Thailand Part 6 (Um Phang, Phitsanulok and Phu Kradeung)

We had been told by a woman to come for the minibus at 8.30am the next day.  I had seen that there was a bus to Mae Sot at around 8.15am.  I was wrong.  The price on the wall said for 125 baht, but the woman charged us 157 baht for Mae Sot and I thought we had been done.  It turns out that the minivan arrives at around 9am, but I would double check this as it varies and you really need the first one to hit your connections.  Also the price of 157 baht is the price from Phitsanulok to Mae Sot, but you have to pay the full price to guarantee yourself a seat.  Annoying.  So we got to the bus station at around 7.50am and had to wait for more than an hour.  The ride to Mae Sot is quite pretty, winding its way through the mountains.  Mae Sot itself is effectively Myanmar.  Everything was the same.  Most of the people are Burmese, the food is even the same.  Could not find any blue mountain though sadly.  It was interesting for Jessica and made her feel like she didn't want to visit Myanmar.  Its a typical border town and we had to do lots of walking to find the truck to Umphang.  Its where Lonely Planet says it is, but its confusing as if you walk down the main road, LP says its on a crossroads when in fact its only a right turn.  The trucks don't run to the timetable so you want to get here as early as possible to get a truck.  We got one at 2pm and there was an almighty scrum to get on the truck.  They even had to pull the truck away from the melee.  LP talks about the road between Mae Sot and Umphang being a death highway.  That's not really true.  Its not really dangerous at all.  Its just a fairly safe, paved, winding road through some beautiful mountain scenery.  There is one bend before the middle that is not properly covered, but that's it.  The trucks are fairly packed in, but if you push hard you can get a seat.  Unlike locals, you probably won't have to sit on the roof.  There were a lot of people on the truck.  This road was nothing compared to the scariest road I have taken a bus on.  The road to Kuelap in Peru.  Fuck me that's awful.  The width of a bus and no more, its a dirt track with no barriers.  Halfway there is the refugee village, which is impressively constructed up on the hill.  We arrived after dark, but did the worst of the road in the light.  With all the stops and pick ups, including rearranging the passengers, it took 5 hours and we arrived around 7pm.  It was like descending into another road, with loads of these weird hybrid tractor/trailers.  The truck dropped us off at Trekker Hill, which from reading other blogs was probably a good thing.  We paid 300 baht for three of us to share a two bed place.  Quite nice as it was up on its own raised wooden platform and despite being open we had mosquito nets.  There is no hot water, however, as the pipe was broken.  There is supposed to be some.  The old guy wanted us to take a 3 day tour including elephant trekking for 4000 baht.  We didn't want the elephant trekking so asked how much it was without that and he said it was the same as the truck would have to collect us.  As there is not much information I will elaborate on the tour option.  Day one is rafting to the waterfall and see it.  Day two is trekking around and then staying in a Karen village.  Day three is to observe the village and then elephant trek back.  We wanted just Days one and two and apparently that's around 2,000 but he wanted 4,000. The three days should be 3,000.  Go and see the German guys in the foreign restaurant in the centre of town if you want the longer options (should be easy to find).  In the end we asked him how much it would be for one day with rafting and the waterfall.  He said 1,000 baht but you pay for the park entrance (200 baht) and food (we ate noodles for around 20 baht at the park).  This seemed fine to us and there were three of us.  They say its rushed, but its enough time.  You start at 8am and are back around 4pm.  I would even say its the best option as trekking is difficult as you would need to stay at the park and hire a guide for 500 baht a day (not verified).  You can't take your own transport up to the park unless you have a 4WD and having done the trail by truck and almost getting stuck, I don't think a car would have enough clearance.  A motorbike could do it, but apparently you can't take them up.  We met a Dutch guy who had gone to the waterfall and back for 1500 baht for the two of them.  We were quoted 1850 for the truck and its why we decided to do the rafting as well for only 400 baht each more.  After the negotiation we found the German place and Cannelle had schnitzels.  There were no other tourists in town, but there were two big groups of NGO workers as they had a holiday in Thailand.  Cannelle went to the toilet and came back screaming as a monkey had leapt at her in the dark.  It turns out it was the pet of the German owners.

We got up and had breakfast before heading for the rafting.  It was super chilled here, because the hotel owner's kids joined us on the raft.  We had three guides with us and it turns out we won't actually be rafting. We thought it would be some white water rafting, but its actually 2-3 hours down a beautiful river, surrounded by cliffs and waterfalls.  It bears a passing resemblance to Avatar and has an other worldly feel.  It was cool to kick back and chill and enjoy the scenery.  I like a balance with my rafting between sport and scenery, but the two times we have rafted in Thailand have been one extreme or the other.  You will see lots of cliffs and overhangs dripping with streams and waterfalls, including a waterfall with a permanent rainbow through its centre.  Halfway they drop you off at a hot spring, which is just a muddy channel.  The water is nice and warm, but if you step into it the mud comes up to your knee.  Its not for everyone.  I liked it, Cannelle was ok with it and Jessica did not like it.  The second half of the rafting is less scenic, but still pleasant.  At one point the seven year old hyper son of our hotel owner fell in the river.  Luckily they managed to fish him out again.  We got picked up by our host and taken up to the waterfall on an hour long drive up a rough, dusty, scenic trail.  We had been told the day before that a public bus goes to the waterfall.  That's total bullshit, so I wouldn't try it unless you want a 70km round trip walk for the rest of the way.  We finally arrived at the top and grabbed some noodles.  Its where we met the old Dutch guy, who told us the waterfall was beautiful but that he had seen a better one in Vietnam.  Finally a traveller who told me something I didn't already know.  Only took 6 weeks.  He may be right as well, but only because it seems to have a clearer line of sight.  We walked the trail to the waterfall.  Its quite a nice trail to Thi Lo Su Waterfall, which reminded me a little bit of Plitvice.  The waterfall itself is spectacular and worth the trip.  The setting is beautiful with seemingly hundreds of cascades crashing down from multiple places.  The only problem is the jungle scenery itself.  It obscures a lot of the waterfall and you can't really get a full impression.  It would probably help if the viewing platform was on the other side of the river.  There are also lots of annoying insects at the falls.  We took the truck back down the dusty road and we all looked like we had aged with our dust grayed hair and dust all over our clothes.  Fun trip though.  In the evening we got lost at the internet cafes as we got confused as to where each other was.  They had had a delivery of mushrooms at the German place so we all had schnitzels with mushroom sauce.  Highly recommended.  This is a super cool place to visit and completely without tourists.  Well foreign ones.  There are a lot of Thai tourists.  We have been spending a lot of time in Thai places this last week.  Back in the room, a giant grasshopper (I mean giant) crashed into our room and got stuck there for the night before escaping in the morning.  Jessica reckons that in Thailand all the insects are the same as home, but 2 or 3 times bigger.

We grabbed the morning truck at 7.30am back to Mae Sot.  Cannelle was less scared of the route the second time.  We had an old guy who was hugging Jessica halfway, while a woman slept on her shoulder.  Halfway through the ride the old man grabbed and stroked my knee.  Still not really sure what he was doing there.  Two people were vomiting on the ride.  It is a little motion sickness inducing and that's more likely to get you than a crash.  We grabbed a cheap lunch and ended up taking the last minibus to Phitsanulok which was at around 1.30pm I think.  Be careful.  There is nothing after that, so make sure you take the first truck if you want to get out of Umphang and back East.  These trucks will hang around for ages waiting for passengers.  We were all tired and when we arrived in town Cannelle found us a local hotel just outside the bus station.  I would recommend the place as its 200 for a single and 250 for a double with hot water and cable tv.  Just ehad to the main road, go left and its about 50-100m on the left hand side.  We had a KFC for dinner and headed to the river, where they had a little festival with fireworks.  Phitsanulok was a nice little city around the river.  I can see why tour groups use it as a base.  Its nicer than Sukhotai and Kamphaeng Phet.  We went to the riverside massage place, but it was derelict and shut.  Cannelle and I had a mini fight and I went back to the hotel.  Jessica and her went for a drink.  I was a little worried about her being out in the city, but Thailand is super safe and they made it back fine.

In the morning we grabbed a bus towards Khon Kaen to see the famed green route.  Its nice and pleasant scenery, but you really should do it by motorbike if you want to see anything.  By bus its just ok.  We swithced buses at Champhae.  The bus station was confused when we asked for tickets to there as they assumed we wanted Chiang Mai.  We were really continuing our off route wanders.  We grabbed a bus to Phu Kradeung and they dropped us off at a shitty junction on a highway.  This was Phu Kradeung?  Ok they were fucking with us.  Here is some useful information for the town.  Firstly that's not the main bus station and that's why no locals get off.  They tried to hustle us into taking a truck privately to the park for 200 baht.  I went for a walk, so they offered 150 baht and tried to get Cannelle and Jessica to leave without me.  I walked left.  Nothing.  I headed right and they told me to come back.  Why?  Because on the other side of the road is the damn town.  There is internet and restaurants etc.  Fuckers.  There is no point heading to the park in the evening as there is almost fuck all there and certainly no internet and only tents or expensive bungalows.  I persuaded the others to come to town and while I was looking round an English teacher found Cannelle and Jessica and offered to take us to her friend's guesthouse.  This is the better option.  Its about 1-2 km towards the park on the right hand side.  Here you can have a fan room for 300 and air con for 400, but we negotiated down to 350 for the aircon rooms.  Its a nice place and they will look after your big bags for you, so you don't have to pay for the porters.  They also got us a tuk tuk at 6.45am for 80 baht straight to the park.  Its a no brainer for me.  Especially now that the porters charge 30 baht per kilo to carry your stuff up.  We grabbed some food at the cool night market in town, used the internet and repacked our bags to leave most of the stuff in the big one.  The people were really nice here as the English teacher had taken us one by one to the hotel by motorbike for free, continuing our run of hitchhiking without hitchhiking.

We got the tuk tuk in the morning to the park.  You pay 400 baht entrance and 225 for a three person tent.  You pay at the bottom.  At the top its 30 baht for a sleeping bag (necessary just), 30 baht for a mat (the floor is not too bumpy but get one if you are sensitive.  Cannelle and I were fine without one, but Jessica did not sleep well). You can also pay for a pillow etc, but we just got the sleeping bag.  Its a long climb to the top and I was feeling sick.  Not a good start.  Everything gets steadily more expensive as you climb up so get all the water you need at the bottom.  A 14 baht water in a 7/11 becomes 50 baht at the summit for example.  The walk is really nice as you climb through various different ecosystems.  Its tough though.  Especially the first 800m and the last 1km.  It took us 2.5 hours not the 3-4 LP reckons, but we have always been fast.  We blitzed the Thai hikers, but I think they normally take all day to do it.  We saw a crab that was super defensive and a large multicoloured millipede that scared the porters, so I assume it was poisonous.  At the top its another 3.5 km to the visitor centre.  We saw a lot of deer at the visitor centre as they are fed there.  We took the 5.5km waterfall trail.  Its quite scenic, with the first half overlooking the valley and the second half in the trees and down by the water.  The waterfalls themselves are nothing special, but its nice. The scenery is very reminiscent of home, so not too exotic for us, but good for anyone who's a little homesick and wants some trees other than jungle.  It warns you that after 3pm it is dangerous to enter this trail as the wild elephants patrolled the area.  We saw plenty of evidence of elephants (footprints, tusk marks, shit) but never any elephants, but be warned about the time limit.  Cannelle was scared all the way round that we would bump into some.  After the waterfall, we hiked to the pond and then to the cliffs and back around.  All in all we did around 25-30 km including the 1 km climb up.  Good work.  My legs ache a little today.  The food at the top is super shitty and very expensive, but you can't have everything.  Bring some stuff with you.  In the evening we ate more shit food and Jessica got whacked by one of the deer's antlers as he wanted some of our food and came in really close.  I am not sure if he was hitting her on purpose or accident.  We were in bed by 6pm as there is nothing to do up there, but it was worth the trip and a good bit of exercise.  The night was quite good for sleep.

In the morning we were up at 6.30am as we passed on seeing the sunrise.  On the way down we took 1.5 hours and saw some monkeys playing on the rocks up above me.  Second time for wild monkeys on this trip.  Still no elephants though.  We were by far the quickest people down the mountain.  The park HQ phoned for a truck for us and luckily it wasn't from the annoying bitches at the crossroads.  It cost us 100 baht to the 7/11 including a stop off to grab our bags from the hotel so don't pay anything more than 100 as that was called by the park.  We waited outside the 7/11 (the real bus stop) and grabbed a bus to Khon Kaen at only 9.30am.  It was 94 baht and not 75 like LP suggested.  I wanted to argue the toss but was outvoted.  On to Khon Kaen, where I am writing now and there were only 4 nights left before Laos.  I was enjoying being off the tourist trail.  We had not seen another tourist (we had seen expats) since Sukhotai.

Thailand Part 5 (Chiang Mai, Doi Inthanon and Sukhotai)

The train broke down.  Fuck sake.  We ended up being around 3 hours late getting to Chiang Mai after the impromptu breakdown.  The trains in Thailand really are useless.  Lonely Planet attacks the trains in Myanmar and although they are bouncier, they are also far more likely to be on time when they go somewhere.  Savine and I fed dogs from the train window, while Cannelle and Jessica went for a walk around the local village.  When we arrived in Chian Mai there was no reasonably priced transport and it seemed impossible to get a taxi.  So we started walking and got picked up by a truck, whose driver spoke no English.  Still it meant we got a good price, even if he had to stop and find a local to translate where we wanted to go.  We headed to Julie's Guesthouse which apparently had a swimming pool (It doesn't anymore).  They had no cheap dorms, but we took a room for 3 nights.  The tours looked as expensive and crappy as we had imagined, with super touristy trips to long neck women, elephant riding and the authentic experience of trekking through a totally commercialised hill village.  Tourism 101.  You could even go white water rafting and bamboo rafting in 1.5 hours combined.  Wow.  How thoughtful.  Its like the shitty degustation menu of travelling.  Try a little of everything and experience nothing.  We went hunting for steak and then had to spend the evening listening to first time traveller dickheads.  Wow how amazing their stories are.  I miss travelling in South America.  At least I could meet interesting travellers who had done stuff I had not.  Here everyone did the same fucking thing, so if you had read the highlight section of the Lonely Planet then you already knew a more diverse range of places than these people.  Help me.  Thank God we have escaped them for now, but for three days we had their glorious company.

I was up early to watch the second Presidential debate, except that noone in Chiang Mai gets up very early at all.  I am guessing the tourists don't either as most of the treks seem to leave around 10am.  Eventually I found a place and watched Obama just about get the best of Romney.  Interesting stuff.  I missed the after debate analysis, but it later confirmed what I had thought.  Obama took it.  Still haven't seen how badly he did in the first one.  Just realised that I seem to head off on a big trip during every election cycle.  In fact we will pobably be travelling in the US for the next one if things go to plan.  Well just after it.  We went to see a few local temples.  Better than Myanmar, but I still didn't care.  We walked all the way to the university to get a truck up the hill for the views.  We met an Indian guy there, who still hasn't added any of us on facebook.  The others looked round the temple, but Cannelle and I went for the view as we both don't care. That day Savine fell into a motorbike and bruised her ankle, while Jessica sliced her toe open on a rock somehow.  The hill was a big letdown so we headed to the university art gallery.  They had some nice paintings, but most of them seemed to be of buddhas.  We found an authentic Mexican in the evening.  They even did tamales.  Impressive.  We don't even really have proper Mexican restaurants in London.  We got back and tried to get to sleep as we were going to take the motorbikes to go to Doi Inthanon the next day.  Only our hostel was populated by fuckwits.  A huge group of mentally challenged individuals came back around 2am.  We got such pearls of wisdom that cows are products for one guy as he is a vet, some loud Liverpudlian camping his way around the place and embarrassingly most of these people were native speakers.  Eventually a Thai guy told them to fuck off, but a Belgian guy and Yankee girl stayed.  Lucky us.  Here are some excerpts from the awesome conversation.  See if you can guess who is the guy and who the girl:

'I want to fuck you, but I am ok with a cuddle.'
'How do I know if you're a nice guy, as they always say they are nice.'
'You kiss me so passionately I want to fuck you on the table'
'I won't see you again.' 'Maybe one day I will go to New York' 'I am from Missouri'
'I speak French.' 'tu comprende?' 'what did you say?'
'I lived in Bordeaux' 'That's in the South East yes' (That last bit was from the Belgian in case you think Americans don't know geography)

Fuck me.  About 30 minutes of this fascinating conversation.  Only when I loudly took the piss out of them and Cannelle and I were laughing did they leave.  I felt like saying 'look he's clearly a dickhead who just wants to fuck you, so please just fuck him or fuck off.'  Some women are so stupid.  Anyway when he affirmed that he had been in Pai for 2 weeks and she was going there I knew immediately what Pai would be like.  It would be Taganga over again or any other shithole foreigner town.  I question if you can really see Thailand if you go to Chiang Mai, Bangkok (Koh San Road area) and the South as you will just be in Europe with better weather and more annoying people.  I was determined not to go to Pai now.  Savine reckons she met this couple later and they were exactly as they sounded.  Unlucky for her.

In the morning we got the scooters and set off for Doi Inthanon.  I drove with Cannelle on the back and Savine drove with Jessica on the back.  I am really uncomfortable on scooters.  Or I was.  It took me a long time to get comfortable at only 40km an hour.  I felt like an old man on one of those buggies.  Savine was much better and faster than me.  I am sure my shitness must have frustrated her for parts.  It was a long way to the park.  Around 100km from Chiang Mai to the top, though the entrance is around 40km earlier.  Its a very long and straight road and towards the end I got up to around 60km an hour I believe.  My speedometer was not working at all, so I had to use them as a gauge.  There were also a lot of stupid local drivers who would pull out blind so be careful.  By the end of the day I was super comfortable and we'll definitely use scooters again on this trip.  We had asked the stupid miserable bitch in the hostel about the park etc.  She had told us its 450 baht to enter and not worth it.  It is 200 baht and so worth it.  Fuck their tours.  Mind you if I had to work with those foreigners every day I would probably hate my job as well.  We started going up.  Its steeper than it looks and our fuel went really fast.  Make sure you have a good tank of petrol when you start and we actually got turned back from the summit marker, because we did not have enough petrol to make the top and back.  That added an extra 14km to our journey.  I would advise you to fill up at the petrol station just before the park headquarters about 16km from the summit to make sure you make it.  If you do that then you should only need 2 full tanks to get from Chiang Mai to the park and back.  That should be around 200 baht on top of the rental, but its still around 400 baht between two and much cheaper than a tour even if you are on your own.  It does get cold up top as well so bring a jumper.  There is no view at the top, but plenty on the way up.  If you eat at the park headquarters ignore the foreigner menu and order off the board at the back.  At the top there is a very pretty memorial and the nature trail is definitely worth it.  Its very beautiful, picturesque and haunting.  Definitely worth the short walk.  On the way down we stopped at two of the waterfalls.  My advice would be to set off early so you have the time to visit all 7 as from the photos they are all worth it.  If I could do it again I would even stay there for a night and see if the hiking trails are worth doing, because the environment is really nice.  Watchirathan is the one we visited on the way down and its brutally powerful.  Reminded both Savine and I of El Diablo in Banos, Ecuador only in more nature.  This park is really nice and well worth the trip.  Probably much more rewarding than you will find on any of the stupid mass tours.  We came back in the dark in the end with some worrying cross winds.  We set off at 9.30am.  Go at 6am if you want to make the most of the day.  We got some Italian food and then I played pool with Savine, beating her 3 times.  A Canadian and a Geordie had been watching.  The Canadian challenged me to a game and even though its on those giant quasi snooker tables I beat him 2-0 as well.  Getting my groove back.  One thing about Chiang Mai is that in every restaurant they always gave us the wrong change.  Always forgetting something, but we always told them as we figured it would be good karma.  We said goodbye to Savine for now (maybe we would see her in Laos) and went to bed.

In the morning Cannelle took us to the wrong bus terminal, but the LP map was shit.  From there we had to get a sprinter truck across town to make the bus to Sukhotai.  We arrived and I walked the 2km into town while the others took a tuk tuk.  Saved me some money.  The hotel with the swimming pool was too expensive and I arrived at Poo Restaurant (awesome name) just 5 minutes after them.  We found a cheap hostel and spent about 4 hours uploading photos, because facebook decided it wanted to fuck with us.  Cannelle got a really nice haircut for around 5 quid (so much cheaper than even Romania) and we just bummed around for the rest of the day.  Sukhotai town is a bit crap to be honest.

In the morning we took the local bus to the ruins early on.  We got dicked with a super expensive breakfast where the waitress got super pissed when I queried if they really had cumberland sausages.  They did.  The rent bicycles here.  Why?  The main site is 1.5km by 1.5km and even the outliers are around 3km away.  Who the hell needs a bicycle to do that distance.  We walked around and they are quite pretty with the setting on the lakes and the various buddhas.  The first buddhas that did not look super tacky.  Its so small we were back in Sukhotai by 11am.  We had met a Quebecois who was a challenge for me in French and had told me that I was very well accompanied.  I persuaded the others to go to Kaempheng Phet.  After all it was UNESCO.  Hmm.  Was a complete waste of a journey and only slightly nice.  They weren't happy with me for that truck trip.  If you love, love, love temples go.  If you don't have that much love for them then you can skip it.  We went to a small hotel and paid to use their swimming pool, which was nice to chill in for the afternoon.  I spoke to my mum on skype and then I watched Chelsea beat us 4-2.  Shame, but with no Bale and Dembele it was always going to be tough.  We had decided to go to Um Phang the next day and to another UNESCO park.  It would be the beginning of 10 days with virtually no foreigners.  Ah something more interesting.  We were going off the beaten track or the even slightly trodden path in Thailand.  Bring it on.

Thailand Part 4 (Phanom Rung, Surin and Bangkok)

Ah back to the writing with Choco Lienniz all over my fingers.  Our first day back in Thailand was taken up by a lot of admin.  We had to get Lonely Planet books or at least look for them.  We found 'originals' for the same price as home and copies for half the price.  In the end we opted for the copies and have yet to really use them yet.  Will let you know how they are when we try.  There was an American who was in our hostel. He never seemed to go anywhere.  There seem to be a lot of foreigners who just seem to aimlessly bum around Bangkok without any clear aims.  Seems like a waste of a holiday for me.  We had to get laundry done.  One woman said she could do it for a cheap price in the same day.  When we brought them the laundry the price had increased and it would be the next day.  Stupid bitch.  She said mine was 9 kilos on its own, when I know it could not possibly be more than 6kg.  Fuck her.  We ended up finding another laundry place just off the back of Kho San Road.  They wouldn't do it same day until we insisted and then wanted to weigh the laundry in a plastic basket.  Why would I want to do that.  We had our clothes in a carrier bag.  We weighed his plastic basket and it was 1kg.  This seems to be a favourite trick to get more money in Thailand as they did the same to us in Kanchanaburi.  Just insist upon weighing it without the basket.  So that sorted I went in search of dental treatment.  My teeth had needed cleaning in the UK, but had missed my appointment.  I found a place next to Burger King that would do it for 14 quid.  Foreign keyboards unsurprisingly never have a pound key.  I got them cleaned and I am sure I bled a lot as they scraped the shit out from under my gums.  They told me to raise my hand if the pain got too much.  I could feel it, but it never became too unbearable.  Then they told me I had 3 cavities in three different teeth and should get fillings done.  3 cavities?  I had had a mouth x-ray only a month before and they had said I had none.  The likelihood of me getting 3 cavities in one month was really slim so I decided to take my chances that they were talking bollocks.  All in all it was a productive day of bollocks.

We had originally planned to go to Khao Yai National Park, but Cannelle persuaded me it would be better later on, after the rainy season, when the leeches were gone.  So we headed to Nang Rong for Phanom Rung.  Not a lot happened as we checked into the hotel and had a shitty and expensive dinner.  There was only Thai TV as well.  We did have a giant cockroach in our bedroom.  I tried to kill him, but missed.  After that I realised he was scared so I just kept hitting the floor near him to steer him out of the room.  Job done.

We had wanted to hire motorbikes to go to Phanom Rung and to finally try them, but it was 400 baht for an automatic.  We realised there was a bus that went to a small town near the ruins.  It ended up being 30 baht each one way and then its a 6km walk to Phanon Rung so it was good exercise.  I would recommend doing it this way as its much cheaper.  The locals still find it very weird to see a foreigner walking anywhere, but in general the Thais in Issan are much friendlier than elsewhere.  The ruins themselves are really pretty.  Its clear that the Khmer ruins are prettier than Thai ones.  From Lonely Planet's description I had expected to find it on the edge of a volcanic crater, but it is still pretty and surrounded by trees.  Its well worth the trip.  While we were walking around a Thai woman approached us and asked us if we could help her.  She was a tourism teacher and her students were taking an exam.  She wanted to know if we could act as guinea pigs and if they could take us on a tour and she mark them.  It seemed like a good opportunity for a free tour and we took it.  Most of them were a bit rubbish and didn't tell us much we didn't already know.  It did reinforce my belief that hiring a guide is not really necessary.  Still it was fun.  Their pronunciation is quite bad and they clearly need some work, but they were also super nervous.  On our way back we grabbed a bus to Surin and saw a super fat monk get into his SUV.  It was good to again see how much he must be starving himself on the path to enlightenment.  We found a good, cheap hotel in Surin, which on first impressions was quite a nice town.  We even found an expat restaurant which did Philly Cheesesteak.  I was somewhat skeptical about the authenticity of that dish, but they delivered a very close effort.  It was really, really good.  So good in fact that we would come back the next night again and have the same thing.

The next day we got an early truck at 6.30am out to the elephant village.  Once again Lonely Planet proved to be shit.  It takes just over an hour and not two hours, so we were there a while before it opened at 8.30am.  They also claim the last bus back is at 4.30pm, but we could find no evidence of any bus after around 3pm so be careful to head out for the morning show if you don't want to stay the night.  Maybe that was why a bunch of foreigners were camped in the bus station to go back.  There are also no buses between 11am and 2pm, so you are pretty much fucked if you watch the show as you have to hang around.  My advice is to rent a motorbike and go yourself.  Especially if you want to see the afternoon show at 2pm or the elephant bathing which was at 3pm or 4pm.  I can't remember.  Hmm too much Haribo on my notes. Or should that be too many.  Nevermind.  Anyway we arrived and had a quick look around the museum and visited the elephants where we were reprimanded by the 'Gods' or volunteers as I like to call them.  Walking around like they are Gods gift to the elephants.  Their money certainly is as it can pay for useful things like food and vets, but they are certainly not.  If volunteers were really useful they would not have to pay to volunteer.  The simple mantra should be that if you pay, you yourself are worthless.  Still someone has to clean the elephant poo, so it saves someone some time.  We then watched the morning show.  It was a little uncomfortable, but better than riding them.  I had to go back out to pay as we had entered before the ticket vendors had set up and as noone checks we could have watched it for free.  We saw elephants dancing.  We saw them throwing darts badly.  Playing football.  One seemed to really enjoy it.  The baby elephants were really excitable and genuinely seemed to love doing their tricks.  The older ones less so.  There was one who painted a picture.  Probably the most impressive.  One slam dunked a basketball while walking on its hind legs.  All the while we were hounded by women trying to make us buy bananas to feed the elephants.  Maybe we might have bought some if we hadn't already spent double to watch the show.  Still it was interesting to watch.  While waiting for the non existent bus (see above) we saw one elephant break free and terrorise the locals into holding it back with spears.  They chained the legs of some elephants together and there seemed to be little evidence of the natural enclosures they were supposed to build with the volunteer money.  Its always a question of how much these areas are helping, but as we had seen a lot of mahouts wandering around the streets of Surin trying to get food for their elephants, it was evident that it helped somewhat.  We grabbed another Cheesesteak and I read about how Obama had been absolutely minced in the first debate.  Seemingly the biggest caning in ages.  There was some dramatic movement towards Romney and even today its not clear which way the election will break.

The next day we got the train to Bangkok.  A very long train to Bangkok.  Fuck me that was a long time in 3rd class.  I do like the fact that they can't fuck you with the trains in Thailand.  Its computerised.  I would not like to make the same confident statement for the buses.  There was one other French couple in 3rd class.  It seems like a few other travellers also travel the back routes, though we have barely seen anyone for the last week as we have been spending time well off the beaten track.  There was an old man at the bus station who offered to help us find the bus.  I thought it looked like the wrong direction and questioned his motives, but I was wrong.  He was just a super helpful old man, who was trying to find taxis and tuk tuks for everyone.  He even came to say goodbye to us when he got off the bus.  He was an English teacher for the princess, but every non native English teacher I have met is barely at intermediate level for speaking and listening.  We got back after an hour on the bus and met Jessica and Christophe (a French guy she had met coming from the airport).  Cannelle was really happy to meet up with her best friend and on the 4th time we were in Bangkok we would finally visit it.

In the morning we went for breakfast and on the way back were stopped on the street by a Dutch girl, named Savine, who was looking for a hostel and would end up travelling with us for a week.  We headed down to the Palace and were told that it was closed, so we could take a tuk tuk to some shitty place in the city.  We decided to walk.  Then we headed for the museum and got told it was closed as well and the man started drawing useless shit all over the map.  Not sure what he was doing, but he also offered us a tuk tuk ride.  I turned him down as well.  Weird.  They said the palace would reopen at 1pm, so we came back then.  People stopped us again to say we weren't dressed appropriately, but sandals had seemed ok on other tourists.  Finally we heard the tannoy announcing that we should not trust delaying tactics.  Finally it made sense.  They had been lying to us to get us to take their stupid tuk tuk tours.  Oh well at least it had cost us nothing but time.  However, the palace itself was quite disappointing, though the Wat was good.  They had doubled the price for the big, golden reclining buddha, so just Cannelle went in as I did not really care.  The palace ticket comes with a park area as well, but that was shut on the monday when we went there.  Its nice to be in a part of Thailand where noone tries to fuck you over.  Writing this now from Issan, makes me appreciate how vastly different the two Thailands are and how the majority of travellers only see the crappy side.  Oh well.  More fool them.  We met Savine at 4pm (she had left to check in) and headed out to Nahm restaurant.  We were given seats on the terrace as we had originally booked for 3 and its much better with a view over the swimming pool.  The food is first class, but very spicy and authentically Thai.  This caused a problem as if you order the degustation you must choose one dish from each section to share. The others did not like or could not handle spicy food.  Eventually I persuaded them to go for the Venison anyway and the restaurant kindly let us choose two mains.  They were super accommodating all evening.  As the 50th best restaurant in the World you would expect it, but it was very good.  They keep topping up your water though, so be careful or you may end up spending more than you want to on water.  The location is beautiful and I really liked the food (though maybe I didn't love it).  Be warned though that if you can't handle spices it is probably not for you.  We grabbed another taxi out to Ekamai-Soi 5, which is a big clubbing area and to Nung Len.  It was supposed to be the coolest bar in Bangkok and we had been told it has the best looking women, which may well be true.  They certainly weren't foreigner chasing putas like most of the girls in Koh San Road.  The clubs are a little different here though.  There is no dance floor as such and people tend to stand around tables piled high with whisky bottles etc.  There is not much space and almost noone dances.  We went into the left side first and found a small crack to stand in.  They had a live band doing covers of some English songs and also some Thai ones (that were probably covers given the fact that most people were singing along).  They were pretty good and people would move, but not really dance.  After a while we moved to the other side of the building and they had one of the best DJs I have seen in a club.  Really cool.  Great music.  If there had been more space to dance it would have been awesome.  Savine met a Thai rasta comedian who she had seen in a magazine, but he couldn't speak English.  She also got hit on by a dickhead Yankee who came to chat with me, said he hated the English and was from Philly.  I said I'd been to Philly twice and he said 'well yeah, I've been to London three times.'  Cool.  Competitive jock type. My favourite.  Dickhead.  He also told me he was a pimp.  That I could believe.  He did the fist bump and then left, signalling me over the crowd.  Cool dude.  We had a really good time in the club till nearly 2am before grabbing a taxi back.  The best thing is that it was free.  Maybe we will go back.  From chatting with the French guys in our hostel it seems that we had a much better experience out there than they did in the tourist central area.  We need to find a place with a good dance floor.

The next day we woke up late and went to get tickets to Chiang Mai by train.  They gave us two options, but we elected for second class seated with fans for the evening as it was only 430 Baht and not nearly 1000.  Then we went to Jim Thompson's house after a Burger King.  The tour is quite nice and the house is a really cool place.  Worth the visit.  We then headed through Lumphini Park which is a really cool place.  Beautiful location.  Like a tiny Central Park surrounded by skyscrapers.  Lots of people doing exercise and jogging.  The more I think about it, the more I liked Bangkok.  We headed to the Sky Bar, but we could not go to the top as you are not allowed up there until after 22.30 unless you are there for dinner.  I think we may eat there in January as I really want to see the top and the bar below is nice, but not what we wanted.  We ordered one coke between us as I was not going to pay loads for second best.  They went to put it on ice, but I covered the glass as I didn't want any.  I think they may have thought that it was a little rude of me. They brought us another one as an apology and I refused it as that was ridiculous.  I will never be comfortable with the ridiculousness of 5 star hotel service.  It really is like modern day slavery.  Cannelle was feeling sick so she went home, the girls went for sushi and I went to meet Rob. He had wanted to take us out for dinner as a wedding present, but in the end he just took me to a really nice restaurant under the pretty bridge.  It was not backpacker lifestyle in Bangkok for us.  We ended up grabbing some beers and staying out till 2am chatting.  Apparently he started on  a 30,000 Baht salary a month, but was now earning 70,000 Baht a month working 21 hours a week.  That's around 1,400 quid and a flat costs around 10,000.  He reckons he could save 800 quid a month easily, which is as much as I saved in Paris.  He reckoned I could get a job the next day if I wanted one as they were having problems recruiting new teachers and his director had said if he knew someone with a CELTA and half a brain he should let him know.  It was always an option as Cannelle quite liked the city.  We could have a good standard of living here, but I am not keen on teaching noone above Upper Intermediate.  He said the corruption was rife here, even if the bureaucracy was not as shit as France.  One of his friends was hit by a car and had to spend 3,000 quid on an operation and because the woman paid off the police, he could not get any compensation.  I became more certain that having worked for the British Council it would always be easy for me to pick up work now.  We traded some tips on teaching, which was quite useful.

In the morning Cannelle was really sick.  She could barely move.  So Savine went to the palace while we waited.  We went on our ill fated tour of the closed park and then took a boat trip down the river.  Then we bummed around a bit, dodging the guys trying to sell me suits and other useless people.  An aside on taxi drivers.  Get a government green and yellow taxi on meter or a pink one if that fails.  If they can't take you on meter tell them to fuck off.  Just to give you an idea how cheap this city is by meter.  Koh San Road to the train station is around 55 Baht.  Koh San Road to the bus stations are around 90 Baht.  From Ekamai-Soi 5, which is around 12km across town and the furthest you can go in the city, to Koh San Road it was around 105 Baht at 2am.  Therefore it is not possible to go for more than 100 Baht by meter unless the taxi driver is fucking you.  Allowing for traffic prices could be up to 10 or 20 Baht more, but it really is cheap.  Given the prices of the sky train and metro, it is cheaper to take a bus but super slow and second cheapest to take a taxi if there are 3 or more of you.  We got to the train station and found our second class carriage.  Only it was 3rd class.  I pointed this out to the guard and he just laughed.  I went to information and they told me that our carriage had been damaged and withdrawn from service.  Ok so what would they do about it.  We could pay extra for a bed or take 3rd class.  'What about the 22 seats listed on the screen.'  Apparently they were in our broken carriage.  Ok.  Taking ages.  I insisted I wanted our seats honoured.  We headed to another screen.  There were now 21 seats left.  'How can there be 21 seats if they weren't for sale?'  Ah ok. Now we could have 4 seats.  Fuckers.  Not sure if our carriage had ever been second class, but either they were fucking us or saving those seats for the Thai passengers who had lost their seats.  Nevertheless my sheer bloody mindedness and determination not to get fucked managed to secure us the seats I wanted.  Arseholes.  The other Thai passengers seemed upset to have gringos on their carriage and the woman kept trying to sell us overpriced breakfasts and drinks, but we had brought our own food with us.  Eventually we settled into the reclining seats to sleep after Savine and I had had a long chat.  Onwards to Chiang Mai.

Myanmar Part 3 (Pyin Oo Lwin, Hsipaw and Bagan)

Hmm what a shitty little hotel. Its the cheap one in the LP.  It is cheap.  It is nothing else.  First impressions.  Cool little mountain town.  Had a good feeling about this.  We got lost to begin with and then went for a walk around the Eastern suburbs of the town to take a look at the colonial buildings.  They are really cool.  There is a lot of money there.  You can see here and Mandalay that there is some serious money in Myanmar for some people and some cool modernist architectural tastes.  It was pleasant to go for a walk around there.  They have lots of cool horse and carriages for taxis.  They are so cool I almost voluntarily took a taxi.  We had discovered Blue Mountain lychee at this point.  Just a quick plug.  Good stuff.  More refreshing than sprite.  We went for a walk to the gardens.  LP says its 1km.  They are wrong.  Its probably 2 or 3.  God Lana del Rey sucks to write too.  So slow I crawl to half pace.  Lets get going and crank on some Calle 13.  Calma Pueblo.  Anyway the gardens were Cannelle's highlight of Myanmar.  They are super cool and a real contrast to everything that went before.  They are so well organised they have women trimming the flowerbeds constantly.  Immaculate does not do it justice.  It was really cool to wander all of the gardens from one environment to another.  Also there were almost no foreigners and just lots and lots of local people living normal lives.  Hanging with friends, taking picnics and even a guy jamming the guitar with his friends.  Still it was distinctly Myanmar.  One thing you can see here is how important family is for everyone.  Parents are often out looking after their smiling kids as they all play together, from the rich to the poor.  Nice to see.  We had a drink in one of the most stylishly designed cafes I have seen.  While Cannelle was using the toilet the owner came to apologise for it being unsophisticated.  I almost laughed in his face.  Unsophisticated?  I told him that Cannelle reckoned it was the best gardens she had ever been too and I thought his cafe was better than most equivalents in the west.  They have a number of exotic birds and 'exotic' birds for westerners (swans and peacocks).  The tower gives a good view over the park.  We checked that the train was ok for the next day and ate dinner in the same place we had had breakfast.  It was a really cool town and not many foreigners tend to go there.  Maybe because the park entrance goes to the government.  Oh Lonely Planet you spoiler of holidays.  We saw a tiny lost puppy in the station, which the local kids had separated from its parents until it got lost.  Once again they treat animals like shit here.

The bakery was closed in the morning.  Bugger.  Never mind.  We met a German girl, who was working on her PHD in Vietnam and we boarded our train for Hsipaw via the famous Gokteik Viaduct.  Grabbing some samosas before we boarded, we set off.  The Gorge is very scenic and worth the train ride.  Keep an eye out down below for the old rail tracks, the river and on the right a waterfall.  We arrived in Hsipaw and headed to Mr Charles Guesthouse.  Wow.  Just wow.  Fuck me.  That was a monster guesthouse.  Let me elaborate on what I call the Lonely Planet effect.  I touched on this in Hpa-An, but now I can elaborate.  Ok.  Here is my theory.  If you compare Hsipaw and Hpa-An they sound the same in the book and Mr Charles Guesthouse sounds very like Soe Brothers.  Yet Hsipaw has become a 'highlight' and Hpa-An has not.  If something makes the highlight list in a Lonely Planet, then you can guarantee whatever it was when the book was written, it will be drastically different when you arrive there.  Shame really.  Get to Hpa-An before it goes the same way.  The guesthouse is immaculate but still Cannelle was eaten alive by bed bugs.  If you had had to bet money, you would have bet it all on the hotel yesterday and not today being the culprit.  I walked with the German to the viewpoint where a young monk seemingly keeps a log book of visitors.  You get a nice view of the city.

In the morning we had intended to go hiking but the rain was incessant.  The German had to go, but we decided to go in the afternoon.  At this point there were no overnight treks as it was considered too dangerous.  So we sat discussing EU politics.  She reckoned that the Germans would sacrifice their own national interest to keep the EU together.  Interesting.  She also said that if someone was going to kill her neighbour she would not intervene as you have no right.  I said that their life trumps their right to property.  She disagreed and said the right to life does not trump sovereignty.  No wonder Europeans have trouble understanding Anglo foreign policy.  Its moral for us.  She left and we hiked to the waterfall and got lost twice.  The hotel map is not great.  Let me help you.  You can walk really easily to the waterfall.  When you get to the crossroads enter the graveyard straight ahead.  The split is later.  Stay on the left and walk continuously up and round a hill to the right.  You will find a bunch of rubbish at the top of the hill.  Here take a left and then its just straight.  Yes that thing in the distance that looks like a waterfall but doesn't move is in fact the waterfall.  Its justly weirdly streamed.  Head for that.  Its a really cool walk and the waterfall itself is really pretty and different when you get close to it.  We met a couple of Kiwi girls who had been teaching in Cambodia.  Somehow they had managed not to pay for Bagan.  Not sure how, but more on that later.  We decided to head to the hot springs as well.  This one I will have to ask anyone reading to enlighten me with just exactly where they are.  We walked the river path and found the final village with the water mills and the dam.  They seemed to suggest it was over the dam, so we waded the river and scrambled up the hill.  Fuck all.  Just a field.  Maybe back down.  Nope.  Just a river.  Dam was blocked.  On the way back I spied a path off to the left before the dam.  Maybe it was there but I can't say for certain.  Good luck if you try and send me the details.  We grabbed dinner with the Kiwis and a Dutch guy and it seemed we missed out in Kalaw.  After congratulating ourselves because the guide at Inle Lake had said it was so touristy, we were hearing account after account of how cool the trek is from Kalaw to the lake.  Oh well, ytou can't win them all.  The hotel had tried its hardest to prevent us from booking the bus with no aircon for 500 less to Mandalay.

Eventually we triumphed, but upon seeing the buses in the morning I wish we hadn't.  Its not worth the difference.  Just take the aircon one.  Both of us had had nasty stomach cramps in the night and I had the runs.  Shit.  Just what you want for a 6 hour bus ride.  We would have to survive it and that is the apt verb for this bus.  Cannelle was hurting.  We arrived and the taxi drivers wanted extortionate money for us to take one.  Fuck them we walked 10 blocks to Peacock Lodge.  Full.  Shit.  Luckily a local gave us a free ride all the way to Nylon hotel, continuing our string of countries where we hitchhike by accident.  People must take pity on us.  We went to a western cafe for stomach safe food and randomly bumped into Iban, who had worked with Cannelle for Axis and Globe.  Small world.  In the middle of Mandalay in Myanmar of all places.  We decided to walk to the art studio of the couchsurfer Sophia.  She was super nice and the building was super cool.  She gave us a tour of their paintings (all impressive), they all played instruments (5 siblings), they taught art, sculpture and music.  The sculpture teacher had been kicked out of the government university for subversion and they were still watched by the local neighbourhood informants.  She gave us a copy of their writing as well.  Really nice people.  She even introduced me to acupuncture as I had two needles inserted beneath my knees to help stomach pains.  It worked wonders.  I really should work on my Chinese medicine, though Cannelle declined to be punctured.  The sculpture on their property front had been banned and was the reason why the teacher had lost his job, but it was considered ok on private property.  She showed us a local paper where the teacher had been arrested for a protest.  She said that it was true that press freedom had really opened up in the last year.  She also confirmed that most people were optimistic for the future and more surprisingly that most people in Myanmar liked their current President.  He was very popular, but the people just below him were considered to be the problem and the danger to reform.  The party not the head.  After a really cool evening we walked back and got another home made ice cream.

In the morning we grabbed the bus to Bagan.  We had changed our flights for Monday.  Cannelle had wanted Sunday, but I was not sure if Bagan could be done in a day.  We shall see.  We were running low on money by this point.  Ok we had $500 that I did not want to break.  We had changed $100 more in Mandalay and would do the final $30 here.  All the hotels were full.  Apparently the country is becoming so popular that in low season there is a shortage of hotels and in high season it is ridiculous.  We booked our bus for Yangon, found a decent hotel and went to Black Bamboo.  It is the most average, overpriced food I have ever had.  Nothing bad, so painfully average and given the small fortune we paid it is seriously, seriously overrated and I wouldn't recommend it.  We arranged with our hotel to take the bikes at 5am for sunrise and to avoid the sun and for a pack breakfast to take with us.

We were up at 5am.  We decided to see how many temples we could visit in one day.  We went down via the airport and then came in from the East.  We visited all the main temples there and only got hassled once, which was by a woman trying to get us to her village.  We cycled across the Southern Plain and ended up at one giant temple (I forget names) where you can walk across the whole rooftop and we could see all the other temples, impressively scattered across the plains.  Here we crossed the first two tourists, who were two people from Vietnam.  They were the only tourists that we met in the first 4 hours.  It was really cool to travel all across Bagan and meet noone.  Even at the beautiful one in the middle and the large one which is so mysterious and Scwesandaw Paya, we met only 3 tourists.  We managed to get to Old Bagan by only 9am.  The first vendors only started to set up their stalls at 7am. They even seemed surprised to see us.  Around 9am the heat gets searing and by 10am we had visited all of the temples.  I can only assume people need many days here because so many tourists go out after breakfast and visit 2 or 3 temples a day.  If you head out before sunrise you get 4-5 hours with no heat and can see most things.  Cannelle's bike chain snapped half way round, but it was encased in some metal casing and so a simple operation cost us money to replace it.  We had lunch in the veggie place in LP and were so poor we had to share some rice.  We got chatting with an old French couple in Old Bagan and found out that Routard has no agenda against the government paid places and so that is why they are probably so full of French people.  We chatted with some young German guys briefly.  One of the temples in Old Bagan had a swing so we swung on that for ages irritating the stupid sand painting selling kids.  Bagan and Inle Lake are by far the most touristy and vendor full places in Myanmar.  We went back and rested.  Bagan was cool and the pagodas were much better than anywhere else in Myanmar, though the buddhas were still super crap.  Just before sunset we headed out again to a local place to climb up and watch it.  We bumped into the Germans again and watched the sunset (which is nice but not outstanding).  Afterwards we headed to a place called Weatherspoons.  It was run by a super nice local guy.  I had guessed he had been to the UK given the name.  He has comments from customers written all over his walls and the food is awesome.  Great burgers, great chips, great pasta.  Everything is imported, it is very cheap and it is by far the best place we ate in in Myanmar.  Even the local food and curries were excellent.  I would highly recommend this place.

The next day we grabbed breakfast and had nothing to do as we had been everywhere and couldn't afford any more bikes anyway.  There were a bunch of morons at breakfast.  At least they were all bunched together.  We got lunch at Weatherspoons again and then chatted with an old English woman, who lived in Australia and had been born in Myanmar.  She had lived in Mawlamyine and confirmed that Mandalay, Yangon and there had been much more beautiful when she was younger and that the place had gone to shit.  She said she cried when she saw her old junior school.  There was also a super posh English/Swiss couple in super designer clothes with more pairs of sunglasses than brain cells.  There was even a weird old Belgian couple that told us you could get wi fi in a cafe.  I said we didn't have a computer and they said that neither did they.  Weird.  Ok anyway we took the night bus back to Yangon, thinking that Bagan was nice and worth visiting, but nothing amazing.  If the Kiwis were right and it was much better than Angkor Wat we were going to be disappointed.  In the bus we played guess the cover song as every Myanmar song was seemingly a cover, but most of them were Celine Dion and that helped Cannelle to win as English people don't listen to Celine Dion.

When did we arrive in Yangon?  Yes you guessed it.  4am.  So we waited for sunrise and took a taxi to Chery Guesthouse.  They were full.  So was the next one.  Next two were too expensive.  Next one was shitty.  Next one was a drug den.  Next one would have a room but would not give us breakfast today instead of tomorrow.  Finally we got to Golden Smile Inn.  They were lovely, had a cheap room and swapped the breakfast to that day.  Great back up if you can't get Cherry Guesthouse.  I did some writing and we generally chilled out.  There was a free European film festival so we went to that.  It was Iron Lady again, which we had watched in Paris but knew was good and Vitus for today.  Vitus is a Swiss film and really, really good.  Very original.  Seek it out if you can find it.  I got to practice a bit of my German but they had English subtitles.  All the rich and well dressed were out for Myanmar and it was different to see that side of the city.  The English is massively better than Thailand.  Especially as we are back in Thailand now.  You have to stand to respect the flag which is a little weird and uncomfortable, but also quite funny.  Spurs won again in the evening, beating Villa 2-0.  We were on the rise.  New Orleans finally won as well.  At last.

We were up early for the taxi after not really doing much.  Grabbed a taxi, left the extra kyats for charity, were chuffed to find out/remember (I may have read it somewhere) that we don't have to pay the $10 exit fee now.  It was a shitty flight, but we were back in Thailand.  Myanmar had been an interesting place to travel in and if we had to name highlights we would say Pyin Oo Lwin, Hpa-An and Inwa/Mandalay.

Myanmar Part 2 (Inle Lake, Mandalay, Inwa and Amarapura)

Damn headphones are totally buggered on this computer.  Still I am determined to catch my tail up to a point.  Having been murdered by aircon we finally arrived close to the Lake at 4am.  Good timing.  They offered us a shared taxi for 2,000 kyat but we refused with the intention of waiting for the pick up trucks.  In the end they dropped the price to 1,000 kyat and it was deemed cheap enough not to sit on our arse for ages.  With hindsight it may not have been the best decision however, as I have heard that the pick up truck passengers can often avoid the $5 charge for entering the lake.  I have no confirmation of this however.  Our original two choices were both full, so we opted for the Golden Inn.  Got a nice room for around $18.  Everything else there was far too expensive though.  The little shop just opposite (on your right if you exit the hotel) proved to be the best bet for everything else.  Their washing was much cheaper, their boat tours were cheaper and their bicycles were also cheaper.  We did our washing there and rented a couple of bikes.  We cycled round the east side of the lake to the floating town.  It was a very pleasant place.  They offered to take our bikes across the lake but we turned it down.  The leg propelled boats were quite cool, though the twisting motion does not seem to have any additional benefits or indeed necessity.  I am sure you could generate as much speed with a traditional pull motion, but maybe not.  We decided to take the bikes round to the west as well to see the hot springs.  The cycling route in that direction is really nice and bumpier than the east side.  We passed some French tourists on the way and they told us that the hot springs were super touristy.  Hah I thought.  No problem.  Yet when we reached them they were actually just overpriced jacuzzis.  These were less hot springs and more hot tubs.  We passed.  Cycling back we got caught with a mini storm, which knocked out all of the internet.  All sites are now legal seemingly in Myanmar (including the economist etc which I regularly read), but the connections are super slow.  We watched some Ugly Betty and struggled to understand how people could spend a week here.  Yeah its nice, its pretty even, but its nothing exceptional.  It was certainly no Lake Bled or Lago Atitlan (which probably rank as my favourite two lakes).

In the morning we got up and headed for our lake tour.  We had read it was a little tacky but still worth it.  We shall see.  An old woman walked us down to the boat where we were bombarded by local hat sellers.  Fuck sake.  It was starting already.  We sped out on to the lake.  Ah this was more like it.  Skimming down the canal and into the reedy lake.  We headed across to a local fisherman who was using a cool basket and spear combo and then he held onto our boat offering us a photo opportunity.  Ah shit, it was gringo tourism. Awkward moment.  Back into cruising across the pretty lake to our first town.  It looked very beautiful from distance.  As we got closer it was even cooler.  Oh no a stop at a gold seller.  Very nice.  They even told us not to take off our shoes when all the locals clearly had.  I don't like that.  Ok so this is a shop.  We don't buy things.  Don't look at anything.  Still here.  Ok well just look at the craftsmanship.  If you do that, however, they want to sell you something.  Catch 22.  I wanted to walk across the town as that looked interesting.  Oh that's not possible.  By boat?  Back in the boat.  Would we like to see the long knecked women.  Why not we thought, imagining we were off to a village.  Nope, we went to another shop where everyone stood around awkwardly.  The women were clearly doing nothing until we arrived and then ran to some looms.  We asked a few awkward questions and declined to take photos.  Again we bought nothing.  Cannelle worried we were going to hate this day.  Next stop the market town of Inthein I think from memory.  We set off through some nice canals and arrived next to a phalanx of boats.  We were early as well, so fuck knows how bad it is for those following.  Our boatmen told us we had an hour.  We walked straight past the market, as we have no interest in buying stuff and climbed the local pagoda.  That was quite nice.  Then we came back and they told us we had two hours.  We went for a walk along the canals and hung out on the bridge in town as we still had no interest in the market.  40 minutes later and we were off.  We went to the famous pagoda (apologies as names escape me and we have binned our Myanmar book).  Here we were ushered upstairs to eat while the boatmen sat downstairs totally segregated again.  We ate the shittest food on our trip and then went to the pagoda, which was nice but we were accosted by young shoe hunters again wanting a donation.  Luckily the older locals told us we didn't have to pay.  We saw the gold blob buddhas and went back.  The guides were playing a table and pockets that saw them flicking yellow and blue discs around.  It looked cool, but they stopped when we arrived.  We told them to carry on and sat and watched as it was 100 times more authentic than anything on the 'tour'.  Where next on the wonderful Inle Lake odyssey?  Ah banging a better sound system.  Now I can type freely.  Sorry for sucking you out of it there.  This is where the tour got better.  We headed to a weaving village.  I assumed it would be another sterile sales pitch and I suppose it was, but the guide spoke English well and we got the chance to ask some questions.  We had viewed most of the machines before we got onto discussions of pay etc.  The average loom worker was paid 3,000 kyats a day and worked seven days a week (That's around $3.5 for those who aren't familiar with the money).  She herself was paid about 50,000 kyats a month, though her rent was around 20,000.  That's pretty shitty.  Especially when the scarves they were making sold for upwards of $25 and the workers received zero income from this.  No commission.  No percentage.  Nothing.  Shocking.  It turns out that a lot of tourist money just goes to owners and craftsmen get nothing.  Made me feel better for not buying anything as no money would go to the workers anyway.  She asked after our salaries and said I earnt more in two hours in Paris than she did in a month, though she was shocked at how expensive life was in the UK as I converted rent, transport etc into kyats for her.  It was a much more informative hour long chat than anything we had had so far and answered some of our questions.  Afterwards we were taken to some cigar makers, who rolled an infinite number per day.  Again we don't smoke, so we didn't try them and it seemed that the end of our very long day of shopping by numbers occasionally interspersed by seeing the lake was coming to an end.  We went through the floating gardens and to the jumping cat monastery, where the cats no longer jump.  They just lounge around.  How do you summarise this experience.  Well.  I would say it was worth it.  Just.  Though as everything is pretty crappy except for the lake itself I would recommend   hiring a boat and just going to some villages with no tourists and walking around a bit if possible.  However, if you like endless identikit bullshit peddled at you from annoyingly pushy sales people then just go for the straight tour.  You'll love it.  We looked into the possibility of moving our flights now that it was looking increasingly unlikely that we could go to Mrauk U.  We reserved the final decision for Manadalay as that was effectively the point of no return.  Oooh I am finally warming up back into the writing again.  Pounding away with the Drive soundtrack playing in the background.  We found a really cool pancake place with excellent toasted cheese sandwiches for dinner.

The last day at the lake (only 2.5 and not the 75,000 that most travellers stay here for) and we got to shoot the breeze with one of the tour guides.  We had booked our bus to Mandalay through our usual place and the guy just chatted with us.  We learnt the yellow paint was for beauty, skin softness and to protect against the sun.  We learnt that the reason English Premiership football is on every channel is because they bet illegally on the games, but you get 6 months prison if caught, while owners get 1 year.  Does not seem too proportional there.  We found out the rules for the board game and that the people often played as 5's, bet 500 kyat each but that the house kept 500.  It was an easy way to make money.  He paid 50,000 kyats a month for his son's private school (a months salary for most) and 80,000 kyats for uni (its free but he has to pay accommodation).  He needs 300,000 kyats a month to get by, which he can make from tourism.  They can no longer walk the Kalaw to Inle :Lake route as the monks (those holier than holy types) had formed a cartel and only let people stay in their monasteries if they paid more than any other tour groups.  It had let to a very steep rise in prices.  Originally people could stay for free, but now the 'donations' were at least 10,000 kyats a person.  Ah nothing like the authentic experience.  Thanks Lonely Planet.  Damned if you do and damned if you don't.  We found out that the big green fruit is actually 1000 kyat in the markets and that people weren't trying to rip us off.  I asked how it was possible for people to live when a fruit costs 1/3 of their daily salary, but he informed me that a person could survive on 1,500 kyat a day for rice and curry, but if they wanted biscuits or tea it pushed up the prices.  Finally we found out that tour groups in Myanmar from Yangon paid double for everything.  The last one was not too surprising.  I left thinking it was a shame we could not take a tour with this guy and never once did he try to sell us anything.  It was pleasant to just chat for around 3 hours and get the answers to some of our questions.  It was missing in Asia.  Something that I could easily find out in South America and that had made that trip so rich.  We would have to couchsurf, so we researched and found some CS'ers in Mandalay.  Surprising.  We went back to the crepes place and then went to leave.  There was a Japanese American old guy in the lobby.  He was hilarious.  He asked us where we had been and said he was going to fly out of Myanmar early (which a lot of travellers told us and did as well) because 'there is nothing to see here.  Just pagodas and they are all the same.'  He was totally incompetent but then told me he had been to 169 countries, but 'mostly just to the capital as lots of countries have nothing to see.'  He seemed to take a perverse pain in his mission.  He then asked the hotel to check for the bus pick up even though is was 3.30pm and it was coming at 4pm.  When it arrived we told him it was for Yangonm but he wasn't sure and panicked.  'Where is everybody.  Nobody is here.  Help me.'  He went looking for staff and they eventually assured him it was his pick up. He left waving and everyone including the staff were laughing. Eventually it was our turn and we had to wait ages for an Israeli girl to get ready.  Fuck sake.  When we arrived at the junction they told us we had 2 hours to wait for the bus.  Well that was spectacularly pointless. Why so early?  It was full of foreigners as we were cattle herded as well.  Ah it was like Thailand all over again.  Everyone was going to Yangon.  Ah the LP loop.  It was the other way.  We should feel ashamed.  The Israeli was on a different bus to us so once again we failed to have a foreigner on the same transport as us.  One bus was leaving, when our Japanese friend came running from nowhere on the left as he almost missed it going to the loo.  How has he not been killed yet while travelling?  He will surely be hands down by far the most incompetent man to ever travel to every country in the World.  If he can do it, fucking anyone can.

We arrived in Mandalay at 3am again.  I swear these buses are timed to maximise profits for taxi drivers and hotels and yet we continue to disappoint all of them.  The bus driver told us to stay on and he would drive us to the centre.  I was against it as nothing would be open, but Cannelle pointed out that we would save the taxi fare so we went.  He dropped us at the clock tower (one of the few things lit and like all things lit at night it was surrounded by taxi drivers like moths to the light and like moths they banged their heads/demands against our refusals until they beat the hope out of themselves).  We walked to Nylon Hotel and got eaten by mosquitoes while we waited for it to open.  We didn't want to wake them and pay.  Around 5am they let someone out and us in.  I asked if we could check in and they said yes, so we took our bags upstairs.  While Cannelle had a shower, I realised that maybe they thought we were paying for this night, even though it was 5am.  I went down to check and they confirmed it as true.  Fuck that.  I asked them when check in was.  They said 12pm.  I said we would wait in the lobby, so they relented and gave us the room anyway.  Too damn right at 5am.  Ridiculous.  It was shit tv so we slept a bit.  We decided to walk around the moat and go to the palace.  Lonely Planet is super hostile to the idea of spending any money on government things, but everything of interest in Mandalay looked to be on the $10 pass and everyone had told us how much they hated this city.  Well if you don't visit the $10 ticket stuff you will as the rest of the city is pretty shitty, so more fool you.  A local taxi man accosted us, telling us we were the spawn of satan if we visited the palace, that he knew lots of anti-government stories and could drive us around.  I assured him we could walk and he had found the wrong politically engaged tourists.  We had been watching the slow 'opening up' of Myanmar and were curious to see if it was true on the ground.  More on that in Part 3 when we finally got answers.  Anyway we got rid of him, had breakfast in a cafe and then he caught us again.  Fuck sake.  Will he not take a hint.  Anyway we snuck into the palace like fugitives, feeling rather guilty.  You can hide surprisingly well within the walls, however.  Its actually pretty cool.  For starters it wasn't a fucking pagoda.  The architecture is snazzy, the relics around the outside (plane, train and derelict mini golf course) are cool and it is well worth a visit.  Plus you don't get hassled by vendors or anyone as no tourists go there.  Next up was Mandalay Hill.  What a contrast.  Tacky, touristy and full of vendors.  Its an awfully kitsch climb to the top for what is admittedly a very beautiful view.  Some Dutch tourists told us we should buy some tat of some kind.  Yeah just my thing.  Thanks.  We met a monk at the top who wanted to practice English.  We hung out at the top for 2 hours and then he accompanied us through some more pagodas (woohoo I thought it a little rude to say no) and for lunch at a very swanky cafe.  We had decided to come here before.  He wanted to open a library and become a teacher in Chin State (at last a monk with true aspirations) but he also loved Lady Gaga and Justin Bieber (oh well).  They were also learning English by 'English Grammar in Use'.  Fuck me.  Its the book we use as teachers to check anything we are not 100% on.  They use this to actually teach.  Those must be some fun classes.  Totally flies in the face of everything we had been trained to do.  He also spent 2 months in prison for the protests a  few years back and had abandoned politics, though he did feel the country was changing for the better.  We got more taxi hassle.  Did we want a taxi back to our hotel.  No thanks we can walk.  But its so far.  We already did it to get here.  Did we want a taxi to Inwa etc.  No we would cycle.  Its impossible.  No its only 12km.  Its impossible in the heat and all tourists who try fail.  I assured him that I can walk 60km a day comfortably and that I had cycled 140km a day in 45 degrees celcius easily.  That made his friends laugh.  Bastards never walk or cycle anywhere so of course they think its far.  The heat is a little oppressive in Mandalay even for me though.  The monk thought all foreigners were super rich, so I tried to explain that in general the older the tourist was, the richer they would be and vice versa.  He eventually parted company with us and we grabbed some local home made ice cream from the Nylon ice cream place.  Really nice.  Babou's plane she had to take in Nepal had crashed the day before.  She was a little nervous.  I think we would have taken the bus.  We got some bikes for the next day as we intended to leave at 7am and nothing was open then, because all foreigners are lazy, fat fucks who get up too late to enjoy the cool mornings.

We were up and grabbed breakfast.  Then we cycled to Inwa.  Super difficult lol.  Even with a saddle that kept collapsing on me and made me look like a teenager on his little BMX, we managed to make it in less than an hour and a half.  Impossible, indeed.  I am so glad I listened to the font of all wisdom that was the taxi driver.  We grabbed the little river ferry for 1000 kyat return and left the bikes.  The locals all spoke French and said it was mainly French who came here.  Interesting as its also government ticketed.  I started to form my theory that maybe Routard was not as hostile to the government as Lonely Planet is, because every government place and thing was mainly populated by French people.  We arrived and were offered a shit bell and pipe.  Hmmmm, no thanks.  Do we want a horse cart.  Not thanks.  But it is 10km and impossible.  Yes of course it is.  This was feeling like Mexico and the 'esta peligroso'.  We like walking.  It is neither 10km nor impossible.  One bit of advice.  Lonely Planet's map is shit.  They show big roads and small dotted roads.  You would logically assume that they are different sizes.  Logic does not apply to the LP.  They are all the same size and treat them as such.  The dickhead horse cart drivers will send you left. Ignore them and go straight if you want a quicker walk.  Go left like we did if you want a more scenic route. The place is super picturesque and the walk is lovely.  We visited all the main sites and most of the minor ones in less than 2 hours and were back on the boat.  The watchtower is now closed and you can't climb it, but you can still visit it.  The teak monastery is awesome and again part of the $10 ticket.  Its very atmospheric and nice to wander around in.  Here we got stalked by a horse cart driver.  Despite repeatedly telling us it was cheap and saying the other places were far (this was the furthest point from the entrance so we had already walked half) and us repeatedly telling him no and that we liked walking he kept alongside us. Fuck sake.  Just take no for an answer.  He reduced the price from 4000 to 100 and we still said no.  Some stupid woman kept telling us to visit the pagoda on the right.  We were sick of pagodas.  Yet if you don't take the $10 ticket that is all you get.  The other yellow monastery, which is probably my favourite individual building in Myanmar was also on the $10 ticket.  Well worth a trip, but just buy the fucking ticket or it will be boring.  Saw Sagaing from the bridge on the way back.  Hills full of pagodas.  Nothing new.  Drive on.  The bike was still shit.  As we left the first tourists arrived at 11am.  Good going in beating the sun.  We always had places to ourselves and we sweated a lot less.  The cycle back to Amarapura was much tougher as the sun was up and the bike was going down.  We arrived and had a nice lunch, dripping by the bridge.  Saw some beggars on the bridge as we crossed.  It was not what we expected and not as impressive as I had anticipated, but it was nice and worth the visit.  On the way back my bike got a flat tyre on the rear tyre.  Fuck sake.  This bike was killing me.  I can categorically say that if I can make both towns and back by 3pm with the shittest bike from hell this side of Banos to Puyo in Ecuador (thank God it wasn't that bad) then anyone can do it easily.  I think you could do both, the palace and be up the hill for sunset assuming your bike doesn't break down.  We would meet a local CSer the following Wednesday.  Mandalay itself by the way has super oppressive heat, but is a nice little city.  I fell asleep, but woke int ime to go downstairs and watch the second half of the game with the hotel staff.  It was Spurs v Man United.  They told me it was 2-0 and I naturally assumed to Man U, but they said no it was 2-0 Spurs.  Who scored?  Bale and new guy number 5.  Ah ok.  I watched nervously as we finally beat the fucking bastards on their own ground.  It was fun watching it with the locals.  We had no common language except that of football.  They were all Man United fans, as is virtually everybody in South East Asia.

In the morning we awoke to heavy rain and went looking for a pick up to Pyin Oo Lwin.  Someone accosted us and said jump in.  1500 kyat to the town.  Excellent.  As we left the waters kept rising like some kind of biblical flood.  It was the deepest water I had seen in the streets since Buenos Aires.  Some bikes were breaking down.  Cannelle was scared to go up hill in that.  I said the water run off would make it fine, not entirely convinced by my argument.  At least they drove carefully here.  Anyway 2.5 dripping hours later we were there and the sun had miraculously reappeared.  We had mostly got lucky with the showers on this trip.

Myanmar Part 1 (Yangon, Golden Rock, Mawlamyine and Hpa-An)

 Bugger.  Fuck.  Fuck.  Fuck.  I just hit copy and C at the same time, but slipped and erased the whole blog entry right at the last minute.  Very annoying.  I am finally back in Yangon and have internet connection fast enough to listen to music at the same time as I write the blog and I have a whole country to write.

After the scary flight into Yangon (they are all scary for me) we grabbed a taxi for $10 to Cherry Guesthouse.  The real price is around $7 but we were too tired to haggle at the beginning.  The hotel was around $20 when it was supposed to be $15 maximum.  It was the start of the realisation that prices in Myanmar were going up quickly everywhere.  It will soon be very difficult for solo backpackers to go on holiday here if it isn't already.  I was worried about finding a money changer in the country, but our guesthouse sent us in the right direction.  Or at least I think they did, but we couldn't find the place and ended up changing money at our hotel for around 840.  The official government rate is now around 780 so there is not a great difference.  On the street we were quoted up to 890, but not necessarily by trustworthy exchangers and if you want to change big sums it may be beyond them as they have mainly 1000 notes, so it would leave you with a huge pile of cash.  The infernal titanic music was still stalking us all the way across Myanmar.  Why were they so obsessed with this song and Celine Dion in general.  We were battered last night on a night bus by a medley of Celine Dion covers.  There were loads of French people in our hotel, so I assume it must have a good rating in Routard.  Its a nice place.  We went for a walk around the old town, which has scatterings of colonial era buildings and is quite pleasant.  The Lonely Planet walking tour inevitably ended up in markets, so we cut that short.  We were accompanied by a young postcard seller who persistently tried to sell us stuff in three languages.  Impressive stuff.  Initially we balked at paying for the street food as it seemed ridiculously expensive, but it turns out that food is just prohibitively expensive for locals outside of the meal staples.  We headed out to Kandawgyi lake.  This is a beautiful place.  You can walk around the lake on the wooden boards and the place is full of local couples and families.  They gave me a sticker, which I lost halfway round but noone seemed to care too much.  Afterwards we headed to the Schwedagon Pagoda for sunset.  At every pagoda in Myanmar they have people who can look after your shoes for a 'donation'.  Only the donation is compulsory (I don't believe that's the point of a donation) and their job is totally pointless as there is almost no crime here.  We declined their and subsequent polite offers and elected to carry our shoes with us.  Up the stairs the pagoda is a really pretty place and easily the best of the identikit gold pagodas that dot the country.  People were hanging around at the top and there is a nice atmosphere.  We went to a really nice Indian restaurant afterwards, which I just had lunch in now as well, before watching Predators in English (having only seen it in Spanish in Barcelona).

The next day we watched Up in the Air while we waited for breakfast.  Then we headed to the local supermarket (lack of importing ability means there are not many supermarkets in the downtown).  We pieced together a picnic as best we could and took the circle line train.  It was interesting and rammed full of locals.  You pass through a number of suburbs and we had intended to get off at Insein to see a pagoda and white elephants, but it battered down as we pulled up to the station and we decided it might be better to get off at the other side of the lake instead.  The rain stopped.  We got off the train.  The rain started again.  Excellent.  We ended up sheltering in a hotel and having the picnic there.  Then we set off for the lake.  We were sent one way, then the other, then back again, then the other direction again, got sent back from a military base by a friendly soldier and eventually ended up in Inya Lake Hotel.  A fate that has befallen many other tourists.  We weren't in the economic bracket of the clientele here, but this part of the lake was nice.  In the end we had to go back to the main road and walk past a decomposing dog or maybe pig and some begging children copying our walk before we saw Aung San Suu Kyi's former prison house.  Quaint little place.  The lake is only so-so though.  We walked all the way back and got accosted by the guys 'you want change money.'  'No it's ok.' 'I have good rates.'  We found them a day late.

Our first day we had had a really good local breakfast.  Our second and subsequent days however would consist of some fruit, some form of egg, sweet toast, shit jam and nice coffee.  Still it was food.  We headed to the train station to go to the Golden Rock near Kyaikto.  The LP argues against the train, but having experienced a few trains and buses let me set aside Lonely Planet's agenda and lay out the real facts.  Never did our train break down.  Our bus did once.  1-0 Train.  The train can be bumpy like a wild west carriage and sway like a town drunk, while buses just bounce around.  1-1.  You have more leg room on a train.  2-1 train.  You can walk around on a train.  3-1.  You have a toilet 4-1.  You interact with more locals. 5-1.  You get better scenery. 6-1.  Outside the main routes it is much cheaper (7,000 kyats or $8 by bus for Golden Rock, compared to $3 by train), but long routes and nights are better by bus. 7-2.  Buses are probably marginally more comfortable. 7-3.  You get a free water on the bus.  7-4.  Train stations are in the middle of towns so taxi fees are massively less (In Yangon its $7 each way and 45 minutes to the bus station and only a 100m walk from the train station).  8-4.  Overall Lonely Planet is far from honest with the transport and I would say that the train is the much better option for the day, while buses are better for night transport I would imagine.  Trains also have natural wind from the windows rather than fridge freezer aircon but that's personal preference.  The train station guy even walked us too our train (albeit the wrong carriage).  When we found our mistake we were moved, though I left my hiking boots behind.  The seats are wooden and you can be catapulted a bit, but not too much.  We bought some sweetcorn from one of the myriad of vendors who swarm the train like ants at each station.  Another wonderful experience.  We finished.  Dilemma.  No bins.  Where do we throw it.  Shit.  We watched the locals.  Some kids threw stuff out the window, but not adults.  We were sitting opposite some monks as well.  Bugger.  Would they be offended.  Some adults tossed an apple.  That was my cue to sneak off to the toilets and dispose of the sweetcorn.  Happily back at the seats having held onto the damn things for an hour, the monks just cracked open a red bull.  What with the blatant begging for money, huge collection boxes and buddha statues that looked like my first art class papier mache projects topped with Vegas strip club lighting, Cannelle was getting disillusioned with the 'purity' of Buddhism.  We arrived on time at the station and headed to the base of the mountain to get some accommodation.  Cannelle chose the shitty room over the good one because she thought I preferred it, but with breakfast on top we ended up switching back.  Oh well.  We got the truck up the mountain.  Interesting experience.  Its got around 6 planks in the back for around 40 passengers.  Get a seat on the side as you can use the metal bars to support you.  In the middle you have to grab hold of a plank with your fingers as my legs were too long to brace myself and I almost broke my thumbs holding my weight as he truck pitched up and down the hillside.  25 minutes of pain later we were there.  Hmm they had sedan chairs to carry people up to the top.  Interesting.  I could not ever imagine paying people from a former British colony to carry me up a hill.  We had travelled up there with some Americans and an old Austrian who looked and sounded like an old Arnie.  A hot, sweaty 30 minute walk later we were at the top.  The golden rock is not bad and worth a trip.  The views were obscured by clouds.  There are some places that women can't go, but nothing too major.  One is to put the gold leaf on the rock and the other is to a 5m 'hill' which is full of weird dwarf like crappy tacky buddha figures, like some kind of buddha nativity.  A guy approached us with his baby to speak to 'uncle' and 'aunty' but the baby didn't like Aunty Cannelle and kept crying.  On the way down we passed a package tour of Japanese and American tourists who had no problem asking men to carry the fat lazy arses up a hill, all the while taking photos of them on their I-pads.  It is not something they should have been proud of.  Arnie was striding the truck like a colossus on the way back.  He had failed to obey any of the temple dress code, but who was going to tell him that.  An American asked him if he would come back to Myanmar.  His response was a great 'Why would I come back when there are so many countries to see.  It's a Lonely Planet after all.'  Funny if you read it with an Arnie accent.  We went to the Chinese place near the truck stop for dinner and went to bed early.

In the morning Cannelle was feeling sick, so we limped slowly to the train station, where we had to wait, because the next train was at around midday.  We met some French girls, who had spent a week in Inle lake.  Everyone seems to spend a week there.  It must be amazing or there aren't loads of things to do elsewhere.  There were some little mice busily scrambling around the train carriage for food and I wrote something about toilet gymnastics.  Sadly I can't remember what that was about as I am sure it was fun.  We noticed kids were standing alongside the trains all the time and it was then that we noticed that locals would always throw food to the kids outside the trains.  It was here that I also noticed that every slightly flat or slightly raised area of land was covered in a fucking gold pagoda.  Everywhere.  George Foreman came to mind.  'I liked it so much,  I put a paaggoooda on it'.  We got a lot of taxi hassle in Mawlamyine after cruising across the pleasant bridge.  First impression was that this place may not be worth visiting.  That was later reinforced.  Fucking Lonely Planet.  There map sucked.  I can only assume the lazy bastards take taxis everywhere and so can't draw a real map as we ended up 3km south of the hotels, Cannelle was sick and the light was fading.  With lots of help from the local people we eventually found the hotel, which was a bit crappy and anxious to push tours.  Cannelle hated the bedroom and the town was a bit shitty.  The ferry to Hpa-An had also been cancelled.  We got some cream for a rash that she developed.  Its not totally gone even now, but its much better.  We ate in a nice restaurant on the waterfront where all proceeds are given to the elderly in the town.

In the morning we walked around, but far from a pleasant colonial town, it looked a bit like a shithole.  Still there are some nice buildings.  Someone told us that the tours are good and maybe we didn't do the place justice.  Then again people like the giant reclining buddha and it looks like shit.  I am not sure why almost all the buddhas are awful pieces of art, much like early European religious paintings.  I don't think we saw any we wanted to take photos of, because they were all shitty and even worse tacky.  With no ferry we opted for the local bus to Hpa-An.  The scenery down here is really nice and its also a really nice town.  Sometimes you just arrive in a place and get a good feeling like Jajce in Bosnia.  The Soe Brothers place is really nice.  They don't push any tours and give you all the maps and logistics to see stuff on your own.  We didn't see many tourists at all in this part of the South.  Just 4 or 5 from Yangon to Yangon.  It was blissful.  Indeed in all of Myanmar we only took transport with other foreigners 3 times.  The people in Hpa-An are also the nicest we met in all of Myanmar and that is some achievement because the people here are really friendly.  There are only two problems.  One is linguistic and its frustrating not to be able to talk with loads of locals.  You can talk with people in tourism, but they tell you what you want to hear and certainly won't challenge any of your beliefs about the country so it becomes a self perpetuating 'reality' created and fuelled by travellers.  The second problem is that the people are a little distant and cold.  Super friendly, but emotionally a little cold.  It may be a cultural thing as Europeans on the whole are also super cold in comparison with Latinos.  We went to a local place on the way to the pagoda, on the right just before the Tiger Hotel.  No name.  Amazing fish and they just kept piling up our plates with soups, salads, sides etc etc and two bottles of water for 3,000 kyat.  They even gave us another water as we were leaving.  Really nice people.  I assume the locals at Inle Lake and Bagan were like this before the tourists.  Still most tourists only visit a few places in Myanmar and the rest are still super nice.  Cannelle was too sick to climb the mini mountain and it started raining again, so I went to find her some brioche and chocolate.

In the morning we took bikes and headed for Mt Zwegabin.  We wanted to do Saddar Caves as well but they were closed due to the rainy season.  10km cycling and a 750m high mountain climb on no food.  That was probably not a great idea.  The scenery is really nice on the way.  Probably the best we saw in Myanmar, along with the gorge.  You keep thinking you have reached the base, but you have to keep cycling until you get to the crossroads at the far end of the mountain with 1000's of slightly less tacky than normal buddhas on the left.  Pass the buddha army and then you have a nice, long, hot climb to the top.  Its also slippery (wet or dry) as its smooth rocks.  You pass up too many steps to count, some trails and a rocky, craggy, mini gorge.  The route itself is worth it.  One word of caution.  If you get to the house part way up, go straight on.  I thought it was that way, but Cannelle thought the red sign pointing right was the way.  I figured red in this country usually meant prohibited of dangerous or something military.  All bad.  Anyway we went right.  After 15 minutes of sliding and scrambling up, we abandoned it and went back where I had two spectacular falls, including landing square on my elbow with full body weight on concrete.  I think I fractured my arm below the elbow, because a deep bruising covered half of my arm and I still can't put any weight on it two weeks later.  The bone has kind of boomeranged out of place as well.  Oh well.  Fractures fix themselves.  We went down the rest on our bums being eaten by microscopic, nasty little ants that you feel a long time before you see them.  Back on the trail we met a monk and four local women and they invited us to join them for food.  The monks ate first while we watched and the monk kept whacking a cat.  There is a big difference in animal cruelty between Thailand and Myanmar.  In Myanmar there are few domesticated animals and they are constantly smacked so that they are afraid of people, while in Thailand there are many domesticated animals and lots of people feed the stray dogs etc at night so they are much more comfortable with people.  One dog on the hike up to golden rock even hid in the forest to avoid having to be close to us.  We ate and the the monks collected their 'donation' before we all got a blessing.  That was a little awkward not being a believer.  Then Cannelle got stung immediately after and the heavens opened up to heavy rain.  I would hate to see what would have happened if we hadn't got a blessing.  On the way down we saw a monkey.  Then we heard a scream.  Two women came running as a troop of around 15-20 monkeys surrounded us and walked up the path.  It was a cool experience as both sides were a little wary and respectful of each other.  Cannelle was shaken a little bit by it though.  Having negotiated the monkeys we stopped in a shelter, but the guides would not come in.  Again it was another indication of a clear divide in society.  Its too clinical and cold.  Its human that if it rains everyone should be in the shelter.  Fuck protocol and societal restraints.  The already super slippery path had turned into a potential deathtrap so we spent as much time coming down on our bums as we did on our feet.  It was a long and arduous descent.  At the bottom we abandoned any further ideas of visiting places due to fatigue and injury and cycled back.

The following day we got a bus back to Yangon.  This one broke down and needed a replacement wheel that took almost an hour.  Yeah so much better than the trains so far.  We had opted to stay in Yangon for a night because Cannelle needed to see a doctor for her rash.  They gave her some cream and tablets.  She walked about 200m down the road on her own and got hassled a lot.  Different than when she is with me.  Spurs beat QPR and we ate a super expensive sushi as Cannelle needed something to cheer her up.  We ordered what we would do at home, not realising that they are about twice the size here.  So it was hard work getting through them.  The next day I wrote the last entry in this blog.  New Orleans continues their losing streak (currently 0-4).  We went back to the Indian and took a taxi to the bus station.  There they wanted 200 kyats to enter, but would not tell us why so we refused to pay and the taxi driver had to pay in the end.  We took a bus to Inle Lake and we were off to the place everyone had raved about.  Just enough time to get bombarded by dodgy Phil Collins covers and to be woken up by the voice of god telling us it was dinner time.  Jesus.  The buses in Thailand had been too quiet, but the buses in Myanmar are super loud and super freezing.  Onwards to the lake.