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The time has come to sum up our month in Myanmar. For me, it was the last unvisited country among the South East Asia nations, except for the Philippines (an eight hour stop over in the Manila airport lounge doesn’t count) and tiny Brunei. As with any place, there were positives and negatives, and personal [...]
Our famous pig Bacon once said that “To know a country is to know its beer”. While that’s obviously not quite true, we did sample most of the available brands in Myanmar. Here’s all you need to know about Burmese beer. The picture above shows a Dagon beer station. Dagon is the new, upstart [...]
Just when we start to feel that we’re street-vendor-food-ordering-pros, we’re served this: boiled pig intestine noodle soup. In retrospect, a few things would have tipped us off that this was not our kind of lunch spot – had we ANY wits about us when we were ordering. There was absolutely no one eating at their [...]
Ah, the utter joy of having wireless internet again. We flew from Yangon this afternoon to Bangkok – which means good food, a comfortable bed and internet that finally works properly. Sorry Myanmar, you’re amazing in many ways but your internet really stinks. Youtube is a no-go there, so we weren’t able to post any [...]
Tourism in Myanmar tends to focus on the Big Four – Yangon, Mandalay, Bagan and Inle Lake. If you travel to Myanmar on a package tour, which a staggering 85% of tourists to this country does, you’re bound to hit just those Four. We like to think of ourselves as more of the off-the-beaten-trail kind [...]
Martin already gave a fantastic breakdown of our trek from Kalaw to Inle Lake in Myanmar. Since we were able to snap a few pics of some cool things on an otherwise so-so trek, I put a little photo gallery together. Again, it was the wrong time of year, well, century for that matter, to [...]
In order to get at least one trek done, we signed up for a walk from Kalaw to Inle Lake – one of the few treks in Myanmar that can be done without special permits. We were joined by a Slovenian couple, Robin the guide and a cook: a handy group size. After a short [...]
Myanmar takes its Buddhism pretty seriously. There’s hardly a two-house town around that doesn’t have at least one temple or pagoda, and by now our eyes glaze over at the mention of any type of sightseeing involving a monastery or a paya. We did however make an exception for Kalaw’s Buddha cave: a natural cave [...]
curiously timed bus ride (we left in the afternoon and arrived at one o’clock in the morning) has brought us to Kalaw: a small town nested among the outliers of the Shan hills. For Burmese standards, it is a tidy, well-functioning town with good infrastructure and neat architecture. Kalaw is, unfortunately, the only place in [...]
Exploitation is something that makes me feel deeply yucky. Whenever possible Martin and I avoid doing anything that exploit local people/culture/customs. Despite our efforts, the sad fact remains: it’s everywhere and most tourists (package tourists, mostly) eat that stuff up – psst: the two pictured above are the ones I’m talking about. Here’s how it [...]
Oh the Lonely Planet! For those of you who don’t know, there’s only one guidebook in the whole world good enough to travel with, and that’s the Lonely Planet Guidebook. The others are either pale imitations, or they are geared towards other types of travel: travel with special interests in mind, or travel with a [...]
This is the ‘restaurant car’ of the 1st class train from Naba to Mandalay: two guys carrying a couple of buckets full of chicken feet, fried fish, eggs, veggies and rice. The service is fast and friendly, and the two restauranteurs are trailed by a person selling water and strong drink. We went with the [...]
The Winter Olympics are on televisions everywhere right now – well, almost, everywhere. Myanmar seems to have missed the boat on the whole thing, so you don’t hear a world about it over here. If it weren’t for my Facebook feed, I’d have no idea the Games were going on. I say all this because [...]
For those of us that are used to luxurious items, such as in-house showers, washing oneself in public seems like a kooky thing to do. Well, that’s not the case in Myanmar, where all washing seems to take place outside. Rivers are not only means of transport, they’re big, flowing bathtubs. Locals, who are always [...]
These things are a mystery to me. You see them driving around Mandalay – presumably they’re some form of public transport – but I haven’t seen one outside the city. What I don’t understand is two-fold: 1. Where the heck is the engine (it’s front-end is 12 inches long – that’s not big enough to [...]
You know the saying, “to fly by the seat of your pants?” Well, that's been our philosophy for most of our adult lives – before and after meeting, falling in love and marrying. We're now taking that idea on an extended round-the-world trip. Follow us as we share the good, the bad and the downright nasty of life on the road.
