worked so I guess that's a factory. It was pretty interesting to see... We continued our path towards the harbour where we asked for a private boat, this was a bit too expensive so we decided to do something else and go to Mingun the next day.
In the lonely planet we found that there were some nice teak monastries in the neighbourhood so we hired a trishaw (a bicycle with two extra seats on the side). They took us to the first one, it looked marvellous: dark wood with impressing carvings everywhere. It was a really nice one! After this temple we walked to a buddhist university and after that we tried to find another teak monastry. This one was pretty well hidden, we kind of got lost so we asked directions in a temple. The one we asked directions to, didn't speak a word of english so he gestured to wait while he was going to get someone else. It took quite a while before he came back, but he was alone, he gestured to follow him, so we did. Then he stopped somewhere and gestured that we had to wait again, it was pretty weird. About 15 minutes later a monk showed up who could speak a little english, they had to wake him up from his nap... He decided to come with us and show us around at the temple we wanted to visit, it was good that he did because it was very difficult to find this one. But it was all worth it, an old monk opened the door and showed us around, there were golden statues, teak woodcarvings, some ancient books and even bamboo scrolls with the teachings of buddha on them. The spiderwebbs were everywhere and that made it only a bit more mysterious!
We walked home through some streets where they made jade bracelets, again with some old motors and for the rest they used their skills. We didn't get to see Mingun today, but it was still very interesting!!!
I'm still enjoying the hospitality of the family Piampongsant and will make use of their internet to post some more about myanmar, the second destination in myanmar was Mandalay, a big city in the central/north of Myanmar. The city is a famous tourist attraction because it is surrounded by ancient cities: Sagaing, Ava, Amarapura and Mingun are the four that we visited.
We arrived in Mandalay at 5 am so we tried to find a hotel/ guesthouse where we would be able to sleep a bit and spend the next night. A blue taxi (a very small mazda pickup where we barely fit) brought us around to see a few of them. We took the nicest one however it was very humid and the room smelled. After the bumpy busride everything was ok for us and it didn't take long before we were all sleeping, at 10 we woke up again and took a walk through the city. The city has a relatively easy structure, the streets are numbered and everything is square just like a chessboard. In the middle there is a gigantic palace, but the government asks 10 dollar entrance fee which is going straight into the pockets of the military so we didn't go. Instead we went to Mandalay hill, a mountain with quite a few pagoda's and on top an incredible view. We were joined by a novice whose name resembled Toontje, with such a name it can't go wrong and soon we reached the top while it was raining heavily. On the top there indeed was a very nice view over the Ayeyarwaddi river, the palace and the rest of the city. We went down from the west side, which is way less touristy, downstairs we ended up in a dirty poor suburb where they didn't meet a lot of foreigners: a big contrast with the southern entrance which is royally ornamented and where a lot of people are trying to sell things.
We were getting tired again and our belly was not fully recovered from the food we had in Inle lake so we took a blue car to our hotel and went for dinner and straight to bed.
I've been in Bangkok (Thailand) again for a few days now but finally I get some time to update my blog. It's been such a nice time here that I preferred to do other things, so for them who were getting impatient, I'm sorry .
so about my trip in Myanmar: The plan was to visit Inle-lake, Mandalay, Bagan and the region around Yangon. We first landed in Yangon, but the city is very ugly, noisy and smelly. It seemed like we went back in time for about 50 years, the cars and busses almost fall apart, most transport is on foot, by bicycle or trishaw. It wasnt that pleasant to visit and it was shocking to see how these people live. We went to the Shwedagon Paya at night, it was a piece of beauty not far from the centre, it has a lot of diamonds, gold, silver and whatever you want It is a true masterpiece and the most impressing pagoda Ive visited, trust me there are a lot of pagodas around here.
But its the only thing really worth visiting, the next day we took the bus to the centre and did the city walk suggested in Lonely Planet, taking the bus here is a true adventure, there are 60 bus routes and the people from the bus are shouting where they are going and trying to get you on board. We managed to get to there and we saw a lot of big buildings but they are all occupied by the government and even these buildings are not maintained. They are just standing there and nature is taking its toll. We took a flight in the afternoon to Inle-lake and it was completely different, Nyaungshwe is a small city where the people are always smiling and the nature around it is beautiful. We did a trek in the mountains towards a monastery in a cave and another meditation cave, after that we went to a hill tribe village where we had some tea. We were looking at how they dried the leaves to roll cigars and the old lady that lived there invited us in for tea. We continued are walk through the hills and went to another village, this time close to the lake. We saw a biological farm and a bit further a tree which had a lot of mangoes, when we tried to take a picture the woman came out and offered us some. To have an excuse and to not want to profit from her we said that we dont like the green ones that much. She went inside and got us a bag with 3 yellow mangoes just for nothing. People here are living in wooden and straw huts but still they share what they have On the way back, we saw a gigantic meditating Buddha statue in a differnt style than any other we'd seen before. We were a bit too tired to really appreciate this piece of art and continued our tour to the hotel.
The next morning we rented bicycles and went through the countryside on the east side of the lake to a market. The ride started on a nice road, but soon this changed into a dirt track and about an hour later it changed in a road that was used for ox carts... After getting of and on the bike for about 20 times, we reached the market: it was totally worth it! The market was very busy, there were a lot of people wearing the traditional hilltribe outfits and the side of the lake was covered by at least a hundred small boats who had to go through a maze if they wanted to leave. My dad was not feeling well so it was the perfect time for a fotoshoot! The ride back went a lot easier and we noticed that there had been quite a lot of wind, so we were home in no time and decided to stop somewhere for a fresh beer. We went to the lake resort 2, the view was amazing, a quiet lake with green everywhere (the lake is not very deep so the plants just grow whereever).
Our last day at the inle-lake we rented a boat since we hadn't seen the main attraction yet: floating gardens. People there make small long islands in the lake and then grow tomatoes, peas,... on it. They maintain it from their proa, really amazing to see them pull out the weed while balancing on such a small boat. We also saw the famous leg-rowers: the fisherman here row with one arm and one leg while holding the net in the other hand and balancing on the other foot. Again an unbelievable way of balancing! We had to catch our bus, so we went back to our hotel...
this was our first stop in Myanmar, soon more will folow
we've succesfully entered myanmar and everything here is great except the internet, so this is a very short message. To let you know what we did: we've visited yangon for almost 1 day, but it's a dirty city except for the shwedagon pagoda, the most impressing pagoda I've ever seen...
now we have spend 2 days at the Inle lake and it's oh so beautiful here! Tomorrow we will leave for Mandalay. more details will follow once the internet gets better...
today (17th of july) we are going to try to get to Myanmar again!
I am now at the airport in Bangkok where I am enjoying the free goodies in the Bangkok airways lounge!
so yesterday we went to doi suthep, a temple on the top of a mountain where acoording to legend the elephant of the king died. It's quite a beautiful temple and there is an extraordinnary view over the city of chiang mai! Climbing the stairs was not really a challenge, acoording to the book you need to be in good shape, but I don't think so. They even built an elevator for less active people :o.
After wandering around at the top of the temple we went back to chiang mai and had a relaxing meal and fruit shake before we took the night bus to Bangkok. The night bus was not that nice and we didn't get a lot of sleep, but we'll manage and we are excited about going to the next country!
the past three days we've spent around chiang mai, the 13th and the 14th in a nature reserve (doi ithanon) in Ban Phra Mon, a small Karen hilltribe. I wrote in my previous post that I had very high expectations, I can tell you now that it was even better than that!
Our guide Surasit (or just Sit) was a great guy, at about 35 years old but he acted as if he just turned 20 so it was great to have someone from my age around. We first went to the top of Thailand: approximately 2565 meter above sea level. He told us that we would have a great view up there, but the weather gods didn't want us to see anything... It was very cloudy, but still the feeling of being on the highest place of a country is pretty nice. So now I can add Thailand to the list (after Belgium, Netherlands, Norway, Great Brittan, ...)
Up on that mountain there is a nice path made for the queen to walk around in the jungle and I have to say it was really nice: a good road and a perfect smell of fresh air while Sit was teaching us the way of the Karen. However again the weather Gods didn't like us and it started to rain pretty heavily so back to the truck. After visiting 2 pagoda's with beautiful gardens, we could enjoy a very nice meal and a walk through a royal project garden. There were all kinds of flowers, verns, flesh-eating plants, fish,... All in perfect condition and I have to say that the greenhouses looked nicer than the 'koninklijke serres in Meise'.
Enough of the touristy visits and towards the pure nature! we followed a small trail amids the jungle and learned about herbs and which plants we could eat as many as we want and which plants that we can only eat once... Sit loosened up a little and he started making a lot of jokes, every time he saw a mango tree, he yelled at me: 'banana tree', he pointed to some strange formations in the rock and told it was because of the tsunami and that he had to glue the rock together again... There are way more jokes, but that could become a little bit boring :D
we started hearing some water and a bit later we came passed a very wide waterfall, it was great as you can see in the pictures. (check introduction post) we went down next to the river and saw some more waterfalls (it almost sounds like it's not special anymore, but I can tell you every waterfall is different and you never stop liking it!) about an hour later we arrived at some rice farms from a hilltribe. If you ever get to see rice fields in the mountains, really do, the view is amazing! The young rice is a little bit flashy green, the mountains make it seem like you are totally away from civilisation but then the houses and the people give some other color to the landscape and then to make it perfect there is a blue sky!
we drunk some hilltribe coffee, damn that was strong and then we took off to Sit's hometown where we would have dinner (prepared on a wooden fire in the middle of the house) and sleep in the house of Sit's sister.
Next day we went mountainbiking, with very steep parts where I even had to get off from my bike. Going up I only had to get off ones since there was a lot of mud but in the way down I walked quite a bit. My rear brake was not working and I am quite afraid when I go downhill without a rear brake...
Today we had a relaxing day here in Chiang Mai and visit some temples, so beautiful but nothing as exciting as the previous days
tomorrow we go back to Bangkok so that we can finally get into myanmar...
we didn't make it to myanmar after all, the border is closed so we booked a plane from Bangkok to Yangon on the 17th. Meanwhile we went to Chiang Mai to do some adventure trekking and visit a non-touristy hilltribe. I am really excited about tomorrow!!!
right now we are staying in a 'hippy' guesthouse, it's great, but I hope we can get some sleep in the middle of the Jamaican music and everything that belongs with it...
good night!
P.S.: since we are sleeping in a homestay in a hilltribe we won't have electricity nor internet tomorrow.
P.P.S: pictures have been added: see 'introduction' post
today a very exciting day, we took some kind of truck taxi: a pickup truck which back has been converted to seats. After getting shaked for a bit more than an hour we arrived in a small town to check out a waterfall. We were totally not impressed by the waterfall itself but the surroundings were soo beautiful! There was a wooden 'skypath' which had rotten so that it was quite frightening to walk there and you had to be careful not to step in a hole. After a while the path became a normal dustpath through the jungle and a little while later the path disappeared. We had a choice to go back or to keep going into the jungle, of course we picked the latter and off we went. It was beautiful! After 20 minutes of pure nature we got stuck and we had to climb up the hill and then we had to go back because it was getting way to difficult to walk. Our first jungle trekking in Thailand, ok I agree a little bit short but it was a good one. After having lunch there we took a dustroad through the fields and got some more magnificent views over the mountains, I really took a lot of pictures there but I am having some difficulties posting them so you'll have to wait... A thai that was working in the fields came to us and said Namtok while pointing somewhere, he understood that we didn't understand him so he let us through his field up the mountain and then pointed to a very small trail going steep downhill. We took the path and we saw a very nice waterfall, at least 50 meter high and it was bathing in the sun so it looked even better!
as you can read, an incredible day with a lot of unexpected events so up to Myanmar for more of this!
what should have been a quite travelday with a small trekking into some great nature in the afternoon, turned out completely different. It started in the morning, we had to get up at 7 to catch the first bus, however the monks decided different: at 5 am they started their music which woke me up and I couldn't get to sleep again. Luckily we had a nice guesthouse with a very pretty garden, so I could walk around a bit and catch up with some e-mails. Then after an almost perfect breakfast of pineaple pancake we left for the bus. To our surprise we had a very good busdriver, he drove fast without always accelerating and breaking. In less than an hour we reached Tak for our transfer to the next bus. The next driver was a bit less good, but the road was going through the mountains, a hell of a view. We had booked an hotel that should have been in the middle of these mountains, but turned out to be in the outer parts of a big city :( . The hotel itself is nice though, it's a 4 star ranking :D, they have a swimming pool which is great! Tomorrow we are going to a different one located in the center where they don't speak a word of english.
it is possible that I won't have time to update this blog in the comming days since we are going to Myanmar and people say it's completely different there and internet is not that wide spread.
Vannacht toch een beetje gejet-lagged zodat
we van 1 tot 2.30 maar wat lectuur hebben gesoupeerd, toch waren we deze morgen
fit genoeg om aan een nieuwe dag te beginnen. Bij gebrek aan eetruimte was het
ontbijt aan bed. We bezichtigden een prachtige gouden pagode op het topje van
een kunstmatige berg net buiten het oude stadscentrum: golden mountain. Daar
kregen we telefoon van Patchara dat ze toch niet mee mogen naar Sukhothai. Dus
zijn we onze treintickets gaan halen om morgenavond te vertrekken. Hierdoor
hebben we dus morgen nog een ganse dag tegoed in Bangkok! Toon had een afspraak
om te gaan zwemmen met Patchara in het Athenée Plaza hotel en onderweg naar
daar hebben we lekker gegeten in een visrestaurantje. We moesten nog rap zijn
en kwamen net te laat aan met de taxi. Een heel chique hotel en we waren al
direct beschaamd in onze outfit: korte broek en T-shirt waren hier niet gepast,
ik denk dat als we geen blanken waren, we ter plekke buitengestuurd werden.
Terwijl ik ging zwemmen zijn moeke en voke een wandeling gaan maken in het
grote park met visjes, vliegende visjes, grote vissen, varanen, eekhoorntje met
wit buikje en schildpadden. Om 4 uur wachtten zij mij terug op in het hotel
terwijl ze een heerlijke ananaspunch aan het verorberen waren. Even omkleden en
we vertrokken met de taxi naar huize Piampongsant. We kregen mijn kamer te zien
voor begin augustus, een heel appartement met prachtig uitzicht op een groot
meer! Ik mag wel niet in het meer zwemmen want er zit nogal wat gedierte in dat
niet zo lief is als ik. We kregen er ook onze eerste frisse kokosmelk van het
jaar aangeboden en hij was lekker! We zijn dan gaan eten in een visrestaurant
waar we zeer lekkere dingen hebben gegeten, maar vergeten zijn fotos te
nemen...
We zijn net aangekomen in ons hotel in Bangkok:
Boonsiri Palace, het bed heeft alleszins de grootte van een paleis. De sterren
moeten we echter nog gaan zoeken.We
hebben een turbulente vlucht achter de rug, je kan het vergelijken met een rit
over een hobbelig zandpad, maar dan voor 11 uur lang... Dan namen we de nieuwe skytrain
richting centrum bangkok, tot onze verbazing was deze gratis: een promotiestunt
voor 2 maanden. Door een lieve Thaise werden we verder begeleid en aan een taxi
geholpen richting traffic jam. Na 20 minuten stilstaan, besloten we de laatste
kilometer te voet af te leggen.
hier zal je binnenkort mijn belevenissen kunnen lezen. Ieder avontuur dat ik beleef tijdens een reis doorheen enkele vreemde landen.
Je leest dit natuurlijk enkel als je zin hebt en je mag altijd een reactie achterlaten.
deze kaart zal gebruikt worden voor een visuele weergave van de reis, je moet wel even uitzoomen voor je alles kan zien. Hoe dit te verhelpen wordt aan gewerkt, als je suggesties hebt zijn deze altijd welkom: kaart
dit webalbum zal gebruikt worden voor een andere manier van visualisatie van de reis, dit webalbum is vol. Over een paar weken volgt een nieuw album, ondertussen moet je het doen met de foto's die hier te vinden zijn: foto's
veel plezier
Toon
Hi all,
soon you'll find here the stories of my trip troughout some foreign countries. You don't have to read this and you are always allowed to leave a comment.
this map will be used for a visual representation of the trip, right now I have some problems with initializing this map so you will have to zoom out yourself. If anyone knows how to solve this problem please let me know: map
pictures will be available here, this album is full, currently I am not uploading any picturs but a new album will come soon: pictures
hi all,
.
omachupe,
hi all,
hi all,
hi all,
nog steeds technische problemen dus het verslag in bijlage
wegens technische problemen, de tekst in bijlage
