Kat & Chris meet an unusual Monk...

So after my last superlative filled blog post we got sick, really sick. So sick that we couldn’t get out of the room in Mandalay without waves of nausea and dizziness hitting us but after a few days of resting we felt well enough to try some sightseeing again. We took a ferry ride to Mingun an hour away from Mandalay where the world’s biggest stupa would have stood if it had gotten finished and they have the 3^rd largest bell in the world, as well as one of Buddha’s footprints (it had seashells for toes) to marvel at! We had a great time and the ferry ride along the Ayeyarwaddy River was really lovely as we sat on deck chairs watching the river villages and hills pass by. The trip proved to us that we were finally feeling better so that evening we caught a night bus to Inle Lake.

Never in all of SE Asia have buses felt as bad as they have over here, maybe it’s seemed worse because we were ill. Recently a new express highway was completed between Yangon and Mandalay and all journeys have been sped up by a few hours but leave at the same time as they used to and they’re nearly all night buses. So every night bus we’ve taken arrives in darkness at 3am or 4am. The reason for large number of night buses is so that locals don’t miss a day of work and we’ve only ever been on a bus with one or two other tourists so that does make sense but it can be painful being bundled out of a bus half-asleep trying to find a guest house and then feeling terrible for the rest of the day.

Inle Lake was fantastic. We spent 4 days there relaxing in a nearby ‘backpacker’ town enjoying the slightly cooler climate after Mandalay’s sweltering heat and smog. We took a boat around the lake and watched fishermen fish and locals transporting goods on canoes, visited lake villages and pagodas as well as the monastery of jumping cats (sadly we were too late to see the monks make their friends the cats jump). The sunset was the absolute best thing about the day as we raced to get home before dark we were treated to clear blues, bright pinks, hazy oranges and a thick oily looking lake. The boat trip was actually a glorified shopping trip (see first China post for Great Wall shopping trip terror!) but it didn’t matter as there was no pressure to buy anything, tea was provided at each stop and it was nice to take a seat and watch people going about their lives on the lake.

After Inle Lake we didn’t have too much time left before our flights so we travelled south to Bago. Naturally the bus arrived at 3am and the town was in darkness. Only one hotel was open so we didn’t really have much choice! After a few misgivings on our behalf about Bago being a scruffy little town we hopped onto a motorbike with a local guide and got shown the sights whilst passing through rural villages. It turned out to be a great day. We met a Monk who is revered for being a 17 foot long and 1 foot wide Burmese python. Watched 1500 Monks line up and eat breakfast, which was more interesting than it sounds and saw many glitzy temples and pagodas.

From Bago we travelled to the Golden Rock which is one of the holiest sites in all of Myanmar. It rained a lot as we arrived but we got ourselves settled into a lovely little bungalow at the foot of the hill where we had a view of the rock. We waited for the rain to clear and headed up the hill with 30 other people crammed into an open top pick-up truck for the steep 40 minute drive through lush rainforest followed by a steep walk to get to the Golden Rock. From a distance coming out of the hazy clouds it looked like a giant potato with a Stupa sticking out of it but as we got closer it became clear it was actually golden and not a muddy brown colour. The rock balances precariously on a cliff edge and it maintains this position because strands of Buddha’s hair were laid to rest there. With all the mist swirling about and devotees chanting it had quite a spiritual atmosphere. The truck ride back down was like a rollercoaster, the brakes worked but the driver didn’t feel he needed them as it was the last trip of the day.

We’re now back in Yangon waiting to get on our flights to Sri Lanka tomorrow. It’s certainly getting to peak tourist season as all of the grotty guesthouses were full when we arrived! Myanmar has been a fantastic place, not so much for the sights but more for the people who are so warm and welcoming. In fact it’s one of the first places on this trip that we feel like we’re moving on too soon, but maybe if we hadn’t been ill we would have been contented.

Hope all is well at home. We’re getting very excited about our return!

Love Chris & Kat xxx

Myanmar – The world’s longest, biggest and tallest...

Cooking at Silom's

The week we spent in Bangkok was great. We did everything we didn’t get round to doing the first and second time we were here. The best thing was Silom’s Thai Cooking school which we have wanted to do for a long while as we love Thai food so much! Jim Thompson’s Teak house was another thing we had missed off doing previously but have now seen and enjoyed. The main reason for heading back to Bangkok besides the food was to secure a Myanmar visa which was easy enough to do luckily as we already had our flights booked.

We’ve been in Myanmar for 7 days now and I absolutely love it. The people are so friendly and genuinely seem very happy for us to be visiting. It’s not empty friendliness either like you get in so many other South-East Asia countries where someone’s only reason to talk to you is to try to get you in their transport or to sell you something. Don’t get me wrong that still happens but a lot of other people who have no monetary interest in us come up to say hello, or just wave and smile as we pass them. I suppose at the moment we’re still somewhat of a novelty which I wasn’t expecting seeing as tourism figures have been going up and up in the past few years.

We flew into Yangon and spent a day walking around the busy former capital seeing various temples and beautiful decaying colonial buildings before catching a night bus to Bagan. We didn’t manage to get much sleep on the night bus and we arrived earlier than expected at 4am! Being half-asleep we got some coffee before heading to a guesthouse and whilst sat down saw the monk’s alms procession passing through the streets at dawn.

Bagan is famous for its huge array of temples which from high up stretch out as far as the eye can see. For 2 days we biked around the temple sites which reminded us a little bit of Ayutthaya and Sukhothai’s crumbling temples in Northern Thailand although much less built up. A Highlight of Bagan was seeing the Ayeyarwaddy River and the village a few minutes from our guesthouse where it seemed like the busy tourist town we were staying in no longer existed as locals washed in the river, kids played in the sand and animals roamed freely amongst the wooden huts. Later that same night we ate at a place called Weather Spoon’s that was owned by a Burmese guy who 2 years ago lived in St George in Bristol working for one of the hot air balloon companies. Small world!



Bagan Panorama



There are no large overseas chains of stores or restaurants in Myanmar due to economic restrictions in place with America and other countries stopping them from investing. Whilst I love the 7/11 stores that are everywhere in Thailand for cheap(er) beer it’s nice to just be dealing with little local stores, sometimes set up outside of people’s homes. It reminds us a bit of Nepal which only has a fake Starbucks nearby the Everest trek starting point.

Moving on from Bagan we got a daytime bus to Mandalay. We once again hired bikes (yes we’re a little bit saddle sore now) and cycled out to the nearby town of Amarapura where the world’s longest teak bridge is. The bridge is built over a lake with very pretty surroundings and it was buzzing with locals, monks and nuns all the time we were there making it all the more interesting.

Applying Gold Leaf

Cycling back to Mandalay we visited a 2000 year old gold Buddha that has for over a hundred years had gold leaf (small wafer thin sheets of gold) pressed upon its body by male worshipers adding an extra 6 inches to the Buddha’s body. Nearby we got to talking with a monk who had a good grasp of English but wanted to improve it further, he told us he’d seen an American movie recently and asked us what the word ‘shit’ meant. Hollywood you have a lot to answer for...

After a brief afternoon rest we visited part of the ‘world’s largest book’ which is stored in two pagodas. The very impressive Sanda Muni Pagoda we went to is made up of hundreds of tiny stupas which each shelter a four foot high marble slab engraved with the text. When read in the correct order these marble slabs make up the 15 books of the Tripitaka (Religious texts). We also saw a 900-tonne Buddha carved out of a single piece of marble before climbing up Mandalay Hill to get a view of the surrounding area before the sun went down.

World's Tallest Buddha

A detour for us was Monywa where the saw the World’s tallest standing Buddha at 424ft – completely unnecessary but quite enjoyable! There was also a huge reclining Buddha at 312ft which had pigeons nesting in its nostrils and whose left buttock was a doorway.  The other main site nearby to Monywa is Hpo Win Daung which is a collection of 492 Buddha Caves that have been carved into the limestone hills mainly during the 14^th century. It’s amazing the amount of detail that has gone into each cave, most feature at least one limestone Buddha, sometimes there’s 7 or 8, and a handful  of the caves also have wonderful murals painted in them.

We travelled back to Mandalay this morning by bus through heavy flood waters / rivers that many smaller vehicles couldn’t get through. The monsoon season’s not been too bad so far, only once or twice have we had to wade through flooded streets!

Love Chris & Kat xxx