Travel – Page 21 – Where is Phil now?

War Remnants Museum

Day 100, Friday 13 April 2012, HMC

Wow, one hundred days on the road, and still enjoying it too!

All the remaining wedding guests were flying home today so some of us agreed to meet at the War Remnants Museum as it opened at 7.30 AM, a fifteen minute walk from both our hotels. The museum was interesting, I loved the names of some of the collections – obviously the Vietnamese side of the story is so different to what we have learned in the west.

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I really enjoyed the photograph collection, there was a very good exhibition by photojournalists from both sides who were killed during both the French and American wars, including Robert Capa who is one of my favourite photojournalists. This photo shows how dangerous it was (excuse the reflection !) This Japanese photographer survived the experience, though I neglected to note his name.

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As we were walking the exhibition we were invaded by a hundred or so Vietnamese school children, I must have said hello to each one at least twice, they were very friendly and their smiles were quite catching – especially in such a place as this.

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I enjoyed the museum, it was getting a bit crowded when we left, so it got harder to see and read the information – it was pretty biased, but not terribly so, and the section on Agent Orange and its effect on families even 40 years later was quite moving.

On the way back to the hotel I stopped for a filter coffee, Vietnamese style, then found out it was $3 – five times the price of a coffee in Da Nang, so was pretty pissed off. I wont go back there again thats for sure.

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In all the cities I have visited in Vietnam I have seen sculptures in parks, I really liked this piece, though there is no information about it.

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At lunch time we wandered over to the Rex Hotel to meet everybody else, Dan had been in to the hospital that morning and had some sort of chest infection, he was not moving from his bed, not a great way to end his wedding week. Those of us feeling up to it went and had a swim in the hotel pool, luxury ! and then I bade every one farewell and went back to my guest house so they could finish packing and head to the airport.

The view from the Rex, the modern business centre.

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And the contrast, Socialist Republic of Vietnam flag against the Sheraton hotel.

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I have arranged to share a room with Dan’s sister Leonie for a couple of days, when she returns to HMC from Hanoi on the 16th, so booked myself on a three day Mekong Delta tour starting tomorrow morning.

I haven’t had a good walk around the streets of HMC yet, but this show how narrow they are in the backpacker area.

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I had dinner in a local bar, got ripped off on expensive beer and watched half a game of rugby league – Dragons v Knights. I miss rugby league !

Goodbye to a bunch of very nice people, Dans mum – Jessie, bro – Russell, cousin Karen and friends, Hayley and Mark, Malcolm, Nolan, Debs and Keelan (apologies for spelling names wrong : )) It was great meeting you all and I really enjoyed hanging out with everyone. Many many thanks to Dan and Van for having me at the wedding, you are a great couple and it has been lovely to meet your families.
I also want to say a special thanks to Van for organising everything for us, the trips, the buses and hotels. All was great and so very much appreciated ! Van – you are a star !

Hue

Days 96 and 97, Monday and Tuesday, 09/10 April 2012, Hue

Dan and Van had organised a bus for two days to take us all up for an overnight trip to Hue. We left pretty much on time at 8.00 and took the coast road through the “hill of clouds”.

We stopped close to the top, at a big rock that has great views over the bay and is obviously a magnet for tourists and the associated hawkers. There are two hawker woman almost fighting over the right to sell bangles on the bus, it was verging on comical, they were still at it as we were driving off. P1110760

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The drive to Hue took about three hours and was a mix of stunningly beautiful countryside and nerve wracked clenching of seat arms as we passed trucks and watched oncoming vehicles also overtaking and heading straight for us. I am sure that on more than one occasion the top .001 mm of paint on the buses mirror was left on the mirror of an oncoming vehicle ! We did pass some lovely villages and as we passed Long Co we asked if we could stop “somewhere nice for coffee”, meaning a beach or local cafe. The driver took that literally and we stopped at a resort ! not the same. I am going to go back to Long Co when I return to Da Nang in a couple of weeks as I make my way up Vietnam once all the wedding guests have gone back to NZ and Australia. 1110764

We got to the Ideal Hotel in Hue about lunch time and after checking in most of us met for lunch at an Italian restaurant over the road, though I had chicken cashew and rice this is one of my favourite SE Asian dishes for lunch. It was good too, though the smiley face did not improve a very average cappuccino. P1110771

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After lunch we all did our own thing and I wandered off on my own – nice to have some space, I am too used to looking at things on my own ! I have posted separately about the Citadel. Though I found this great spirit house in a tree (even after seeing hundreds I still love them!) .

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And this guy who had a bit of fun trying to get this into the traffic.

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Though I have to really experience the thrill of motorbikes as Hue and Da Nang are supposed to be nothing compared to Hanoi and HMC, it was still pretty crazy and very noisy. With Hue being a massive tourist town – there were a lot of hawkers everywhere, especially cyclos and motorbike touts, however, nothing is far and I like to walk – so I did.

After the Citadel we all reconvened in Russell’s room on the top floor of the hotel for a wee gin and tonic or three before heading out to a street stall for dinner. The stall was typical of street food all over Asia, dishes washed nearby in cold water (often not that clean) and wiped on the same old cloth, the tables are a wee big grubby, are very low and the chairs lower, the floor is filthy with cigarette butts and egg shells – but the food was delicious and fresh and cheap. Some of the others who had not been here as long as me were a bit hesitant, but I have seen it all before and never been sick from the food. Though my chicken noodle dish still had some pork in it…

We stopped for an “Italian” wine after at little Italy and I went exhausted to bed.

I am going to need a holiday from holidaying soon as I am tired and my back and legs are sore from playing football – i am feeling worn out !

We all reconvened around 7.00 am for breakfast in the hotel, which was huge and very nice and then shot over the road for a real Vietnamese coffee which I am getting quite used to. It is a short shot of coffee in a small glass with condensed milk. Very strong and sweet.

After breakfast I had a wee like down as I am still tired and then left the hotel at 8.30 for a walk around for a couple of hours, it was stinking hot !

I ran into Dan and Van and we looked at some women doing traditional needlecraft work before I wandered off again and walked over one of the bridges across the Perfume River, hmm didn’t smell like anything I would wear ! P1110854

There were a few of these women carrying heavy loads from the market, across the river to their various eating establishments. They have a rolling gait from the weight of the loads.

I took a walk through the main market and found the fruit and vege and then meat and fish section by the river. A lot of the fish were still kicking in the bowls, they were that fresh ! In Vietnam (I guess all SE Asia) not much of a beast gets wasted, this woman was selling the bits of a pig you would not see in NZ, intestines, liver and a pile of wobbly, gooey fat….

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I took a stroll up one of the tributaries of the Perfume River and only a few metres up the side street I was away from the hustle and bustle of shopping, tourists and hawkers. It was a pleasant stroll up a leafy river side street and a got a few picture of people washing clothes and dishes and collecting shell fish in the river. I didn’t take a photos of the woman weeing in the river just on the side of where the shell fish gatherers were : )

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It was at this point that my camera battery died and i found my spare was flat ! the spare spare was back in the hotel and mostly flat and the charger was still in Da Nang. I headed back to the hotel, picked up an Adidas running shirt for $6 so I can now send my dying but favourite favourite running shirt back to NZ – the 2XU shirt I got as a spot prize in some event and have almost worn out, I have never found that model shirt ever, damnit. I found this old Colt 45 in a shop near the hotel.

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We left Kevin and Philip in Hue as they were off to Hanoi and on to more travels. I am hoping to catch up with them later in the year as they live in London.

After lunch we all piled back into the bus and went out to Tu Duc Tomb, a burial site for the emperor Tu Duc, constructed between 1847 and 1870. The site is not particularly old when compared to Bagan in Myanmar and Angkor in Cambodia, but I was looking forward to seeing more of the Viet style architecture, which is quite heavily influenced by the Chinese style – in my uninformed opinion of course ! I had enough battery life between my three dead batteries

gallery – Imperial Citadel, Hue

Day 96, Monday 09 April 2012, Hue – Imperial Citadel.

A post about the rest of the day will be posted soon, but I seem to have a lot of photos from the citadel so thought I would do a separate citadel only post and do the rest of the day later. I have been so busy in Vietnam, hanging out with friends and family of Daniels and Van’s has meant many dinners and nights out and I am never going to catch up with blogging and photo editing at this rate.

The citadel is not that old, being started around 1820 as the Vietnamese imperial palace, it was kicked about during fighting with the French in 1947 and was then shelled by the Viet Cong and bombed by our American friends in 1968. The site still has some clear war damage as well as vast empty areas that I guess were totally beyond repair. Much renovation work has gone into the site.

I am going to say initially I was really disappointed with it, there is a big festival in Hue starting tomorrow night so there is a lot of work setting up stages and lights and monster sound systems playing bloody awful music – loudly – why do they have to play the awful Hotel California !!! I ended up putting head phones on. The site was quite antiseptic, until I walked through a gate and found peace and tranquillity and some nice things to look at – and then stayed for two hours until sunset.

The architecture is quite Chinese, especially compared to Thai and Khmer temples. I really like the gateways and the art on the gates, and the yellow that is everywhere in Vietnam is becoming my favourite colour – though I would never wear it 🙂

Some of the photos are a bit wonky, I am sure it is my eyes, so not the best photo day ever.

I also saw a snake , a small grass snake was basking in the sun behind one of the buildings, we were both a wee bit cautious after that encounter.

Right, onto the photos !

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Ba Na (na na na ) Hills

Day 95, Sunday 08 April 2012, Da Nang

Up early again for a group trip with some of Vans family to Ba Na Hills, just out of Da Nang. We took the hire car with a few of us inside and four motorcycles, I got to ride in the car ! Dan and Malcolm with Dan’s bro Russell in the background.

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Ba Na Hills is a weird place ! I am not entirely sure of its history, but the original site was started by the French in 1919 as a 200 bed hotel. This all fell apart before the war in the 60’s and now it is owned by the Vietnamese government who are investing huge amounts of money into making it a major tourist attraction. However, it is not the type of tourist attraction I would go to!

The cool bit is the cable car ride up to the 1290 metre(i think) point, it is supposedly the longest cable car in the world and it is pretty cool riding up into and then out of the clouds, the view of the forest and rivers was lovely.

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From there you get a second cable car up another couple of hundred meters to this bizarre mass of construction, building a family fun park, Vietnamese style of course.

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There was a walk up to a pagoda, but it was all too new and modern for my tastes, though I did like the goddess of mercy statue.

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We had a walk around the fun park and then caught the 4d movie, which turned out to really only be 3d as bits of it were not working. After catching the cable car back to the top of the first car we stopped for ‘temporary lunch’ and then walked up to the big Buddha and to find the wine cave – the main mission. 1110744

Dan and Van had been here a year ago and had found a wine bar in an old cave that the French had used as a wine cellar, it was quite cool up here (lovely !), however it was all being renovated and was closed – which was a major disappointment…

There was a nice pagoda here with a very cool bonsai garden complete with miniature pagodas, bridges and people.

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I think I may be eating too much chicken !

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We did find this very cool air filled course, that was set up for a corporate team building event, so we asked the guys if we could have a few turns and raced each other over the course, much to a few peoples hilarity…

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Van’s cheeky wee niece.

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The cloud closed in making for a spooky ride back down the hill.

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A quick stop at the hotel and I was back in the car with Luc heading off to watch his team play 7 a side football. When we got to the ground it turned out his team only had six players so I was very reluctantly roped in to play – in sandals…. it was not my finest sporting hour I will say but I had fun, though trying to kick a ball in loose sandals is not easy. I have no idea if we won or lost or what the score was, though it did seem rather irrelevant.

Unlike a game in NZ there was no swifty beer after the game, or even any hand shake, most of the guys silently left the pitch and walked to their car or motorbike and left, a wee bit odd !

Luc dropped me back at the hotel and i had a shower and a warm lager and then went down to the lobby to suss the plan for a feed for the night. There seemed to be a few options so I elected to go with Dan to meet his mate Matt for one beer and then off to the market for street food with some of the others followed by an early night as I was knackered.

As is the norm with the group we all left a bit later than planned and by the time Dan I settled in for a beer with Matt the market had closed. We had two beers and went back to the hotel on the bike (Dan was driving) and picked up a few of the others and met up with Van and one of her friends for an awesome chicken noodle dish and fresh fruit drink at one of the road side eateries in town – and I mean roadside !

After eating we went to find some other friends of Dans at the Bamboo Bar, they were not there but we stopped for one more beer and I got to watch some of the Arsenal v Man City game on TV. From there we went to another bar to watch a live band – Filipino cover band, and I watched the rest of the football (1-0 to Arsenal!) and the band. One of the backing singers had the shortest shorty shorts I have ever seen !!! We sunk a few whisky and cokes and then back on the motorbikes for a stupid (though short) ride back to the hotel, which was all locked up when we arrived just before 1.00 AM. So much for my one beer and an early night ! But a heck of a lot of fun – and no we were not that drunk for riding in Vietnam…

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.

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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

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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!

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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!

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…

A day on the lake

Day 79, Friday 23 March 2012, Inle Lake

I am sure the pickup ride yesterday didn’t help, so I woke up with a streaming nose this morning, bugger it.

Nyaunshwe is a dusty little town, there may be some small sealed sections of road, but largely it is dirt roads and small single storied buildings – I liked it !

After all the ‘fun’ yesterday I forgot to mention we ran into Giovanni (G) at an internet cafe in town and he said he had arranged a boat ride for us today on Inle Lake, along with Richard and Blathnaid (sorry for murdering your name : ) ) to now be known as R n B – which kinda has a wee bit of funkiness to it, who he had met earlier in Myanmar.

Inle lake has a number of points of interest around it and the only way to see them is to hire a boat, though one day is never enough and that ignorance is definitely milked by the boat drivers and you get taken to many places where you have the chance to “invest in local crafts”, as it were…

We met with G over breakfast and were introduced to R n B, R is Scottish and B is Irish and they were of similar age to me, well travelled and very interesting (and as turned out- very cool to hang with). Breakfast at the remember inn was the best in Myanmar, with more choices than others and mine was fried rice and egg, the rice was great – not stodgy boiled and they did the eggs perfectly, yumbo !

We also had Lisa join us on our cruise, a Chinese woman (I guess late 20s) who spoke good English and was cruising SE Asis like the rest of us – which is highly unusual for a Chinese woman !

Our boat

Our driver collected us at 8.30 and we walked down to the canal to get on our boat for the day, we had hired it from 8.30 to 6.00 PM for about $4 each, though it only had 4 chairs. Mike and Lisa were happy to slob on mats on the deck.

The ride up the canal was interesting – I shot more photos today than any other single day on my trip – and deleted as many – taking photos from a moving boat – with head cold – of moving objects is not that simple!

After 20 or so minutes we hit the lake. The lake is the primary source of LIFE in these parts, it provides water (for everything), food, fertiliser, transport – and lastly a large and growing source of income in tourism.

The fishing boats are all canoes and mostly powered by humans. They have a unique style of paddling here – using the leg !

Collecting lake weed to be later used as fertiliser for the floating market.

Our first stop, (shopping opportunity) was at a weaving shop where they hand make a number of products, Mike has been gagging to buy a longyi – which is the male skirt worn by most Burmese men, and he picked up one here. It was interesting to see local cottage industries at work, and if I was not such a horrible cynic (and in need of a skirt) I could have been tempted to buy something. The technology is basic here, as is common in a very poor country – until you visit you do not appreciate poverty – nothing goes to waste and as there is no electricity so many things are done manually. Cotton is spooled on an old bike wheel…

I loved this crude form of pool/snooker/billiards, played all over SE Asia, using all sorts of material, old beer bottle tops being quite common in Myanmar. The guy with his back to camera is our boat driver.

We then stopped at a Myanmar cigar making place – now I know for a fact that Cuban cigars are rolled on the thighs of virgins so I was bitterly disappointed by this.

We had a further opportunity to share financially at a silver smith, but they were all lying about till the boat docked, leaped into action to make things, then all went back to drinking tea when it became obvious we were not spending any money – so, so much for cottage industry !

The package tour tourists got given nice umbrellas, we got to roast in the unrelenting sun, my cold did not improve! But I know where I would rather be.

After a lunch stop we went upriver to see an old temple site, the river was very cool, with a lot of buffalo cooling off and some wonderful bamboo weirs to manage the water level – my weir photos suck so you don’t see them.

We arrived in the village with the temple site which was surrounded by spending opportunities, I managed t make my way to a wonderful collection of very old stupas and was merrily snapping away when i got approached by a guy who demanded I pay to take photos. Apparently I had missed a sign saying I needed a photo pass, by this stage my snozz was a streaming mess, I had a monster headache and was no way paying to take photos. I said I would stop and he said I had taken some photos, so I walked over to him and deleted every photo in front to him and stormed off in a monster huff – and huge loss of face. He followed me all the way back to the boat. I was steaming (it was 36 degrees – everyone was steaming !) . I found this on the seat by the water – my only photo of the site- but fuck it, I am not paying to take photos – a tourist scam, bastards.

I waited an hour for everyone else though, so more fool me, tough R n B joined me after 20 minutes so we got a good chat in. I did get a nice shot of some of the local women in this particular head dress (which I am sure has a name) but it is unique to this area.

Once the suckers who had paid their 60 cents to take photos (it was a matter of principal, no cost) had arrived back on the boat we head back down stream to the jumping cat monastery. I had heard that the cats only jumped in the morning so I had told the boat driver that if there were no jumping cats then I was not paying any money… luckily there was one !

Though whether it was worth visiting or not is a mute point. The monastery has been teaching cats to jump through hoops for decades, well before it was a tourist thing, so I was not concerned about any weird animal cruelty thing. The monastery itself was quite interesting, some awesome Buddha and monk statues, but so badly lit it was impossible to take photos.

From the monastery we had a quick whip through the floating gardens – a vast vege patch built out of the lake – and where all the fertiliser goes, and then back out to the lake for an hour long ride back towards the canal for sunset. I was feeling so crap by this stage, nose streaming, sneezing and coughing all the way, no fun on a large uncovered canoe for 10 hours – at least my hanky got to dry in the sun : )

We stopped at a great sunset spot and the local poser drifted past for some classic Inle Lake photos – I took a lot, posed, but hey I am not going to get them again – he drifted past for a collection and we were all happy to throw a few dollars in the pot.

Once we got back to the hotel, I crashed for a few hours while the others went for dinner and then I joined them for a beer later on.

Bagan to Inle Lake – really it’s not that far…

Day 78, Thursday 22 March 2012, Bagan to Inle Lake

You will be glad to know this post features no temples, but I still managed to make it a long one; which sums up the day I guess. One of those days I will remember for a while I suspect !

We were up at 6.15 to get ready for the 7 am bus and were wondering about breakfast when the breakfast guy knocked on our room door and asked if we would like him to make us some food, that was so awesome, most places wouldn’t bother – we said yes to coffee and he didn’t need to make eggs for us.

We were down in reception waiting for the bus to arrive to take us to Meiktila, a town about 4 hours away and the main junction point for buses going to Mandalay. We had to pay for a seat to Mandalay even though we got off less than halfway, I am guessing that as soon as we were off the seat was resold to some one else. We were thinking – stupidly that this would be some sort of directi(ish) bus, but an utterly ridiculous thought, though there is only one road, we stopped everywhere and must have packed dozens of people on. At one point, when we were so full I though we would burst we stopped in a town and seven more people got on – from there we were obviously full as we stopped no more I highly suspect the driver and ticket guy/spotter get paid for x number of people, I guess the legal limit, and anything else is a bonus, they do not give a shit about how many get on, and I guess for those in rural towns with no transport apart from these buses, this is how they normally travel.

The bus… Are you loving the grungy unshaven look ? it is now 7 days later and the face has still not seen a blade, a new unshaven record. The heads up the centre of the shot are people sitting in the aisle seats, so yep – there is no aisle.

There were 7 or 8 people crammed in the stairwell…

Back to the spotter reference. As mentioned a few posts ago in Myanmar the cars are predominately right hand drive, which is fine in NZ where you drive on the left hand side (and Thailand where I guess vehicles come from), but in Myanmar they drive on the right. This puts the driver on the sidewalk side of the vehicle, which must suck big time if you want to overtake safely, which they generally do here, but they love to overtake so they have a guy who stands on the left hand side and signals the driver when it is safe to move out into the middle of the road. The roads here are so narrow that any parked vehicle will force a moving vehicle on to the other side of the road. The spotters on these trucks must have one of the crappest jobs out – the roads are extremely dusty.

We stopped for breakfast under an hour into the journey (where I took the above photo), once on the way we went five minutes before stopping for gas, and to allow the driver to flirt with the gas girls, once under way again, we stopped to pick up more passengers and then broke down… seemed to be dirty gas as there was a lot of tools being used and a strong smell of fuel in the bus, I am assuming they were cleaning diesel filters. Under way after twenty minutes we stopped to pick up passengers – repeat…. though this was the last time. I suspect all bus drivers in Myanmar are mechanics at heart – though we got away lucky as you will see later in the day. (though lucky is erm yes interesting…)

After so many stops I lost count, we arrived in Meiktila, one hour late after five hours of the four hour bus ride. We were suppoed to be taken to the bus station but were unceremoniously dumped on the side of the road and vague finger pointing suggested which direction the bus station was in so we could make our way to find the bus to Nyaungshwe, the main town by Inle lake. Or at least to the junction at Shwenyaung which is the main town on the Shan highway, which is where the buses to Nyaungshwe stop and from there you get a taxi or pickup to the Nyaungshwe.

The road from Meiktila is the Shan Highway, lonely planet calls it a national disgrace. Given how crap some of the roads in Myanmar are you can only imagine… I may as well cover it now, as far as roads go, yes it was bad, it was so bad that all vehicles went slowly, which really makes it not so bad after all – if we had been doing Malaysian bus speeds on this road it would have been awful. As a notified highway it was bad though – very narrow, barely two car widths wide in most places so passing an oncoming truck or bus in the hills was slow or at least interesting, the road is very rough and in a few places just dirt and rock. However, there are a lot of road works going on so in a year it will be not as bad – still bad, but not as bad ! I liked it as it is – at least it was slow – I would hate to be doing it at pace… Right, back to the story (and another whisky)

The eight of us found our way to the Meiktila bus terminal only to discover there were no buses to Shwenyaung until tomorrow, however the kind gentleman could offer us a ride in the back of his truck – no seats, just a tray – we asked him how long and he said 7 hours. We laughed…. his second offer was a ride in a pickup.

The pickups are an extremely common form of public transport in Myanmar, we argued over price and availability of buses, but ended up facing the possibility that it was this or nothing (I am still not sure if we were conned or not, but the Burmese are pretty genuine, so I don’t think so, maybe on the price). We agreed on a price and foolishly thought it was just us going in the pickup, oh how naive we were ! Once we said yes, 3 burmese jumped onto the pick up and the 8 of us were left to find spots. You can sort of see this grin on Mike’s face as he was thinking this is just silly, little did he (or we) know, silly got sillier and sillier…

We made it about 100 metres before the first stop where we picked up half a gear box, on the floor under our feet, and a massive bag of something on the roof. The second stop was to pick up 6 massive bails of something that went on the roof, plus a bunch of people.

Third stop saw a big bag of something, dumped under our feet and a person sitting on it….. stop, stop stop. We were soon under way with about 25 people on the vehicle. In NZ you would legally be allowed 2 – in the front – both wearing seatbelts. The ride was still 7 hours…. The ute had 3 in the front, two rows of 4 each facing fwd in the back, 6/7 of us facing inwards in the back back, with 2 sitting on sacks/gearboxes in the middle and up to 4 standing on the tray and 5 on the roof…

The road was rough, dusty and dirty, we were crammed in, we let people off and more got on, we stopped for ciggies, for wees, for drinks (hopefully not the driver) and we stopped to allow the engine to cool. The good thing was it was slow, though my butt was killing me after a while, the padding was a layer of vinyl on wood. Bizarrely, once the inevitable was accepted, which didn’t take long, I actually enjoyed the ride, we saw a lot, we shared the travelling experience with numerous people, some quite intimately – if they were sitting in the middle, they were sitting on my feet, if they were standing on the tray then there crotch was in my face… The worst was the dust and the fumes, I had the start of a head cold and was blowing and coughing all the way and the dust just made it all worse. I was wearing a bandana over my nose and mouth cowboy styles for a chunk of the way – I wasn’t the only one…

The ride up the Shan hills took about 2 half hours, of slow grind, though the scenery was amazing, the villages, rural, but friendly . We stopped half way to allow the engine to cool down, parked next to a truck of chickens. The driver is hosing the engine, not urinating on it !

And a really broken down bus, – that is the engine on the road side with the head off… I did say earlier our wee bus issues were minor compared to some.

There were loads of road works all the way up the hills which forced a lot of vehicles to share a single narrow lane, the drivers here are used to this type of driving so giving way and patience is part of their style – thank God ! apart from road rollers the road works are done by hand, rock breaking and laying, the heating of tar is done by road side fires and the tar is poured by hand – I would hate to see the lungs of these poor men, women and children. Sadly children are part of the workforce in the remote areas:( this is a hard hard life.

After 7 hours we arrived in Shwenyaung and got shifted to another pickup, where there was just the 6 of us (we lost 2 at a trekking town further back) and the last few kms were done at a good speed on a (my Myanmar standards) good road. It was dark by now and it was amazing to see the amount of fires burning all around, lots of burning off of corn and cane fields, the sky was alight in many directions.

13 hours after leaving Bagan we arrived in Nyaungshwe, we asked the pickup to drop us off at the Remember Inn where we had arranged to meet Giovanni who theoretically had arrived hours before us on the direct bus. Fortunately he had and they even knew who we were and had a room for us when arrived – awesome!

We unloaded our gear and I jumped straight into the shower in my shirt and undies in attempt to get the dust out (my shorts were too far gone!). After washing my shirt while it was still on my body I discovered I still had my non-waterproof money belt on, I so rarely use it that I had totally forgotten I had it on. Mucho swearing ensued, though luckily my passport was only damp around the edges, but all money was soaked – the room looked like a money laundry as I dried it out – I had close to 80 notes of various currencies – mostly worthless mind….

Once the passport panic was over Mike and I went for a wander around town and had Italian for dinner while my nose streamed nonstop.

Bed was a relief.

I am going to say, the new NZ passport with the silver fern on the front and back is the most distinctive passport out there, it utterly rocks for coolness – so well done NZ Passport designers – the coolest passport in the world.

I have washed that shirt 3 times and it is indelibly stained with dust of the Shan highway, I am not sure whether to keep it as a badge of honour or toss it in the bin as a dirty dusty relic, and to think that Nike shirt cost me at least $3 maybe even $4…