So far I’ve had one oil body massage and 2 foot massages and I’m only in Thailand for another 4 days so I’ll be getting a few more before I leave. A one hour oil massage will cost about 250 to 300 bhat which is just so cheap.  I’ll be back for another one tomorrow for sure. 

In every city and hotel I stayed at in Burma we had a power cut. I walked through my neighbourhood in Rangoon and the streets were pitch black and only illuminated by the many people walking with mobile phones. On the street that my hotel was in there wee many large generators on the roadside for just an occasion and when my hotel was affected it only took two or three minutes before the back up kicked in.

So all over Burma you will come across this situation and I must admit it didn’t really cause a big problem but it must be very annoying if you have to rely on large diesel generators to keep your business running smoothly and I would imagine that they would cost a small fortune.

Even at Heho Airport near Inle Lake we had a blackout for a few minutes, now this could be a problem when an airport loses power. The reaction of the staff and locals was to just laugh, I guess there’s not much else you can do.

My friend Rin has a house in the outskirts of Chiang Mai, it used to be her fathers house but he passed away a few years ago. Her fathers second wife lives at the house but at the moment she is not here and so I have the house to myself apart from one very lonely terrified wee dog that belonged to her father. It’s cries at night are painful on the ears, it sounds like someone is killing the poor beast and I think the killer is sadness.

At least his tail is up today and not between his legs. 

The poor wee thing is also trying to get its head around this invader which it can’t understand and so it will give me a wide berth. The first night I stayed it howled like a Banshee for most of the night and the neighbours and myself did not get much sleep. Last night was my second night and it was a little better. This morning as I sit outside having breakfast he is coming out of his den and walking around me closer and closer and so I guess he is starting to trust me and is checking me out. Mind you I have tried bribing him with food as you do in these kind of situations. My breakfast of choice in Thailand is as follows, black coffee, 2 bananas and 2 pineapple pies which you can buy from 7/11. My new friend also likes pineapple pies. I’ve decided to call him Mutley for the duration of my stay.

Now when you move to a new place you have to get used to your environment of course and as this house is semi rural it is very dark at night and last night when I came back I saw a green Firefly. I was standing on the steps about to unlock the door and this green tailed Firefly slowly moved passed my face, it was quite amazing and I felt very privileged to see such a creature so close to hand. I think they are absolutely amazing. One good thing about Fireflies is that they don’t make any noises that I can hear.

Next door however we have chicken coops and at the crack of dawn or even before usually they do their thing. So the first night here I had the Mutley going off every 5 mins and then it was the time for the Rooster. No sleep was had.

The house is made from timber and only has bars on most of the windows, no glass, no fly screens. The bedrooms have fly screens thankfully and there is also one on the bedroom door. There are many wee flies and mosquitoes about but I haven’t been bothered too much with them so far. If I stayed here I would have to have air conditioning because even in winter the temperature will reach the 30+Celsius. The cost of this place would be around $100,000 and so it might be something for a future time when I decide to change my country of residence. But in Thailand foreigners can not buy land and so I would be unable to buy this wee place,  but I could buy an apartment or a townhouse.

Myanmar

For many years I have wanted to go to Myanmar, or as I prefer to say Burma. I have been to 3 border crossings as I’ve travelled along the Thai border over the years and it’s always seemed to have an air of mystery and intrigue. 70 years ago it gained independence from the British which to be honest I’m not sure if this was a good thing or a bad thing for the country because I don’t know the history. But you can still find traces of the British throughout the country and when I was in Rangoon I admired many of the old buildings that date back to the British era. In fact this is what I found most interesting about Rangoon, the old colonial architecture.

 I read many articles on Burma before going and read reviews about the different cities and of course from the information sought you can then try and decide what to see, where to go and what to do. Many reviews said that you could easily spend a week in Rangoon before moving onto your next destination. I spent two days and this was sufficient for me. One of the main attractions was the Shwedagon Pagoda, many reviews said that you could spend at least one day here admiring the design and space. I spent about 1 hour and this is no disrespect to the Burmese people or culture, but I just did not find it that interesting compared to other places I have seen in the world.

I went on the city circular train which takes about 3 hours and gives you a look at the city from the busy inner city to the fringes of the countryside. I was absolutely appalled at the amount of rubbish, mainly plastic that is discarded almost the whole length of the line. At certain spots there are people collecting for recycling and you see them sifting through the mountains of garbage to separate the plastic or cardboard. In other areas they set it alight and the smell of the toxins in the air is atrocious as well as dangerous.

The noise as you walk through the city is constant; there is no respite from the blaring horns and the noise from traffic. The pollution is high; the smell of diesel from the trucks and buses is terrible. There are many street foods but it did not make me feel very confident in eating from them, but I did simply because they were so much cheaper than the restaurants. Burmese restaurants have western prices in many places and to be honest over all the food is not good. The tastiest food I had was Indian or Nepalese and they were mostly good value for money, but the quality of the food is very much a hit and miss affair, I got sick twice in Burma which is unusual because I have eaten in many places and have had little or no problems but I lost two days in Burma due to poor food. I had two weeks in India and suffered no ill effects from any food I ate there.

I moved on to Mandalay and I had big expectations about Mandalay but again I was left feeling disappointed and maybe a little cheated. I lost a day here due to some gastric bug. I found one thing in Mandalay I liked and it was a very small temple that was painted white and covered in gold leaf reliefs and it resembled a catacomb. As a bonus I was the only visitor so the experience was all mine. 

Mandalay was also very dusty and the roads were a lot worse than Rangoon but I did like it a little better here because it was quieter in some ways. I also came here to see the world famous Moustache Brothers which as I said before I’m not sure what it was all about and I think it’s a moment in time that’s been captured and perseveres to this day, I had fallen into a worm hole for an hour to a different time and place.

I got the boat from Mandalay to Bagan as this is the best way to get there, well that’s what they say and they were right. It was so good to not have to go to the airport and so it was just a simple case of going up a very narrow gangplank and on to the wee boat. The journey took 10 hours but it was ok.  The small boat weaved across the river to avoid the many sandbanks that it encountered along the way, in fact we did come across a rather large barge that had become grounded and two tugs were having a battle to try and shift it to deeper water.

When we arrived in Bagan it cost me $3 to get my case off the boat and up the very large sand dune. This was the start of the money grab. The taxi was $8 for 5 km’s. You’re no sooner into the taxi that you have to stop at the Ministry of Tourism and pay $25 so that you can enter this area. I’ve not even got to my hotel yet and I’ve parted with $36.

Bagan is so dry and so dusty, everything is covered in a fine layer of dust and there are mounds of it at the side of the road. The road is narrow with potholes; generally the roads in Burma are terrible. My hotel was on the main street and although a little noisy and dusty during the day, the nights were ok. I rented an E bike from the place across the road for two days which was great to go and see the many Temples and Stupa here. I did enjoy Bagan.

I got the bus to Kalaw after Bagan and the only reason for stopping here was so that I could do a bit of trekking. I wanted to trek from Kalaw to Inle Lake which would have taken 2 days but unfortunately the rains came and put a stop to that. So I spent two days here in limbo before moving on to Inle Lake.

Inle Lake was nice as its set in between two large mountain ranges and once again after we got dropped off at the bus terminal we had to get a taxi and pay an entrance fee to the area, this time it was $3 for a shared taxi and $13 entrance fee. Inle Lake town is very dry and of course the dust is everywhere once more. All the rivers are running fast and are swollen due to the rains over the past two days in the mountains but no rain has fallen here. The highlight of this part of the trip is the boat ride on the lake. You can hire a boat for $20 for most of the day but you have to tell the boatman not to take you to all the side show activities such as the cigar making factory or weaving factory because they are just an excuse to get more money from you.

I flew to the border crossing with Thailand at Mae Sai and was very happy to finally leave Burma. I did meet some nice folk and had some good experiences but overall I did not enjoy Burma. It’s way too expensive. Compared to Thailand, well you can’t compare really. Everyone I spoke to in Burma about the cost of things blame it on the government and say they have to charge such high prices, I don’t know if that’s true. Without sounding too harsh, my experience here was no more than mediocre. Maybe I have travelled too much to really appreciate Burma, maybe I expected too much I really don’t know. I usually make my mind up quickly about people and places in life and I’m prepared to be proved wrong or be surprised at a later date but for me this will be my only trip to Burma. Maybe if this is your first experience of Southeast Asia then you may find it exciting and exotic or whatever, but for me I did not enjoy it that much, in fact it felt that I was going through the motions just to get to the end, maybe it was a bit like having bad sex.

I had a good sleep last night and I really do feel that I’ve left purgatory and I know that might sound a little harsh,  but Thailand is just better. 

I could not get a direct bus from Mae Sai to Chiang Mai so I got a bus to Chiang Rai and now I’m having a snack while I wait for my connecting bus. 

It’s just more civilised in Thailand in many ways. As soon as you cross the border the roads the shops,  everything is just so much better.  It’s cheaper and better. 

The driving is so much smoother here and no one blasts the horn unless they have too. They queue and have patience, you feel safer. Mind you we did go through two police control check points. They check everyone’s ID except mine of course because it’s pretty obvious I’m a foreigner,  but they are very polite when they ask me to step out the bus. They do this partly to check for drugs because we are in the Golden Triangle after all.

Time to go and leave the wifi for the bus. ….

So happy to have left Myanmar and get back to Thailand.  As soon as you cross the border at Mae Sai you feel your spirits lift,  well I did. I’m not a big fan of Myanmar and I don’t think I’ll return in a hurry. 

After a short bus ride of about 2 hours we reached the outskirts of Inle Lake, transferred to a taxi with another couple and headed into town. On the way there we have to stop to pay another tourist tax or Eco tax. Every region seems to have a tax for foreigners. Bagan was $25, here is $13.50. I feel that at every turn in Myanmar there is a grab for money.  I know in other Asian countries foreigners have to pay more than locals but at times I feel that here in Myanmar they are taking the piss.

The hotels are expensive in comparison to other Asian countries and the standards are not that high. The food is not  cheap but can be quite tasty at times and you notice the difference as you move through the country. The last two days I stayed in Kalaw in the mountains and the Nepalese food there was great but the hotel was shit and so was the service and did I tell you that it was expensive.

When I got off the bus at Kalaw I felt that it was a mistake, maybe that was partly due to the weather but it just didn’t feel welcoming, instead it felt like it was saying ” Give me your money”

The only good thing was that the hotel was about a 5 minute walk from the bus stop.  The hotel as I said before was expensive and the customer service was non existent. The room had not been used for some time and it just felt miserable. Breakfast the next morning was pathetic, it was tasteless in every way.  The only reason I stopped at Kalaw was to do trekking but the weather was so wet that I was unable to do that, so instead I killed time by reading and watching a movie or two.  A bit disappointed that I couldn’t do the trekking and I don’t think I’ll be back here to try again.

I’ve finished my lunch but I’ve decided to sit for a while because the rain is still pissing down.  Catch up on my blog, read the news and just sip tea. It’s also interesting to just people watch and at the moment at the table beside me there are two Americans that are killing the English language and breaking it down to such things as ” so, like awesome, cell phone  “and so many other fucking annoying utterances. Their accents are particularly irritating but I’ve decided to stay because sometimes you just have to study these creatures in the wild and these two specimens are prime examples of what it means to be American. I’m not too sure how long I’ll be able to sit here and listen to them as they have a similar affect on me as chalk screeching down a black board. 

I bet they voted for Trump, they look like a Trump stereotype. But I don’t want to talk to them or engage with them in any way. Oh and why to they have to stretch out their words A one syllable word seems to end up the length of “supercalifragilisticexpialidocious”

It’s been raining since yesterday, I even woke up in the middle of the night listening to the rain batter down.  It’s such a change from the first day when I arrived in Bagan where the dust and the heat was the problem. The dust was everywhere and there were small hillocks of sand all along the sides of the road but since the rain started yesterday they have been slowly eroded away and spread about to the point where it looks like a quagmire.

But the rains freshen the place up and takes the dust out of the air and allows you to breathe once more without getting a nose full of shit. However the drivers are not as courteous when it comes to puddle etiquette, they will just go through and don’t seem to care if you are in the splash zone.  I have been splashed twice so far as I’ve been minding my own business. Possibly Karma at play, because  this does remind me of the time when I was driving the bus along Renfrew Road many moons ago and I soaked an innocent pedestrian. There was a huge puddle and we were doing about 40 mph and I just could not avoid it and this poor lassie got completely drookit. The wave of water I sent up in the air was like a tsunami and she had no where to go.  Then again this was something I had always wanted to do but I wish I could have picked my victim. I felt very guilty but I was also laughing on the inside too. 

The trip from Bagan to Kalaw took about 7 hours and it rained all the way.  The roads are in a terrible state of repair and I had to laugh because we went through about 4 toll booths along the way.  You have to pay for the privilege to use these crap roads. 

The small mini bus was full and so they put all the luggage on the roof which made it very top heavy. At times you could feel it wobble and walk round the corner because they came into the corner way too fast. There was a smell of rubber because the rear tyres were getting buffed away because we were over loaded.  It’s not a very comfortable or interesting trip but it is the only way to get here.

We made it in one piece and my hotel was only a short walk from where the bus stopped.  The hotels in Kalaw are very expensive and to be honest I was a bit disappointed when I saw mine considering it cost $40 a night which by my standards is expensive. But no choice or I would have spent the night out in the rain.

I did however find some good food to warm me up. ..

Since the wee hours of this morn Bagan has been awake.  Bus loads of folk are coming into town for a local festival at one of the temples. 
The pickup trucks and any kind of people carriers are full. Every so often there is one thumping out music at full volume. They’re singing, dancing if they can and all this combined with the usual sounds of the motorbikes, horns and the like.  
It’s a wee place but by god it’s noisy. Tomorrow I’m moving on to Kalaw and then work my way south. I’m hoping that it might be a little kinder to the ears.