Myanmar Part 3 - Bagan

We stayed in the wonderfully friendly town of Nyaung-U and after having a day recovering from the long bus journey we hired a horse cart and a driver, Aung Zaw, and spent the day visiting some of the temples.

Bagan is an extraordinary place. It's an ancient city with thousands of temples dating back to the 11th century. The city was attacked in 1287 by Kublai Khan and the people fled. There was an earthquake in 1975 which destroyed 2000 of the 4000 structures but 1000 have been rebuilt.

A week before we arrived a nearby village had been wiped out by a flood. Over a hundred people had been killed and many more had been made homeless. They were asking for donations and we donated some plates, pans and some other items, that Aung Zaw's fiance bought for us at the market. We had our names and donation read out over tannoy sytem.



The horse cart was the perfect way to see Bagan. We saw dozens of temples, amazing Buddhas and ancient wall paintings. We took hundreds of photos and here is a very small selection.



Here's me trying the Thanaka, Myanmar make-up.



This is the temple that we climbed to watch the sunset. The scale of the place is mind-blowing.




We went to see the lacquer ware being made; layer upon layer is put on and it takes around 8 months. The designs in Myanmar are really beautiful. We wanted to buy so many things.


After our long wonderful day of visiting temples, we had a day pottering around the town and meeting some of the lovely locals:




Here is a very old sign. The NLD is Aung San Suu Khi's party. This party won 80% of the seats in the late 1980's whilst Aung San Suu Khi was under house arrest, however they were never allowed to govern. Scandalous.


The following day we went out again with Aung Zaw and his horse to see some more mind-blowing temples.




We also visited a traditional village and saw this 80 year old lady making cigars:


Some of the ancient paintings in the temples are still very clear.



On our final morning in Bagan we got up at 4.30am and Aung Zaw and his horse took us to a temple so we could watch the sunrise.


Many of the rich package-tourists pay for balloon rides.


Our friend Aung Zaw, saw us off at the bus station and we had an insanely bumpy ride for 6 hours to Mandalay. They played some hilarious music on the bus including 'Una Paloma Blanca'!

Myanmar Part 2 - Pyay

We survived our first very bumpy, slow bus ride to Pyay, 6 hours north of Yangon. Just before sunset we went down to the river and hung out with the locals that were washing themselves, their babies and their clothes. We were overwhelmed at the welcome that we had and the children wanted to hug me and kiss me. Not many tourists come to Pyay and we found out later that it is a very difficult place to leave. Literally.



The following day we met a French man called Bernard and the 3 of us hired a pick-up so that we could do some sight seeing. The very friendly hotel receptionist that works nights also tagged along as our guide.

First of all we went to see the Paya of the Golden Spectacles, which is a Buddha image with lovely huge gold glasses (the only one in the world). This Buddha image has had a number of pairs of specs partly due to the English stealing the originals Not our finest moment!



The Buddha now also has a spare pair. He must have gone to Specsavers!


Next we visited the enormous and beautiful Shwesanda Paya, perched atop a central hill (great views). This is Sehatgyi Paya, a giant seated Buddha.


Next we went to Thayekhittaya, the sprawling walled city of Pyu, who ruled here 1500 years ago. Here's one of the remaining enormous monuments:


This is Bawhawgyi Paya; it's 46 metres high:


We then headed back to Pyay, had a beer at a beer station and watched the world go by.


This is a statue of Aung San, which sits in the central square. The vast majority of the people in Myanmar love this heroic man, who fought to kick out the English and then fought to kick out the Japanese. Very very sadly he was assassinated at the age of 32. I'm sure Myanmar would be a very different country if he'd have lived longer. Fortunately, he left his people Aung San Suu Kyi, his incredible, awe-inspiring, fearless daughter, who continues to fight for democracy in her country.


We watched the local men play 'cane ball'; it's incredible to see these guys do the splits in the air! They are so flexible and athletic and it is much more exciting than soccer - not sure about the nappy-type outfit though!

Once again we hung out with the locals by the river and watched the sunset.

We had 2 nights in wonderful Pyay and then we planned to leave. We had the option of a 15 hour bus journey on a local bus i.e. very old, clapped out, jam-packed bus with no air con, or a 10 hour over night train journey. We opted for the train but when we arrived at 9pm for the 10pm train we were told that it was cancelled. We went to the bus station and ended up getting on the 10pm bus back to Yangon. We arrived at 4am and 4 hours later we got a posh bus, that took 10 hours, to Bagan. We were so relieved to arrive in Bagan almost 24 hours since we'd left Pyay and sleep in a bed. Now we know why tourists don't visit Pyay but we're glad that we did.

Goodbye Thailand, Hello Myanmar

We've been in a Myanmar for the past month, which is a bit of an Internet desert and that's why there hasn't been any updates for a while.

After finally leaving sleazy/touristy Phuket we got the bus north to Ranong. It felt weird not to be cycling. Our next stop was the lovely quiet and un-touristy Prachuap Khiri Khan, where we hung out with the locals for a few days and enjoyed sampling the food at the night market.

We then made our way to soggy Bangkok to get our Myanmar visas. Thailand has suffered the worst flooding for 50 years but luckily we managed to get around OK and on 20th October we boarded our plane to Yangon, Myanmar.

We arrived in the evening and immediately loved Yangon. Myanmar has a very strong culture and is the least westernised of the SE Asian countries. There are no McDonalds or Starbucks or people with mobile phones. Bliss! The people we met were extremely friendly and all wanted to know where we were from.

On our first day we went to visit the wonderful Shwedagon Pagoda, which is 2500 years old and has 82 buildings to explore. The original pagoda was built to house 8 hairs from Buddha and was 66 feet high; now it's 326 feet high and is decorated with 3,154 gold bells and 79,569 diamonds and other precious stones. We employed Liddy as our guide and we spent hours wandering about. It's impossible for me to describe the scale and beauty of this special place. It's also a very peaceful place to visit.


Below is the the enormous bell that the English tried to steal when they got kicked out. It ended up in the river and was damaged. The English tried to steal and did steal quite a few things from Myanmar.


Here's Nic getting some good luck by pouring water on a Buddha image and a guinea pig image. The day of the week that you were born on is very important in Buddhist Myanmar and a different animal represents each day (two for Wednesday). P.s. We have since found I was born on a Wednesday so am actually an Elephant (without tusks)!!



We loved Shwedagon so much that we went back after dark to see it all lit up. It's dazzling at night and we couldn't take our eyes off it. It's also a great place to hang out with the locals who arrive in the cool of the evening to pray, eat and enjoy time with their family and friends.


Here are some very bright and beautiful university students that we met. They wanted to practice their English and chat to us about England and our travels. We really enjoyed chatting with them and we swapped email addresses. Myanmar has only had gmail for about 1 year. They now also get world news. Things are very slowly changing in this extraordinary country. After 2 hours of chatting with these wonderful young people the fact that I'd broken my elbow and couldn't cycle for a while really didn't matter any more.

We did some more sight seeing and made use of the numerous Beer Stations, where you can meet some really great people. This is Ben and he's a real inspiration. A few years ago he suffered a massive stroke and it took him over a year to learn to talk and walk again. He is a very successful business man that lives in Jakarta but after his stroke he completely changed his life. He's been battling with the authorities in Indonesia for 20 years about building a temple for the Sikhs in his area and after his stroke he went in this wheel chair to see the officials and finally got the permission he needed. Since then he's also decided to build an international school. He's been travelling around SE Asia for over a year raising money and awareness about his project. We spent a few hours with Ben and found him to be wonderful company and very funny.


We also met this Indian man at the same Beer Station who entertained us with some Bhangra. He did some great moves with his specs! Life is lived on the streets here and it's never dull!

One of the things that we noticed when we were wandering about was people paying for typing. They also have telephones on a table in street that you can pay to use. The majority of people also use Thanaka, a yellow make-up that is made from the ground up bark of a tree and protects the skin from the sun. Many men (and some women) chew Betel nut, which is mixed with tobacco for about 30 minutes and then spat out. The juice they spit out (often whilst riding their motorbikes) is bright red, which is pretty disgusting. It also rots your teeth.



We loved our time in Yangon and then we set off on our first Burmese bus journey to get to Pyay.

Thailand - Ko Lanta, Krabi, Phang Nga, Takua Pa and Phuket Hospital

Two weeks ago I had a horrible accident on my bike whilst cycling from Takua Pa to Khura Buri. There was a lip between the hard-shoulder and the road and because the hard-shoulder was running out, we had to ride over the lip. The road was wet as it was raining and my front wheel went over ok but my back did not and I fell heavily on my right hand side. Nic also wobbled but he managed to get over the lip intact. Luckily a driver stopped and phoned for an ambulance and 15 minutes later I was taken to hospital, with Nic and our luggage. Nic left the bikes with the driver that had stopped and he said that he'd take the bikes to the hospital at 1pm. Thank goodness for the wonderful Thais.

To cut a long story short I had cuts and bruises on my knees, hip, shoulder and face and a broken elbow. The hospital in Takua Pa was small and no-one spoke much English, so we decided to move to the modern private hospital in Phuket 150km away. They sent an ambulance and when we arrived at the hospital I had more horrendously painful x-rays and then an operation to clean out the wound and suture a piece of my funny-bone with a wire.

We then spent 4 nights in my private room and Nic slept on the sofa. We also found out that we weren't insured as we weren't in the UK when we took out the insurance. So we ended up with a pretty hefty bill but at least the accident happened in Thailand, where they have good hospitals, and my injuries weren't any worse.

We've been at a nice quiet hotel ever since and we'll leave once I'm pain free and have some more movement in my arm.

Unfortunately the accident means our cycle-touring days are over and we're gutted about it. The bikes will be shipped home and we'll become backpackers!

Anyway, below is our last cycle-touring entry:

This is me leaving Ko Lanta. We had a great time here and we're going back in Feb to meet up with Nic's daughter and our best buddies Steve and Debs.



We cycled 105km to Krabi and spent the following day at nearby Hat Rai Leh, which is very beautiful but very touristy. Here's a few snaps that we took:



Rai Leh is a mecca for climbers and we spent ages watching this amazing and graceful free-climber (yes this photo is the right way up):


We then cycled 94km through beautiful scenery to Phang Nga. At about 7pm we could hear ear-splitting music and the walls of our hotel room started shaking. We went to investigate and found in the car park next door a bunch of cars with flashing lights and crazy in-car entertainment systems. This was a "sound-off" that takes place every Saturday. We couldn't believe it as we were so tired but luckily about 30 minutes later it started to rain and they left.

The following day we went on a boat trip through Ao Phang Nga, a bay of mangrove forests, jagged mountains islands and caves, with loads of stalagtites. The landscape appeared in the Man with the Golden Gun and we visited the island rock now dubbed the 'James Bond Island'.




Ancient rock art:




My hospital room in Phuket:



Two days after I left hospital we celebrated our 2 year anniversary of travelling - a bit of an anti-climax under the circumstances!