Flood!

From Yangon our next stop was Bagan. We purchased tickets on what we thought was a 16-hour long ride on an air-con bus. On both counts we were wrong. The bus did have air-con but they only used it 50% of the time. The trip is usually 16 hours, but at about hour 12 the driver stopped for no apparent reason. It was about 3 AM at the time. We stayed there till 7AM when we found out that the road ahead had become a river! At around 9AM, buses started attempting the river crossing, through about a foot of water. Thankfully none got stuck, although many were spewing sickly black smoke. Our turn finally came at 10:30. After another few hours we made it to Bagan.
























Austin looking pretty cool in front of a bus that was similar to ours.

















A delicious roadside meal complete with Myanmar beer. (Burmese food is actually quite nasty. Fortunately, there is a large Indian community that makes excellent chapati!) Myanmar beer is great, but it's a government joint-venture so we will probably stick to the Mandalay brew in the future.


























This vendor successfully sold me some mints!

































Tractors and oxcarts ferry people and vehicles across the road-turned-river.

















A young girl warms shields herself from the rain.

-- Will

Yangon

Here are some photos from our time in Yangon:

My favourite photo of the trip by far courtesy of Austin Andrews.

The rainy season is definitely upon us...The view from our hotel's rooftop garden was spectacular.

It's very easy to find interesting people in Yangon; just pick a bus at random and take it wherever. The first time we did this we ended up meeting an interesting local gentleman who took us to a little cafe for beers.























The struggle for existence is clearly seen when walking through the streets.

This little boy crossed our path early one morning.

Some faces from Yangon.

The famous Shwedagon Paya, unlike most of the ancient religious structures we've visited, is still used by the public. When we were there crowds of people were praying and/or just hanging out there. Many claim it is 2500 years old but the archeological consensus now is that it was built by the Mon sometime between the 6th and 10th century. The golden spire is 98 metres high. Its claim to fame, aside from being enormous and gold, is that eight hairs from Gautama Buddha are enshrined here.

We stumbled upon this lively game of soccer in an alleyway. Everywhere you look in this city there is something exciting and interesting going on.

--Will

Yangon

Hello all,

After some long deliberations on the subject, Austin and I decided against going to Laos in favor of Burma. The reasons being that we already had flights booked to Yangon thanks to Lori and that we are now running low on time. Our options were to spend two weeks in each place or a month in one. It seemed like the best option to spend a full month (or just shy) in Burma.

We flew back to Singapore and started work on our visas. In the meantime we had a great time in Singapore, which is truly one of the best cities in the world. We spent our nights at the best hostel in town, the Prince of Wales, and ended up getting to be friends with the staff there: Nick, Junia, Niq and Joe. At night there is so much going on in this city. One evening we walked by the water front and happened upon a sound check for a concert that was going on later. The next night we returned to the same spot and heard a great band from KL by the name of Telebury. Check out their site: myspace.com/telebury.

A few nights later the head bartender of Nick asked me if I wanted to work the bar for a night. I agreed and we ended up having a great time. At first I wasted a lot of beer with poorly poured pints (alliteration!) but after a while I got the hang of it. I ended up getting to work two nights ago, but that was probably a bad idea as I was exhausted by the time we had to leave for the airport. We only got a few winks there before our flight left, at 8:30 AM.

After getting into Yangon we took a taxi to the guesthouse we had picked out in the Lonely Planet, called the White House. This nine-story apartment building has a little courtyard on top which provides a great view of the city. On the taxi ride we changed some US dollars into the local currency, the Kyat. In government banks, you get 400 Kyat for $1 US. On the streets you get about 1200. After getting checked into our hotel we randomly picked a city bus and hopped on. The people in Myanmar, as we were told, are some of the friendliest I've ever met. We sat down next to an older man who spoke English. He ended up walking around with us and took us to a little cafe where we had a few beers and some friend noodles. It feels surprisingly safe here, but that's probably due to the harsh punishments the government doles out for anyone who harms a foreigner. Later we met a young student who took us around town and talked about life in Myanmar. We spent lots of time taking photos; most of the people here love being photographed. They also happen to have great smiles, so it works out well. Tomorrow we are leaving for Bagan.

--Will

Adventures in Cambodia and Vietnam

Here are some photos of Austin and myself at Beng Mealea. This was by far our favourite temple at Angkor. It was about 60 km from Siem Reap, the city where most of the hotels are. As you can see from the photos it is completely overrun by jungle. If you want to see more of it, rent the children's film Two Brothers by Jean-Jacques Annaud. It's about two young tiger cubs who are separated at birth. In the movie, the tiger family lives in the temple.














Here are some random photos: The first is a very sweet Austin wearing a scarf that his mother bought him. The second is of smiley faces engraved on the bottom of certain pillars in Angkor Wat. I thought that was pretty funny. The last is of two girls I met while climbing through Bayon. Bayon was built in the 13th century by Jayavarman III as the official Buddhist state-temple. It has 54 towers, many of them with beautiful smiling faces.













Angkor Wat is the largest religious structure in the world and was built in the 12th century for King Suryavarman II. It was first built as a Hindu temple, dedicated to Vishnu. Later, it became a Buddhist temple. Throughout are carvings of apsara dancers, as shown above right.













The ancient city of Angkor Thom was established in the 12th century and had one million inhabitants--this at a time when London had only 50,000. On the right is the temple of Ta Prohm. Like Beng Mealea, it is slowly being eaten by the jungle. We got their early and were greeted by this friendly dog. We shared some of our breakfast with her and as quickly as she came, she was gone again. Later on, however, as I was wandering alone through some of the quiet, empty halls we met again. This time she tagged along for a while and we explored some of the rooms together. We parted ways about fifteen minutes later.













Here are a few shots of Saigon. I didn't take too many photos of the city but it was easily the most interesting so far. At night the place is bustling; people are out in cafes or hanging out in hair salons. We wandered through some alleys, which are their own communities in themselves, with restaurants, homes, and shops.

-- Will