Blog – Page 74 – Where is Phil now?

Wedding day !

Day 93, Friday 06 April 2012, Da Nang

Today was Dan and Van’s wedding day, wahoo !

I dragged my sorry butt out of bed as late as possible but still leaving time for a quick breakfast, shower and shave and downstairs in time to be picked up at 8.00 for the wedding.

Dan getting the final touches, tie by Tea and the corsage by his brother Russell. P1110602

P1110603

There was a few car loads that left the hotel and went to Dan’s friend Phuoc’s (I think is the spelling) house to collect the dowry.

The dowry has a roasted pig, fruit, betel nuts and a few other things that I cannot remember. A number of photos were taken with the dowry and I was privileged to be one of the party that carried the gifts to the car and from the car into Van’s parents house where the ceremony took place. Naturally I got to carry the pig with Russell. (I am a vege – or maybe just fussy as Alex called me). P1110606

The arrival at both houses and the carrying of the gifts roused lots of local interest with neighbours coming out to look at us and our offerings. The ladies in the hairdressers over the road from Phuoc’s house were very interested. As well as a photographer there was also a video guy who was filming the wedding car procession from the back of a scooter, a la tour de France. It was quite a laugh !
On arriving at Vans we lined up in the correct order and carried the dowry into their house through a clapping gauntlet of Vans family and friends. Once inside Dan and his mum offered the dowry to Vans parents, thankfully they accepted ! P1110612

Once the dowry was dealt with Dan and family went upstairs to meet Van and bring her down to the ceremony, she looked stunning in traditional Vietnamese wedding dress.

Is that not the biggest grin ! P1110616

I am a wee bit unsure of the detail of the ceremony but there was an introduction of all family and friends by Dan and Van to each others family and friends, some exchanging of words between parents, Dans mum got to put some gold jewellery on Van. P1110621

and there was an exchange of rings.

P1110627

Van and Dan and family went upstairs to seek a blessing from Vans ancestors and it was all done ! Congratulations Mr and Mrs Coe 🙂

P1110634

Dan’s mum and Van’s father P1110633

We all piled back into the cars and went on a slow drive through Da Nang to the reception at a large venue that obviously specialises on receptions. There were three floors all hosting receptions a t the same time so there was a lot of people arriving all at once, there were two hundred guests at Dan and Vans.

At the reception I sat at the vegetarian table with Malcolm, Mark and Hayley and Phuoc, there was about seven courses and the food was great, very fresh and not all fried, such a change. Ii particularly enjoyed the salads and a lovely seaweed soup, this was all consumed over a few Tiger beers. Once everyone was seated (except for bride and groom) the show started on a small stage at the front, dragon dance and some singing and dancing, I am assuming some story was being told in the music and dance as dowry props were used.

P1110643

Once the show was over the music volume picked up, the floor lights dimmed, the floods and stobes came on and a screen on a glass box at the back of the stage rose to reveal a lift in which Dan and Van descended : ) just awesome, nothing you would see at a traditional NZ wedding ! they walked down the stage to the cheers (of us NZers and Aussies) and the claps of the rest of the reception.

There was a very short formal part and then the karaoke began, most of which was not too bad, Phuoc and Van’s brother Luc took part. Phuoc giving it all..

P1110648

A cheeky Xuxu, Dan’s neice.

P1110637

While this went on we were all still eating and Dan and Van had to visit every table and have a photo taken with all the guests, they didn’t get to eat, poor buggers. The reception was over after two hours and all the guests filed out and the cleaners were in tidying up and readying the place for the next one.

The mass of wedding guests heading off to collect their motor bikes. P1110650

We all went back to the hotel to change into shorts and t-shirts and slob around for a while before heading out to a villa in one of the big resorts that Dan and Van (and family) stayed in overnight. We had a second reception for close friends and family, some more delicious food and a few drinks – quite a few in my case! It was a great time out at the villa, lovely atmosphere and cool to be able to spend some time with the happy couple. P1110652

It wasn’t a late night and I was so glad to have had lots of coke with my whisky, staved off what could have been a vile hangover the next day.

It was an awesome day, so nice to see Dan and Van get married and so nice to have been invited.

Da Nang

Day 92, Thursday 05 April 2012, Da Nang

Reasonable sleep last night thank God, was pretty knackered and dreading a long week with little sleep, but awake early and managed to rattle off a couple of overdue blog posts. I constantly amaze myself that I am still doing this blog thing on a regular basis 92 days into my travels. Most days I enjoy writing the commentary and editing the photos, but some days it seems to be such a chore, though it is an ambitious goal to try and blog daily – at least it keeps the drinking and partying to a minimum – though I guess those who know me well realise I do not need much of an excuse to not party.

I was still up pretty early and popped to the cafe next door for a coffee. The guy there speaks no English (this is not a tourist area of a pretty un-touristed town) so while I got coffee it was not what i expected – short black with a centimetre of condensed milk in the bottom, a glass of ice and a cup of tea – the standard coffee order around here. Coffee was OK -ish, but for 70c cannot complain.

I popped down to China Beach – I will call it that cos I can, for an early morning swim with Bruce and Tina, I have biked with Bruce in NZ a few times, but have not met his partner Tina before. The sea was ‘cool’, but not by Auckland standards, but clean and fresh and a very nice start to the day. I love the surf rescue boat – none of this fancy motorised stuff like they have at Piha ! P1110583

The swim was followed by a mountain of food for breakfast, eggs, rice, fresh baguettes, fruit, vege ‘things’ that I have no idea what they were at this stage and the worlds most crap cup of coffee – no more coffee in the hotel !

The morning was pretty much spent shagging around in the hotel, trying to organise transport to do things, there is about a dozen of us from various places and with varying levels of ability on motor bikes, so it was organisational chaos. We tried to hire push bikes to ride to marble mountain, but they were not available until too late in the day so I flagged it until later in the week.

I took one of the motorbikes for a spin around the block, in NZ terms these are automatic scooters, rather than a motorbike. I did Ok, got up to 40kmh and was passing most of the locals, who generally ride quite slowly. I was tempted to hire one, and may still do so as they are a great way of getting about and at $7US a day, cheap as. But after heaps of faffing I ended up jumping on the back of Dan’s bike and he took his brother Russell, riding his own bike, and I into the main mall in the centre of town. I am soooooooo glad I was not riding, crazy crazy ride, it may not be fast but you need fifty eyes to ride a bike here !

Had a great coffee and cake at a ‘western’ coffee shop in the mall and then Russell and I checked out the market so he could buy some “Oakey” sunglasses and jandals – he is pretty good at the bargaining and got way better deals than I would have. We were wandering around town when Dan arrived back on the bike and he and Russell went back to the mall and I decided to walk the 5-6k back to the hotel and get a feel for Da Nang.

The bridge over the river. P1110591

It was a hot hot walk and I got a bit stuck walking down a road that I expected to have a side road towards the beach, that didn’t, so I ended up walking a whole lot further than planned until I found a small side road heading beach wards. This lead me through a fishing village that I am pretty sure did not see too many westerners wandering around, lots of people came out to see me, many saying hello from their gardens, it was kinda cool ! Once I made it to the beach it was a 15 minute stroll back to where we were swimming this morning, past the fishing vessels. P1110594

P1110596

P1110597

Made it back to the hotel way later than planned and spent the afternoon listening to music and reading. Just before I got a call from Dan asking me to come down for beers at the beach it rained ! man, I have not seen rain for weeks – the last time was when i poured down in Puerto Princesa in the Philippines and the hostel flooded ! It was nice to walk down the street with a bit of drizzle falling. Though the lightening on the beach later in the evening suggested walking on an exposed road would not be a good idea!

I was excited to see this ! P1110599

I think it was the first night I had not sweated in three months !

Had a good time with Dan, Bruce, Tina and Russell over a few beers and some food and then an early night for all before Dan’s big day tomorrow. Early start, with us all being picked up at 8.00 !

Good Morning (or early afternoon) Vietnam !

Day 91, Wednesday 04 April 2012, Da Nang, Vietnam.

I have a very unreliable internet connection in the hotel room in Da Nang so will go back to using BlogDesk, the one good thing with it is I can upload photos to BlogDesk off line and it will post everything when connected, this means I can do entire posts offline which is awesome…

Facebook is blocked in Vietnam, bizarrely however, the FB cellphone apps are not, so I can access on my phone but not on my netbook. The only issue with that is I cannot seem to work out how to comment on photos on the cellphone app, doh ! So apologies if I do not reply to any FB comments.

Right, back to Bangkok – I was up at 4.30 am and quietly snuck out of the hostel and up to Sukhumvit, the hostel told me I would have no problems finding a cab, even at that time of day and this was very true. I had only barely got to the street when three cabs all stopped to give me a ride. The hostel did get the price to the airport wrong, they said 300-350 baht – but it only cost 150, bonus!

Even at 5.00 am the airport was manic, the Air Asia check in was crowded and slow and I queued for forty five minutes, I am soooooo glad I got there early as I really wanted coffee before I got on the plane.

The flight to Ho Chi Minh City (HMC) was fine, full as all AA flights are, but reasonably smooth and we got there on time. I had pre-ordered my Vietnam visa on line and had to wait about 40 minutes in various queues to get it all processed, but a simple process. Myanmar and Vietnam are the only two countries that I have been to that do not do visa on arrival for NZers.

I walked over to the dometic terminal and queued some more to check in to the Vietnam Airlines flight to Da Nang. Once checked I found neither of my cards worked in the airport ATM so I could not get any local currency without changing some of my Thai or US and i wanted that for later as I did not have a whole lot anyway – so no coffee… the flight to Da Nang was the roughest I have had since my travels began – and I am not convinced it was the fault of the weather either, but we landed safely !

It was great to be met at the airport for a change ! My friend Dan was there with his motorbike to pick me up and we had a quick ride to the Pearl Sea Hotel where all the non-Vietnamese wedding guests are staying.

The rest of the crew were down by the beach for lunch, so after a very quick change we were off again. The hotel is a ten minute walk to the beach, and man what a beach ! White sand as far as the eye can see, one section of the bay is China Beach, made famous as a key landing point and military base for the US Army during the Vietnam war. Lunch was great ! beer and coffee just what was needed.
on the back of the bike again, I don’t think I am ready to ride on these streets, the Vietnamese do not ride fast, but there are a lot of them and they ride everywhere, road rules have limited application here !

Hoi An is a UNESCO heritage site and a semi-well preserved old town with sections dating back 300 years. It is a gorgeous little town and one I will go back to later and spend some more time looking around, we got there quite late in the day so did not get much time for photos and exploration. Though we did discover fresh beer for about 25 cents a handle !

If you are new to my blog, then you will soon find out I love bicycles, especially the older steel ones found in SE Asia. There will be bike photos when I find them.

After a very nice noodle dish for dinner, whose name I have totally forgotten we went for a walk along the water front. Hoi An is famous for its river and lanterns, with floating candle lanterns being a popular tourist attraction and there were numerous girls (child labour sadly) selling them along the river front for tourists to purchase and then float down the river.

There is also the Japanese bridge which was built in the late 1500’s.

We all walked back up to the bikes and to wait for the car to come and collect us, Dan had hired a people mover sized vehicle to ferry people around and Van’s brother Luc (I am guessing at the spelling) was driving us around. Though in true Vietnamese fashion the 10 minute wait was an hour. I experimented with panning photos again : )

We had a reasonably early night which I needed after the very early start !

So far Da Nang has been pretty cool, we are away from the main back packer area, not that many stay here as Hoi An is the key attraction, but the streets are big and wide, the traffic is crazy but not crazy crazy and the beach is lovely and beer is cheap!

a nothing day

Day 90, Tuesday 03 April 2012, Bangkok

A bit jaded this morning after one or two vodkas too many last night. I had breakfast with John and have his contact details for when I eventually arrive in Sweden, which I am looking forward to. I lurked – pretty much entirely in bed, for the morning, in the guesthouse and finally left at chucking out time at 11.00

Tuk tuk to the mini-van depot – and discovered I was not ripped off the by tuk tuk on the day I arrived, the price is the price ! The mini-van driver was a loony, lane changing every 10 or 15 seconds, didn’t seem to make any progress through the traffic, but it didn’t bother him, we did make it unscathed back to downtown Bangkok though, so a bonus really.

I did very little after that, my nose had been streaming for the past 24 hours and I was dead tired so just spagged the afternoon in the good old HI-Sukhumvit hostel as tomorrow I am up at 4.30 to get to the airport to fly to Da Nang.

What wat is what 3

Day 89, Monday 02 April 2012, Ayutthaya

A quick post as I am going to get too far behind again, it is lateish in the evening and I have no wifi in my room in Da Nang and the next few days will get busy I suspect.

Last full day in Ayutthaya and I got the bike again and rode out to the eastern wats, definitely not as good as the ones in the centre of town, but here are a few photos from them.

P1110408

P1110411

P1110412

P1110417

P1110422

P1110440

P1110437

P1110427

P1110432

P1110452

P1110451

I also rode to the remains of the Portugese settlement – a few bricks on the ground… and then to the floating market…. where I took a photo of a buffalo as the market was neither floating nor a proper market. P1110443

After a wee lie down I went on a late afternoon boat tour of the rivers around the island. The tour was Ok, no real guidance from the boat guy, but saw the town from the other side which was interesting anyway. P1110461

P1110463

P1110472

Saw these people feeding the river catfish – earning credits for the next incarnation. P1110468

Ayutthaya was hit badly in the floods last year and you can see on the house how high the water went. P1110517

And again the water line on this temple site is a good four metres above the normal tide mark. P1110515

On the boat trip there was two other people from my guest house, John and his daughter Jesse, I joined them for a couple of drinks and then dinner at one of the restaurants in town. we then went back to the hostel and had a couple more drinks, where the Swiss guest house owner joined us as well.

It was a pretty good day, nice to hang with some people for dinner.

What Wat is What – 2

Day 88, Sunday 01 April 2012, Ayutthaya.

Pinch and punch for the first of the month, no returns.

Not a bad sleep was had in my luxury pad in Ayutthaya, I have been going through one of those sleeping badly phases again and once I am in one I just have to ride it out. Breakfast here was great, eggs on toast, fruit, yoghurt, fruit juice and coffee (instant was free, which suits me fine). I also woke up to some nice wordy emails this morning, so yay thanks family and friends ! I do love them.

Today was bike day and I was going to ride and see the western sites today with a plan to do the east tomorrow. My butt is still a bit raw from the riding around in Inle so no point in doing a long and uncomfortable day when I can do it slowly. I also want to avoid being out in the worst of the days heat as I am still a bit dehydrated and well there is no point in heat stroke either. My wheels were Ok, seat a bit low and the chain rattled like mad, so at least people knew I was coming !

The first stop was Wat Suwan Awas, it was not particularly exciting with the exception of this stunning Buddha, I just love this image.

Wat Cherng Tha. I liked this site as I was the only person here !

I particularly liked this pile of old broken plastic Buddhas, old photos and things that people had left on the various ruins.

I then cycles a couple of KM’s out of town to Wat Phu Khao Thong, though there was only this massive pagoda there it was well worth a visit. The building, like a lot around here is not exactly straight…. there was a group of photogs here, reminded me of some of the great Flickr meet-ups we had in Auckland – and the fact I just missed one at wonderful Muriwai beach : (

I rode back around the road on the outside of the river and found this bizarre park/temple thing, not sure what it was, it was like a small theme park, lots of statues, games amid the small temples. Weird… I had an awesome lunch there and later discovered I had again knocked the camera on to manual focus so most of the pictures here had to be deleted.

Wat Chaiwattanaram is one of the big guns at Ayutthaya but sadly was closed due to damage from the floods late last year. I took a photo tomorrow (which was yesterday as I type) that shows the water line on the temples.

St Jospehs Church – not often I get to take photos of churches ! The Portugese had a settlement here in the 1800’s

Wat Phutthaisawan. All around Thailand, and in every Thai restaurant in NZ are photos of the King, this one is on top of piles of sand bags used to keep water out of the temples during the floods. I am not sure how successful that was sorry!

There is always one who refuses to conform.

A ride on ride off ferry across the river.

Wat Worachetha Ram. The Thai used to put valuables, gold, rubies, jewels etc into the heads of the buddhas, when the Burmese sacked Ayutthaya they cut all the heads of the buddhas looking for the valuables.

My last Wat for the day – Wat Lokaya Suttha, i was not the only one. Loads of buses filled with Chinese tourists came here to see the reclining Buddha.

I was the only one walked around… the wats are all very clean, there are hoards of people sweeping leaves and rubbish off the ruins and if you poke around, like I do, you are sure to find a broom or two.

I then rode back to a cafe near the guest house and watched the sunset over the ruins while eating dinner. Dinner was had at the same place I had lunch, spring rolls and Thai basil rice with vege and tofu – they had run out of chicken !. It was damn good and very hot !. I am a wee bit skinnier than normal and in a semi-state of hunger all the time so have vowed to eat more and more often.

Well after nineteen days I finally took some concrete pills, some deep breaths and marched into the bathroom with the trusty Gillette in hand and had a shave. It was a real mission I can tell you, and my face is hardly smooth as a babies bum now, but good to get it done.

This was followed by a repeat of last night, music, RTD’s and blogging.

What wat is what ?

Day 87, Saturday 31 March 31 2012, Ayutthaya.

I didn’t really sleep that much last night, though it was unfair to call the place a flea pit as I woke this morning with no bites on me anywhere ! I got up and had the first cold shower in weeks. One of the benefits of travelling with Mike was we generally stayed in slightly more up market guest houses (yet still cheap) than I normally did on my own and most had at least lukewarm showers.

After packing up my gear Giovanni and I went and met R and B for another final breakfast together. After saying goodbye to the three of them for the second time I headed off to the river for the boat down to the train. I enjoyed the few days I spent with G and R n B and hope to maybe see them in their home towns one day.

I had originally planned to go to Kanchanaburi, the home of the Bridge over the River Kwai, but was told there was not a lot to do there for the four days I have to kill before heading back to Bangkok for my early flight to Da Nang in Vietnam on the 4^th. So I ended up deciding on Ayutthaya instead. Both towns are within a couple of hours of central Bangkok so no drama getting to either. I chose Ayutthaya as it was once the capital of Thailand and has a number of old temples to check out, and yes I still love old temples. Plus I have hardly used my camera in days and you must all be sick of blog posts that are not full of pictures. I may have to do some tests and see how many people actually read the words!

I caught a couple of trains to Victory Monument and then walked around in the brutal heat of 9.30 am looking for a mini-van that went to Ayutthaya, the vans are supposed to be only slightly more expensive than the bus, but get you there a whole lot quicker. As it turned out the mini-van was less than the guide book said at only 60baht for the ride, and it was new, air conned and we all had our own seats, it also only took 1 half hours to get there too – bonus start to the day. From the bus station I got seriously ripped off by a tuk-tuk driver in getting a lift to the hostel I chose off the internet – Prom Tong mansion. The tuk-tuks here are totally different to anyway else – still three wheels but that is about the only thing they have in common with others, this is a typical design, but an extravagant paint job.

I am going to have to say it lives up to its mansion name ! about $4 a more than the good hostel I use in Bangkok, but wow a world of difference, big room, the most comfortable bed I have slept on in weeks (if not months) , great breakie etc etc. My only complaint is the channels on the TV are rubbish – and no football ! I got used to nights in watching the beautiful game. The other thing I liked about it was the manageress took time to explain to me all the key sites in town, gave me a map and a guide book and recommendations on the best way to see them – without any suggestions of tours. I really appreciate it when hostels do this, and it was only the second time in three months.

It was mid-day, roasting hot – but not as humid as BKK, when i set off for a walk to the wats close to the guest house.

Ayutthaya is an island town built where three rivers – Mae Nam Lomburi, Chao Phraya (the main river in BKK) and Pa Sak, meet. Building of the capital city commenced in 1350 by King U-Thong and it was the centre of Thailand until being sacked and burnt by the Burmese in 1767. The current town has been built around the ruins. There are numerous sites all around and I have decided to break things up into 3-4 hour days and see the place over a few days, I like the hostel so no need to rush and it is damn hot outside !

At the first wat I had my first banana pancake of my travels, I have not consciously avoided them but banana pancake is also the name given to a type of traveller who follow a reasonably fixed route of party towns around SE Asia, anyway it was nice…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_Pancake_Trail

First stop was Wat Maha That – which features the wonderful Buddha head in a tree.

The wats here are not in the same condition as either Angkor or Bagan, and sadly due to the flooding last year close access to a number of the sites is not allowed. There is also minimal carvings or murals to be seen. Part of me agrees that these sites are ‘as found’ and not overly renovated, but I do really miss the carvings.

What I did love with all the things I have seen here is the unrepaired Buddha figures, though many parts have been put together to form vaguely recognisable figures, i found them exquisite and have many photos.

Wat Ratchaburana

Inside the central pagoda in this temple was a stairway leading down to a small grotto with some lovely mural work. This apparently has also been recently discovered.

Wat Tummickurat

Like a number of the temples in town this temple had a working monastery attached. These monks were doing laps of the old monastery.

Wat Phra Si Sanphet

And the final Wat for the day

Wat Phra Ram

Tourists can take an elephant tour around the outside of the grand palace area, I didn’t do one as I do not agree with them in principle but I guess the elephants are probably better looked after than some working elephants in SE Asia.

I was pretty wrecked after almost four hours of walking, I foolishly decided to walk in jandals (flip flops to you readers not from NZ), instead of my usual sandals – my feet really did not appreciate the lack of padding and were quite sore by the time I got to lie down later in the day. After a shower I wandered down to the local market and had a meal and a beer and then stopped to buy an ice cream and some Smirnoff Ice RTD’s to take back to the room – a huge Saturday night in…

you will be pleased to know that there will be more temples tomorrow : )

My nephew Fraser is a great young musician and is the drummer in a two piece band, Heroes for Sale. He has an awesome record collection (mine) and a very good taste in music (just stay away from the dance music Frase, OK). His band played one of their first gigs a few days ago as part of the Titirangi Festival of Music and I so wished I could have been there to see them. Awesome stuff Fraser.

Not sure if the linky will work…

I ate a grasshopper – intentionally.

Days 84, 85 and 86, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday 28/29/30 March 2012, Bangkok

Wow today (Wednesday) I celebrated 5 months of being unemployed ! wee dram, alone in the room etc etc – but that was later in the day, honest !

Did sod all on Wednesday, got up late, my room has air con and wifi so there is no reason to go out, Bangkok is foul at the moment, hot and humid so not going to go out unless necessary. So blogging and email was all I did in the morning, mid-afternoon I caught the train to MBK mall with the aim of buying a couple of shirts, a pair of shorts and replenishing my panadol and bathroom kit. I could not find any shorts I wanted, nor a light weight running shirt – at a price I wanted so settled for a couple of t-shirts.

I had dinner at the yellow curry place at the end of the hostel street, $1 and it is great and then went back to the room for a couple of whiskies and more blogging, emailing etc.

Thursday morning I booked my flights on the 4^th April to da nang – Bangkok to Ho Chi Minh City on Air Asia and HMC to Da Nang on Vietnam Airlines and applied for my Vietnam visa on line. I then left the hostel into the oppressive heat and made my way to the China Visa office. I was kinda thinking that this would be more straightforward than Myanmar as not many euros would bother trying to do a visa from here, what I totally forgot about was lots of Thai people want visas’ so there was a massive queue…

I know a few people who have China visas with no detailed plans to visit, no flights booked or accommodation reserved. My research on the internet suggested that this was OK, but it was not. I waited for almost four hours in queues to have my application rejected as I had no flight booked. I was disappointed to say the least. If I decide to go I will have to apply when I am in Vietnam but at least I will have a plan then.

A while ago I read a couple of crime novels by John Burdett that were set in Bangkok, I recently discovered I had all four books on the e-reader so started reading them again, now that I can put a few of the place names in context, the stories are a lot more interesting now. The lead detective’s mother runs a brothel on a street called Soi Cowboy, which I thought was made up, it isn’t !

I saw it from the train station at Asok when I changed from the Skytrain to the MRT on the way to the China visa office, so I nipped down to the street to take a photo, and no I did not go in,

The rest of the afternoon and evening was spent doing more blogging, they take so long to write so by the time I was getting to the last few days I have noticed the mistakes are creeping in and the sentences are getting shorter.

I had an email from Giovanni saying he was in a flea pit hostel up by Khao San Rd (KSR) and was meeting R n B up there tomorrow. In Myanmar I vaguely committed to joining them up there and as I had not stayed in the area, and it is something that all back packers should probably experience – and most under 25 do – plus a few unrepentant hippies, I agreed to meet him up Friday.

So Friday morning I checked out of my nice clean, air conned, wifi’d hostel and caught a couple of trains and the boat up river to KSR and checked into the flea pit Sitdhi Guest House. It is under a quarter of the price of my old place and the room is like a cell in the middle of the building with no windows, it has a single bed and a fan in the room. It is hot hot hot and humid humid humid. It is not that close to KSR so hopefully will not be too noisy at night ( well that was a stupid thought !).

I spent an hour or so slowly dying in the room due to the heat and then decided to go for a walk around and found a bar with wifi and have a beer under a fan and do some interneting. I took a walk out the hotel – it was almost cooler outside, even under the mid-afternoon sun, and almost immediately ran into Richard and Blothnard (R n B) who were picking up a bag they had left in Bangkok while in Myanmar. We made a plan to meet later and i went back to the Sitdhi to find G and let him know the plan. I lay dying in my room for a bit longer and then had to leave for that beer and fan. The four of us all met up at 6.00, had a beer and then went in search of some cheap eats and t-shirts on KSR.

We had a great noodle meal for a buck and then G bought a bag of bugs for us to share….

Grasshoppers, crickets and grubs – I thank God he didn’t get the cockroaches – they were huge. I tried one of each, they were OK, deep fried and almost like a chip, but I ate them hesitantly as you just don’t know if juices are going to explode in your mouth when you bite into them… a bad photo, but I am eating grasshopper ( not the one from Kung Fu 🙂 ).

After the bugs we wandered for a couple of hours around KSR, it was pretty much as I expected, loads of cheap clothes and tourist stuff, and a load of noisy bars full of people drinking buckets of liquor ( a bucket is literally a small bucket, I would guess a litre, that is filled with cheap booze) and massive containers of beer. It was starting to get rowdy when we wandered off back to the quieter part of KSR and had a beer together before going back to our rooms. I grabbed a bottle of Pepsi on the way back and had a couple of drinks before lying on my bed sleepless for the rest of the night. The room was not quiet ! Amazing how many people after a night out managed to eat something that upset their stomachs.

Back to Bangkok – again…

Days 82 and 83 Monday and Tuesday 26/27 March 2012, – Yangon to Bangkok

Monday started as Sunday finished, sitting on the night bus from Inle Lake to Yangon. I would say I managed a few minutes sleep at most. We arrived in Yangon, pretty much on time at 6.00 AM. As is usual we were swamped by taxi drivers when we got off the bus, the one driver who managed to get dibs on us wanted to charge Mike and I 5000kjat each to go our hotel and Lisa 7000 to go to hers, we argued with him for ages about the per head price for a taxi before walking off as he would not budge from 17000 for the three of us, we found one who do it for 10000, which is still ridiculous, but at least it is better than 17000.

We arrived at the hotel at 6.30 and found, against all hope, that are room would not be ready until the afternoon as they were full. We hung around the lobby were there was a massive domestic between a Burmese couple which we endured before moving into the restaurant when it opened at 7.00 for some breakfast, the first full meal for me in 24 hours as I just do not eat before long bus rides – it was great to chow down on some rice and fried egg and sink a couple of coffees. Luckily some people vacated their room early so we were allowed to doss there for a couple of hours where I had a wee doze.

We managed to get into a room fairly early, and pretty much did sod all for the next day and a half, dozed, read, watched bad movies and football on TV and mike raided my laptop for books and travel guides and all the photos I took while we were together – that took a long time, my laptop has lots of goodies on it! We found a good (read expensive – by Myanmar standards) restaurant just up the road – Coffee Circles. It had Wifi and the connection was bad, but better than nothing. They also had great coffee, which you would hope given their name. We had dinner there on Monday and coffee back there on Tuesday morning.

We checked out Tuesday at the last possible minute before 12.00 and caught a cab to town, looking for a pharmacy as Mike was getting my cold, as well as souvenirs and a money changer. We lucked out on all things, Mike couldn’t find any cold medicine he knew, souvenirs were not in the part of town we were in and walking the streets on Yangon at mid-day in March is just dumb! And finally we discovered the money changer was closed – it was armed forces day and a public holiday in Myanmar… We had lunch at Monsoon instead then taxied to the airport via the hotel.

We had to wait an hour and half at Yangon airport for the Air Asia check in to open, passengers are advised be there three hours early – especially in Myanmar as it is sloooooow, but then AirAsia only open the check in desk two hours before the flight !

Mike was flying to KL and on to Europe and I was flying back to Bangkok and on to something, but no idea what at this stage. I planned on a couple of days in Bangkok catching up on blog posts and emails and booking flights to Da Nang for the wedding in a few days, and then finding something to do for three of four days outside the city.

My flight left early and arrived at BKK on time. Had a good ride back to the reliable old HI-Sukhumvit, with all the trains arriving as I did, so was there reasonably early. I picked up a small bottle of whisky on the way at the local 7 11.

I enjoyed the four weeks travelling with Mike, we made good companions I think, we certainly had a few good laughs and did some pretty cool stuff. So Mike – thanks for your company and your patience and I wish you well in Europe and beyond and will plan to see you in Vancouver in the future !

Today was my third month anniversary of travelling so I had a wee celebratory dram in my room, in bed, alone – party on !

A couple of lazy(ish) days in Inle

Days 80 and 81, Saturday and Sunday 24/25 March 2012, Inle Lake

I woke up Saturday morning with a very full head and mostly deaf, but felt a lot better and after staggering around for a while my ears cleared and I was almost back to normal. Today all five of us had to check out of the remember inn as they had a tour group arriving, last night we arranged rooms at the May Inn so we moved there soon after breakfast.

We had a fairly lazy start and kicked around the inn for a while before hitting the dusty streets of Nyaungshwe to hunt down bicycles for the day, there was not a lot of choice, one shop had five bikes out the front, three of which had flat tyres – not a great selling point in my opinion, we ended up going to two places to get enough bikes in ‘working’ order for us to be able to go riding.

Our first stop was the Red Mountain winery about 3km from town, it was a good sealed road all the way (pays to be a to tourism operator I think) and an interesting ride, my bike had gears but most didn’t work well so i ended up riding in the hardest gear in the end – same as my singlespeed at home – or close to it anyway.

The entrance to the winery was up a steep driveway which we all had to walk up. The vineyard was started 10 years ago by a Frenchman and they grow a large number of grape varieties. We hoped to try a couple of wines over an early lunch but once we saw the pricing we knew this was never going to happen.

We elected to get the 2000kyat for 4 samples deal, but this turned out to be about a thimble each of four different wines and really soured the teasing for us, ridiculously small, plus there was no water to rinse the mouth between each sample so in the end it was a BAD deal and one I would not recommend ! sorry Red Mountain, the wine we tried was not that great either and we left a bit disgruntled. The vineyard did have a busload of tourists arrive just before we left so I guess this is their target market anyway and us independents are just a pain in the ass.

We rode back to the hostel for a rest and then hunted down some cheap street food for lunch, deep fried flour – yummmmm…. (this photo was actually taken on Sunday !)

After lunch G, R n B and I decided to ride out to find the Koun Soun Taungbo temple and nearby caves, the map we had was a bit loose, but we found them Ok, down a rocky dusty side road, really not designed for the types of bikes we were riding, would have been awesome riding there on mountain bikes, though gears would be useful…

After a false cave start we found the real cave temple system and had a local monk as a guide, you are not allowed to enter on your own, though the caves are perfectly safe. Sadly they have been renovating so the walls have been painted white and new crude murals have been started. However these are not really tourist cave temples, more active working places of worship for the village.

I stopped to get a photo of another drink station – I do really like them !

Mike was feeling a we bit unwell so we went and had pizza for dinner and the others had cheap local food. I bought a 330ml bottle of grand royal whisky for less than a big bottle of beer and we all met in the hotels garden and had a drink or two before bed.

Sunday was a slow day – not due to drink! We were all tired and Mike and I were on the overnight bus to Yangon so we spent the morning mooching around the inn, chatting G and R n B before going for a lunch time stroll to the market – hand made local cigars.

and then checking out and waiting for the 3 pm pick up to take us back up to the junction for the bus to Yangon.

We had a few discussions around the cost of the pick up and after a few minutes of arguing agreed on what was a fairish price. I am 90% sure the guy who was driving the pickup, at hair raising speeds, was learning to drive at the same time. I was very happy when we arrived at the junction….

The bus was a proper airc con bus (not a VIP bus, but not bad) with one person per seat and no roof riders or standers… we left a couple of minutes early for the 14 hour overnight ride to Yangon. The first couple of hours were not too bad but the ride down the hills was pretty interesting, there were a huge amount of trucks coming the other way and passing was on occasions a tight and slow manoeuvre – at least all the drivers took care the road! At one village we passed through we had to an emergency stop as an elephant wandered out into the road…. we stopped twice, once at 6 and once at 8, but apart from those stops it was all the way to midnight….

the bus.