Backpacking

Mandalay. What a town. We left the beautiful garden capital of Yangon the other day and have been touring around the last seat of Royalty of Myanmar for a couple of days. We had been following the Lonely Planet guide book to find some restaurants and shops and such for the past few days but had little luck. Either places had moved or they were closed. The Lonely Planet redeemed itself though with an author's choice pick for an evening restaurant. A streetside chapati (wheat flat bread) stand. Ohmigod! These things are awesome. The first night in town we went to eat and I had 3 chapatis, chicken curry and dal and a tamarind dipping sauce. Jen had some fried veggies, dal. tamarind sauce and a double fried egg with hers. It was fantastic but it was too much even for me. Last night, we went looking for a place to eat but did not see anywhere that really grabbed our eye so back to the chapati stand we go!

With slightly more self-control, I stayed to only 2 chapatis and Jen had 1. We were getting up very early the next day to ride to the Mandalay Hill that rises NE of town right out of the plains, so we packed up some dal and 2 more chapatis to go. We are probably going to go there for supper again tonight, and likely when we pass through again. A good enough reason to come to Mandalay...for sure!

But there are many more. Today for example, armed with our trusty, and not very rusty, push bikes, complete with fenders, we rode out to Mandalay Hill at 6 am to watch the sunrise. We were able to get there just before sunrise and watch it come up as we climbed the many stairs on foot. At the top we rested and soaked in the beautiful view. After that we decided to head down to the ferry that would take us up and across the Ayerawaddy River to Mingun. A village that has several old temples and what would have been the world's largest Pagoda but it remains unfinished. The world's largest (90 tons) intact, ringing bell is also there. We decided to take some back roads along Mandalay's streets and found ourselves bumping along the alleyways and side streets of the port and sawmill district. The smell of teakwood dust in the air was actually quite nice. We did receive many quizzical looks as I think this was not "typically" part of the tourist route. We looked quizzically back though as we were pretty lost a few times. We got to the Jetty with lots of time to spare so the boat captain pointed us to a tea shop across the street.

At the shop, we created quite a stir as the young boy who came to take our order did not speak english and he was very excited to try to decipher our hand gestures and english. He called to the shop owner who understood we wanted 2 cups of tea only. A few minutes later, a plate of samosas arrived. Yep, that's exactly what we thought. Our burmese/english and hand gestures are getting worse. But it turns out these are put out each morning to the customers and you pay for what you eat. The tea showed up a few minutes later. We were able to understand the price so for us, it was a huge victory! As we left they all were giggling at our "cei zu be" and "mingalahba"'s.

While waiting for the boat to be ready, we watched as the very busy river port was alive and bustling with trishaw drivers, loaders, goats, and pretty much everything else you would imagine. There are many "rustic" trucks in Myanmar and they still have a hand crank start and huge open flywheel on the other side. The trucks are able to haul quite a lot but don't appear to have much for a braking system. One fellow had sand on the back and it was so heavy that he could not get up the little hill to the street on the first try. To keep him from rolling down the hill, a young boy runs beside him to throw rocks under the back wheel to hold him in place! After he went up, a man with hand pulled rickshaw came down the hill hanging on for dear life as his massive load of 45 gallon drum barrels tried to push him into the river. Pretty exciting to watch over tea!

We got to Mingun with little effort and were instantly greeted by many vendors trying to get us to pay for them to guide us, tell us which shop was theirs or buy one of the many souvenirs we had already seen elsewhere. They must have been to Vietnam for training because they used every trick in the book. Ask questions about you to build a relationship, send their really cute kids to visit with you while you walk and failing that, pretty much follow you till you bought something. It was here we decided to take the 174 steps and free scramble to the top of the Mingun Paya ruins to escape. It was very peaceful. In light of this new found peace and quiet, we sought out further refuge from vendors. So we went walking through their village which is off the tourist track then stopped for tea at a small local shop at the village edge.

After the hubbub of the vendors died down, we headed back out onto the road where Jen said, " We should take a Ox cart ride back to the boat". I couldn't have been more suprised to hear those words come out of my wife's mouth. Animals in a harness, made to do work for humans, and us riding not moving under our own power. I could not believe it. It was a lovely, bumpy ride that was made to feel very authentic as the ox pooped as they walk only inches from the edge of the cart. Thank goodness for the clever design.

After seeing the rest of the sights we went for a beer at a small restaurant overlooking the river. Three young boys greeted us upon our arrival and promptly made their way to clean up a chair for us. After we sat, one of them who spoke very good english got us a beer and the Lonely Planet phrasebook ( which has had very few phrases correct when I use them) actually had one right for once. The boy saw that we wanted peanuts too and he understood! Two language barriers broken in one day. Definitely time to quit while we were ahead. The boys, Toos, his cousin Cho Cho, and friend Kyaw Zin, all started talking to us and were quickly telling us stories. How at 12 years old, they were going to Mandalay University to study engineering. It was fun so they laughed at our burmese and visited with them back and forth for quite some time. At one point, they came back with a cigarette and offered it to us. This wasn't the first time we were offered cigarettes by kids while eating in Mandalay! We also had a small lunch before leaving. At the end of it all, we could not help but pay the exorbitant price they charged us because it had been so entertaining. We were also likely the only customers that day as ours was the last boat to leave the shore.

All that before 1 pm today. Following this hectic schedule, we are heading for home or a beer station before returning to have chapatis again tonight for supper. If you weren't sure, Mandalay is a very cool place.

After settling back in Bangkok and finding a fabulous new guest house (Roof View Place). I got sick again with Traveller's Diahhrea. We decided to hang out in Bangkok until Wed. morning (March 12). We took the train to Kanchanaburi and found a great little guest house on the Kwai River. Smells and food was still causing my stomach to revolt so we played it easy the first day....heading down to the Bridge over River Kwai and having a light supper.

The next day we decided that the best way to beat the heat is to ride bikes and find museums that were cool. We were both really interested in the Burma-Thai Bridge that the POWs built during WWII so we headed to that museum first. The museum was impressive and we really began to understand how atrocious the situation was. The POWs were building a railway with an impossible schedule, in impossible terrain with horrible conditions. In fact, the workers in the most dire circumstances were the Burmese, Malay and Thai workers who were promised contracts and improved working conditions. The cemetary adjacent to the museum was very well kept and many POWs from Britain, Australia and the Netherlands were buried there.

We took our pedal bikes (they don't move very fast but they are sure better than walking) across the river into the country side to visit the Chong Kai Cemetary. We had our PB and banana sandwiches (we finally found wholewheat bread!) and picnic along the river. We were finally entertained by a group of Asian tourists as they cruised by on a Karaoke Barge! We took that as a cue to get going.

We finished the day at the JEATH War Museum. An interesting collection that Monks put together. The museum covered everything from prehistoric Thailand to Miss. Thailand costumes! We felt like that was full day!

The next day we spent on a tour. We are somewhat opposed to tours but decided that it may be the best way to see several things out of town in a short period of time. The other travellers were Kiwis living in Australia and were great to hang out with. We stopped at Erawan Lake National Park. We had until 11:30 to see the falls and swim. The hike to the falls involved 7 different levels ending at 2200m high. We kept hiking as the park wasn't very busy and we thought we could find a pool that was empty (our philosophy is to get away from Tourists - even though we recognize we may actually be one of them!). We ended up swimming at a few levels. The pools are filled with fish and they are definitely hungry as little and big fish (piranha - as Ted, the fisherman, believes them to be) started biting at our bodies. Some of the fish were at least 12 inches long! We decided there were just love bites and tried to igore them. We knew we were tough and couldn't be scared off by fish.

We felt the pressure to get going so we descended and half way home we were thrilled to see monkeys on the path! We took a few pictures and the whole family came out to play on the handrail. We knew that the monkeys were proned to steal things but we didn't have any food so we made an attempt to get past them. Ted was first. He looked the monkeys in the eye, and all of the sudden he had one on his arm and two nipping at his ankles! I freaked out (as did the Kiwis behind us) and ran up as two monkeys were biting at my ankles! We narrowly escaped them and survived intact! It was a close call but once again defended ourselves against these vicious beasts!

We spent the night hanging out with the Kiwi couple, Jamie and Hannah.

We were really excited to head out the next day as we rented a motor bike and packed another picnic and headed back to Erawan Lake. We really wanted to hang out without time restraints. Ted has become a very proficient driver! We had a blast that day...no monkey encounters but the fish still thought we were yummy. We had an awesome picnic and decided to visit an Elephant Refuge Park on the way home. We did meet some Elephants but disappeared before the big Bus Tour arrived.

We really enjoyed our trip out to Kanchanaburi! We also found out that our Burma Visas arrived in Bangkok so we headed home the next day (Sunday March 16th) to pick them up and enjoy St. Patty's day in Bangkok at the carnival (Khao San Road)!

We are far from the sandy beaches of Phu Quoc! We headed back into Saigon yesterday morning and were on the road for 12 hours. We took a shuttle to the bus stop in Dong Doung (Phu Quoc) to board a bus to the the ferry terminal to get on a ferry (the SuperDong - no kidding!) to get a motorcycle taxi to a bus in a back alley to take a 6 hour ride to the bus station in Saigon to catch another taxi to our Guest House! Yeah, that is what we thought!

We were so proud of ourselves for finding a way to get back to Saigon in one day by buying two tickets from this Travel Agent on the island. We were less impressesd when we got off the ferry. We were told that we would have transportation to the bus. However, when we got off the ferry we met a couple from Sweden who also had the same tickets we did. Apparently, the "private" bus company pays motorcycle taxi guys to transport us to a back alley! We didn't even have time to think and collect our thoughts before we were manhandled into a mini-bus - into the back seat where four of us sat (with our feet on top of our backpacks) with limited air conditioning and Vietnamese music for 6 hours! The driver thankfully turned off the music when we asked as the speakers were next to our ears! I'm not sure how familiar you are with Vietnamese music but it is best appreciated when the volume is low and in small doses! Needless to say, it is always benefical to see what you are buying before you pay!

We actually did have a nice end to our Phu Quoc trip - we went Scuba diving on Thursday. We did two good dives - the visability was limited but we did see some jelly fish and an eel and some other lovely fish! We celebrated with a hot pot that night at our funny little resort!

Today is a new day and Ted and I are ready to get back to Thailand! We have had a blast in Vietnam but the amount of motorcycles is beyond me! Today we went and had fresh bread (and our first bagel) at a nice little coffee shop with a mango shake and Vietnmese drip coffee. We headed to search out a massage school. The massage therapists are all blind! It was fun! The sweet girl that did my massage was only 17 years old! We are going to search out one more good restaurant before heading to the airport!

Tam Biet!

Well from Jen's last entry, we headed out for a 2 night/ 3 day stay on Ha Long bay and Cat Ba Island. We rode on a bus for about 3 hours to the port of Hai Phong City. Along the way we stopped for a bathroom break about halfway out at a workshop for handicapped children. See Jen smiling.

It was a tourist stop as every tour bus to the bay stops there to encourage shopping. We bought 2 coffee's to go and they are served in plastic bags with a straw. Pretty cool as the garbage packs up to nothing. Starbucks could learn a thing or 2.

It was cold in hanoi and even colder on Halong Bay. We boarded a junk and Jen tried to sunbathe but with cloudcover and clothes, we decided to retire indoors. The food was awesome and we had a couple of Tiger beers with a guy from Germany and his 2 friends from Spain. We enjoyed their company then we got off the boat to explore some exciting caves for about an hour before getting an opportunity to do some sea kayaking around the rocky islands. That was awesome to get out and do some activity and warm up! After the paddle, supper was served on the boad and Jen and I were given a beautiful stateroom in the all-teakwood vessel. Our room had a heater and private bathroom. We retired early as it was our first oppportunity to get warm in days.

The next day we got dropped off at Cat Ba Island National Park and rode some touring bikes and did a short trek through the jungle. It was really cool to walk and see some caves similar to those that the Vietnamese used to fight the USA in the war. Our guide also shared some knowledge of bombings in the bay and his village during the war to make it seem a bit more real. After the brief on land adventure, we got back on the boat. They served lunch on the little boat then took us to this small 100 foot wide stretch of beach to "look for monkeys sometime here" the guide said. We got off to the beach surrounded by over 100 foot high cliffs on 3 sides and water on the 4th. The boat pulled about 150 feet from shore where it sat for about 50 mins while they did dishes and Jen and I sat on a rock. The view was gorgeous.

And we were happy.

The weather was cool, breezy and cloudy when we saw the wild monkey.

We were surprised to see this kind of wildlife here.

After we quietly and awkwardly boarded the boat with our brave european companion, we headed to the main port to spend a night in a more luxurious hotel with heat. We spent the rest of the day and night in the room getting warm again and me getting over my stomach flu issues.

On the boat ride home, we saw more beautiful islands and got back to a much warmer Hanoi.

We returned to our hotel in Hanoi where we were told there were no other rooms so he was sending us some where else. 2 guys on motorbikes showed up, we threw on our big packs, small packs and grocery bags, jumped on the bag and they rode us through the busy, cramped, noisy, streets of Hanoi like a couple of locals. It was fun and the hotel was actually in a better location than the last. We also paid 3$ more for heat. Totally worth it.

Ted and I bought toques and mitts to help us survive the boat trip and tour to Halong Bay on Monday! Yep, it is that cold...only 11 degrees! We arrived on Sat. and instantly put on everything we owned - even socks (that was a first for me!). Hanoi was a ghost town on Saturday because it was the end of Tet - Chinese New Years - Happy Year of the Rat!

When we arrived on Sat. we struggled to find something open for lunch - we almost ate at the street vendors but since Ted and I were both getting over the stomach troubles and it would be our first meal in Vietnam we decided something a little less exotic may be slightly smarter. We had our first amazing cup of Vietnamese Coffee at a little cafe on Hoan Kiem Lake.

This city is noisy, fast paced and very chilly! It is really cool though. There are millions of motocylces, vespas and such whizzing around. Everyone honks to tell others to get out of the way. The town really celebrates the new year so there are a lot of red flags up and stores closed or only selling "New Years" gift baskets. We spent Sat and Sun. wandering around, drinking coffee and admiring the colonial buildings. oh, and cuddling to stay warm at night! We stayed in a little guest house that was facing the alley (no good window seals) with no heat! Every morning around 5 am you can here the old ladies chopping vegetables in the alley outside our window. We are staying in the Old Quater. A lively part of town. It is fairly easy to navigate. There aren't as many services (ie., convenience stores, internet places etc) but you can definitly feel the "socialist", french feel to this place. It certainly is "cool"! We haven't found any yoghurt but I guess if that is our biggest problem we are in good shape!

We've also had a bit of a Visa problem. We only have a 15 day visa. So we had to hand in our passports to the Guest House guys to get an Visa extension (b/c we could only get special 15 day passports in Bangkok - due to New Years). But here we find out that we need an entirely new visa and they say it takes five days! We are a bit skeptical but I guess we'll have to trust them. We have spent a lot of money to stay here - it better be worth it!

On Monday we headed up to Halong Bay for 3 days - We'll put pictures up tomorrow and update that component of the trip!