Bollywood, Festivals & His Holiness



 After some relaxation, lots of eating and resting we headed out to explore Jaisalmer fort.   From the outside it looks like a giant sandcastle; inside it is a maze of alleyways and streets, people still living inside the houses within the fort walls.  Imagine our surprise whilst exploring when we came across the filming of a Bollywood movie called Freedom.  We were hidden in one of the shops as they didn’t want us white folk in the shot, but we watched the short chase / stunt sequence being filmed.  Not sure how they get anything done as nothing is sealed off, lines of tourists waltz through the set unaware of what they’re interrupting, locals ignore the goings on, insisting on parking their scooters where they always go (even if this messes up the shot) cows wander through regularly – its just chaotic!  No smoke machines, just men with hot coals that run around the set to create the smog!  We saw the stars of the movie too, wearing questionable jumpers and leather jackets!  Where else, other than India could you stumble into a film set?!

Floating Flower Boats

After this memorable last day in Rajasthan we took a train back to Delhi, for a brief overnight stop before heading north to Haridwar, one of India’s holiest cities.  Haridwar is what we imagined India to be; set on the Ganges, a busy town, lots of begging, lots of asking for donations, lots of fake Holy Men to avoid...but scams aside, the river location makes for interesting viewing.  The main attraction of Haridwar is the evening ceremony.  Hindus come to the river to light a flower boat which they cast off down the river; offerings to the goddess Ganga.  It is lovely to see the tea lights floating along and on the river banks priests perform elaborate fire ceremonies.

Our next stop was a short journey north to Rishikesh.  This odd river town was made famous when the Beatles stayed at an Ashram here in the 60s; Ringo stating it was “just like Butlins”.  Now a mecca of yoga, ashrams and hippies, I would personally think it too busy to find your inner-peace!  Oddly, although set on the banks of the River Ganges it was surprisingly difficult to find a room with a view – we did find one, but at a price – it was opposite a temple which did a ridiculous bell and drum ceremony at 5am each day!  Our view came in handy though as we just happen to be here for Dewali (Like Hindu Christmas, a festival of lights) so that meant we could admire all the fairy lights and fireworks over the river, it smelt just like bonfire night and looked like Christmas with all the fairy lights!  The firecrackers (just bangs no light) went on till 2am which was less enjoyable!  We had a great day white water rafting in the clean holy waters north of Rishikesh.  We had a cold Holy dip in one of the small rapids and Chris entered the waters another 2 times, not quite on purpose!  I was tucked further back on the raft so avoided falling in, although it was touch and go as our raft almost flipped on one of the Grade 3+ rapids!  It was a great trip and lovely to see India’s natural beauty away from the busy cities.

Chris Trapped by a Cow in our Guesthouse
- Rishikesh

We have been in McLeod Ganj for almost a week now.  Up here amongst the mountains we don’t feel like we’re in India at all.  Here is home to the Dalai Lama, most of the population is Tibetan therefore food, handicrafts and culture is mostly Tibetan.  We have a stunning view from our balcony of the Dhauladhar Range, the beginning of the Himalayas.  It is peaceful and relaxed and we’ve enjoyed the change of pace; we’ve even been to the cinema to watch Skyfall – well, not quite a cinema, a basement with office chairs lined up and a big overhead projector!   

Whilst we’ve been here the Dalai Lama just happened to be doing a public teaching at the temple opposite his residence here, we got our passes, bought an FM radio for the translation of his teachings, took a cushion to sit on and joined the masses (his website estimates 4,000 people were there) waiting for His Holiness to arrive.  We are able to watch him walk up to the temple from his home, there is something very charismatic about the Dalai Lama, he is instantly loveable as he smiles and offers a cheeky wave to his adoring crowd.  The initial part of his teaching spoke of the importance of love for each other then he went into the understanding of actions, consequence and karma, the latter segment was discussing a sacred parchment, sadly this bit was a little lost on us!  It was a great experience though, interesting to watch the rest of his audience, lovely to see him give the teaching and to watch the monks organising the blessed tea, Tibetan bread, rice & curry for everyone attending the teaching.

 

Yesterday we decided to hike up to Triund for a closer look at the Dhauladhar Mountains.  This was a harder walk than we expected – an 18km round trip, with the trip up being continually uphill to reach an elevation of 2875ms (1100ms higher than we started!) it was hard!  But we are sure it was worth it!  The view was beautiful and the Chai at the top helped replenish our energy.  Being here has reminded us so much of Nepal, prayer flags in the trees, donkeys trekking down the paths, tea shops nestled in the hill side – it feels like our trip has done a full circle!

Only 2 weeks to go until home!

Lots of love & be seeing you soon,

Kat & Chris xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Triund View

3 Smelly Camels, 2 ‘Blue Cities’ and 1 Roger Moore

In Bundi (an excellent recommendation from Greg & Jade!) we stayed in the royal Palace’s former Elephant Stables. It was a quiet and tranquil setting right next to the palace walls, with squirrels and monkeys, naughty dogs that would sneak in and eat the families Hindu offerings, chapatti chasing cows (because you can’t use a stick on a cow to scare it away, that’s not very Hindu!) and bats flying out of the palace walls at dusk providing plenty of entertainment. We also had the best Thali of all of India so far, with unlimited refills.

Bundi is a small town in comparison to the other cities we’ve visited in India, meaning traffic’s not as bad and there’s an easy going feel to the place as well as a pretty blue hue to a lot of the buildings to appreciate. Perched up on a hill behind the town is the palace with some fantastic architecture and colourful murals. Even higher up is the impressive fort overgrown with jungle vegetation adding further to its charm. We rambled through the fort, all the while making sure we didn’t get too close to the monkeys that call it home and enjoyed some breathtaking views of ‘blue’ Bundi.

Moving on from Bundi with a ridiculous 2am train to Udaipur we arrived to one of India’s most romantic cities because of its lakeside setting and floating palace. Unfortunately the smog never really lifted whilst we were there so the views around the lake were never stunning, but if you squinted that helped! Udaipur has a busy tourist strip near the palace where the streets are clogged with wonderfully colourful Indian tat; and cows, 4x4’s and rickshaws try there damndest on the narrow roads to try and get you knocked into the stream of waste that runs parallel to them.

We took a relaxed approach to Udaipur and had a really good time there. On the first night we enjoyed watching the terribly hammy James Bond movie Octopussy which was famously shot in Udaipur over a pot of tea filled with beer – a delightful way for the restaurant to get around not having an alcohol license! The best bits were the rickshaw chases and any of the sections where you could look from the rooftop cafe and spot where it was filmed. The second night we took in an Indian dance and culture show which was fantastic, the highlight being a traditional Jaisalmer desert dance where a lady balances 10 pots on her head and dances! The third night we did a cooking school with Shashi, a lovely Indian woman who had a fantastic story of overcoming all odds to start her cooking school, making chapatti’s was my highlight (although both Kat and I kept getting told off for not rolling them correctly!). On our fourth and final full day we rode Indian Marwari horses (who have wonderfully distinctive bendy ears) through the countryside a few kilometres outside of busy Udaipur.

A long bumpy bus ride the next day took us to Jodhpur renowned for its amazing hilltop Meherangarh Fort and being called the blue city as most of the buildings are painted blue, originally denoting a higher caste (class) of people and also supposed to keep insects away. The Meherangarh Fort looked suitably imposing from the outside but inside it was fantastic as well as it had been decorated for Naomi Campbell’s boyfriend’s birthday party in colourful traditional Rajasthani lamps and sashes. We thought it was originally going to be for Dewali (the Hindu festival of light) happening in a week but were told it would never look that nice if it were left up to the Indians.

Jodhpur is also one of the four locations in India to feature the ‘Flying Fox’ a combination of zip lines that in Jodhpur’s case criss-cross the Fort’s walls. We did a sunset trip and the views were amazing of the ‘blue city’ and the Fort as we hurtled past. Also interesting to note is that the Wes Anderson movie The Darjeeling Limited was mostly shot in and around the blue buildings of Jodhpur, Bruce Wayne emerged from the well prison in The Dark Night Rises to a backdrop of the Fort and Keira Knightly made a movie called The Fall there (it was a commercial flop).



We’re now in Jaisalmer and have just returned from a gruelling 7 hours total camel ride. It sounds romantic riding a camel through the desert but in reality the camels fart a lot, instantly dispelling that notion! Also we’re now suffering very sore thigh muscles and I have a very badly chaffed ass! The camels are all real characters though. The best bit, and the romantic notions are still very much in place for this, was watching the sunset over the sand dunes and sleeping under the stars with just a duvet and pillow. The stars were amazing, only free camping in the middle of nowhere in Australia has come close. We saw well over 15 shooting stars, and the moon when it did come out was so, so bright! Sunrise was equally lovely as we were the only people around to enjoy it. All in all a good experience, if painful (we did have to come back half a day early we were so sore!).

We’ve now got two more days in Jaisalmer then we’ll be saying goodbye to Rajasthan and heading up north to Rishikesh for a change of scenery and pace.

Love Chris & Kat xxx

A Week In India!

Us at India Gate

India was the one I’ve been worried about, the volume of people, the scams, the begging, the constant hawking, the possibility of getting sick, or always being sick whilst here...expect the worst and you’ll be pleasantly surprised; India has been lovely so far.

We expected that Delhi was going to be a challenge, but for us the culture shock wasn’t too bad, if anything it felt quite tame in comparison to when we landed in Nepal all those months ago.  The backpacker area felt like Thamel, strings of alley ways full of cheap accommodation, beeping horns of bikes and tuk tuks and lots of hippy clothing shops.  The nice thing for us was that you can get the Metro around to see the sights, so no bargaining with tuk tuk drivers just d.i.y transport!  So we headed off to see India Gate.  It was a surprisingly very green area of Delhi, with park surrounding each side of the Rajpath leading up to the India Gate.  There were over 50 Birds of Prey gliding around in this area, sometimes landing in puddles for a bath – it made it very beautiful and not what I was expecting from Delhi. 

Kat on the Train

We had booked our first train for that afternoon so we didn’t have time for further sight-seeing this time, we’ll be back to Delhi again though.  The train was brilliant, we’d already booked online so had our tickets already (definitely would recommend this, it feels so hassle free!).  The train arrived on time and had a passenger list stuck to the outside of the carriages so you could check you were in the correct place.  We had seat numbers and no extra passengers cramming in as we had paid a little more for AC3 class.  There was room for our bags to be stored away and it was an easy couple of hours to Agra.

We found a great room in Agra with a view of the Taj Mahal from our balcony.  The next morning we got up for sunrise to watch the city smog gradually lift and reveal the Taj’s beauty from the guesthouse’s rooftop restaurant.  Full of breakfast, we walked to the Taj Mahal; after a frantic entry of being scanned, padded down and Chris being sent out as camera tripods are banned(!) we finally made it in and it was all worth it.  Still fairly hazy the Taj looked like a painting when we entered the grounds.  There is something quite mystical about it, it’s perfect symmetry, it’s white marble against the river back drop.  There were a lot of tourists there, but the gardens are big enough that you can find moments of solitude where you feel like you are the only ones there.  We sat admiring it at various angles for over 3 hours before retiring back to our room to admire it there from afar! 

Taj View From Our Balcony

Agra has quite a bad reputation for touts and hassle, but we actually quite enjoyed it there.  It is a dusty, fairly noisy city, but the popular rooftop cafes mean that you can escape the crowds and look on from your vantage point whilst eating curry or drinking a pot of tea.  The array of transport and animals never fails to amaze us here, cows blocking the road, everyone has a goat or two which they seem to move about on leads (our hotel has 3 goats) and camels pull carts about. 

Durga Puja Festival

On our second day we got the bus out of Agra to Fatehpur Sikri, a city/Palace built in the 1500s that was mysteriously abandoned by the Mughal people, perhaps due to poor water supply.  The Mosque was most impressive with huge entrance gates and turrets lining the perimeter walls.  We spent most the morning wandering around, admiring the architecture and enjoying seeing something so different in comparison to the South East Asia part of the trip.  On our bus journey back we got held up in traffic as a float of loud blarring Indian music, lots of people, dancing, drums, bright paint and water being thrown in the air – it looked like Holi Festival, but we worked out later it was another Hindu Celebration, Durga Puja.  When we got back to our accommodation area there was a constant stream of floats and people passing by, we watched for most of the afternoon and evening from the restaurants.  The restaurants were Muslim run and it was funny to hear their take on this “Hindi thing” they told us, sounding rather exasperated, “a couple of years ago, maybe one float or two, but now, it goes on all day, so many floats...” they also amused us by how fascinated they were with the “funny Hindi dancing” to the point where they would be doubled over laughing at some of the men shaking and gyrating about!

Our next train hop was to Ranthambore National Park.  We had booked our safari online (which was lucky as it had sold out that day) but we did have to pick up our tickets at 5am!  We were in an odd vehicle which they called a Canter, best described as a high clearance, convertible mini bus!  We were on a quest to see a wild tiger, but sadly for us it wasn’t meant to be.  The National Park however, was beautiful with a fort in the middle, lakes, forested areas and hill plains.  We saw the usual birdlife, wild boars, deer and monkeys.  Later that day we went back to the park and climbed up to the old fort.  It was a surprisingly large complex and with the backdrop of the National Park it was very photogenic.

Kat at Ranthambore NP Fort

 Next stop was the Pink City, Jaipur.  Busier than we experienced in Delhi and we got the hard sell from a rickshaw driver about doing a tour with him...but as ever, we prefer to get ourselves around.  So on our first day we got dropped into the centre and admired the colonial Albert Hall Building and then walked into the Pink City, more of a terracotta I think.  The buildings are filled with busy shops, selling pretty much anything, jewellery, paintings, carpets, clothing, books...etc.  We headed to Iswari Minar, a tower you could climb to get a view of the city. From this vantage point we decided that one of the forts didn’t look too far away so we’d walk to it!  It wasn’t too far, but there were many more back alleys than our map would have us believe!  So we got a little lost looking for the path up and ended up with a string of irritating children shouting hello and demanding 5 rupees (apparently school doesn’t teach them the meaning of no) but when we’d shook off the hangers on and found the correct route, the city view was excellent from the fort. 

View of Jaipur

India is a man’s world.  I presume they hide the ladies at home as you rarely see them out and about (apart from the higher classes of Inidan tourists which often are a full family on holiday).  But the guesthouses are always run by men, food is served and cooked by men, drivers are always men, shop keepers are men, guides are always men...day to day the women just aren’t there.  Groups are always the same sex, you would never see a group of friends girls/boys just hanging out; generally it is just gaggles of men holding hands and behaving like little boys.  The staring hasn’t been awful, but the boy groups can easily make me feel uncomfortable.

Yesterday we went to Hawa Mahal, a beautiful pink building which the rich ladies used to live in.  There are small windows everywhere, these were there for the ladies to peep out of to see what was going on in the Bazaars below.  We then got the bus to Amber for our 3^rd fort in 3 days!  Amber is in a valley with rocky hills surrounding it, the fort walls line the hills and reminded us of the Great Wall of China.  We explored the Palace, hiked up to the fort and saw a huge cannon reported to need 1kg of gunpowder to make it fire!  Today we have a travel day, we are waiting for a train to take us to our next city, Bundi.

So far so good...Lots of love,

Kat & Chris

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Beaches, Curries and Elephants

Everything about Arugam Bay was lovely. We stayed in a Cabana (bamboo hut) for a few days, enjoyed swimming in the sea, walks along a near empty beach and I even gave surfing another go after our first lesson nearly a year ago in Bali!

After our days of relaxation and tiring myself out surfing we moved onto Ella in the hill country of Sri Lanka. Ella is a small crossroads of a town but very popular with tourists as it has an excellent combination of a cooler climate, tea plantations, good walks, and the locals grow lots of fresh fruit and veg which go into delicious curries. Whilst in Ella we did a great walk along train tracks, through vegetable fields and up into forest to get to Ella Rock, one of the tallest points in the area where we had an uninterrupted view of the surrounding hills.

Uda Walawe national park was out next stop to see wild elephants and it certainly did not disappoint! The park has just over 400 elephants and we think we saw about 40-50 of them mostly in small herds of 5 or 6. Little baby elephants staying close by their mothers greeted us when we entered the park and we knew it was going to be a good day. Everywhere we went in the jeep elephants weren’t far away, it was so nice to be on a safari where we saw a lot of animals and we could watch the elephants for a long time without them disappearing instantly. We also saw 2 rarely sighted leopard cats (normal cat size but leopards!) as well as monkeys, deer, eagles and lizards. We nearly had too much of a close encounter with one lone male elephant who we were watching graze meters away from us when suddenly he decided he didn’t like us being there and made a move to charge, luckily a loud noise from our guide soon put him off!

The south coast was definitely the busiest we’d seen Sri Lanka but the beaches were still nice and it was easy to find empty spots of sand away from the resorts. Mirissa was a laid back beach town fringed with coconut trees, not much happens there except for whale watching in season (too choppy for us to go) but we had some good food and enjoyed watching the sea at night with a beer on the beach.

In Unawatuna from our balcony at some point in the day we could normally see monkeys playing in the trees. We did a cooking school as we’ve been enjoying the local specialty of rice and curry so much throughout Sri Lanka. We prepared a feast of dishes; fish curry, pumpkin curry, green bean curry, Dhal (curried lentils) with crispy onions and devilled potatoes and were really lucky that it was just the two of us booked on so we had our own personal chef guiding us! What we really loved about the cooking school was that we did everything, chopped every vegetable, grinded coconut flesh from the coconut and made the coconut cream and milk by hand. It tasted amazing!

For the rest of our time in Unawatuna we had a swim most days, the best Sri Lankan curry of the trip at ‘One Love’ and we took a trip into Galle 4km away and wandered about the Dutch Fort admiring some of the colonial architecture in the old town. Now we’re back in Negombo for the night so we can catch our flight to India tomorrow!

Sri Lanka has definitely been one of the highlights of the trip so far and a really pleasant surprise. With so much packed into a tiny island it’s one of the places we can see ourselves going back to in the future.

Love Chris & Kat xxx

Beautiful Sri Lanka

Negombo Fishing Boats

We were all prepared for harassment, touts, pulling and pushing of drivers and hotel reps, we got off the plane expecting a battle, perhaps the hustle and bustle of Nepal or the constant sales pitch of India...but there is none of that and it is wonderful!  Very few touts, tuk tuk drivers accept it when you say ‘no thank you’, the drivers and the hotel owners will agree to lower prices with laid back bartering – it’s just so very relaxed, perhaps because it’s not peak tourist season, and people seem very friendly...and keen to inform us that England keep losing the cricket (an international tournament is currently being held in Sri Lanka). 

Kandy Cultural Dance Show

So, slightly stunned that we could look around the hotels in Negombo without any hassle, we picked ourselves a lovely place on the beach front, basked in the ocean breeze under the shade of the palm trees, watched the canoe sail boats float past and had our first (and currently best) Sri Lankan curry.  The food has been great, the curry comes as several small curry dishes to share, popadoms and a mountain of rice; we often have to order at midday for tea time as they spend most of the day preparing the fresh ingredients and cooking the dishes.  We also visited the Negombo fresh fish market, you see the fishermen arriving on the beach, everyone sorting out the fish, then either carrying it into the bustling market, chopping and gutting it or laying it out to dry out on the beach.  The crows are there in vast numbers, scavenging the unwanted fish!

Kat & Chris Sigiriya

Our next stop was to the hills of Kandy.  Here we spent a lovely afternoon wandering around the lake.  We were excited to see monkeys, storks, turtles, kingfishers, a pelican and a monitor lizard.  That evening we went to a cultural dance show, the drumming was excellent and the dances really entertaining and nice to see the traditional outfits.  At the end of the show they took us outside to watch them do fire-walking; as we stepped outside lots of bats were heading over to the lake – it was amazing sight as they were HUGE bats – Dracula sized!



View from Sigiriya Summit



The next day we caught the bus to Sigiriya.  The buses have been fine so far, all daytime and fairly short (3-4 hours).  They have been crowded occasionally, but normally they squeeze us and our bags in somewhere!  And they are super cheap – on average about £1.50 for a 3 hour journey.  Sigiriya is a UNESCO historic sight.  A huge rock on a fairly flat landscape, it was once a monastery and palace, speculated to date back from the 5^th Century.  Now only ruins remain, you walk through where the Royal Gardens once where, still the Boulder Arch remains, then climb up the rock to see the frescoes (rock art) literally half way up the sheer cliff face – no idea how anyone got up there to paint!  There is then the Mirror Wall which contains centuries worth of graffiti, most of which is now translated and in the museum.  Then through the stone Lion’s Paws and up again to the summit, where more building foundations have been excavated.  It is a beautiful view up there, vast greenery in every direction.  Then as we were sat admiring the view we realised we were not alone – surrounded by monkeys with bowl hair cuts!  It felt like we were in the Jungle Book!

Monkey

Our next stop was Anuradhapura, a historic town, famed for its religious structures.  The bus dumped us somewhere which was not the bus station and it took us a fair while to figure out where we were...we started to walk towards where we thought we might stay and met Berlin on the way, he had a homestay and offered us a very cheap price for the room, we accepted and stayed at his family home that night.  We hired bikes from Berlin, sadly they weren’t in the best condition, mine had one pedal and Chris got a flat tyre half way round, but they did get us around the sights and we enjoyed seeing the big stupas and sacred Bondhi Tree (2000 yrs old).  Again there were monkeys to watch – I nearly got weed on when we went under some trees – these monkeys are pretty looking, not like the slightly scabby South East Asian monkeys, these are grey, with black beards and loooong tails.  That evening Berlin’s wife cooked us curry and the next morning we ate coconut rotis in Berlin’s garden and watched a Mongoose scamper by!

 Chris at Uppuveli

From there we headed further North, to Uppuveli on the East Coast.  The North was heavily attacked during the civil war, consequently this is still a fairly new tourist destination.  It is no longer untouched, but it is very quiet up here as we approach the end of the season (Monsoon is due next month).  The isolation is definitely part of its charm, not sharing the beach with anyone, just listening to the lapping of the waves but it can be a little off putting...as we couldn’t find anywhere to eat initially, the hotels appeared closed and glimmers of the Civil War remain with all the properties being fenced off with barbed wire and guards on the entrances to the roads down to the beach.  However, we’ve come to love the palm lined beach and really have done very little but relax for the past 3 days.

We move on tomorrow, heading further down the coast to Arugam Bay, a surf town.  Enjoying it so far!

Lots of love – just over 2 months till we’re home!

Kat & Chris xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

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