Inle Lake

16/12/12 to 18/12/12 - Inle Lake was further north and at higher altitude, so we had our first taste of winter and the last two months of tropical weather seemed long forgotten. The bus had the aircon blowing full blast all the way from Bagan, and we expected to step off the bus into a face full of nice warm air. Unfortunately this didn’t materialise and we instead stood there shivering with our teeth chattering (it was an icy cold 20 degrees, which may sound okay, but we’d acclimatised to 33-35 degrees on a daily basis, so it was a big shock to the system).  

By now we were used to arriving in new places in the small hours of the morning. However, we arrived in Nwangswhe on the edge of Inle Lake at 4.30am finding that our first choices for guesthouses were all fully booked. We wandered around the town bleary-eyed trying to find an alternative but to no avail. Luckily we bumped into a very nice man who was a chef at the premier hotel in town. He said that his hotel had rooms, but was a bit pricey. However, he knew another place nearby which was cheaper and we followed him on his way to work (he’d overslept and was running late to make breakfast, perhaps he needed the Bagan noise truck). He showed us to some bungalows where we were told to come back at 8am when there might be a vacancy.

We went to a tea shop to warm up with a pot of tea and some samosas. The owners were Buddhists and had the TV playing the Buddhist Channel, which one of the waiters briefly flicked to another channel to check the European football scores. We probably drank about three flasks of tea we were so cold by this point. Eventually we checked into our bungalow and slept for a few hours to catch up on sleep and warm up. It seemed we were destined to have the traditional Xmas colds after all.

After visiting the town (by daylight this time) we had an early night as we were due up early the next morning to take a boat trip around the lake. We stopped at a market, a ‘floating’ village, a silk weaving factory, a cigar factory, an umbrella factory, a pagoda and a floating tomato garden. On the way back to Nwangshwe we moored up the boat to catch the sunset when some fishermen came to us on their boats. They gave us a demonstration of their unusual rowing technique (holding the oars with their feet) and how their equally strange fishing nets worked. This was followed by a rather comical display in which one of the fishermen pirouetted on the end of his boat waving his net in the air. This resembled something like a gymnastic ballet dance.

The next day we hired a bicycle and rode around some of the lakeside villages and the sugar cane fields. We stopped when we saw a Frenchman we had met at dinner the previous night helping out a family in their caramel factory. He’d rode past and decided to help them with their operation for a bit of fun. We saw the process from sugar cane to block of caramel and we were treated to a few bars of caramel as a gift. We offered to pay for them but the family refused to accept any money. They were delicious but very sweet, so after scoffing the first bar we decided to hold the rest back to enjoy them in moderation. We rode back to Nuangshwe where we relaxed with a strawberry lassi on the lawn overlooking the river, waiting for our pickup for our bus back to Yangon. We had time to chat to our host, who was a very nice lady who told us about the troubles she has to balance her books using 3 different currencies. She has to pay some taxes using Foreign Exchange Certificates (FECs), some more taxes and a mortgage in US dollars and then finally buy everything she needs in Kyat. We also talked about politics and Myanmar government. She gave us some old and new bank notes as a souvenir with the face of General Aung San on it (Aung San Suu Kyi's father).

We knew the bus was going to be cold once the sun went down and the aircon was pumped up again, so we dressed up in more layers to prepare ourselves for the long journey. We arrived back in Yangon the following morning (again very early), and we were lucky that our hotel let us check in early and get a brief snooze. They also gave us breakfast a day early as our flight back to Bangkok was early the following morning. We spent our final afternoon in Burma strolling around Yangon, trying all the deep fried things we hadn’t tried previously and savouring the warmer temperature which was such a relief. We made our flight to Bangkok the next morning thanks to our taxi driver who somehow had managed to master the art of overtaking despite not being able to see around the car in front of him. We arrived at Yangon International in plenty of time for our flight, and we were back in Bangkok by mid-morning.

Bagan

Bagan – 15/12/12. We arrived at Nuang Ou, near Bagan, very early in the morning by bus (around 3.30am).  We dropped our bags at a guesthouse, where we hired bicycles just as the city alarm o’clock came on.  At 4.30am we were amazed to hear a big truck with massive speakers on top of the roof going back and forth on the main street playing loud and cheesy Burmese music (bubble gum pop or Annie Cordy sort of style).  “Is this to wake everybody up?” we joked with a cyclo driver.  As it turned out, it was for exactly this purpose.

It was still dark and the town was asleep (or now awake, in fact) when we took a small breakfast at the local “tea shop”.  We then got back on our bicycles and headed to the temples of the old city to watch the sunrise and discovered thousands of pagodas and stupas rising in front of us in the middle of the dusty scrubland.

At this time we were alone riding our bikes for the next couple of hours and we enjoyed this spectacular landscape.  Later, when the sun was higher and the heat started to hit us, we stopped for lunch and rested for a couple of hours (staying to charge our batteries after the short night we had).

In the afternoon it was much busier and also more stalls of sellers turned up in front of the main temples.  They were trying to sell their lacquerware, postcards, books and drawings (we couldn’t resist buying one of those drawing from a young “art student”). One kid showed us his drawings of some of the temples and tried to sell them to us, it was quite cute as they were the kind of drawings you get from a young kid and he made us laugh with his sales banter.

In the late afternoon we decided that we had seen all that we wanted to see in Bagan, and instead of staying the night we jumped on another bus heading north-east for Inle Lake…

Yangon

13/12/12 to 14/12/12: We had been reflecting on our trip so far, and both agreed that the cultural differences between the various regions of Indochina had felt subtle from place to place, and it was only when looking back that we really realised the variations and how far we'd come. Often when crossing a border you sometimes notice very few differences, but when we think of Bangkok, Ubon, 4000 islands, Phongsali, Luang Prabang, Bac Ha, Hanoi, Saigon and Phnom Penh, then these places and their people are very different from one another.  Upon entering Myanmar however, we immediately felt the difference. Perhaps this was because we flew in from Bangkok, or maybe it was the Indian influence, but Yangon felt nothing like anywhere else we'd been in Asia so far.

We arrived at the airport where our pickup was waiting. All the Burmese men were wearing sarongs, as was our driver. We squeezed (literally) into our cab with a Dutch couple and a 7ft tall German giant. Our taxi was right hand drive, just like the majority of cars here, despite everybody driving on the right, which makes overtaking tricky, but they manage quite well. The driver gave us a whistlestop tour of Yangon, where he pointed out 'St Paul's Cathedral'.

Most hotels in Myanmar are booked in advance, so we emailed a hotel a few days before going. However we were told that they didn't have room but would find us something in a nearby hotel. We got lucky and ended up staying in a brand new hotel. So new in fact, that it wasn't opening until the following day. As a result we had a very nice, clean, modern room but with a smell of fresh paint (luckily this seemed to be better when we returned in the evening). Our host explained that they couldn’t make us a proper breakfast, as the kitchen wasn't finished yet, but that we would get tea, bread and bananas instead which was okay. They were very helpful and nice.

Our next mission was to change our pristine US dollars into Kyat. We went to the bank where we were greeted by some policemen and about ten or twelve dolled up girls. We ordered our currency, were given a cup of coffee while we waited and then given our money (and at a rather decent exchange rate too). The whole thing was much easier than we’d expected.

We walked around downtown Yangon, soaking up the atmosphere. The centre was bustling with markets, street stalls and people riding a different type of cyclo, a bit like a bicycle with a side car, used for either carrying stuff or taxying people around. Oddly, we didn't see a single motorbike (unlike the rest of Asia). "How do they carry their flowers, wardrobes, watertanks and chickens around", I hear you ask. Well, the answer is the cyclos, but Yangon has many more cars than other countries we’d visited. 

On the street floor there were hundreds of red stains, caused by the men chewing Betel, which is available from small stalls on street corners and usually served wrapped in a banana leaf along with a white paste. Betel chewers are identifiable by the bright red lips and mouths. The women had a unique look due to a dull yellow paste they rub on their faces to protect them from the sun.

Everything was an interesting mix of Indian and Oriental. Noodle soup still featured, but suddenly there were samosas, bhajis, pakoras and lady’s fingers mixed in. The British influence was also apparent, a few colonial buildings existed, most of which had weeds growing on them, but this added to the character and gave the place a stuck in time feel. Also, people were deep-frying everything in batter (on a par with the Scots). Especially excellent were the potato crisps, cooked fresh in front of us. Tea is everywhere, tea stations, tea shops, and you get milk with it in most places. Oh, and we later found out that 'St Pauls' was actually St Mary's, which made more sense as it looks nothing like St Paul's. 

In the evening we went to a Beer station, where we took an ABC stout, which was surprisingly good. The locals were watching football (Thailand vs Malaysia). Just after half time there was a power cut, which are frequent in Myanmar. In no time, the candles came out, which added to the ambience of the place, but the poor guys had to miss the second half. We went to a biryani restaurant later where we took a chicken biryani and went to bed the fullest we had for weeks.

Early next morning we woke to the sound of the market outside our hotel. We heard the traders shouting (or singing) for business and we tried to guess what they were selling from their distinctive banter. For the rest of the day we explored the blindingly bright gold Shwedagon Pagoda and walked around the lake (where there was ‘Snow Wonderland’). On the way we had a very nice Dhal soup with samosas in it. We had a browse at some of the antiques on sale at the market and saw an odd bridge with a TV screen on it showing football highlights. We thought it was an odd place to put it, at one of the busiest intersections in town.

That afternoon we made our way to the bus station, an hour out of town, for our night bus north to Bagan.

Summary of Cambodia

KINGDOM OF CAMBODIA

Distance travelled: 616km

Snakes encountered: 1 (squashed on the road)

Modes of transport: speedboat, bus, tuk-tuk, bicycle

Favourite things: Friendly people, Amok and Lok Lak, the Temples

We resisted: going to see a traditional Cham dancing (the Water puppets in Hanoi didn't really sell it to us).

Our Route:

Siem Reap - Bangkok

6/12/12 to 13/12/12 - In the afternoon we took a bus to Siem Reap.  On the way we stopped by the roadside for a snack break and saw some big spiders, alive and crawling in a bucket (Paolo, its probably best if you don’t look)...

...about a metre higher dead ones of the same type were on sale for a tasty snack.   You don’t get these at Welcome Break...

We resisted the urge to try them and opted for some bananas instead.  We arrived at Siem Reap that evening.  Siem Reap is a medium size town with lots of restaurants, bars and a massive market.  But the most impressive sight was waiting for us the next morning, 6 km from the town, the temples of Angkor.
Those temples date from the 10^th century to the 11^th century and were built by the Khmers. We had seen many temples since we arrived in Asia, but nothing like this.

 

 

We hired a bike for 3 days and cycled around 60km altogether… this sounds a lot, but it was actually not too bad considering that the roads and paths were dead flat (the most annoying was the “little circuit” on the last day with so many big tour buses passing so close to us when cycling, each time leaving us a cloud mixed of dust and fumes).
Now we’ll let the photos do the talking...

On the very last day, we woke up early to get to Angkor Wat for sunrise.  We thought we’d beat the crowd, but even at 6.15am there were hundreds of people lining the moat for a good view.  The sky was beautiful and we made our way through the temple to the rear, where it was quieter and we saw some monkeys swinging in the palm trees. 

Later, after walking around some more temples, I lost the key to our bike lock. We tried for 30 minutes to look for it in Bayon temple.  It was possibly the worst temple to look for a one inch (2.5 cm) key. I knew we wouldn’t find it, but Dave insisted.  He soon realised that it was mission impossible.  I went to wake up a policeman and asked him to help us to break the lock (as we had no tools to do so).  He gave me a lift with his big motorbike (which reminded me of the 80's american series, "Chips") to our bikes.  In 1 minute and 30 seconds, and with the help of a nearby tuk-tuk driver, he broke the lock with a metallic spike and a hammer (I would’ve thought the lock could have resisted at least 5 minutes).  I don’t know why we even bothered to lock our bike all the time but we finished our day quite relaxed about it and the lady at the guesthouse we hired the bike from was okay about it too.

The next morning we took a pickup and then a bus to Bangkok. For some reason, we queued for 4 hours to go through the border (Thai side) under a strong heat.  We still have no idea why as it wasn’t that busy.  We finally made it back to Bangkok where we spent a couple of days stocking up on some essentials (including Visas) and finally enjoying the Burger King we had craved since Danang.

Phnom Penh

 04/12/12 to 06/12/12 - The boat journey from Chau Doc was longer than we were told. We arrived near the border on the Vietnamese side where we got our Cambodian visas. After an hour we got on a second boat (speedboat) where we whistled up river to Phnom Penh. We arrived mid afternoon and as soon as we got off the boat a tuk-tuk driver asked where we were from. “England”, Dave replied, to which he said “lovely jubbly” and we knew we were no longer in Vietnam.

Remarkably it seemed, Cambodians seemed able to drive around without constantly beeping their horns.  Despite our expectations and considering its terrible history, Phnom Penh felt calm, fun and progressive. We found a cheap guesthouse with friendly hosts, had our first decent cuts of meat in months at a restaurant down the road and we explored the city by evening, seeing the impressive market building and the Royal Palace by night, where locals were lighting candles and giving flowers to pay their respects to the recently passed king in front of the palace. 

We then walked the promenade by the river and stopped off at the Motor Bar on our way home, where all the furniture was made from old car parts. We took a beer, sitting in our bucket seats and listened to the acoustic guitarist, whose songs were murdered by some girls who kept joining him on stage thinking it was karaoke. We had a chat with a friendly policeman who welcomed us to Cambodia.

In some ways it’s a shame that the tourist ‘attractions’ of Phnom Penh are all related to its horrific past. However, you have to credit the spirit of Cambodians who really want you to see what happened there. We took a tuk-tuk to Choung Ek, or the 'Killing Fields' as they are more commonly known. It's a strange feeling seeing the butterflies fly around the peaceful orchards and the lake, whilst hearing about the atrocities that took place here on our audio guides.  “Imagine 1 in every 4 people you know (friends and family) being brutally murdered”, said a survivor.  It’s a chilling thought.  To think that that this was only one of hundreds of sites of mass graves across the country was overwhelming when we saw the amount of skulls that had been unearthed here alone.

Half a day was enough to understand what happened there, and we returned to Phnom Penh to explore the Royal Palace and Silver Pagoda (although we weren't allowed inside due to the king's death as his coffin was still there).

The following day we walked a short while to Tuol Sleng (alias S-21) prison. We met a Canadian/Cambodian lady who went to school there before the Khymer Rouge later turned it into a prison. She escaped to Canada in 1978, to live with her brother. The rest of her family were murdered and this was only her second visit to Cambodia.  The prison was harrowing, with thousands of pictures of those kept and tortured here, before they were sent to their deaths at the killing fields.

That afternoon we said goodbye to Phnom Penh and made our way to Siem Reap.