Yangon 2/6/16 - 3/6/16

Last thing I did before leaving Bagan was laosai, and then the first thing (and second and third) thing I did in Yangon was also to laosai. Officially got food poisoning after a total of 5 diarrhea episode and fever in a morning. Reached the bus station and had to transfer to a cab, the drivers asked for US$12 but all we had left was US$10 worth of Kyat with us! So that's what we said and finally one nice uncle decided to fetch us with a grumpy face; he eventually smiled to us when we reach our location and I believe people here are still kind-hearted by nature. 

Still pretty early when we reach the downtown but luckily, the amazing hostel (super new and feels like the one I had in Budapest) allowed us to check in early in the morning at 6am! We even had the whole 8-men bunk to ourselves for the morning. Took a 1.5 hour nap before the diarrhea strikes, along with a thrumming headache and feverish body. Spammed cold shower twice and eventually got rid of the headache and fever! Super awesome feeling to cure it in the very morning it hits. But the diarrhea continues even after we left for the Aung San market for brunch (no choice, ate a little bit of the noodle soup I ordered so I can eat the medicine). The painful sun didn't help with my initial fever but thankfully, clouds came soon after and fever didn't return. 

Wanted to take the circle train but figured it was too shabby when we arrive (and no seats!) so we decided to give the potentially treacherous 3-hour ride a miss. 

This was it, and the inside is just typical of those you see in Bollywood films or what you'll expect of the developing country (not for tourist anyway) 

Chilled at a tea house just so I can visit the toilet, and then it's onward to Shwedagon pagoda. 

Super huge iconic complex of Myanmar but the templed out effect from Bagan lingered. We stayed barely more than an hour 

Also, gods are by the day of the week and which one you worship depends on which day you're born in. This is mine! And started calculating for Pung and Phua as well. Wednesday babies got to be sure if they are born in the morning or the afternoon though 

Pretty impressive place but way too many tourist traps; had to scheme our way through their extortion of US$1 per pair of slippers deposited, and ran away from a "guide" that insisted we follow him around then asked for tips. Back to hostel after that because we're all just too sick (me, literally) and tired (them, literally). 

Chilled in bunk until Kaung came to pick us up for dinner! 

Chilling is still the way to go. Especially so after falling sick

Finally fulfilling his 15 years promise to bring me around Yangon. Ate super delicious street pork vendor despite my stomach upset and no regrets. One of the best street food I've ever had. BBQ food was pretty legit but I didn't eat much after a run for the toilet. 

Before dinner, Pung wanted to try this so I tried one as well. Guess nothing can further upset my tummy eh. Not as nice and crispy as it looks but still rather tasty! Don't fancy the lingering after taste though 

The singularly most awesome street food vendor on our trip. Even Brandon tried some of the weird intestine he thought he never would 

Went on to the Vista rooftop bar after for an amazing night view of the Shwedagon pagoda all lit up. Was supposed to see one of their mainstream bars after but Brandon was feeling unwell (so was I) so we decided to retire for the night. 

Still got a rather nice view of the pagoda at night; photo goes it zero justice 

Woke up three times for the toilet over the night and decided to just wake up at the last time. Chilled awhile in the morning before we left for brunch at a famous dim sum place. Also met with some horrendous morning traffic, from it we figured the most important thing in Yangon is your hand, whether to cross the road or to drive your car through the traffic, waving of hands is of utmost importance; this is in contrast to the horning more commonly used in other parts of Myanmar (but yea, horn still exists here definitely). And Kaung later told us that Yangon banned motorcycle (only cops have it), and it's because of the notorious bike gang of the grandson of the Juanta who rape and kill at night. 

Tim Sum with a Burmese twist

Brunch was pretty delicious and damn filling. We then went to his grandma's place to check out the local life and his mum was there too! Treated us to some mangos, local desserts, and some drinks; took some photos and then off we go to try out some spicy noodles from another ethnic group of Myanmar. 

Local delicacy! And mind you, they are home made! 

This may look harmless but wow, my ass would have suffered if I didn't restrain myself cos of the already bad stomach 

And spicy indeed, we severely underestimated its potency; good thing we were all too full to order more. And then it's time to bid goodbye; we got back to the hostel to chill and wait for our taxi, and then it's off to fight the traffic to the airport again. 

And thanks my brother, for being an awesome host. I'll be back again someday! 

Sitting down by the balcony to smoke our last stick of banana cigarette, this concludes the last of our trip. At this very moment, we all want to go home but I'm sure in months to come, we'll look back and start missing the many stories we have lived to tell... 

Bagan 31/5/16 - 1/6/16

Arrived 3 hours after what was originally planned (and US$25 more each) but still managed to check in at a reasonable timing, booked our next bus, settled down, and went out for dinner. Retired for the night early thinking we're gonna wake up for sunrise. Insomnia meant I only manage to sleep after 1pm, but somehow managed to wake up at 4am. Didn't hear any rain so went out to check; used the toilet and I came out to a thunderstorm! So no more sunrise and the other two slept in, and me... Insomnia once again. Didn't sleep for the rest of the night until the other two woke up at 7am, we then had breakfast, check out, and left for our temple visits. 

Orange, Red and Blue ranger, roll out! 

First part of the self-guided tour was rather nice, even met a nice local in charge of one of the temples, Soe Naing, who brought us up to the roof of the temple. Bought a painting from him and then we left for lunch. 

First temple just round the corner from our guesthouse has this huge golden dome; every year there's a ceremony for devotees to apply gold paper onto the dome. It's sort of under construction now though (so what you see is straw) 

These random brick style temples are everywhere! 

And this LOL also common everywhere HAHAHA

Nice even from the inside

And that's our "guide" who owns this temple (or so he says). But cool that he invited us up to the roof and pointed out some of the prominent temples in the region and also gave us a briefing on the history 

Met fellow NUS recent graduate Songlin and Chengling from environmental studies, the latter was on a conference tour and stayed in Yangon for the past two weeks! So we traveled around and just so happen we left our map at the lunch place so we just followed them to a few more pagodas, two of which we climbed up, the latter of the two offered such a stunning view we stayed on for quite a whole despite the heat. 

This one we went past

and this one we climbed

For this view

And this "Lion King" feeling

And this is us less Songlin. Somehow there were more to see but less photos were taken; guess we were all too excited by the vast horizon of spiritual structures (or perhaps just templed out) 

I must say Bagan did not disappoint even though Pung got pretty templed out (just way too many temples here) mid-day. I stand with my point that the city is amazing when we have an overview, and no individual pagoda can wrestle the impressive macro view it offers; for this, perhaps some day I'll return just for the hot air balloon view during the peak season! 

Sugar cane and 100plus was our reinforcement (salvation, really) and then we bid goodbye soon after. Washed up and we're ready to leave for our final city...

Bus was less impressive than the previous JJ Express though 

Inle Lake 30/5/16 - 31/5/16

Bus was so comfortable I almost didn't wake up through the trip at all until three big guys suddenly came onto the bus and demanded 12500 Kyat each for entrance fee. The sky was still dark, and it felt like they were just short of a gun in their hand. 

And this, was the biggest running joke of our trip: 土匪s. A pity I didn't get a photo of it 

Reached our destination soon after and received news of my surprisingly good results; good start to the day! 

Took a name card from one of the guys who pestered us once we got off the boat and I must say the people here are really trying to help, albeit with their own agendas (nothing harmful anyway) and we would later on employ his service eventually. Dropped our bags at the hotel since it's too early to check in, headed out for breakfast which was local Shan noodle with 油炸糕 (and they pronounce it like how we say it in hokkien), perhaps the oil was more unhealthy but it was definitely more tasty. 

Wonderful breakfast ordered by our friendly guide of the day (the guy who pestered us). Shan noodle is a simple but tasty food, apt as a breakfast. The meat is actually 肉丁 and I believe it's from the can like we have in Singapore haha. Cost price: $0.20 at most. 

Left for our boat trip into the Inle Lake after breakfast. 

View from a bridge near our hotel! The red building at the top left corner of this photo features the Inle Star Hotel, our accom for the night (no air con! But was cold enough cos Inle is, well, a lake) 

Off we go! 

Caught their Kungfu fishing man along the way (he even held this position for quite awhile for me to get this photo of him). Journey was long but surprisingly enjoyable: peaceful except the engine noise and we just kept watching the dragonflies chasing us down effortlessly and zipping in and out of our boat, all against the backdrop of rolling mountains far far away. A huge lake indeed. 

After 1.5 hour of speeding through the lake, we reached the attractions: lotus fibre fabric weaving, silverware making, and tobacco making. 

Nothing really spectacular, not even their field of lotus and the extracting of lotus manage to make us really interested (the price tag for the end result wasn't worth it for us too). Evidently, sun was strong. 

This was perhaps the only highlight for the morning: organic cigarettes. Pung and I would go on to smoke about one of it a day (the banana flavour one has this surprisingly crisp finish so really nice on the throat). Highly unhealthy though. 

A pagoda, lunch at a restaurant on the lake, and then a monestry before we head back for land. 

Lunch on one of the stilt-house restaurants! And that's our very friendly guide looking all honest (he is la actually haha) until he opens his mouth to expose his dark tainted teeth, result of the betal nuts (doesn't smoke or even drink though) which is very very common in this country. 

Came back, check in, and then rested for an hour before we headed out to the winery vineyard with a tuktuk. 

Chilling as we always do 

And the view ain't too bad too! Beyond the "prosperous" quay is endless field of green. Calm amidst the bustle 

Wine was really fresh but food was nothing impressive. Came back and we retired for the night early. 

Not in season, not in production. But we still made it for a tour around the factory. 

Wine before storm

And this is us drinking before dust

Next morning we woke up early in hope of taking a morning bus to Bagan but miscommunication the day before led to the receptionist not booking our bus ride the day before and they were all sold out by the time the mistake was found. We decided not to wait 12 hours for the next 11-hour overnight bus and took a gamble. So we asked for a bus ticket to Mandalay and hoped for the best after the 8-hour journey. Alas, after a relatively uneventful minivan ride, we reached our previous city to find that all available bus to Bagan have been sold out and the next one possible is an overnight one at 930pm. Our gamble failed but we found a nice taxi uncle who followed us around and bringing us to different bus companies in hope of finding a bus for us; and I choose to believe he did it purely to showcase the good side of Myanmar (for the fact that he asked if Myanmar and its people are nice while we were walking around). We got desperate and asked if he wanna drive us to Bagan, half jokingly, but he says no problem! He even discounted his initial offer from US$30 to US$25. Pung thought he might have knew we would not be able to find a bus right from the start but I chose to believe he had purely good intentions from the start. 

I've learnt to be scheming and reject local drivers who swarm to you once you alight from your transport but now I've learnt that many a case, a polite answer (or rejection) does you no harm, in fact, most of them harboured truly good intentions and just want to help, especially in this region that seems to be underrated for their service. Perhaps biased views are set when we associate disorder with less development, but this trip really changed my views of so many common misconception we have of our distant neighbors... 

And back to the road, it was an arduous journey, most painful of which is our butt. Things would have been better if the driver's wife didn't follow! But their humble love (he did forget about his wife and tried to drive off without her on two occasions though haha) and the driver's earnestness defeated these flaws and I truly felt that he deserves our money; I would have gladly gave him his original quotation of US$30 if we're not on a tight budget. A funny incident also happened when one of the bridge along the way was flooded by the heavy flow of the river following the earlier storm! We thought we would be straddled while we see the tall buses drive into the stream of river with difficulties but thank goodness there was another small road for small vehicles. But that leads us to a wooden bridge... which, honestly, doesn't seems like it'll hold the weight of a car with 5 people inside... And then there was a jam while we were in the middle of the bridge. And then Brandon started to comment about how there might be a guy asking for "entrance fee" at the end of the bridge. Haha. And in the midst of fearing for my life, we broke out in laughter. The driver couple laughed as well, albeit probably at their own jokes about our situations. 

And this epitomizes our journey... Haha 

After a treacherous 4.5 hours, we finally reached our next destination, Bagan. 

Mandalay 28/5/16 - 29/5/16

Way more backwards than the previous cities we've visited: when we landed, it was just barren land throughout, into the city and not much high rises. What makes it really "undeveloped" is that we only saw two traffic lights throughout our first day here! Imagine the chaos. It's no wonder our hotel reception had such a huge reaction when we ask if we can rent a car to drive on our own. I'm even wondering if the cycling tour suggested by lonely planet is a suicide mission. Road junctions are battle royales of who has the bigger car and stronger bumper, and who inched forward more; at night, it's worse without the street lamp, but the high beam from practically every car makes even us the passengers giddy, how in the world to drive in such condition?!! But fate has it that Brandon will fall sick and we'll be much less adventurous; hiring a driver with his car was pretty reasonable considering our situation and so that's what we did. And freaking lucky we got it as well: the climb up to Mandalay hill looks tough, plus the heat, torturous I would imagine. But that's not it, we were denied entry at the top of the hill when they say our berms are too short! Imagine if we had climbed up all the way to be rejected at the doorstep up the pagoda to see the peak's view, I would have burst into flame...

So we headed to our next location: Royal Palace

And the previous photo was taken on top of this: the Watch Tower! Haha our watch has began...

Honestly, I forgot the name of this temple but the facade that you're seeing: pure wood. The design on the outside: hand carved. 

Close up on the art work. This is the work of a few hundred years ago, mind you! 

Also, found this handmade portrait of Mandalay at the outside and immediately bought a piece for US$1, used it as a postcard, and it's one of the best I've ever had! 

Next was another temple that I've once again forgotten the name but we swapped the charred outlook for this bleached white one. Cemetery? Looks like, but it's actually...

"The World's Biggest Book"

This is one "page", there over a thousand of such "pages" around. To boast as the world's biggest book wasn't an exaggeration, really

This. 

After the black and the white, it's time for the gold! One of the most frequented temple by the locals (once again, name is but a social construct) 

Evidence of its popularity 

Explored a few famous pagoda/monestry before and after the hill before we finally reached Amarapura for the U-Bein bridge. 

But first, this dubious looking corn tempura, along with another equally dubious looking coconut was our company before the sun set...

Sun set was blocked by a cluster of clouds but effect at the end of the day was pretty amazing still. 五步一照 was the situation on the bridge. 

Just one of the many awesome shots from this place...

Dinner at some Chinese restaurant and then it's back to hotel for the night. 

Breakfast next day was forgettable, then we headed out with the same driver to see gold leave making, marble statue carving, delicate sarong making, and wood carving; before we went back to Amarapura to watch rows of monks queue up to get their alms and proceed for lunch. 

Pounding them gold to make them into leaf form 

Marble carving (was kinda boring actually if not for these unfinished work of hilarity 

Rushed down to see these monks queueing up for lunch. Was still wondering what "watching monks eat lunch" was about on the brochure. Look at that young monk's face of impatience 

and one last (not-so-nice) view of Mandalay before we head for lunch 

We then went on to a few other pagoda before we had our own lunch. Lunch was awesome with local style food that was a little too oily and salty but overalls delicious. 

Really surprised when this whole set came cos I've only ordered a "pork curry with rice" they didn't even mention anything about it having a whole set of side dishes. Apparently, this is traditional Burmese food served to guest. Not sure about the "set meal" thingy but the individual dishes really do bring back memories of times in Kaung's house during our younger days, where his mum will whip out these delicacies! 

Pung had the Myanmar beer while I tried this cos I thought we'll have more chance at the Myanmar one but not this after we leave the city... But... It's not even worth a try; I regretted after my first sip. Haha 

We then took a boat to an ancient city, before boarding a horse cart which will bring is around the small city under the hot sun. 

"Ha!" That's the command our horseman gave to direct the horse forward. And that also became our little inside joke to go-ahead with plans or directions. Ha! 

Old temples really have their own charm but the heat was really too much to bear both on our body and our feet (have to walk bare foot for the temples). 

Charming, aren't they? 

Many are destroyed, some are restored, some are not

Some really nice ones though 

Oh and did I mention this was once a defense point so it was walled up all around! 

And this huge one was the last one before it got one too many for us 

So time to bid out loyal servant goodbye! Because of him (or her) we were spared the agony of walking under the excruciating heat and on the baked ground. And it's also time now to... Ha! 

Settled for some sugar cane and coconut before we ended the trip and headed back on the boat an hour early. We all knocked out on the car until we reach the foot of Mandalay Hill, visited another temple and then up we go to the hill on our second attempt. 

View from the hill. Much nicer than the previous one. Actually, from my memories, it was very underwhelming. But wow, two months on, I'm madly missing it man. It's not like I don't know why, but wow. It's starting to make the additional 1000 Kyat (above the K10000 collected at the start of the day for all the archeological sites) worth it (Phua was so angry at this additional US$1 though haha). But at that point in time with the unbearable heat, the icon of Mandalay turned out to be the "one too many"...

We were two hours too early and the sky looks way too cloudy for sunset, plus our bodies are really pretty exhausted by the heat so we called it a day rather early. Returned back to the hotel to chill before we headed out for dinner at the nearby Chinese market, where we found nice dark sauce noodles. 

Awesome parting gift. Even got to practice our Chinese after a long while cos, well, everyone's pretty much Chinese here! 

Set off for our overnight bus and it was a pleasant surprise: swapped the sleeping bed for business class chairs plus in-bus entertainment! Watched a movie halfway and knocked out pretty soon after...

And lastly, here's our business class seat!