Bagan

(PICTURE: Bagan at sunset.)

Without a doubt, Bagan was my favorite place in Myanmar. The place was awesome and ranks up with my favorite sites in the world. Scattered over 42 square kilometers are thousands of temples, pagodas and stupas. Supposedly there were over 4,000 structures but due to earthquakes there are now only 3,000+. Regardless, everywhere you look you see temples.

Huyen and I arrived in Bagan around 2pm, rented bikes and headed out to get a taste of the area. We almost immiedately came upon a few empty pagodas and started to climb them. Here's me on my first pagoda:

Once I climbed to the top of that pagoda I realized that it was perhaps the smallest and most pathetic of all the 3,000+ pagodas. In the distance I could see so many more impressive ones.

The thing to do in Bagan is to find a temple and watch sunset. The first evening we were there it started to rain and the fast approaching lightning seemed like it would be a bad mix with climbing tall pointed structures. On the second night we went to the most popular sunset pagoda. Huyen and I made friends with some local kids who we bought sunflower seeds for. Befriending them allowed us to be the only tourists not harrassed to buy postcards. (PICTURE: Huyen and the local kids. Ignore the stuff on Huyen's face. That is tomorrow's blog!):

On the third night in Bagan, Huyen and I found our own pagoda and watch sunset by ourselves. It was pretty spectacular. We tried to capture the coolness of the moment by taking reflective sunglass picture shots. I think Huyen's is pretty cool.

Some other memorable things were riding through a local village and finding the spot in the river the locals played/bathed in:

In the morning, the female novices collected alms along the main street near our guest house.


On the first night we asked a local where the locals eat and he told us about a Myanmar salad shop. We ended up eating there three times in the next 72 hours. It was amazing. Here's the before and after shot from a meal where we ordered enough for four people...and finished it all (no need to post a comment about wondering why I didn't lose weight on the trip).

Mandalay Odds and Ends

Here's a few odds and ends from Mandalay:

The menu screen for our television in our hotel room was set for Vietnamese. It was the only Vietnamese person/place/thing we saw in Myanmar.

My absolute favorite street food was in Mandalay. I happen to love Indian breads so what could be better than hot naan being made in front of you? We soaked up some delicious curries with the bread...more evidence that my stomach is becoming a rock in southeast Asia. Who can eat street curry without becoming sick (yeah, yeah, yeah...we'll all have a good laugh when I have a gigantic parasite extracted from me in a few months)?

Nearly every restaurant/hotel/building had a generator in it for the constant black outs. I don't know much about generators but perhaps the power would go out less in the country if there weren't millions of generators soaking up energy. But again, I know nothing about generators so perhaps that is an idiotic thing to say.

Here's a picture of my favorite road-side toilet. Trust me there is no irony in that statement. That said, I'm pretty sure the porcelain urinal serves no purpose and I could have just peed in the hole behind it.

One afternoon Huyen and I went to a market and bought a bunch of fruit. We bought a grapefruit from a lady who jokingly put the skin on her head. I took the skin from her and put it on Huyen's head which caused all the vendors to laugh hysterically. One of the vendors then called for her daughter to come outside to see the amazing joke I had done. The daughter -- six years old tops -- walked out and immediately started to cry when she saw me. She then took off her sandal and THREW IT AT ME. I think having a sandal thrown at me is officially the first thing that George Bush and I have in common besides our nationality.

Die Hard In Myanmar

(PICTURE: Road trip in construction worker helmets.)

It's all the little things that stand out from Myanmar. On the day that Huyen and I rented a motorbike, we went pretty far away from Mandalay. We ended up on some very small, very primitive dirt roads. Eventually we found some ancient ruins we were looking for which turned out to be pretty unimpressive. Regardless, the road trip was great and took us through lots of villages that I'm sure don't get a heavy flow or tourists...or any tourists ever.

On the way home we stopped to eat in road side tea shop. When we sat down, everyone turned to look at us. I've had this experience before but it was definitely Huyen's first time. She looked at me and said, "Everyone is staring at me." Not letting her steal all the glory, I chimed in, "I think they're staring at both of us." The whole tea shop went silent. You could hear the figurative pin drop. The only noise was a familiar voice coming from near the kitchen. The voice said, "Yippie-kay-yah." The words weren't in Burmese. It was English. Bruce Willis English. Let me just set the scene a little clearer:
This was a weekday.
It was 2pm.
Nobody was working.
We were in a tea shop.
In the middle of the countryside.
Somewhere between 1,000+ year old ruins.
In Myanmar.

Man, Myanmar is sooooo weird!:

You want a picture with me?!!!!

When my sister Hannah and I traveled together last year, we constantly tried to get cool pictures of monks. Perhaps the coolest picture we ended up taking was this one of the novice (a monk in training) who scammed us in Luang Prabang:

There's just something about monks that make you want to take pictures of them. However, it's weird to ask them to take pictures so one has to try and take snap shots of them in the background (or while walking without a flash if you're Hannah).

While riding motorbikes, Huyen and I went to the world's largest teak bridge.
(PICTURE: That's the bridge in the background.)

We quickly lost interest in the bridge though when we caught site of a bunch of monks ahead of us. Quickly I told Huyen to pretend like she was posing so I could zoom over her shoulder at the monks. After a few seconds of doing this the monks started to look at us. Clearly they were on to our game. We tried to play it cool as if we really just wanted weird posing shots on a wooden bridge. They didn't buy it and they started to walk up to us.
(PICTURE: My fake pose to get the monks in a shot.)

(PICTURE: Huyen's typical Vietnamese girl pose. I think she was trying to get the monks in the shot too.)

I was all prepared for the monks to come up to us and say, "No pictures please" when one bashfully asked, "Can we take a picture of you?"

"You want a picture of us," I asked confusedly.

The monk nodded yes. I tried to bottle my excitement but could hardly contain myself. After they took their picture of us I asked if I could have one too. They agreed and walla...I've got pictures with monks!!! Be jealous, Hannah!:

Snake Pagoda

(PICTURE: The python chilling with Buddha.)

Bike riding is hard work. On our second day in Mandalay we swapped our bicycles for a motorbike. We read about a few places outside of the city and decided to have an adventure on our own. Our first stop was the "Snake Pagoda." Long story short, this pagoda was just an average pagoda until like thirty years ago when supposedly three pythons wandered in from the forest and cuddled up with Buddha. Since that day the pagoda has always had pythons and performs a ritual with them every morning. Before the morning ritual takes place, the snake keeper lets people take photos with one of the pythons. Look at the difference in reaction between me and Huyen:

(PICTURE: Guess which one of us worked at Fear Factor.)

After picture time comes the daily ritual. Basically the snake caretakers wash the snake, dry the snake, feed the snake, and then lead the snake to a statue of Buddha. Check out the video (my favorite part is when the young child is left alone next to a giant python):

Mandalay

(PICTURE: Mandalay ran out of paint so they put this tree in the middle of the road to divide the lanes.)

Huyen and I arrived in Mandalay early in the morning which meant we had the whole day to check out the city. We immediately liked Mandalay a lot more than Yangon. The city was much quieter than Yangon. The streets were almost empty and lots of people were on bicycles. Huyen and I rented two bikes, grabbed a map and set off for a day of sightseeing...

Huyen and I got about 45 feet from our guest house when it started to drizzle. It would continue to rain throuhout the day. You might think this is a bad thing, but for a guy as sweaty as me it was a blessing in disguise. The rain was a nice change of pace...meaning other people besides me were covered in water too for once.

Our day consisted of visiting lots of famous pagodas and the Mandalay Royal Palace. Like most things in Mandalay the old places had been rebuilt in recent years.

(PICTURE: Read the sign.)

(PICTURE: That's me!!!!)


(PICTURE: Riding a bike inside the palace. They had no bike helmets. Luckily the traffic was light in the city.)

On the outside of the palace walls was a big sign that caught my interest. Unfortunately there were a bunch of military guys near the sign so I was very hesitant to take a picture up close. One of the things I had read about Myanmar was to never take pictures of police or military people. I didn't want to risk getting in trouble so I had Huyen pose quite far away from the sign...resulting in me not being able to get the whole sign in the picture. Basically the sign says (with ? placed on the letters I can't read): ?A?ADA AND THE PEOPLE, COOPERATE AND CRUSH ALL THOSE HARMING THE UNION.

(PICTURE: Trust me, you don't want to harm the union.)

Towards the end of the day, Huyen and I went to the most famous place in Mandalay -- Mandalay Hill.

(PICTURE: Huyen at the start of the stairs...before the rain.)



The hill overlooks the city and has grand views of the surrounding countryside....so we were told. When we got to the hill it proceeded to downpour. We figured it was raining so hard that it would stop by the time we got to the top. We figured wrong. 2,000+ steps and 45 slippery minutes later, thee view was no better:

Yangon to Mandalay

I said to Huyen before we got to our bus to Mandalay that I would be happy as long as there wasn't 13 hours of Myanmar karaoke on the TV screen. Obnoxiously loud karaoke on buses has been my experience on every long haul trip in Southeast Asia. Well, I almost got my wish.

When Huyen and I boarded our bus I noticed two things right away:

1. We were the only foreigners.

2. There was some really skinny guy on the TV wearing a red robe and occasionally saying words in English. I of course took out my camera too late but the guy on the screen -- who I still have no idea who he is -- kept repeating, "Declaration of Human Rights" after a whole bunch of words I didn't understand. I finally took out the camera after he said, "Carter, Bush (and maybe Clinton)" in one of his long soliloquies.

He was on the TV for the first hour or so of the trip and then karaoke started to BLAST through the speakers. After about eight hours of fruitlessly attempting to sleep as my ear-drums suffered permanent damage I finally passed out. A couple of hours later I awoke to the man in the red robe speaking again. I'm pretty sure I was the only person on the bus who was awake besides the driver (I can't actually vouch that the driver was awake because not to long after our bus came to a screeching halt and swerved into the shoulder as we nearly collided with another bus. As the only person up, I'm pretty sure I'm the only one who nearly crapped his pants...again besides maybe the drive). I watched the guy in the red robe and found something very strange; the camera on him kept zooming out and would reveal a Mac Book Pro in front of him. It was the ONLY Mac I saw in Myanmar. After the Mac was in the shot, the camera would jerkily zoom in again as if we weren't supposed to see it.

Anyway, if anyone has any clue who the guy in the video is I would love to know. Thanks!