Pedal power

Peddle power

It's amazing the satisfaction you get from travelling under your own steam.  All too often it's easy to be on the back of a motor bike or to pound the streets, but to see the temples scattered across the plains of Bagan you need peddle power. Not having been on a bike for about six years, this was a true challenge, and I am sure I tested the patience of my co-cyclist, an Australian woman I had met in the restaurant the previous evening. Well I did my best, which meant cycling from 9 am to 7 pm!!!! 

I've cycled round the ancient Thai capital, been on the back of a bike exploring the sprawling  temples of Ankor, but this was an amazing experience.  Each thousand year old temple housed its own treasures, from beautiful paintings, countless statutes and reclining Buddhas, all in a variety of states of repair. 

We ditched the guide book and navigated randomly around, but were rewarded with the most amazing sites. Climbing temples to get beautiful panoramic views, exploring off the beaten track temples and wobbling along the road or sandy tracks from place to place. 

At one point I asked for directions and the excited lady by the temple said that she had a key, which when I hollered to lucy, was translated to I need a pee (probably true!). So we were shown around an amazing temple covered floor to ceiling with paintings of Buddha and she was saying that often she only gets two visitors a day - and this is peak season. 

After the most wonderful sunset on top of a monastery building we cycled back in the pitch black, with only tiny dynamo lights to guide us and I have never earned a beer more in my life or tasted one so good .....

I know it's Christmas, but there was really no room at the inn!!!

Over the years I have become more planned in my travel and try as much as I can to book ahead. Wether it be driving into Las Vegas, heading into Agra or Yangon, I've had a booking. I must admit Bagan defeated me! No-one returned my emails and I called 7 places and they were all full! 

So after a roller coaster 11 hour overnight train journey, where at times you thought the train would come off the tacks as it was rolling so much , all I wanted was to have a kip in a lovely bed.  So I shared a taxi with the Swedish couple on the same carriage as me and we headed into new bagan. They had made a reservation months ago and I tried their hotel,  but it was full!  So then I spent an hour with the taxi driver going round town and everywhere was full, as this is the peak of peak season.... Eventually on the outskirts of town we find a new luxury hotel and its $70 a night - a ridiculous amount to pay and as I have planned to stay here for four nights my plans changed,  as there is just no rooms just before new year... So I have an unexpected couple of days in Mandalay as a consequence and another bus journey!   

Still it's worth it to be staying here, as this is the jewel destination in burma's crown - thousands of temples are dotted across the plains and its my wonderful challenge of the day to cycle to as many of the as I can !!!! 

And the monk asked if I like Justin Beber!

I hired a motorbike driver for the day to take me round all the ancient temples and stupas in the area and luckily I had picked a great guide, as he was a volunteer English teacher. We headed off to the ancient sites , but I was soon distracted by women carrying hay bales on their heads and was soon wearing one myself! We drove around the ancient sites and met a Japanese couple. The woman had lived in northern Myanmar, near the Chinese border for five years working with an NGO - how amazing!

We then went to the school where he teaches and it was hilarious. I took an English lesson and my class of 14 year olds was  very inquisitive. As usual the girls sat at the front, but amazingly it was the novice monks in the class that asked me the most questions, from what was my ambitions to do I like Justin Beber!!! One girl asked if I could sing, so I produced my iPod and they listened to Adele and take that!!!! 

I asked then what they wanted to be and it ranged from doctors, soldiers, teachers and of course Buddhist monks. It was such a fantastic opportunity to speak to the class, and their overwhelming questions were around why I wanted to come to Myanmar, how did I get here and if I liked it. 

I love it !!!!

Be careful what you wish for - it is Christmas after all!

So Christmas is here and I spent the day going round all the local temples and hanging on during motorbike rides out to the countryside.  Pyay is a pilgrimage town, with a huge temple in the centre.  Luckily there's a lift, so you don't have to have a vertigo moment coming down the steep steps !

So I head to the temple first thing and back again in the evening for sunset. There's a nice view point from the side of the temple and I sat and watched the sun slowly setting. I was thinking how great it would be if some monks were around, as they would make a fantastic  foreground in the sunset pictures..... then about twenty monks descend and they want to take a picture of me!!! Merry Christmas

And all be upstanding for the national anthem

 

Just to escape the afternoon heat I headed to the 3d screening of the life of pi and was amazed that the screening was on English with no subtitles. For just over a pound I joined the Sunday afternoon cinema goers and got my 3d glasses as I took my seat in the middle of the stalls and yet again not another traveller in sight. Just as they do in Thailand before the trailers start you have to stand up for the national anthem. 

The next day I embarked on another six hour journey heading north to the pilgrimage town of Pyay. I was lucky enough to be sat next to a someone who lives in Pyay and spoke really good English, so we chatted for a lot of the journey, but as all warm buses make you do, there was a lot  of snoozing as well! 

The scenery was beautiful, with palm trees and rice fields and scattered towns and villages along the way. 

Eventually we get to the bus station and hilariously i had to squeeze my large western arse into a tiny side car seat and cling on as I was precariously cycled through the city to reach my new temporary home - the lucky dragon hotel. 

Where's my sunset gone?

After being spoilt with night after night of amazing sunsets, I am now sitting outside a coffee shop in Yangon with only cars and buildings for a view. 

The scenery today on my bus trip was beautiful, starting with rolling hills, topped with golden stupas to lush rice fields and thousands upon thousands of rubber trees. 

Let's take Yangon out of the equation, but elsewhere there's not a huge amount of cars on the road. There's always a motorbike with a whole family being transported whizzing past or a horse and cart and a motor taxi.  

I need to rant for a minute about taxi's. I hate the fact that you spend more for 30mins in the taxi than you do for your 6 hour coach journey. Why does that always happen?!!!  

No women allowed on top pagoda

It seems so unusual that there is segregation here. On the boat over to ogre island women were not allowed to sit on the top, but had to sit in the section by the engine or at the very front or back of the boat. I have been segregated before on boats in Kerala, but I was amazed that there are also many temples where it is either forbidden for women to go into the main temple or walk around the top pagoda. In all the Asian countries that I have previously visited I have never come across this gender segregation before in the Buddhist faith. 

Beware the ogre island

I rejoined my American travelling companions and we headed with the famed Mr Anthony from the lonely planet guide and we headed off at 8 am to catch the first ferry to Ogre island. It recommends that you get a guide here as the island is as large as Singapore and has 200, 000 inhabitants, it has not yet been granted a licence to have foreigners staying over so we must get the 3. 30 ferry away! So we have a packed agenda of visiting the rubber band production, the pipe maker, the walking sticker maker, (slightly tempted) and the chalk board maker, who sells across the whole of Burma. 

What a beautiful island and so untouched, but that is the beauty of travelling here as soon as the international barriers are down is that it is all so unspoilt on the surface. 

I tried my hand at using the mangle to dry and stretch rubber, took some lovely pictures of the villagers and then on route to our next destination I asked to stop to take a picture of the local national league for democracy office. With the large pictures outside of Aung San and his daughter, it is amazing to think that two years ago this was not allowed. Amazingly the family give me a NLD flag, which is a wonderful treasured gift. 

Before we head back to the ferry we pop into a local orphanage, sponsored by some American families. There are 36 children here and they warmly welcome us, but sadly we had to rush to the ferry to ensure that we got off the island in time. There's only enough time for a quick rendition of  " ha ha ha he he he" and then we drove like the clappers to get back to the ferry and made it with 5 mins to spare! 

The largest reclining Buddha in the world

The words wow and why so quickly spring to mind but I have not only seen it, but climbed inside the largest reclining Buddha in the world. The sad fact is that they spent 17 years building it and it is facing the wrong way, so opposite they are building another facing east as planned. There was the greatest fundraising technique ever,  you buy a tile for the build - genius!!!!

I'm writing this on my I touch in my favourite local restaurant here. There's a small crowd of waiters over my shoulder watching me and I have just freaked them out by passing round my headphones as they watched a video of mr Tinie Tempah!!! Although today I did see an older woman in a temple reading her Buddhist chants off an iPad! There's even a Christmas tree in the corner and flashing lights on the surrounding trees, very festive. 

I went on an organised trip today with a couple of Americans and had to do a lot of translating  between the softly spoken guide and us. My favourite misunderstanding of the day was that one of burma's biggest export was jams .... Really it's gems!!! 

And then she called me spinster

Whilst heading up the steep steps to get to the temples overlooking the town on a small hill ridge, I walked past the local primary school. Kids were soon hanging out of the glassless windows shouting! The teachers came out and I was beckoned in, as I had already created a lot of disruption!  So within minutes I was sitting in the classroom, to the absolute delight of the kids and was being quizzed by the teachers. Well the questions were the usual - how old am I , who am I travelling with and am I married . So when I answered 42, no-one and no, then one of the teachers said I was a spinster. They immediately fed me with water Mellon - surely as some form of condolence. 

The temples here are breathtaking. On every hill there is a golden stupa shinning across the plains. Today I saw a huge temple honouring Buddhas tooth in a shiny glass cabinet. The only other temple I have visited with the same relic is the incredible Buddha tooth temple in Kandy, Sri Lanka. These temple complexes interlinked on the hill side and I huffed and puffed up the individual steep stairs cases to reach each peak and walk around the golden stupas.  Amazing.

My reward in the evening was to watch the sun set across the river and then to head to the famed beer garden restaurant, where according to LP you can get the coldest beer in town and have wonderful BBQ food. Instead of wearily walking in the heat I treated myself to a motorbike taxi to get me there. This surely  is living the dream with such a perfect combination! 

How do you mime tweezers?

There's a huge sprawling market at the northern riverside and whilst walking through I thought I should get some tweezers, just one of the things I left behind!!! So standing at a cosmetic stall I was madly miming tweezers with pincer movements and  tweaking my hairy eyebrows .... And it worked and I even got a free hair band, or rather I was overcharged for the tweezers - 25p and got something extra as a gift. 

There's not many travellers around here, the humidity makes even the shortest walks unbearable, but as a lone female traveller you really stick out. So many people want to say hello as you walk past. Long gone is the anonymity of London! 

Get me on the right bus!!!!

Oh yes it's that great game - get me on the right bus ... So my taxi picks me up at 615 then get to first bus to take me to the station, success. Then get to main bus station and I'm taken on and off three buses before I get on the right one and start heading down south. 

The most fabulous woman sits next to me and of course I'm the only westerner on the bus.  It says in the LP that some buses refuse to take foreigners, so to be going somewhere    is great. I  was fed on my journey by my neighbour, as I had only managed to buy a bag of crisps in the morning rush! So as always it's a eight hour lazy trip of sleeping, confusion of how long the toilet stops are an being given sweet buns from my neighbour!   So at last I'm in the third largest town mawlamyine, where George Orwell lived. 

I have blisters and sun burn!!

When I tried to book my bus down south at the local travel agents to my hotel I was told that I needed a government permit to travel south. Welcome to rubber time, everywhere in Asia things just take as long as as it does and no sooner! the bus leaves when it's full and you my or my not get to do what you plan too. I headed into town and eventually got my ticket at a small travel agency. Problem solved and no permit needed!!! So looking around the dusty crumpling colonial streets I spot a nail bar, a tattoo parlour and trendy coffee bars with wifi. I also spot the small dusty shops where making a living is  a struggle and taxi drivers in beaten up cars are desperate for trade.  

I head to the most sacred place in Burma, the Shwedagon paya temple complex. It's incredible, set on a hill in middle Yangon, this complex of golden stupas and temples takes your breath away, or is that just the hundreds of steps you need to climb to reach the summit! It's a Saturday afternoon and there are hundreds of devotees walking round and there's monks a plenty, many eager to ask where you are from . The sky is a perfect blue and the sun is beating down, making photography difficult. By now al l my walking has blistered my little toe and despite covering myself with suntan lotion I have a red neck!!!! And let's not talk about the humidity.  Still I find an amazing spot in the shade to people watch and sit by a family to seem to only want to watch me.  This is such an amazing place - so tranquil yet so crowded,  so spiritually full. 

First thoughts

On the flight over I watched luc bressons The Lady, the incredible story of Aung San Sui Kyi.  I had seen Beyond Rangoon many years ago and was aware of the plight of the ordinary Burmese. About ten years ago I travelled across the Thai border at Mai Sot for a day trip and have had to wait all these years until the government has allowed foreign tourists to travel independently, often under restrictions, to this amazing country.  On my nine hour bus trip today I listened to Sui Kyi  giving two of the annual Leith lectures on freedom and democracy. This is the greatest rite of any citizen, and one that is too often taken for granted , with a lazy and apathetic attitude to voting.  Scratch the surface of the landscape    covered with golden stupas, the smiling faces and the chanting and you find yourself in a land the has recently been recognised as the most corrupt in the world, second only to Somalia. 

There are pictures of Aung San, the founding father of democracy around along with smiling images of Sui Kyi herself, but there are police on street corners across Yangon and its democratic leader has just entered parliament after almost twenty years under house arrest and subsequent imprisonment. 

In her lecture she welcomes independent travellers here, to see this beautiful country, to spend our dollars away from the govt and crony led hotels and restaurants and to experience what Burma has to offer. It reminds me of waiting for that window of opportunity to visit Sri Lanka nine years ago when there was a major ceasefire from the Thamel tigers.

flashlight welcome

So my warm welcome to Yangon was the taxi being pulled over and the police checking the drivers papers whilst going around the car peering in with a torch!! We quickly headed off on our way, but arriving after midnight makes you just want to rush to your hotel, especially as I had ordered a cab and it didn't show, which was a shame, as there in nothing more thrilling than arriving in a far and distant land and be greeted with someone with your name written on a sign! Instead I was greeted by hoards of eager taxi drivers trying to tug away my luggage and asking me where I am staying.

There's Christmas decorations on the plane

Is it wrong to have beer with breakfast? My time zones are all over the place, so after a long sleep, my breakfast was served at Singapore lunch time! I now have a few hours to kill and have already been to the butterfly, koi, sunflower and orchid gardens in the various terminals.

 I'm still trying to find a sturdy wallet as you can only use complete pristine American dollars in Burma and I spent 40 mins at the travelex in Heathrow making sure that all the bills were post 2006, with no writing, rips or folds!!!!

Also there were ivy and flower decorations on the plane - how festive!

Count down to Burma

Hurrah - this time next week I will be airborne, on the first leg of my journey to Burma.

So here's the checklist of things to do:

· pack !!!!

· sort out camera equipment

· sort out $'s

· stop stressing about work

· buy a mini Christmas pudding to take with me

I have wanted to go to Burma for so long and I am so excited that it's nearly here. So, as always, sit back and enjoy my travels from the comfort of your armchair.

I'm leaving on a jet plane, don't know when I'll be back again

So as always here's the reflective last email ....  So Incredible India, so crowded, so chaotic, so noisy, so polluted, so much hassle, so challenging, so amazing, so colourful and the thing that amazes me most is that I feel more safe here than I do back at home.  In all the situations that I have been in, I have never felt scared or threatened.  Never have I felt unsafe, from travelling at night or walking through crowded streets. Don't get me wrong, I am certainly not under the illusion that India is totally safe, terrible things happen everywhere.  However when you are confronted so frequently by people who have absolutely nothing, your camera probably equals two years salary on average.  It's amazing to have met so many incredible people.  As I started this blog I stated that often people are just memorable as the sights that you see. From the family in Bodh Gaya who pointed me in the right directions to the main sights, to the Sadu in the countryside who made me tea, to the auto rickshaw driver in Varanasi, Bablu, who walked along the Ghats with me on Christmas day I  extend my thanks, as you all added a great dimension to my trip. My motorbike rode through the countryside, my local restaurant in Agra that let me use the wifi even though I had never eaten there, the lovely Tibetan monks in Bodh Gaya and the woman I shared my first train trip with - this trip was equally about meeting people as exploring places and when you ate travelling alone in India you won't be alone for long , even of it's just a crowd of people watching you !!! India is set to have the largest population on the next decade and is also set to be one of the worlds booming economies.  It's hard to imagine that when you see streets full of homeless or fields full of farm labourers. Outside of Delhi  I have yet to see the more southern cities with high degrees of affluence and money, but you can just imagine, as it brings yet another stark contrast with widening gap of the have's and have nots.  

Happy new year!!!!

For the first time in my adult life I slept through midnight - but luckily was woken by a call full of new year cheer. This rainy first day of 2012 is a travel day for me and I will celebrate it in Agra. Hoping that it won't rain again, as it was pouring last night and this morning.  Luckily I was sheltered in the train station waiting for the 5 1/2 hour late train.  Yet again I'm the only tourist at the station, but as always find a really helpful guy who points me in the right direction of where to wait for the correct carriage. And two hours later I'm in bustling Agra having lunch on a cafe rooftop with a view of the Taj - not bad for New Years Day.  Back to Agra, sadly still polluted, with open sewers and constantly smelling of piss at every street corner, but where there is the most famous monument to love in the world!!! Again Incredible India, where else can you walk out of your guest house and follow a camel along to your restaurant of choice in the evening. 

Off to Gwalior and off again

Head into my new years eve destination of Gwalior and immediately hate it.  Suddenly the hustle and bustle of town live feels overwhelming, as I have been in small towns all the time after leaving Delhi. I head to the fort and start to climb the really steep road to the top.  Rewarded by a great view of the city and the fine ruins of the palace I slowly descend on the opposite side on the vehicle road.  Along here there are huge Buddha statues carved in the rock side - amazing!  It's so interesting to see how Buddhism spread across India.  Then decide that I need to head to Agra, as this city really isn't that appealing. So I then head to the train station to get a ticket for tomorrow.  Cannot believe that it is not possible to buy a ticket for the next day, if the journey is under 200 kms, without joining the enormous reservations queue, so I head to a travel agent round the corner and I get one - money always brings a solution. 

On the road again

Head out by taxi to Orchha and the road is horrendous, there's no direct rail link, so this is a good option and a real treat compared to a days bumpy bus journey.  Get there in the afternoon and head out to the main palace and start climbing up and the steep steps and end up on the top terrace with a fantastic view of the town. There's clusters of incredible monuments and temples all round town.  After a vertigo fuelled descent (mostly on my arse) I head back to the entrance and get an auto rickshaw to whisk me round town before the daylight fades.  This town has an incredible history. In one old palace there's a huge mural depicting a battle with the English, with hundred of troops with guns descending on the fort. Then there's the kings palaces by the river and a huge fort in the middle of town to explore.  So glad that I added this to my destinations as  it's so lovely lovely and an added bonus is the amount of hassling is almost nonexistent!!!!

Change of plan

I've decided to leave here a day early and head to the quiet and beautiful town of Orchha.  Last evening I broke my sobriety by having a beer with Biblu, who has a shop near the hotel and has just split up from his girlfriend. Definitely time to leave town when I have become an agony aunt.  I've managed to get a refund on the room, as I paid in advance and they gave me a free breakfast as well. 

Taking it easy

My first trip to India was really rushed. I wanted to see as much as possible and embarked on what felt like an endurance test of crazy overnight trains arriving in the wee small hours and then rushing round these amazing destinations dog tired.  Now I travel at a more leisurely pace and have chosen only four destinations outside of Delhi to visit. This makes a much more leisurely experience and you get a much better opportunity to get under the skin of where you are. Khajuraho is a great place, a two street town, where everyone knows everyone and everyone wants your custom. Gone are the Varanasi shouts of boats, here are enticements to come and looking into my shop 'looking is free' and lads with nothing else to do but hang around talking to tourists.  I must admit that this is now getting very tiresome, as there is a constant stream of mindless annoying chatter.  I did head off on a motorbike adventure yesterday afternoon , which was great. I even had tea made for me by a Sadu in a temple, which certainly was a highlight. It was great to get out into the countryside and head to small remote villages. In one there was a old guy with a cobra in a basket to entertain the trickle of tourists passing through. Incredible India !!!!