Back in Bangkok after what I thought would be one of the more difficult parts of the trip, but in fact turned out to be the most amazing and enjoyable place I have visited. There were of course, lots of negatives and I shall spend my time dwelling on those.
Mandalay is like a sauna (if you put all your trash inside a sauna). But it has a lazy attitude which I appreciate and I'm acclimatising to the heat so I can amble about comfortably enough. Every traveller goes to at least one Moustache Brothers show. The lonely planet raves about the comedy/culture show featuring Li Mar Par who is mentioned in the Hugh Grant movie; About a Boy. It is two hours of my life that I will never get back and for that reason I should struggle to find something worthwhile in it... but no, it's less entertaining than American TV.
In a change to my usual routine I take a ferry to Bagan rather than fly. Sometimes the journey is the reward and sometimes you spend 14 hours on a ferry wondering if the destination could be any worse. It leaves Mandalay at 5.30am and since I'm not an early morning person the first few hours are the most difficult. When I do wake up and have a mango for breakfast I'm slightly more chirpy than my usual self. I'm travelling with an English girl; Ornella, a Canadian girl; Lauren, a German girl; Anna and a French-Canadian guy; Mathieu. Unusually they are all nice people and I don't have to pretend to enjoy the conversation - I actually do.
Bagan is one of those places that would be over-run by tourists if air-con coaches could get there from a resort in 2 hours. As it is you can explore the entire place (and it's on the scale of Angkor Wat) completely alone. It's all pagodas but Myanmar has rekindled my interest in Buddhist culture. Theravada buddhism as it was practiced in the 11th/12th centuries has a lot of depth to it. The buddhas are slightly different, the monks don't have to dedicate themselves quite so much and the pagodas are mainly just brick. Nothing fancy until you build 3000 of them in the same place. 200 photos later and we call it a day. It's my birthday so the day needs to be finished off with some drinking. Kiwi Murray is treating me to dinner and all my new friends turn up to celebrate with me. It's a late night by Myanmar standards and I struggle back to my room close to midnight.
From Bagan it's more or less straight back to Bangkok after a rest day by the pool where I manage to lightly sautee my chest.
I'm sad to say goodbye to Myanmar in some respects. Everything is cheap, getting around is much easier than I thought it would be, the people are the nicest I've met anywhere and the weather is close to ideal. People moan about the government, but if they added a couple of wi-fi hotspots near the pagoda places you would have an ideal holiday destination. So for me we should end all the trade embargos and embrace a society where yes, the odd person gets shot, but the ones left un-shot smile a genuine "I'm happy to be alive" smile.
It's on to Laos next, for more of the same I suspect.
Photos of Myanmar: http://www.flickr.com/photos/robinsouthgate/sets/72157600338193549/
No comments:
Post a Comment