Did we really do all of that?!

A guest appearance from Hannah...

Having seen a countdown to the Olympics opening ceremony it dawned on us that we have about 200 days left of our world tour adventure. I am hiding from the intense midday heat here having noticed that even the relentless drivers can no longer be arsed to shout 'tuk-tuuuk' at every passer-by. Sitting in the hammock of our beach hut which we have been enjoying calling home whilst we recharge, I wanted to reflect on some of the environments, people and cultures we have experienced over the last seven months on the road.

Some of our more wonderfully weird encounters, endurances and journeys…

...embarking on our trip sleeping under the stars on blow up lilos on a ferry to the Balkans set the tone from day one.  It was unnerving when we visited Bosnia and walked beside the bullet hole covered buildings in the streets of Mostar, I watched Tom’s fascination as we stood in an abandoned MiG hanger being told the story of the demise of Yugoslavia.

…everything about Albania! Laughing together at the extensively advertised, pathetic plastic statue filled ‘Dinoworld’ in tacky Budva; witnessing Albanians happily throw all their rubbish outside the windows of all moving vehicles into beautiful green vineyards as I tried to remind myself I was still in Europe not India. I delighted however at seeing my first happy donkey trotting along a road freely in Albania (everyone who grew up reading Winnie the Pooh knows that donkeys are all depressed by nature.) I feel uncomfortably hot here as I think of being saved by the silent man in his Mercedes as a torrential rain storm flooded the ancient mountainside town in Berat leaving us stranded surrounded by SHITET signs everywhere! hahaha!

... surely the most bizarre city in Europe - Skopje! Neither of us have ever seen so many fountains and newly built statues in one place! In contrast to this we reached the science fiction novel scene of Sofia with its skyline full of more crumbling high rise concrete than we have ever encountered.

...our welcome to Bulgaria consisted of being royally fleeced by a taxi driver and ‘saved’ by skinhead Angel and his mates on the Bulgarian police force. Deciding we were better off with our own transport, we road tripped for a while (to the theme tune of the Wombles courtesy of Toms singing as an ode to ’Uncle Bulgaria’) breaking into an abandoned decomposing communist UFO conference centre.

…our apartment in Tallinn that was like a Lawrence job on changing rooms – leopard skin printed suede walls and bubble gum pink flower covered bedroom from which we visited old KGB offices hidden in a hotel was as bizarre an experience as any. The strange Vilnius art community of Užupis complete with their own mad constitution, flag, army backpacker Jesus statue will always stick in my mind.

…the huge distances we covered as we raced through Siberia chatting with young Russian businessmen and women, the butch frowning carriage hostesses, a carpenter building his own wooden house, a brave oil rig engineer, an 11 year old ballroom dancing girl interpreting for her mother, a randy French Judo enthusiast and ‘speed dating’ in the restaurant cart with 12 vodka train tour backpackers. Reaching Mongolia to experience -20 degrees as we climbed out onto the giant steel Genghis Kahn statue in a blizzard.

...pushing Albania closely for the weirdest country award China proved to be a culture shock!  Beijing was strange enough but having to wear batman’s Bain style masks with its smog cloud as we toured the city sights was a new experience. The relentless hocking, spitting and conductors sales pitches on filthy trains through Chinas landscapes - or should I say building sites. Reaching Chengdu to see the sheer stupidity and subsequent hilarity of Pandas of all ages as they rolled around on top of each other like drunk middle aged sumo champs still makes me smile. Our Guilin Chinese tourist experience consisting of trying to spot limestone karsts in the fog, feeding an oxen in the car park, watching cormorants catch a dead fish a few times finished off with the free gift of a nail clipper clad with pictures of the pinnacles we should have seen first-hand…

…and finally our looks of sheer bewilderment as we stumbled upon a full gay pride fancy dress parade as the ‘Mr. Rainbow winner’ winked at Tom on a fancy float in Chiang Rai amongst a huge tropical flower show!

As I consider which beach café to visit for lunch, some of our weird and wonderful food encounters come to mind…

Eating real Bolognese in Bologna (who knew it doesn't have beef in it?!) whilst wishing I could afford bottles of balsamic costing well over a hundred euros (my weird love of vinegar grows year on year!); wafting flies off our yoghurt covered meat and rice breakfast with our hostel owner and driver Mikel in Albania; selecting samples of Turkish delight from the many varieties exploding with colour encrusted with petals or fruits whilst telling Tom he had probably eaten enough baklava as his eyes began to twirl opposite me; twisting my face at the bitter as hell Macedonian Kiwano fruit I dared to try sat around the 'grape smuggler' wearing bearded men around Ochrid lake; eating surprisingly delicious buckwheat combos and grey beans with bacon in the Baltics after brisk walks along sand dunes in the wind, creating painted marzipan models from the city of Tallinn which claims to be its inventor;  scraping raw, salted and smoked fish off the bones on a frozen platform in Siberia, meat dumplings in hot stock with slightly curdled yoghurt and herbs floating around in it and then coming to terms with the fact that it was actually really quite nice; trying to recall what vegetables were after 5 meat filled days in Ulaan Bator during year of the monkey (which translates as extra cold weather resulting in mass farm animal slaughter and so super cheap meats!) …being taught how to eat Peking duck properly by a group of elderly Chinese men and not being able to bring ourselves to actually eat all the animals (baby sharks, scorpions and silkworms to name but a few!) found on sticks in the food markets in any china town we have come across.

Kotor Bay & Perast, Butrint ruins and Lake Ochrid.

Istanbul, Romanian castles & the Curronian Spit.

Some of our favourites! 

The Nutcracker at the Meriinsky, the Gobi Desert
and Lake Baikal.

The great wall of China, Myanmar Burma
and the islands of Cambodia.

As my hammock daydreams are replaced by the call to the beach I feel so happy we took this big ‘time out’…time to read good books…time to think about what we want from our next thirty years on this mad planet! 

I feel grateful and lucky to have made this trip with Tom – complete with his relentless organisational skills we have enjoyed what we have come to call ‘Agass tours’ on most of our explorations. His vile of liquid luck (which everyone who knows Tom will agree must always reside in his back pocket) has kept us safe and well throughout the trip. He has committed to keeping this 'blogged account' of our experiences which we will treasure always. 

I feel lucky to be engaged to my brilliant travelling partner and best friend. 

The Simple Life

Sunset from Otres Beach (no camera filters!)

When Middlesbrough was voted the worst place to live in Britain the Mayor attempted manfully to defend it, describing all of the beautiful scenery around the city but failing to mention Middlesbrough itself.  Our next stop was to visit Cambodia’s answer to Middlesbrough, Sihanoukville.  Nobody stays in Sihanoukville for the town which consists of some dirty roads and buildings and some even dirtier old men.  Its saving grace are the sandy beaches and tropical islands that surround the country’s only deep water port.  Having learnt our lesson from the previous experience of Cambodian public bus’s we arrived in a taxi having splashed out the extra $2 each this time to avoid any unwelcome traumas.  After one night in the town we jumped on a tuc tuc early the next morning and headed west 5 kilometres to Otres beach which ticks every travel brochures beach criteria with room to spare.  Alongside the beach is a red dirt road which is home to a handful of backpacker’s hostels and some of the crustiest people in Asia.  Feeling overdressed for the strip in my 3 day old shorts and my yellow (previously white) t-shirt we trawled the road trying to ignore the locals shout of ‘tuc tuc’ and ‘weed’ every 10 metres as we searched for accommodation in the blistering heat.  We eventually managed to rent two bungalows on the beach where we spent three days in a radius of less than 100 metres as the hostel served cheese and bean toasties and an excellent Italian restaurant was next door!

Koh Ta Kiev

Our beach side hut

After a stressful few days on the beach we wanted to explore a few of the Islands just off of the coast and so we went on a day tour with the intention of staying on Koh Ta Kiev Island.  Wading ashore from the small boat we found a collection of six tumble down bungalows on the beach and a small ‘restaurant’ on the waterfront complete with cows, geese and dogs.  Walking in we met Andy, the quintessential hippie that everyone on the main land had been trying to aspire to be.  Andy was quietly telling some Germans that they would have to pay to camp on the Khmer owners land as they would be using their facilities.  It transpired that these facilities accumulated to a tin shed featuring a hole in the ground and a plastic water trough with an old container in that doubled as a shower and toilet water.   There was even a generous three hours of electricity a day from the generator! We of course ended up in the hut that was due to be demolished after we left and despite it leaning heavily to one side it seemed solid enough for a few days.  Over the three nights we spent on the island I tried  to not ‘shower’ in the toilet water.  I lasted until the evening of the third day when Hannah became increasingly indignant about sharing a bed with me due to the smell. 

Sunset views from the hut

After the handful of day tours had left the island it became a deserted paradise with no lights on at night and just the sound of the water in the evenings.  It was so dark we were able to swim at night surrounded by glowing bio-luminescence in the calm waters.  The only menace on the island were the sand-flies and deranged cows that would trample all over towels and belongings trying to steal sandwiches and rice from peoples plates whilst they were still in their hands.  This culminated in a funny stand-off with Clément and a cow over a chicken baguette – I learnt not to try and steal a baguette from a hungry Frenchmen.  Having lived on the Islands of Cambodia for four years helping local families compete with western projects Andy spent the days walking up and down the beach with a huge joint and his emergency supplies (a guitar, some marijuana and papers in a water tight bottle plus a lighter and torch tied to his shorts) having a chat with anybody that would listen.  He also had an inflatable kayak to row to the islands only bar and a sail to hoist for the return journey after too much of the locally distilled absinthe had been drunk.  The only problem with paradise was the Asian mentality to throw rubbish anywhere, a problem where excuses about education and learning to manage plastic packaging rather than banana leaf packaging will only last so long.  The Khmer family would diligently sweep the area in front of our hut every day for leaves and plastic before throwing it all in the jungle behind.  Unfortunately my lack of washing and running out of money meant we had to leave on the fourth day and head back for mains electricity and an ATM but with another two weeks of beach time to come we may well head back before our VISA expires.

In Pursuit of Paradise

Koh Kong Island - Paradise!

The journey to paradise

Whilst travelling west through the largely unspoilt landscape it was possible to push aside the recent history of the country and take in the stunning scenery.  Rather than heading straight to the coast we decided to avoid the chaos of Chinese New Year and headed west, jumping on the public bus to Koh Kong.   In contrast to the region north of Phenom Pen that is flat and quite arid in the dry season the plains in the west rise up into a mountainous region (by Cambodian standards) carpeted with lush jungle. This would have made for an enjoyable journey had a baby not decided to empty her bowels with the force of a 30 stone man on Boxing Day just after the lunch stop, leaving us trapped on a bus with no windows.  The smell seamed to rise exponentially with the heat outside creating grim conditions for those unlucky enough to be travelling to the final stop.   I survived by stuffing orange peel up my nose but this became as painful as the smell as the acid from the orange began to burn my nose - it was the lesser of two evils.  As the five hour journey hit the nine hour mark we finally rolled into the border town of Koh Kong.  Although it is an apparent haven for questionable activities it is also a useful base to explore the nearby islands and mangroves.  After the painful journey we were at least rewarded with another of Asia’s spectacular sunsets as we sat and recovered with an Angkor Beer looking across the river to Thailand.

Sunset over the border

A fish BBQ with Frankie

After the slightly intoxicating bus ride we decided to take a trip down the river to the coast for fresh air (and we hadn't been to a beach since Lithuania!) to visit a deserted Island in the Gulf of Thailand.  Accompanied by a slightly autistic American, a stereotypical 60 year old scouser (Frankie) and a young family we set off on the two hour boat ride down the river and into the open water.  With an array of colourful language Frankie managed to teach the young girl on our boat a whole new set of vocabulary but he kept us entertained, particularly me as he had followed Liverpool F.C home and away for 40 years across Europe.  Unfortunately for him he looked a little bit like Jimmy Saville with long bleached blonde hair and in a country renowned for its sex industry he was quick to stress that he had been in Vietnam to visit the sites of the war rather than any other motive!  The anchor was finally thrown overboard in a bay that looked like a picture perfect post card of an Asia that existed before tourism.  The deserted beach had a backdrop of thick green jungle and calm turquoise waters lapped around the sides of our small boat.  After four hours we unfortunately left the island and headed back for a short walk through the mangroves that protect the estuary. After Frankie had established that mangos didn't grow in mangroves we finished the journey up the river in time for sunset.  The day confirmed to us that a hike through a jungle in soaring temperatures seemed like a lot of hard work and learning from our past experience we paid the extra $2 each to take a taxi south to Shanoukville and some more beach time.

The Killing Fields

A shelter built to protect a mass grave

One of the most striking elements of travelling around Cambodia is seeing the disproportionate amount of young people that make up the country’s 15 million population.  Nearly 65% of Cambodians are under the age of 35 as the Killing Fields claimed the lives of nearly 1 in 4 Cambodians between 1975 and 1979.  The devastation caused by the Khmer Rouge is still very raw across the country and it took until 2007 for the first leader of the regime to be imprisoned by the Khmer Rouge Tribunal.  Only 5 people who committed genocide have ever faced trial for the atrocities committed.  The leader, Pol Pot, died under house arrest surrounded by his family in 1998 having been denounced by the remaining members of the Khmer Rouge a year before for crimes against humanity.  Even now the Prime Minister Hun Sen is a former Khmer Rouge member who initially came to power after a bloody coup in 1998 and reinforced his position by dubious elections that took place in 2013.  Visiting the Killing Fields just outside of Phenom Pen and S-21, a high school converted into a torture chamber was one of the most harrowing places I have experienced and somewhere that I will never forget.

After a military coup overthrew Prince Norodom Sihanouk in 1970 his support for the previously marginalised communists in the countryside of Cambodia gave the group legitimacy.   The Khmer Rouge swept to power in April 1975 following a long civil war, helped by the increasing poverty and misery brought by American bombing of the country during the Vietnam War and the military government of Cambodia permitting the Khmers historical enemy, the Vietnamese, to hide in rural Cambodia.  Pol Pot and his supporters were French educated ‘Marxists’ and gained support with their commitment to maintaining Khmer independence that they felt was threatened by the Paris Peace Accords that ended the war in Vietnam.  Wanting to remove all foreign influence in the country from economic support to the perceived cultural degradation of the Khmer they tried to take the country back to the dark ages, forcibly evacuating the cities to create a new agrarian utopia with no banks, religion of modern technology and restarting Cambodia in ‘’Year Zero’’.  He believed that only then could the Khmer people be purified and their people strong enough to fight for their sovereignty.

The memorial housing 8000 skulls at
the Killing Fields

The ‘new people’ from the cities were moved to live with the ‘old people’ of the countryside to increase agricultural production and to be monitored for any signs of opposition to the new regime.  Influenced by the ‘success’ of the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution they hoped to be the first truly communist nation without ‘’wasting time of the intermediate steps’’. Collectivised farming and dinning was introduced under conditions similar to those imposed by seventeenth century slavery with people working up to 15 hour days with little food and those not working hard enough sent for ‘re-education’.  They were never seen again.  After nearly 4 years of the regimes purges and cold blooded murder of their citizens the constant skirmishes along the Vietnamese border finally provoked a full Vietnamese invasion which liberated the nation from the Cambodian genocide.  Due to the Cold War and the hatred of Communist Vietnam the U.N continued to acknowledge a former lieutenant to Pol Pot as the representative of Cambodia and failed to recognise the new government until 1993!  With American and British support a civil war ensued against the Vietnamese supported government until the UN finally stepped in during the 1990s.  Vietnam untangled itself from the Cambodian government and peaceful elections were held which has led to the start of an economic and demographic recovery.

 'The Killing Tree'

Walking around the Genocide Museum at Cheung Ek, the killing field 15 km south of Phenom Pen where some 20,000 people were brutally murdered was a numbing experience.  A memorial stupa houses some 8000 skulls in the centre of the site although many of the mass graves have not been excavated.  Clothes and bones still rise to the surface as the bodies decay and are collected every month by workers.  All traces of the wooden buildings that were on the site have long since been removed.  The people were murdered not with bullets but with traditional tools such as hoes and palm oil knives and the last thing the victims heard would have been songs promoting the revolution that blared across the area to drown out the screams.  The most chilling part of the visit was seeing 'The Killing Tree’, used by the soldiers to hit young children and baby’s heads off of before they were unceremoniously flung in the graves. Quite how anybody does this is unfathomable and shows the brutality and cruelty of the Khmer Rouge to the full.  Khmer Rouges sayings such as ‘To destroy you is no loss, to preserve you is no gain’ and ‘Better to kill an innocent by mistake than spare an enemy by mistake’ highlight the madness of Pol Pot.

Block C in S-21

On the way back to Phenom Pen we stopped at Tol Sleng prison, known as Security Prison 21 (S-21) where nearly 17,000 inmates were tortured before being sent to Cheung Ek.  Similar to the Nazis, detailed records were kept of each prisoner and their ‘confession’ and photos of the victims are displayed around some of the cells.  Bloody handprints streaked down the walls have been left and the barbwire to stop people committing suicide from the top levels is in front of block C.   As during the walk around the Killing Fields an audio guide describes the atrocities that took place.  One of the most moving moments on the guide is by the brother of Kerry Hamill, a New Zealander who whilst sailing with two friends strayed into Cambodian waters to shelter from a storm.  One of the party was killed on the boat whilst Kerry and Englishmen John Dewhurst were taken to S-21 where they were tortured and killed.  Kerry’s brother was at the trial of the prison leader known as Brother Duch and described how even under torture Kerry had got a message home to his family by naming fellow CIA conspirators as Mr Magoo, Colonel Sanders and E.Tar in reference to his mother Ester.  The ridiculous of the ‘confession’ only adds to the illogical murder of those taken to S-21.

The rules on the wall of S-21

Having not known a great deal about the Cambodian Genocide before I came the scale of the crimes are comparable to the events in Rwanda and Nazi Germany.   It feels that the country is still finding it hard to close the door on the barbaric chapter of its history.  As beautiful as the landscape is around the sadness in the cities is overwhelming.  In the space of 100 metres walking through Phnom Pen a man high on opium was crying in the street, children were making glass crack pipes and prostitutes loitered outside of bars.  Despite the plight of so many people however there are clearly green shoots of recovery emerging from Phonon Pen.  On our final evening we took a stroll around the central area and along the river where a new path is being built and was used by locals to enjoy their evenings. Groups of young people of all ages were out  dancing to various types of music and new investment was evident with a few modern high rise buildings and a few offices for big business.  Only time, help and education will allow the country to move forward and it seems to be painstakingly slow for the people of Cambodia. 

Angkor Wat

The towers of Angkor Wat at sunrise

Having heard a few horror stories about the notorious border crossing into Cambodia via Aranya Prathet we set off early on the 6am train to the border.  Half asleep we left Bangkok with the carriages growing increasingly busy with ‘commuters’ heading to the casinos that are housed in no man’s land between the two countries.  The six hours passed relatively quickly as we trundled through the lush green countryside although as we approached the border the farmers were burning the fields and fires raged alongside the tracks filling the carriage with ash and smoke.  During the journey we made friends with a few of the regular gamblers who kindly helped us to avoid the cockwombles who meet the train to scam tourists and directed us instead onto the local bus (2 benches in the back of a wagon) to the check point.  Despite having to pay the customary $2 bribe to the border control for a processing fee we crossed relatively smoothly, meeting another Brit called Oli along the way and a Japanese lad that we were able to interrogate for advice about our upcoming trip to Japan during the 4 hour bus ride to Siem Reap, the home of Angkor Wat. 

Bayon Temple

Arriving into Siem Reap we met up with our friends from Laos - Clement and Katya, as well as a Swiss lad dubbed Mr Handsome by the friendly hostel owner due to him being the only backpacker in South East Asia to travel with just a smart shirt, jeans and shoes. We were recommended to leave at 6am the following morning to avoid the heat when we explored the ancient city of Angkor and with great reluctance I left Hannah in bed (she had been twice before) the following morning and the five of us squashed in to a tuc-tuc and set off into the darkness.  The ancient city of Angkor was built by the Khmer (who still populate Cambodia) and successive kings built increasingly grand temples and structures culminating in Angkor Wat which is believed to be the largest religious building in the world.  The vast city was built by sandstone cut from the holy mountain of Phnom Kulen nearly 50km away and it is believed that 300,00 workers and 6000 elephants were involved in the construction of Angkor Wat alone!  Angkor is thought to have been the largest pre - industrial city (larger than modern day Paris) but now only 72 temples and smaller ruins lay scattered among the waterways and jungle that cover the area. 

The first day of our tour took in the temples around the edge of Angkor.  As we were so early the sun cast long shadows across the ruins as the sun slowly rose above the trees.  The size of the site means it has been impossible to reclaim many of the ruins from the jungle and huge tree and vines towered over us as we scrabbled around some of the less visited temples throughout the morning.  Despite the number of visitors you can thankfully find yourself alone in the outer temples and one of my favourite ruins we visited in the morning was Preah Khan which once housed a 1000 teachers and is thought to be a former Buddhist University.  It has tributes dedicated to both Buddhism and Hinduism and the walls were decorated with some of the 3000 strange carvings of apsaras (heavenly nymphs) that you can see all over the ancient city.  As the sun became too strong during the morning we eventually gave up clambering around the temples and headed back to the shade (and $0.5 beer) at the hostel to recharge and escape the oppressive heat.

Seeing sunrise over Angkor Wat is sold as being one of the world’s iconic images but having been recently spoilt in Bagan the flocks of tourists that gathered around the lake waiting for the sun to appear took away from the otherwise picture perfect setting.  The temple was built by Suryavarman II in the 12^th century and is meant to be an earthly representation of Mt Meru, the Mt Olympus of the Hindu faith.  Four towers rise up over 200 feet in the shape of lotus flowers and the temple is covered in ornate carvings of battles and famous Buddhist scenes, finally being surrounded by a 190m wide moat.  Even with the crowds however it more than justifies its reputation as one of the worlds must see sights for its incredible scale and the amazing detail.  We spent the rest of the day inside the ancient city walls of Angkor Thom, reached by crossing one of four bridges adorned with statues before passing through a huge stone gateway.  Inside the city walls the highlight for me were the ruins of Bayon, without doubt the most obscurely designed temple I have ever seen.  Dedicated to one of Angkor’s Kings the maze of corridors and rooms are topped with 216 enormous faces and some 54 gothic towers.  Unfortunately the temple began to fill up with tour groups and it was at this point the Chinese became too much for Clement to bare and he pulled out his emergency ear plugs reserved for just the situation!  Our final stop was at Phnom Bakheng, made famous by Lara Croft in Tomb Raider but despite searching the amazing ruins we left disappointed not to have found her.   Despite the crowds the city of Angkor is an awe inspiring sight and although not in as spectacular a setting as sites such as Tikal in Guatemala or Machu Picchu in Peru the elaborate carvings and artistic designs of the temples are far more impressive than either (in my humble opinion) and it definitely lived up to its billing as the 8^th wonder of the world.

Bangkok - the 21st century’s answer to Sodom and Gomorrah

The King looks over everything

Whenever Bangkok comes up in conversation I find it impossible not to chuckle at the world’s best named city and I arrived back into the metropolis excited and intrigued to explore the 21^st century’s answer to Sodom and Gomorrah.  There seems to be no black and white in Bangkok where the marker for decorum slides up and down to an appropriate level for you. Anything seems to go and rather than be hidden away in dark alleys glowing neon signs light up streets advertising everything from Lady Boy Bars, massage parlours offering optional extras and infamous Ping Pong shows.  Without looking for trouble Bangkok instead throws it at you.  Having been left alone by Hannah for less than 48 hours I finished my mid-afternoon dental appointment on one of the main shopping streets and headed next door to watch the tennis final, only to find myself playing pool with a Thai hooker in one of the infamous Go Go Bars, I was soundly beaten 3-0.  Bangkok (or me, I left undecided) seems to be a magnet for all manner of excess but looking beyond the seedy side of the city it radiates energy and it is impossible not to get caught up in the chaos and pace of life that surrounds you.

Soi Cowboy - Made famous by the Hang Over 2

Navigating the pavement!

We took a few days away from cultural activities to catch up with ‘real life’; replenishing our dirty clothes in Terminal 21 shopping centre, relaxing by the pool in our Airbnb apartment and sorting our paperwork for the new job.  The first four days were spent rushing between the hospital and various government offices trying to have medical checks legalised for our new job.  With this successfully accomplished and with Hannah safely on a plane to Phuket I was left to see what damage I could cause over a long weekend.  My favourite part of Bangkok was not the palaces and temples (maybe I was still recovering from being templed  out in Myanmar) but roaming the back streets and watching the chaos of life in the city unfold.  Trying to squeeze past stalls selling everything from knocked off Viagra to Tasers as disco tuc-tucs shouted at me above the symphony of horns and engines provided no end of entertainment.  Known as the land of smiles for a reason it was frenetic but very friendly and I ended up getting lost amongst the narrow alleys until I emerged at the river bank and Wat Pho, home to a 46 metres long reclining Buddha and six temples covered in exquisite murals. 

Wat Pho temple

Buying a new identity on
The Kosan Road

I had been told I had to experience The Kosan road, described in The Beach as ‘the centre of the backpacking universe’.  Walking up the one kilometre street lined with bars and hostels it was possible to become a crusty hippy complete with shit tattoos and dread locks, a University Professor with a Doctorate all for $5 or as I discovered when I was accosted in a bar married to a lady boy sporting a moustache and bobbing Adams Apple.  Running backwards up the street for safety I decided to head back to the apartment before I fell into the clutches of Bangkok. The apartment was sat in the middle of one of Bangkok’s numerous building projects and behind the famous RCA clubbing street.  We had discovered one of the best restaurants of our trip on the RCA where a friendly Thai man spoke broken English from his pilgrimage to Liverpool four decades earlier to pay homage to the Beetles.   I decided to take one of the motor bike taxis through the congested roads for a few Singha beers and dinner there to recover from my earlier scare. Several hours later I eventually stumbled towards home when I met a few of the builders who lived in the temporary estate created from huge metal containers at the side of the construction site.    I was soon sat in the back of a pick-up truck in the middle of container town drinking Thai Whiskey from a beer bottle, managing to communicate through the international language of football with my new friends.  In hindsight it was probably for the best that Hannah was only gone for a few days as it is impossible to ‘do Bangkok’, Bangkok only ‘does you’ (quite literally if you are not too careful) and we left on the 6am train to the Cambodian border before I could get into any serious trouble!

Waterworld!

Farming on Inle Lake

To complete the tourist trail around Myanmar we headed east and into the mountains to visit Lake Inle.  Unfortunately the luxury bus from Bagan to the lake was fully booked and we left our hotel braced for the worst on Myanmar’s notorious public transport services.  Although the bus was filthy it was better than we had feared but as we loaded the bags the luxury bus pulled up alongside us to let on the smiling faces of those organised enough to have booked in advance.  I hated them all.  Still, we set off on time complete with a fuzzy Chinese copy of Mission Impossible blaring through the speakers and we were even treated to some tea time entertainment in the service station car park by some very strange Australian girls preforming a vigorous stretching routine, much to the confusion of the locals who gathered to stare at the strange display.  We continued east and climbed into the mountains along a winding road, starved of sleep as the driver insisted on loudly playing Thai pop music and growing a little concerned by the sheer drop that had appeared at the side of the road.  Eventually we pulled up at 3am into Nyaaung Shwe, a small town 5km from the lake which was to be our home for the next 3 days.  After driving around most of the town in a tuc- tuc dropping others off we finally arrived at the wonderfully named Lady Princess Hotel and much to our relief we were able to check in and get some much needed sleep.

The Buddhist School

Lacking motivation after the tiring journey the following day was largely spent exploring the town and sorting out a few jobs for Bangkok. Nyaaung Shwe and Inle Lake are in the heart of Shan State, one of the poorest regions in Myanmar and home to some of the most remote ethnic communities that until recently (2012) had been at war with the government.  The town itself is made up of poor quality, low rise houses and its dusty streets were centred around a sprawling central market that was built from crumbling wooden stalls and plastic sheets.  It was clearly the economic hub of the surrounding area as local farmers and fisherman sold their produce whilst a few entrepreneurs tried to sell to the growing number of tourists’ souvenirs at inflated prices.  A handful of small restaurants and tour operators had set up business alongside the main road that ran down to a small jetty from which a canal connected the town to the lake. We sat and ate some local Shan noodles for less than a dollar and watched the world go by, sheltering from the midday sun.  After lunch we strolled alongside one of the streams running through the town where women were washing their clothes next to a huge monastery which was broadcasting through its crackling megaphones young monks chanting. Although this was initially novel to us every time we walked past it over the next few days, no matter what the time, the chanting was still playing full blast across the stream and into the houses nearby.  Quite how the locals kept their sanity was a mystery to us.

Waterworld!

The main purpose of our trip was to hire a boat for the day to visit some of the local towns and see some of the crafts that were manufactured around the lake.  Slightly chilly in the mountain air we set off on a narrow motorised water taxi, skimming across the very shallow lake past the local fisherman who were punting in their small canoes.  The lake is a product of British colonialism and the tribes have utilised the shallow waters to build villages that are built entirely on stilts and set up agricultural strips of raised land that fan out across the lake.  As we weaved in and out of the narrow waterways crops rose up on either side of us. In the first village we meandered around a market that sold all manner of tourist junk from dilapidated Buddhist calendars to hand made silver trinkets made in the  workshop at the end of town.   We did however sample some local pancakes and tamarind brittle that started to make my eyes twirl with all the sugar.   Drifting threw the small villages was like a scene taken straight from Waterworld as children went to school on boats, women rowed the shopping home and men waded in the water, harvesting crops and building up new embankments to grow more produce.  

Making thread from the Lotus plant

The water taxis are private for the day and are very cheap as they take you to every craft making workshop around the lake in the hope of gaining commission. Despite making our intention to buy nothing abundantly clear our driver courageously persisted in the face of adversity to stop at each workshop in the different villages.  We took in everything from paper making to a blacksmiths and most things in between.  The most impressive craft was the weaving of a thread that had been painstakingly extracted from the stems thousands of lotus flowers from the lake, dyed and then woven with local silk to make clothes.  Seeing how the locals had adapted to the environment and were now developing their own tourism despite the poverty of the area and limited government support was remarkable and the day was a great insight into the Shan community. 

View from Kandawgyi Lake

After a hectic two weeks on the road the intense heat became too oppressive and despite our best intentions the planned excursion on push bikes around the lake never materialised.  Our final day was spent relaxing in the shade of the wooden gazebo (after a minor panic over my credit card not working) and we headed back that night to Yangon and the T Venus Hostel where we had spent our first few nights in Myanmar.  Having seen the major sights of the city we spent the morning strolling around Kandawgyi Lake, an artificial reservoir set under the glittering Shwedagon pagoda.  Fittingly we left Myanmar to the airport in a taxi playing the morning Buddhist prayers and sat next to a young women meditating on the plane next to us.  Unfortunately this did nothing to calm my fear of flying and it must have looked fairly ridiculous as the women started to chant next to me as I clutched my Saint Christopher charm with white knuckles for the duration of the flight.

Myanmar was without doubt one of the most interesting countries I have ever visited and has certainly been a high point of the trip.  However despite the gentle and spiritual people we encountered the country is experiencing problems as increased democracy and freedom have encouraged some locals to look for people to blame for their economic plight.  This has led to a movement known as the 969, led by a Buddhist monk who preaches about the infiltration of Muslims and the threat they pose to Myanmar’s traditional Buddhist culture which has caused some deadly clashes in communities.  Rapid foreign investment due to the lifting of sanctions is also changing some of the unique history that still remains in the country as colonial buildings are destroyed and western culture seeps into the previously isolated country eroding ancient traditions.  It is also a moral dilemma paying to visit sights such as Bagan as the money is probably spent funding the world’s longest running civil war that is still raging in the Kachin state and parts of the Shan territory.  The morning we left nearly 200 political prisoners were released from the infamous Insein prison and we left hoping that for the people of Myanmar democracy and freedom comes quickly and peacefully.