Photo trip report: A month in Myanmar

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buksida
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Re: Photo trip report: A month in Myanmar

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prcscct wrote:There doesn't seem to be the crush of motorbikes that you find in every Thai city and town. Pete
Motorbikes are banned in downtown Yangon, you can find them pretty much everywhere else in the country though.

Dala Township
A short ferry ride takes me across the Yangon River and into the Dala Township which was virtually destroyed by cyclone Nargis in 2008. Today it is the poorest part of Yangon and home to 2 million people, many of which live in simple wooden shacks perched over squalid waterways and ever-growing piles of rubbish.

For a few bucks you can take a trishaw around the labyrinthine warren of alleys and streets that make up Dala, it feels like another country in a land that time forgot compared to downtown Yangon.

Kids would call from tin shacks and run down the broken pathways and rickety bamboo bridges frantically waving at you. Goats, cows, geese and all manner of beast roam the streets alongside a population which primarily uses the bicycle to get around, there are no cars here.

A pause at a neighbourhood to buy snacks for some local children almost causes a riot as hundreds of them soon appear to get their fill. There is a danger that this type of ‘poverty tourism’ will alter the lives of the people here in the wrong way, though at the moment any tourist dollars going to the locals and not the government must be a good thing.
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To follow: Shwedagon Pagoda

Full photo gallery here: http://www.ontheroadasia.com/dala.php
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Re: Photo trip report: A month in Myanmar

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What am I looking at in DSC_0073.jpg please? The dome in the middle looks as though it's suspended.
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Re: Photo trip report: A month in Myanmar

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It is a miniature version of the big golden rock balanced on the cliff at Kyaikhtiyo Pagoda.
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Re: Photo trip report: A month in Myanmar

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:laugh: Impressive - I thought your hip flask was hiding the supporting structure :wink:

Quite clever then.
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Re: Photo trip report: A month in Myanmar

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Shwedagon Paya
The weather looks favourable today so I’m taking a walk to Shwedagon Pagoda, one of Southeast Asia’s most impressive monuments to religion. It is around 3km from my digs, so I venture through the Indian quarter first to reach the approach road which belies the sheer size of the stupa, it is still over a kilometer away but towers tantalizingly close.

The legendary 100 meter tall gold plated pagoda, which can be seen from almost anywhere in the city, is 2,500 years old according to local guides. It is a pilgrimage site for all Buddhists across the region that flock here to pay homage to the hundreds of Buddha images within the complex.

My walk took me to the southern entrance where, after dispatching with my shoes and brolly, ascended the enclosed stairway up to the main pagoda and ticket box for foreigners. Eight bucks lighter I’m allowed in and slowly join the meandering river of worshipers walking clockwise around the colossal chedi. The light reflected off the huge central pagoda emanates a golden hue the like of which I have never seen; it feels like being an ant amongst the jewels of the gods.

I take some rest bite from the sweltering heat in a the shade of a shrine after a monk calls me over to talk – he can’t speak a word of English and my Burmese is limited to ‘mingalabar’ but physical languages are not really much of a barrier in such a spiritual place. We people watch for a while and the monk expresses curiosity at my Nikon and cell phone and indicates that he wants to make a call. A few seconds later I’m chatting to another monk in English who asks me how I’m finding his country … surreal is the only word that comes to mind though I’m not sure he understands it.
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To follow: more from Shwedagon
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Re: Photo trip report: A month in Myanmar

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More from Shwedagon, including the many stalls on the way in and out ...
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To follow: Yangon Circular Train

Full photo gallery can be found here: http://www.ontheroadasia.com/shwedagon-pagoda.php
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Re: Photo trip report: A month in Myanmar

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Yangon’s circular train runs on rickety narrow gauge rails from the city center, out past the airport and suburbs, and into rural lands surrounding the capital. The loop takes three hours, stops at around 40 stations, costs just a dollar, and is a great way to see life outside of the city. Children working is a common sight here, whether labouring, selling street food or in the fields, they are everywhere and are obviously not at school. Women would lay their laundry on the tracks to dry, monks on bicycles glide past serenely, families are living and sleeping under bridges, a vegetable market is setup on the platform at one station, shacks cling precariously to the sides of trash filled rivers, and life onboard is a buzz of chat and betel nut spitting amongst the locals.
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To follow: Yangon Crocodile Farm
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Re: Photo trip report: A month in Myanmar

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Bogyoke Aung San Market
The Bogyoke Aung San Market is a sprawling mass of antique vendors, gem stores, art galleries, and souvenir shops selling all manner of Buddha images, carvings, lacquerware, handicrafts, pottery, textiles, books, and artifacts from the colonial era. Hours slip by wandering around the complex and through tiny alleys, wet markets, electronics shops, trinket stalls and pretty much anything else you can imagine – its all here somewhere.

Crocodile Farm
A little known crocodile farm out in suburban Yangon is the destination today; I’ve been to these before in Thailand and Malaysia but nothing as up close and personal as this. A large central lake holds 165 reptiles, some up to 6 meters long. For a buck you get a bowl of fish to feed the crocs (they don’t use meat as it is too expensive) which are literally a few feet away from you. If you left your hand there for too long there is a distinct possibility of losing it, safety standards don’t exist out here, enter at your own peril.
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To follow: The rail to Mandalay

Full photo gallery and report here: http://www.ontheroadasia.com/around-yangon.php
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Re: Photo trip report: A month in Myanmar

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The Rail to Mandalay
It was time to leave the eclectic streets of Yangon and head north so I decided that a better way to see Burmese life would be from the open window of a train rather than a night bus or flight. The ticket cost just under ten dollars for ‘upper class’ which was one up from a wooden bench, and the ride to Mandalay was an estimated 15 hours. Trundling out of Yangon Central at 6am I was thinking to myself that this won’t be so bad after all.

Three body bouncing hours later it arrives at Bago where half the Burmese army gets on board. Trains in Myanmar don’t glide over the rails as they do in Japan or Malaysia … they jump, hop, sway and bounce along like some medieval Mexican low rider, and you’ll find yourself literally airborne on several occasions. Needless to say a machine gun clattering over the floor of the carriage every time it goes loco raises a few eyebrows.

I’m not even going to mention the water-less toilet except the words bouncing, box, hole and floor. Anything more than a number one wasn’t possible for 15 hours – and even having a pee was a feat of acrobatic balance and marksmanship.

Passing through the military capital of Naypyidaw reveals huge seemingly empty housing estates, runway-like eight lane highways with no traffic on, going nowhere, and the cleanest (and quietest) station in the country.

The landscape is miles of flat rice paddy which shimmers myriad shades of green as the sun drops in the late afternoon. It is the land that time forgot, kids play in muddy streams, buffalo pull ploughs across furrowed fields, people use the tracks as a footpath, golden pagodas dot the countryside, and ramshackle thatched sheds nestle under solitary trees in the plains of central Myanmar.

I grab a couple of tins of warm lager as I take in the surroundings, monks get on board at various stations to collect alms and bless the train, and vendors with all manner of fruit turn the sardine tin carriage into a mobile market. Grubby kids would follow the train as it slowed into stations hollering something incomprehensible, which evidently instructed the passengers to donate their empty bottles by hurling them out of the window – nothing goes to waste here.

As darkness falls and an orange slash rips through the western sky looking like the discarded robes of a monk, the hulking Shan hills to the east turn hues of deep green into foreboding black. A void of utter blackness soon descended, illuminated only by the twinkle of village fires and the occasional fairy-light adorned chedi off in some remote place. The final 2-3 hours into Mandalay were a bit of a slog, I was totally trained-out, and would probably be dreaming of aircon busses that evening.
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To follow: Around Mandalay

Full trip report and photo gallery can be found here: http://www.ontheroadasia.com/mandalay.php
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Re: Photo trip report: A month in Myanmar

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Not every day on the road is an adventure waiting to unfurl and offer wild new experiences. Today for example is the second time on this trip I’ve had a bad belly and need close proximity to a comfortable latrine (five feet away at the moment). Coupled with a slight fever, zero appetite, and feeling utterly depleted I reside to a day in my room in Mandalay to catch up on this trip report. It is at times like these that travellers yearn for the comforts of home and the loved ones they left there.

My first introduction to Mandalay wasn’t the best, a walk through a muddy market and a sweltering struggle through a grid of identical looking streets back to the hotel suffering from stomach cramps. There are very few eateries around and a virtual blackout after sunset, street lights it seems are state-of-the-art in Myanmar and few and far between.

Day two was infinitely better as I opted for two wheels instead of two feet, Mandalay is a vast sprawling city covering great distances, the palace alone takes 2.5 square kilometers out of it. Walking around is a bad idea which is probably why you’re constantly hounded by taxi touts.

After getting some maps and ride tips from Zach at Mandalay Motorbike I head south to the former capital of Amarapura and U Bein’s Bridge, the longest teak footbridge in the world, and one of Myanmar’s most photographed sites. The bridge spans around 1,300 meters across Lake Taungthaman which was full as it is still wet season. There were a few tourists around but not the usual hoards so I managed to get a few decent shots during my walk across the lake and back.
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To follow: Sagaing and Mingun

Full gallery here: http://www.ontheroadasia.com/around-mandalay.php
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Re: Photo trip report: A month in Myanmar

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Thanks Buksida. Great pictures and report.
My Thai relatives are leary of going into that country, just as
they are leary of heading south of Thailand.
Maybe I will have to be the brave one and head there
with my nephews.
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Re: Photo trip report: A month in Myanmar

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Thanks for the comments, was beginning to think nobody was reading this! Thais are extremely nationalistic and wary of anything non-Thai which would explain their reaction - the Burmese on the other hand are quite the opposite.

Sagaing and Mingun
Riding on I cross over the mighty Irrawaddy (now named Ayeyarwady) River and into what can only be described as a fifteenth century monastic hill retreat –Sagaing. A countless number of stupas dot the hillocks amidst an almost Mediterranean feeling cluster of buildings, alleys, stairways and monasteries that is home to around 6,000 monks.

I continue north hugging the river on its western bank through bamboo hut villages and tiny fishing hamlets to Mingun where the world’s largest pagoda would have stood had it been completed in the 18th century. Today it is probably the world’s largest collection of bricks, but still an impressive sight with even more impressive views over the river and back to Mandalay from the top.

Technically you need to pay to get in, foreigners need to pay to get into everything in Burma, but nobody asked so I didn’t bother, preferring to give my 5 bucks to one of the local kids for showing me around. There are parking fees also pretty much everywhere that a tourist is likely to go, an assiduous ticket boy will come running over to deprive you of 200 kyat (about 6 baht) to leave your bike there. He will meticulously check your ticket when you return to make sure you’ve paid!

My trusty steed, ‘Doris’ – a Chinese copy 125cc Honda, gets a rear blowout on the way back but help is never far away in Myanmar. A local lad sends his 5 year old son running barefoot back into town for a new inner tube and charges me a dollar for the replacement job – imagine that in the west!
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To follow: Mandalay Hill

Full gallery: http://www.ontheroadasia.com/around-mandalay.php
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Re: Photo trip report: A month in Myanmar

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Any comments of food & drink Buksi ? Quality, variety, price - better taste or worse than Thai food ?
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Re: Photo trip report: A month in Myanmar

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He has mentioned 2 separate occasions of being confined to the bathroom so far :twisted:
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Re: Photo trip report: A month in Myanmar

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Yes, the food is very oily so it takes a while for your palate to adjust. It is nowhere near as spicy as Thai food and closer to Indian, they eat a lot of curries there. Price wise I'd say about the same as here, you can get a basic meal for 1,500-2,000 kyat (40-60 baht) and a big feed for 5,000 (150 baht). Drinks are about half the cost (less than 20 baht for a tin of beer, draught even cheaper) since Thailand imposes a 150% tax on alcohol. You can even buy Thai beer there in restaurants and hotels for cheaper than you can get it in a 7-Eleven in Thailand!
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