24th – 30th March 2017
Our bus to Bagan left early in the morning. When we got on, we found it was not quite as nice as our overnight bus from Yangon to Inle Lake. We didn’t have our own entertainment units, although there was a TV up at the front. It played Burmese pop videos, most of which were covers of western songs. Every video was the same; teenage boys and girls would dance about whilst being sprayed with water by someone with a hosepipe, creating a rather inappropriate wet t-shirt competition. It was really weird, and after about 15 minutes we put in our headphones and let the hours drift by.
Our hostel (Ostello Bello Bagan) turned out to be one of our favourite hostels so far. This was mainly because they had lots of activities going on to make it easy to socialise with other people. On the first night, we grabbed a couple of beers and went to the rooftop cinema they had set up. The choice of films we could vote to watch were ‘Everest’, ‘Passengers’ and ‘La La Land’. Following on from Brexit and the last general election, democracy once again failed me and La La Land took it by a single vote (although I will confess that I did quite enjoy it, despite musicals not being my thing. I’d score it 7/10, Emma would score it 8/10).
The next morning we did the one thing our mothers told us not to do; we rented a motorbike!!!! Okay, it was a scooter. Well, technically it was an e-bike, but that doesn’t matter. It cost about £3 to hire for the day. No licence needed. No deposit or insurance needed. No helmet or instruction required… just hop on and go.
Renting the e-bikes allowed us to explore Bagan. We began with a ride to see the sunrise. This is probably top of every “must-do” list on Myanmar, and I was a little worried it would not live up to expectations. I needn’t have; it really was one of the highlights of the trip so far! Atop of one of the temples, we sat and watched as the light from the Sun slowly revealed more and more temples over the plains; there were literally hundreds of them. Then, from the south of the city, hot air balloons rose up and floated across the skies in front of us.
After returning to the hostel for breakfast, we used the bikes to explore some of the main temples of Bagan. In the evening, we decided to pay to go on a sunset cruise. Here we got to meet some really nice people, and chat to them about where they had been and picking up tips on places to go. In the end, we were so busy chatting and drinking we missed the sunset (this was sunset fail no.1). Back at the hostel, we carried on chatting and drinking (a little too much drinking on my part).
The next day we again hired the e-bikes, and went on the highly recommended tour of Bagan run by Christopher, a local Burmese guy. Except it turned out not to be Christopher; he said he was Christopher’s “best mate”. Sceptical but willing to give it a go, the group of us (there must have been about 25 people on the tour) hopped on their e-bikes and followed him down the road, like the world’s least cool motorcycle club.
The tour was ok, but it went on for a long time and it was very hot (it also didn’t help that we went to some of the same temples we had seen on our own the previous day). We got to chat to some more travellers though, and I got to be a knight in shining armour – twice. In the first case, I chased down a girl who had missed the turning and was going the wrong way. The second time, I stopped to help a Polish damsel in distress who had broken down when everyone else had ridden off. As we couldn’t get her bike to start again, she took Em’s bike and Em hopped on the back of mine, allowing us to have our own ‘Top Gun’ moment.
In the evening, we went to watch another sunset. However, a certain someone (that would be me) underestimated the time it would take to find a decent spot, and we ended up missing the sunset (sunset fail no.2).
Em would normally have been angry with me but she wasn’t allowed as it was my birthday! To celebrate, we went to the local Weatherspoons; I’m pretty confident it is not linked to the British pub chain though. I had a burger (I’d not eaten meat since we got to Myanmar) and it was pretty good.
On to Mandalay, “where the flyin’ fishes play”. Or so said Rudyard Kipling in his famous poem. But what would he know? He never went, the lying scoundrel. We did – by boat.
At 5am our taxi driver dropped us at the jetty. He pointed to a boat, and we made our way down to it. Showing some guy our ticket, he waved us aboard. Immediately, we thought something wasn’t right. It looked more like a cargo boat; the crew were asleep on the deck and there were no seats for passengers. Also, all the other tourists seemed to be getting on a different boat. I checked with a member of the crew to see if the boat was heading to Mandalay; he said it was. We found some chairs and sat down.
10 minutes later, we were still the only tourists on the boat, and I was getting increasingly worried. I enquired again.
“When does the boat get to Mandalay?”
A guy smiled at me and said “Tomorrow! It slow boat!”
We were on the wrong boat. We legged it across to the other one, showed our ticket and hoped we would be allowed on; we were. We settled in and enjoyed the 11 hour trip up the river to Mandalay.
On our first day in Mandalay we went to visit the Palace. It’s actually a reconstruction of the palace that stood on the same spot a couple of hundred years ago. It was ok. In the evening, we climbed Mandalay Hill, for another sunset. As there were Buddhist temples on the Hill, we had to take our shoes off at the bottom and make the ascent barefoot. I don’t normally mind taking my shoes off, but the floor was disgustingly dirty. Stray dogs and cats roamed around, and I saw one local woman just stand and urinate by the side of the path. Suffice to say, we scrubbed our feet thoroughly back at the hotel.
At the summit (or close to the summit, as we refused to pay the admission fee to get right to the top) we sat down to watch the sunset. However, the weather conspired against us and the clouds obscured the view (sunset fail no.3). On the way down, we got chatting to a monk who was desperate to practice his English. He’d only been learning a month, and he wasn’t bad, and it was interesting talking to him and finding out about his life.
On our final day in Myanmar, we decided to splash out and hire a guide to take us around the towns that surround Mandalay. We did this by bicycle, and we really enjoyed it. We were the only two on the tour, allowing us to ask all the questions we wanted. The cycling wasn’t too strenuous, and took us through the remote villages and farmland of the province. We saw ruined pagodas, forts and monasteries as well as craftsmen at work. The day finished with a boat ride to watch the sunset over the famous U-Bein bridge, but true to form, it didn’t really happen as we would have liked. A plague of midges (of near biblical proportions) descended on us and our boat got stuck in the mud (sunset fail no.4).
Final thoughts on Myanmar
In the end, although it presented a series of challenges, we are glad we made the decision to go to Myanmar.
Although it wasn’t as difficult to get about as we thought, it isn’t as easy to travel as other South East Asian countries. Food and accommodation isn’t great, and is (relatively) expensive too. In the cities, it takes a long time to get anywhere thanks to incredible traffic and terrible pavements. Simple conveniences that you take for granted elsewhere, like launderettes, supermarkets and a good cup of coffee, are more difficult to find, and this is a bit energy sapping at times.
Those travellers hoping to find a country where they can escape the backpacking crowd may be disappointed by Inle Lake and Bagan, which has lots of tourists. And if you think you can get away by going trekking; you probably won’t. We seemed to be about the only people who didn’t do any trekking (with the Kalaw to Inle Lake trek by far the most popular).
Having said all that, Myanmar is only gradually changing, and still holding a cultural identity different from elsewhere. Men still where longyi (skirts), the woman wear thanaka paste on the face to protect from the Sun and the red stains from betel spit coats the pavements everywhere. It was a fascinating place to stay, although 2 weeks was enough for us, and we were exhausted by the end.
(Posted by Ben)
Emma & Ben... Far From Home 