Rabbit Island
I took a bus to Kep and stayed the night before heading to the island. Kep is a bizarre place. It used to be a South Beach of Cambodia where the rich and famous had grand villas by the sea. Then during Khmer Rouge the city was vacated like most of Cambodia’s city and it never came back. Today the town is full of ruined blackened remains of once grand palaces. Yet they all have brand new wall
12Spending the Last Day on the Lake
Today was my last full day in Burma and we spent it cruising around Inle Lake in a motorized canoe from which we visited floating shops and nearby villages. It was the send off I hoped it would be. The first 10 miles of the lake seemed more like a river with parallel banks madeup of tall river grasses abd thatchroofed stilt houses. We were amazed when the lake expanded and seemed uncontained w
10heaven bad food and drunk Burmese
Words falter where heart and soul sing…This is Bagan. I can not articulate the magic of this ancient city merely speak of its’ history and appearance. Beyond these pages is the stuff from which dreams and imagination are made. Bagan is a 42 square Kilometer plain east of the big river. Stretching across this land is an archaelogical playground over 3000 ancient temples. Most of them are made o
Mandalay
During the course of my time in Mandalay I got food poisoning was robbed Don’t worry it was from my bag not in person had to pay 30 commission on a cash advance and met virtually no tourists. Needless to say that Mandalay will not be going down as one of my favourite spots of the trip. Despite all the negatives though Mandalay can be an interesting city to walk around and see the sights in
4The City of Yangon
The first two days in a new country are always the ldquobreaking inrdquo period. It’s where you get acclimated and familiar with the people the pace and the general way of life. Chris and I like to do this through walks of the city with frequent stops for food and drinks. This is how we spent our first two days in Burma. Along our walks we carried our Lonely Planet’s Guide to Myanmar Burma
Mandalay
During the course of my time in Mandalay I got food poisoning was robbed Don’t worry it was from my bag not in person had to pay 30 commission on a cash advance and met virtually no tourists. Needless to say that Mandalay will not be going down as one of my favourite spots of the trip. Despite all the negatives though Mandalay can be an interesting city to walk around and see the sights in
Kyaiktiyo and the Golden Rock
We got up at 7am to get the bus to Kyaiktiyo to spend the night before visiting the Golden Rock. We were all anxious of what awaited us as we waited for our 6 hour bus we had all seen the pickup trucks crammed with 30 roasting locals we had all experienced the taxis and actually seen firsthand a large clumsy traffic collision right outside our guesthouse. The bus actually wasnrsquot too bad. S
Bagan…we’ve got the place to ourselves
Bagan is a short flight from Mandalay but also a complete different world. It would have been nice to take a boat between the two places but water levels are too low on the river to allow the local boats. And we are way too young to use the Road to Mandalay…which is by the way also in another price category. You can also rent a car with driver or take a bus between the 2 cities but this i
Myanmar March 2010
Mingalabar MyanmaLanguage Burmese is perhaps simpler than Thai as there are lsquoonlyrsquo 3 tones 33 consonants and 12 vowels. However the way the Romanised script is used I found very difficult to the point that trying to speak or read in the main place names was a waste of time. Because of this Irsquom going to put in the phonetic not quite IPA names where I think would be useful. N
Burma
Some brief ramblings detailing an awesome 38 days in a stunningly beautiful country with the friendliest people I have ever met obviously excluding you ugly lot . They are chilled out Buddhists and mad footy fans is it appropriate for a monastery to have a satellite dish for Champions League gamesTo put a few basic things in perspective1. Most places have only 510 hours of grid electricit