Bangkok / Koh Chang

After touching down in Bangkok around lunchtime we made our way to our accommodation, the one we have stayed at during our two other visits to Bangkok.  The place is starting to feel a bit like home.  We went for some dinner and also to book a bus to Koh Chang for the following day.  We decided before arriving in Bangkok that, since this could be potentially our last time there during our trip, we would go out for a few drinks that night, build up some Dutch courage, and try one of the deep fried insects that are for sale.  

After putting on our glad rags and have a few cheeky sang-soms ( rum ) at the hostel we headed out in search of some protein filled goodness.  We weren't far along Kao San Road before we found a stall selling deep fried beasties.  There were many to choose from including spiders(!) but we finally both settled on having a cricket.  We ended up with a bit of an audience but both managed to eat (most of) our crickets.  It actually didn't taste that bad, it was more the thought of what you were eating that was the difficult part.  We had to have a few drinks after to try and wash away the taste.

Up early the next morning to get our bus to Koh Chang for some beach time.  Our minibus was taking us door to door but we hadn't actually booked any accommodation and so we just asked the driver to drop us at Lonely Beach which is the beach area that most pack packers stay at.  We managed to find accommodation quite quickly which was lucky as by this point, it was already dark, and I was getting hungry.  We stayed at a place called Easy House which had cute wee wooden huts for only 550 baht. Bargain! The owner Mr Nang was lovely and always remembered our names.  The wifi password for the bungalows was HAPPYHIPPY which was quite apt for the place I think.  We went for some food and for whatever reason decided to walk past the busy restaurant and into the dead one.  Rookie mistake, and one we don't usually make, but we certainly paid for it with our bland carbonara with plenty of raw onion.  Yuk.  Back to the bungalow we went to have a bit of a pamper night to get ourselves beach ready.

The next morning we went for breakfast at the restaurant across from our bungalow.  This was a tactical move so that we could steal their wifi which was getting a better signal from our hut than our own.  We then walked to the beach and enjoyed a day of doing absolutely nothing apart from topping up our tans.  We had seen an amazing sunset the night before but because we were on the minibus, still on the way to our accommodation, we didn't get to see the full effects of the bright orange and pink sky.  We had hoped to see the same this night and so stayed at the beach and had a cocktail while we watched the sun go down.  Unfortunately it was not a patch on the previous night.  

We were taking it in turns to go to the shop in the morning to get cereal and milk for breakfast.  It was Kay's turn today and before she left I reminded her we needed more toothpaste.  After having our breakfast I went to brush my teeth using the new toothpaste.  Salty flavour.  I kid you not, and it tasted exactly like you'd imagine, like you were brushing your teeth with sea water! Bleeuughh.  Mental note made to buy different stuff later.

We decided to buy a snorkel set on the way down to the beach as there is only so much lying around we can both do.  We saw signs for a festival that was happening at lonely beach the next night and so we decided then that we would stay another couple of days so we could go to that.  There were loads of very tame monkeys down at the road sided next to the beach.  Tourists were feeding them but I had read that you shouldn't as this encourages them to come to the road, which means they could easily get ran over. After another uneventful day of sunning ourselves we went to a lovely Greek restaurant for dinner and mojitos.  

The following morning we decided to give the beach a miss and instead head for a nice waterfall which was meant to be about 7km away.  Kay was taking so long to get ready that we had a wee fall out and I decided to just head off without her.  On my way out I was stopped by Mr Nang who asked what my plans were for the day.  I told him I was planning to walk to the waterfall and he just laughed and laughed and laughed.  He told me that it was too far and that I wouldn't make it back in time for dinner.  He also told me that because it was the dry season there wouldn't be much water.  Regardless of this I set of, it only took me to walk up the first ridiculously steep hill before I got cold feet and turned back.  Thinking Kay would head to the beach I went there instead.  Kay, thinking I went to the waterfall, headed off about 20minutes or so after me.  She managed to make it there and back well before dinner time and said there was plenty water.  I was sad that I had listened to Mr Nang but I should have known better.  The south east Asians, and Indians for that matter, have no concept of walking anywhere.  They are genuinely baffled when you tell them that you are "just going for a walk".  

We went to the festival that night which was called Winter Sensations and consisted of one stage and only 3 DJs, but it was still brilliant fun partying away until the early hours on a beach.  The only down side was that they had absolutely no diet mixers and so we had to have Sang Som with soda water and lime.  They only gave us about 3 wedges of lime in our bucket even though we asked for a lot.  I had to go back to the bar and take a full cup of lime wedges in an attempt to make it drinkable.  Before leaving for the festival Mr Nang told us to be careful, only have one or two drinks, make sure to come home early and we were to wake him so he knew we were home safe.  This man was fast becoming our adopted Thai dad.

The next day was another spent lounging at the beach.  It was very hot which wasn't helping the hangover and so we had a long lunch in one of the restaurants.  We went to bed that night having still not arranged any forward travel.  Beach life was making us lazy.

The next day we finally organised our travel to Cambodia.  We were getting a bus which would take us all the way to Siem Reap.  The bus was only costing £6 but we were advised that the reason it was so cheap was because the visa costs more from that border crossing.  It sounded a bit shady but we wanted to start our time in Cambodia in the north and so we booked it.  We made our way to the beach after that and decided to rent a kayak.  We paddled to the closest island to the beach and on the other side found a nice secluded beach.  We stayed there for a short while doing some snorkelling and playing on the swings hanging from the trees.  We then decided to try and make it to an island that was further away.  We made it about half way and then decided to stop for a wee rest.  This "rest" turned into a full on nap and by the time we woke up we had drifted quite far out.  The sun was starting to set and so we headed back to our beach to give the kayak back.  When we went back to the hut we decided to check online why the visa would be more expensive at the border we were crossing at.  This search brought back page after page explaining that there was a scam going on at this particular border.  Aparently, the bus would drop you at a restaurant a few km from the border.  There you would be told that you had to buy your visa there and that it cost $50. The visa is only $30. We read as much as we could about the scam and decided that we would tell them that we already had an E-visa.  We read about other scams going on in Cambodia just to prepare ourselves as much as possible.  There wasn't anything that terrible, nothing we hadn't already seen during our time in India.  A another early night before an early morning departure.  

 

     At Winter Sensations 

Mandalay - Myanmar

Arrived in Mandalay around 5pm after leaving Bagan at midday. We just had time to have dinner and then wevwent to see the moustache brothers perform at their house.  The 'moustache brothers' were a comedy trio consisting of two brothers and one cousin.  Par par lay and Lu zaw served 6 years in prison at a hard labour camp for telling a joke about the military regime government at a performance at the house of the leader of the opposition.  They were eventually released in 2007 but unfortunately Par Par Lay died in 2013 due to lead poisoning from the water in the prison. The show still continues today, but only to westerners and only in English, this was part of the conditions of their release.  The performance consists of jokes about the government and also traditional Burmese dancing performed by members of Lu Maws family.  The money they raise from these daily performances goes to helping the 160 political prisoners in Burma. 

The next morning we had spent some time writing our diaries as it was drizzling. In the afternoon we took a stroll around the palace which is surrounded by a moat and a wall.  The palace had been bombed badly during the second world war as the Japanese were using it as a base.  The palace was rebuilt in the 90's and so is very much not the original palace used by the royals, this, and the fact that the entrance fee was expensive were the reasons we decided to forgo entering the palace and just walk around the outside instead. Each wall around the palace is 2km long but we only walked from the East Gate to the South Gate and back again as it was getting late.  We found a small street restaurant place which did very cheap and very tasty Indian thali and some chai.  The chai was obviously nothing on what we drank in India but still tasty all the same.  We went to a small night market after dinner which we had seen on a map in the lonely planet guide.  The market wasn't very good, it was more catering to locals but I did almost buy a pair of prescription glasses for $2 but although they were very cheap I wasn't sold on the shape of them.  Would have been good to have a spare pair though.  We went down a street which looked to be a continuation of the market but they were not selling the usual knock off clothing or jewellery but instead they were selling sex toys and blow up dolls! We made a sharp u-turn and headed back to the main street.  While at the market we bought some street food for dessert which smelt amazing.  It, unfortunately, didn't taste as good as it smelt.  It had the consistency of jelly cubes and tasted like bananas but was so unbelievably stodgy that we only managed to eat half of it between the two of us.  Our accommodation in Mandalay was of the usual standard that we could afford there.  The walls were thin and so you could hear everyone's comings and goings in the rooms next and adjacent to ours.  When I was just about drifting of to sleep the 'gentleman' in the room opposite ours did the longest and loudest fart I have ever heard! I had time to wake up, remove my ear plugs, ask Kay if that was her making that noise and it was still going! If we heard that, then I'm sure he heard us giggling uncontrollably for the next twenty minutes.   

We had spent about two hours that night trying to book a flight back to Bangkok as we had  our fill of terrible night buses.  The wifi in Burma is horrendous and so when we finally managed to make it to the payment page of the Air Asia website it we were given an error page.  Thankfully Kay's boyfriend, Andy, was able to book them for us from the UK and so the next day we went in search of a Internet cafe to print our boarding passes.  In the afternoon we took a couple of mototaxis to the bottom on Mandalay hill so that we could walk up the 1000 steps to see the sunset over mandalay.  There were some nice jewellery stalls on the way up and Kay bought a pretty jade bracelet for $1.  While up at the top waiting for the sun to set we were approached by some young student monks who asked if they could practice their English with us.  They were very sweet and asked us lots of questions about life in Scotland and our families.  One asked where our parents were and when we told them they were in Scotland they then asked if we had any brothers and if they were with us.  When we told them that our brothers we also still in Scotland they looked shocked.  They then asked how old we were, and their faces were a picture when we told them that we were 24 and 28! They burst out laughing and told us they thought we were only 16 or 17 and had been very worried that we were travelling alone.  They also asked us if we liked to listen to Westlife and told us they supported Manchester United FC but that they weren't allowed to play football while studying in the monastery.   After the sunset, we climbed back down the 1000 steps and our mototaxis were waiting to take us back to our accommodation. We went back to the Indian for the delicious thali for dinner and spent the rest of the evening sorting our luggage for the flight the next day.  Our time in Myanmar was short but sweet.  I have my reservations about travelling in a country with a government who are so corrupt but I'm glad we got to experience a country which is still so untouched by westernism, a country where the people are caring and kind and the landscape some of the most beautiful I have ever seen.  

Bagan - Myanmar

There isn't a direct bus from the golden rock to Bagan so we had to get one from there to Bago and then swap buses  and get one to Bagan.  As we approached Bagan at 4am a government official boarded our small mini bus to ensure that we all paid the $20 entrance fee into Bagan.  The town of Bagan has over 4000 temples and so this is the fee to see them all.  As we arrived at 4am we were not able to check in to our accommodation until later in the day.  The man running the guesthouse kindly let us sleep on some reclining chairs until the morning.  We only had one day in Bagan and so we needed to make the most of our day.  After a few hours kip we headed out in search of somewhere for breakfast.  

We weren't able to check in to our room until after midday and so decided to hire an E-bike and try to make our way around as many of the temples as possible.  We decided to only rent one bike and take it in turns to ride it.  Kay went first and I was in hysterics on the back as she was so terrible at steering! I think it was nervous laughter though as I was genuinely thinking we were going to crash. Luckily the first pagoda on the map was close by and so we made it to there in one piece and went for a look around.  It was then my turn on the bike and thankfully, even though I haven't ridden a bike for well over ten years I managed to get the hang of it a bit better than Kay did.  We spent the morning riding round to quite a few pagodas. We were shown secret passageways to the roofs where you could see the 4000 pagodas. Although they are very impressive, I think the fact that there are so many in such a small place is what makes it so amazing! Being shown these secret passageways obviously came at a price, and the price was being given the hard sale on whatever thing it is this person makes for a living. I bought some beautiful sand paintings from one man. They thankfully roll up quite small as there is not a lot of space in my bag now for souvenirs.  

We went for a lovely meal at a vegetarian place for lunch and when they gave us our bill they came with a plate of 'sweets'.  We have absolutely no idea what they were but they were so delicious that we ate the whole bowl! Oops! After lunch we were almost ran off the road by a young local who wanted to show us a pagoda where, if you went to the roof you could not only see all the temples, but also the river that runs through Bagan.  He claimed he wanted no money to show us this, he said he was training to be a tour guide and just wanted to practice his English. Oh, he also sold sand paintings and told us he would show us them if we liked, no obligation to buy one obviously....yeah right! We kindly told him that unfortunately we had already bought some that morning and so would definitely not be buying. Luckily for us, even knowing this he still wanted to show us the pagoda. While riding there we met some other westerners, I think from America, who were just about to enter the pagoda, and so he started the hard sale with them too.  All five of us climbed to the top, and to his credit, the view was spectacular. Afterwards he was trying to sell some sand paintings to the Americans, but he was asking so much for them, and they were almost considering buying one, so we felt we had to tell them that we'd bought two for less than half he was asking for one! If looks could kill! He was not very happy that we just ruined his sale but we didn't want them to get ripped off.  It also turned out they didn't have  as much money left as they thought they had.  

After riding around more pagodas for the afternoon we headed back to the village in search of a post office so we could buy some stamps for the postcards we had bought at one of the pagodas in the morning. We eventually managed to find it but, they had ran out of stamps! That's now in India and Myanmar that we've been to a post office to be told that they are clean out of stamps. We needed to change some of our American dollars into Burmese Kyat so we went to look for a bank, but they had all shut at 4pm.  Mission unaccomplished, we went back to the accommodation to get ready for dinner.  I spoke to some girls there who gave us a good recommendation of an Indian which did a cheap unlimited thali. Missing Indian food, and not loving Burmese food, we decided to give it a shot.  It wasn't up to our high expectations with regards to indian food but the chapattis were delicious and free flowing.  We booked a bus to Mandalay for the following day and had an early night since we'd barely slept the night before.   

Kyaiktiyo - Golden Rock

We arrived at the border at the crack of dawn and had to wait for a couple of hours at the bus station until the border actually opened.  This was our first overland border crossing and thankfully it went without a hitch and we were through and into Myanmar in no time.

We had read, while doing our research on Myanmar, that the road that takes you anywhere from the Mae sot crossing only operates on alternate days.  The traffic goes west one day and then east the following.  The lady who booked our bus ticket for us assured us that the traffic would be going in the direction we wanted when we arrived, and we took her word for it since she was herself Burmese. But no, the traffic wasn't going west until the following day, and so we were told we would need to stay the night at the border and leave the next day.  This wasn't ideal since we only had a short time in Burma and didn't really want to waste a day at the border.  

While looking for some accommodation we were approached by a taxi driver who asked if we wanted to share a car with another couple who were going to Pha-an and that the cost would be cheaper the more people were in the car.  We asked how he planned to get to Pha-an with the road being closed to traffic going west, but he advised that there was a "new road" that we could use that would get us there in only 4 hours.  We met with the couple and decided that, although we had planned to travel further than Pha-an, we would be arriving by lunch time and would hopefully be able to organise some onward travel from there.

So there is a new road, or should I say there will be a new road.  It is very much still under construction and our driver had to bride all the men at the check points to allow us through.  Despite the fact that the car was falling to pieces and our driver sang the whole way, it was one of the most beautiful drives I've ever done and showed us just how stunning Myanmar is. 

We arrived in Pha-an around lunch time and while there, for what ever reason, we got a new driver. This one had slightly better English, but only marginally really.  We were trying to explain to him that we weren't staying in Pha-an and that we needed to get to the bus station, the next thing he is jumping out of the car and flashing down some bus.  I thought, what is this guy on, I am not getting on some random bus that we have no idea where it is headed.  He got back into the car with no explanation, he then dropped the couple at some guest house that I'm sure he was affiliated with and we drove back to where we had originally swapped drivers. Myself and Kay were starting to get a bit concerned as we really needed to get a bus booked but no one seemed to understand what we were saying, we were almost considering getting Kay's 'point to it' book out! We sat and had some lunch there and then suddenly they seemed to (or we hoped anyway) understand what we needed and they managed to book us onto a bus to Kyaiktiyo (Golden Rock).  We were driven to the bus station after our lunch and, thankfully, put on the right bus.  We arrived in Kyaiktiyo late afternoon and we unceremoniously dumped at the side of the road about 15km from the base camp village of Kyaiktiyo mountain. We got moto taxis (the first, but certainly not our last) to a guesthouse we had read about online, not before the obligatory trip to another guesthouse which pays commission of course.  They somehow managed to fit myself, my huge rucksack, my day bag, my handbag and the iPad I was clutching onto for dear life onto one motorcycle.  Really wishing we had managed to get some photos of this, it must have looked some sight.  

Thankfully the accommodation we wanted had a room available so we headed into the village for dinner and to also book our bus out of there for the next day. We were only planning a week in Burma and so needed to be on the move a lot.  There isn't anything to do there apart from the golden rock anyway and so no point wasting any time.  We spoke to someone at the travel agents who told us that his brother was away and wouldn't be back until morning so we would need to come back then. We tried to buy a long skirt for Kay too, as we read in the book that women must wear a skirt, but the only thing they had in the shops were these lungi type things that everyone there wears.  We figured wrapping a shawl around our waists would do the same job and so just left it.  After dinner we sat outside the accommodation with some people who were staying there also. They had already been up the hill that day and so kindly offered us their passes, which are valid for two days, and saved us $16.  An Australian girl also informed us she wore "pants" and nothing was said.  We woke up early the next morning and after breakfast we headed down to the travel agents to book our bus to Bagan.  The latest option available was 4pm which would give us plenty of time to get to the top of Kyaiktiyo mountain to see the golden rock.  We crossed the road and got ourselves into a huge pickup which held around 70 people in the back, and off we set for the top of the hill.  It was a bit of a white knuckle ride up very steep hills and hair pin corners, but before we knew it we were just a short walk to the golden rock.  This is a small pagoda built on the top of a rock covered in gold leaf.  The rock looks like it could fall off the side of the mountain at any minute and legend has it that it is perched on a strand of Buddha's hair.  After taking a good look around and lots of photos we sat for a while in the shade to eat the packed lunch we brought with us.  This consisted of some lovely tiny tangerines and some weird bread sticks covered in an icing type thing which we bought at the market in the morning.  On the way back to the pickup stand we bought some lovely samosas and ice-cream from some vendors.  Another white knuckle ride and we were back in Kyaiktiyo village with just enough time to grab our bags and head off for our bus to Bagan. They say that a mere glimpse of the gravity defying golden rock is enough of an inspiration for any person to turn Buddhist.  It's very impressive but I must say I'm still firmly in the atheist camp. 

Bangkok - again

We arrived in Bangkok very early in the morning and took a metered taxi to our accommodation.  kay was convinced he was taking us for a joy ride and, after having a looking on the map, it was obvious the taxi journey shouldn't have taken as long as it did or cost as much as it did but hey, a couple of pound here and there doesn't do much harm.  We were too early to check into our accommodation and because breakfast was still going on in the common room we weren't allowed to do the laundry we wanted to get on with.  We went in the direction on Khao San road and had some hot chocolate to pass some time.  We went back to our accommodation but our room still wasn't ready but because breakfast was over we could do some laundry while we waited. We sat and updated our blog/diary since we were very very behind by this point - still are actually! 

We didn't venture out much this day as the weather was a bit rubbish and we wanted to do some research on Myanmar and the visa we would need. We did book a tour to the floating market and the tiger temple for the next day though.

We got up early and made our way down to the travel agents to wait for our bus to the floating market.  Once there, we were put in a gondola type thing and taken around the market.  The sellers would use some bigs hooks to pull the boat into the side so they could try and sell you stuff.  After the boat ride we were allowed some time to walk around the market to take photos or buy things. We bought a couple of things including some fruit which looked like a pear/pepper but tasted like an apple - still not sure exactly what they were but they were really tasty! We were then taken for some lunch on the way to the tiger temple. I wasn't sure I was going to enjoy it as I had been told that they drug the tigers which is why they are so tame. I am so glad that I did though because I'm now almost certain that they don't drug them.  We spent around 3 hours with the tigers, getting our photos with the adults and then we stumbled across a wee 5 month old tiger cub too which we got to sit with for a short while.  We had paid extra to be part of the exercise show, this was where they would put you in a cage and then let the tigers off their chains so you could really get to see the tigers behaving as they would in the wild, but unfortunately they were running late and we were going to miss our bus so we had to leave without getting to be part of it.  After the tiger temple we made our way back to Bangkok.  This took a bit longer than it normally should, 5 hours, as the traffic was really bad when we were coming back into the city. A couple on our trip had booked a bus to Koh Tao for that night and only just made it back in time to catch it.  

We were dropped off near khao San road and myself and Kay decided that we would go to the travel agent and see if they had any information about visas for Myanmar. She advised that she could do a same day visa for us for £40 which was a bit more than if we did it ourselves but it meant that we wouldn't need to deal with the stress of finding the embassy for 8am and potentially hanging about there for hours.  We also wouldn't have been able to get a same day visa ourselves so she was saving us another day in Bangkok.  We went back to our accommodation and collected our passports to give to her, which we would be able to collect the next night and we also booked our bus to the border for the day following that.

We spent the next day and a half just getting organised for our trip.  We needed to decide where we would go in myanmar and how we would get there.  We also had to get American dollars sorted.  They are really funny about the money that you hand over in Myanmar.  It needs to be new, crisp American dollars.  They will not accept anything that has even the tiniest flaw in it.  We picked up some new books from a great wee book store near khao San road.  I sold them some ones that we had already read and they actually ended up paying me more for my two books than I paid for the books I bought from them. They advised that If we are ever passing back through Bangkok they will buy them back off us for half the price we paid as long as they are still in a good condition. 

We left Bangkok around 4pm on an overnight bus to the Mae Sot border crossing.  I think I've said it already but the buses in Thailand are amazing. This one had complimentary water, lychee flavoured iced tea, some kind of chocolate filled roll and a massaging chair! Haven.  I've grown to really like Bangkok and I'm sure this won't be the last time we're there this trip.