Trip numero uno — Myanmar (Burma)

Armed with my 45L backpack, a $56 flight, an 8 day itinerary, 16gb of storage space on my camera and photocopies of every official document I own, I headed off to Myanmar with 3 NUS friends and successfully completed an 8 day semi backpacking trip through 3 states, 4 cities in Myanmar.

First, let me introduce my travel companions…Vanessa — the other official Canadian in the group from the west coast. Michelle — who goes to school in Canada (and has lived in like almost every Middle Eastern and Asian country I believe, so we were never quite sure where exactly to slot her and decided on Canadian) and Janelle — our token Australian for the trip!

Also, to set the mood on Burma, it would probably be useful if you all watched the Top Gear Burma Special. It gives you an account and video of the cities and countryside. And yes, it is extremely accurate….

Here’s a link: http://www.streetfire.net/video/top-gear-series-21-episode-6-burma-special-part-1_part-1_2452852.htm

We began our trip by flying into Yangon on good old Malaysia Airlines (yes mum, I’m in one piece) and were surprised when they fed us and gave us snacks on our flights — score!

After arriving in Yangon, we met up with Michelle who gave us the quick run down on Burma and a few things she’d learnt in the few days she’d been there before we arrived. Essentially, bargain like your life depends on it. For everything. Not even kidding. The entire country seems to adore bargaining, and being Canadian this was pretty foreign to me. However, being in Burma you seem to pick it up fairly quickly and I like to think that by the end of the trip I might have kind of gotten the hang of it.

We then headed to a few temples close to the airport before catching our night bus to Inle Lake.

We then began to leave the pagoda when we were stopped and informed of “big elephants on mountain” and then a lot of gestures and pointing in a certain direction down the road. Michelle had been told about these elephants before this, but no one was fully certain what to expect. I asked a local if they were real but he just smiled and laughed at me, obviously not understanding what I was asking…

We walked up the road and after getting a tad lost, found these…

Three huge and very real white elephants! This was really exciting, until we realized they were chained to the ground with a very short chain. Being the animal fanatic I am, this did not sit well with me.

A few short hours later, we boarded our night bus to Inle Lake, in the Shan state…

We arrived at about 6am and were pretty much woken up and semi thrown off the bus in the city. None of us were fully awake by the time we got to our hotel, but they led us straight to our room and after a bit of a rest we were picked up by our wonderful tour guide and headed out to spend the day on the lake.

Inle Lake had me convinced I died and went to heaven

This is how they collect the fibers for silk scarves

This lady is individually attaching the former threads with new ones — the process takes about a day to complete

This is how they colour the threads different colours

I obviously found the kittens in the village

This is the largest pagoda on Inle Lake — that night was the beginning of a festival where they would put 4 Buddha statues on a boat and bring them somewhere (the details got fuzzy at this point)

We then stopped in for a really nice lunch

Banana leaf cooked veggies with coconut ❤

I was not fully sold on seeing the full fish on the plate, but it wasn’t bad

This lady is making paper for umbrellas and stationary by hand — too cool

We also got to meet two women who most people would call “long neck”. This ethnic minority is native to Burma, but many of them have illegally migrated to Thailand due to the economic benefits they see from the tourism industry

Found this cutie at the “Jumping Cat Monastery”

Inle Lake was probably my favourite part of my trip — it was honestly the most beautiful place I’ve ever seen. With floating village after village filled with so many friendly and welcoming people, I didn’t want to leave. Those who live there are extremely lucky to wake up every morning surrounded by such beautiful scenery and an overwhelming feeling of being at peace. I would pretty much move there in a heart beat.

After spending a wonderful day with our tour guide Nini, we headed back to town for a nice dinner by the river before going to bed.

The next morning we headed out to catch our train to Kalaw, where we intended to do a bit of trekking in the surrounding villages and rice fields.

The train itself was an experience in itself…in Burma, their train requirements are no where near those we’re used to in Canada. Their trains are more along the line of a roller coaster/train trip of fun…

It may be hard to understand, but that teal frame is one door (our cart) and the red one is the other cart’s door — essentially you can see they don’t match up — meaning that the carts all rock back and forth while you sit in the section and think you’re going to fall off the side of the cliff…

After 4 crazy bumpy and entertaining hours on the train we arrived in Kalaw, had lunch and headed out to find a company to take us on a nice short hike in the area. Also upon our arrival, it started to rain — joyous!

We stumbled onto “Sam’s Trekking” and wandered in. We tried to explain we only wanted to go on a few hour hike until our bus ride and they looked at us like we were slightly crazy, because they specialize in lengthy overnight ventures in Burma (which I would totally recommend and I really would love to go back and do).

We took a car about 20 minutes to an area and headed out to walk through and around a village in the area.

Still not fully certain what this was — our guide kept saying it was a sort of tomato

We stopped at a house in the village to have snacks and green tea with this wonderful grandfather — I don’t have any pictures of that, but Michelle does, so when she uploads her pictures I’ll steal her group shot and add it on here ☺

We then went to the temple in the village, had more green tea and played with the endless amounts of kittens running around

Post trek picture with our tour guide and her cousin who she was just meeting for the first time because he lives in a village far away

We then headed over to the bus station to catch our bus to Bagan, only to find out it had been cancelled and we were supposed to take a bus 3 hours later.

We decided to kill our time at a restaurant near by…

The bus finally arrived and we headed off to Bagan for the last part of our trip! We estimated our arrival time would be around 7am seeing as we took a later bus, but to our surprise we arrived at 3:30am. After a quick drive to our hotel, where they kindly let us leave our bags, we jumped back in the taxi and headed out to watch the sunrise.

We arrived at temple 394 and scaled it in the dark at 4am…totally safely of course…

The stars were absolutely amazing and were the brightest I’d ever seen. On a side note, a few days after this we started to question if we actually saw the moon, which we’re not actually positive if we did. So new mission for anyone I know going to Burma soon (Grandma ☺ ) please star gaze and let me know if you actually see the moon!

After sitting there for about an hour and having Jannelle do the occasional “sunrise lap” around the temple, the sun began to rise…

And then our adventurous Australian decided to climb off the side of the temple…

which made for some awesome pictures

With the sun having finally risen, our first full day temple exploring day in Bagan had begun

We decided the easiest way to get around (and from plenty of observation of the locals and other foreigners) would be to rent ebikes. They turned out to be quite interesting and with my dislike of driving, I hoped on the back of Jannelle’s bike and made her drive all day — which she actually didn’t mind. It was a great arrangement because I sat on the back and took pictures (mostly blurry or slanted ones) while she chauffeured us around.

The next series of pictures are a compilation of temple/pagoda/monastery pictures from the 3 days we spent there…

A German and Chinese friend we met first at Inle Lake and then ran into them again in Bagan — such a small world

We also watched two sunsets during our 3 days in Bagan — one at a pagoda and one over the water at another pagoda

It was fairly cloudy during both sunsets

And the sunset over the water…

Another thing we did while in Bagan was climb Mount Popa. It is known for being a pilgrimmage sight with multiple temples at the top of the mountain. There are also TONS of monkeys that wander its grounds — so you need to be careful of your belongings if you there.

We rented a car, driver and a guide for this trip seeing as it was an hour and a half drive from the town we were staying in. Along the way the driver stopped and were were able to visit some locals and learn a bit more about jobs, food, alcohol and agriculture in Burma.

The guide insisted we all have pictures here because it was so pretty — I’m also sporting the traditional Longys which all women wear — it’s quite comfortable

Here are what peanuts look like after harvest

This is how they collect palm oil from the trees — They actually let us try climbing the tree too ☺

I don’t seem to have any pictures of me climbing it, so here’s a picture of Michelle climbing it

They then applied traditional “sunscreen” to our faces

Some really pretty creations from the tree leaves

And then we naturally were offered green tea leaf salad and green tea — a traditional offering to visitors in Burma

We also had a shot of locally made alcohol at about 10 am, tried some coconut sweats and watched women boil down the palm sugar oil to create a base for snacks and alcohol.

We then got back in the truck (see below) and headed towards Mount Popa.

I don’t have many pictures up Mount Popa due to the excessive amount of monkeys I was trying to have not steal or grab my camera — sorry!

We then packed up and headed back into Bagan for more afternoon exploring and a bit of relaxing.

On the last morning in Bagan we decided to rent some push bikes (as my Australian calls them) and explore a near by village, hoping to see less tourist-filled areas and get a real sense of Burma.

As we were biking down a random dirt road, we began to hear a voice yelling at us — naturally we stopped and looked around to see what we’d done wrong, when this little old lady appeared. She was yelling at us to stop us and invite us into her home to visit. So we accepted and spent a good deal of time with her while she showed us pictures of her family and attempted to tell us what Burma was like when she was growing up.

She then suggested visiting her son’s painting shop, so we agreed to follow her there. Obviously being a local, she hoped on the back of a motorbike and headed into town with the three of us push biking as fast as we could behind her. Thankfully we didn’t lose her and ended up at her son’s shop.

This is a picture of her and her son along with the 5 steps to finishing a painting

Michelle and I with Doe Toe Toe — our adoptive grandmother for the morning

Another wonderful trip moment included a flat tire — woo! But in Burma you can have a punctured tire fixed for a mere 1,000 Kyats, which works out to about $1USD

This kind man stopped to help us out of our misery

One morning Jannelle and I woke up to a lot of music going on outside the hotel, which we decided to investigate. We stumbled into a festival with tons of people dressed up ready for performances and an elephant!

This festival was apparently about the transportation of the Buddha tooth to a temple. There was also a festival and performance that evening across from the hotel we were staying at. It was unfortunately too dark to take any pictures, but there were multiple vendors and a stage built from bamboo.

As I get to the end of this post, it’s getting harder and harder to find things to write about. Everything was so breathtaking and it’s really hard to put it all into words. So instead, I’m going to post a collage of pictures from throughout my trip…

Just a casual truck off the side of the road (taken out the bus window — sorry for the horrible quality)

Another picture out the window — I’m amazed how talented people are at balancing so many things

The boat being used in one of the Buddha festivals — it will carry the 4 statues

Drinks and dinner on the Irrawaddy River

The ONLY Thanahka museum in the world — and we saw it

We got pretty animal paintings drawn on us outside a temple

The final leg of our trip was about 24 hours in Yangon. We visited Shwedagon Pagoda, a garden, a very green lake area and wandered around the city a bit.

This is me outside the Tuesday worship corner — your corner is based on the day of the week you were born

We got ushered into a temple on our last night and participated in a dance for one of the festivals

Burma is an amazing country that I’m dying to go back and visit again. There are so many other regions I’d love to see and so many other areas I’d like to go trekking in. I had a great 8 days with three wonderful ladies, who brought so much laughter and fun throughout the trip.

“The use of traveling is to regulate imagination by reality, and instead of thinking how things may be, to see them as they are.” – Samuel Johnson