the last two days we spent in chanthaburi: saturday morning we started with a breakfast in our guesthouse and then we went to the motorbike rental to hire a motorbike for the day. It took quite a while before they understood that they had to teach me how to drive... After a class of 1 minute we left for muang sing, a national park at the beach to go snorkling there. We started very slow and stopped after 10 km at a waterfall of 30 meter high. We didn't have to pay the usual entree fee of 200 baht so we were happy and started to walk the nature trail: a slippery path through the jungle with some signs on the road teaching us the way of the jungle. We saw a lot of bamboo, rocks, lianas, big trees, musquito and a big waterfall! The water around the waterfall is full of fish, it's an attraction to feed these fish whith long green beans while standing/ swimming in the water. The fish are so 'hungry' that they swim on top of eachother to catch the beans. After the nature trail we went to look on a hilltop to get a nice view of chanthaburi province and the sea.
We went back on our motorbike and drove towards Laem Sing Beach, about 20 km further. At the beach we noticed that we wanted to be at the other side of the beach but with our best thai and the tourist informations best english we managed to hire a boat to go snorkling. A 30 minutes boat trip brought us to a coral reef where we could swim with the fish. I had some trouble with breathing but Kevin became one with the sea (although he is slightly more red and white). He also saw a very big fish that according to him was at least 1 meter long... After 15 minutes I had enough trouble breathing and went back to the boat to relax and enjoy the view. Kevin stayed for almost an hour looking for different colors/ big fish...
By the time we came back ashore it was already quite late so we had to hire the motorbikes till monday... Kevin felt a bit ill so we went to relax some more at the beach before driving back to our guesthouse. The way back was either shorter or we drove a (little) faster, I believe it was the latter since I was getting hungry... :p In the evening we still went for a long relaxing massage by female hands...
Saturday was a nice day, we did about half of what Kevin planned to do here in Thailand: jungle trekking, waterfall, snorkling/ diving, motorbike and massage.
Some more things to do include: elephant riding, kayakking, floating market and shopping.
Today we took an easy day with a late breakfast/ brunch and then off to a small road so that Kevin could learn how to drive a motorbike. He is still alive and in one piece... :D The rest of the day he mostly spent in bed except for an evening walk towards the festival that is still going on. He feels a little ill... I went for a city walk and to do fitness in the park. The fitness was quite interesting: they have a lot of different metal constructions but the guidelines are in Thai. So I just followed someone else and did the same thing, my arms hurt a bit now, I guess he was in better shape :( I did kick his ass in leg exercises :p. Now I just got back from some concerts and dance acts, the festival still goes on!
today we went to a fort, the gem mines, fruit plantations, a temple and a chedi on a hill with a wonderfull view. We got there on foot and trough hitchhiking. The maps here are not really on scale so we started to walk but when we asked the way after 5 km, she said still more than 3 km :s. So we started hitchhiking, I think the 20th car that passed took us with him and dropped us off at the fort. The people were soo friendly and gave us some fruit, Kevin was really happy with it and it was yumm! We took a stroll and a small photoshoot there before we went to the temple, Kevin wanted to stay in the temple: he said that it wasn't that interesting but it was cool :D I think the paintings on the wall and the ceiling were nice, but anyway we went back to the fort and left for a chedi on top of a hill. According to the map it's right across the street, in reality it was more than 5 km away so we hitchhiked again. A space engineer (who works for an oil company, pretty strange carreer path...) in a nice old-timer mercedes took us with and dropped us at the stairs on the hill. The stairs were being cleaned by some schoolgirls who were giggling when we passed and one of them even dared to talk to us, it wasn't much of a conversation but these small things make your day! On top of the hill we did get a magnificent view: we could see the beach (which is about 25 km away) and some hills/ islands, we could also see the gem mines and the fruit plantations. We went down again and looked at the mining, however we couldn't get inside. There was also a rubber plantation... The way back we got one long ride in the back of a pick-up. A day full of experiences!
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!!!
