Bagan, Mandalay and Pyin Oo Lwin

Bagan is an ancient city which is famous for its pagodas and payas- apparently there are 4,000 pagodas and payas in the city and it is a popular place for tourists to visit in Myanmar. Even though we had already seen quite a few pagodas, we thought we would give the place a try.

As we stepped off the bus in Bagan at 4.30am, bleary eyed and with no hotel reservation, we were met by a small crowd of taxi drivers, all offering us a ride. One of them said ‘my taxi- 10,000 kyat’ and then another said ‘mine is 8,000’. Naturally I went with the cheaper option, the guy walked us around a corner and we found ourselves face to face with a horse (Jonno apparently heard the guy saying it was a horse but at 4.30am who knows which one of us was more alert). We had our bags bundled into the cart behind it, slotted ourselves in between the bags and started the 40 minute journey to an area of Bagan we had heard had the best priced accommodation- Nyaung-Oo. On the journey we passed monks walking down the streets with bowls, on their way to get a donation for breakfast from the locals. Half way through our journey we stopped at a checkpoint and the driver turned around to us and said “$40 entrance fee” which we were not expecting but at that point we had no choice but to pay. The driver then took us to a guest house and thankfully let us check in without charging us extra, so we could catch up on some missed sleep.

Jonno took a picture of the sight he woke up to....gotta practice somewhere!

After a few hour’s rest, we rented some bicycles from next to the hotel and went off to explore the area and some of the many temples. Many of them were ruins, which we had not seen much of before as most we had visited were modern and regularly maintained, gleaming with gold and white paint. Some of them were closed off inside, so could only be seen from the outside, others you could walk around and some it was possible to climb up to the top and see some beautiful views. One of them which was fairly modern was surrounded by large Myanmar ladies with their market stalls, one of whom cornered me and another got Jonno. They showed us the way to the pagoda and said we should come back to see their shops after. Just in case we might happen to forget which one their shop was, when we returned we found our shoes had been moved and were strategically placed next to the stalls. Another woman from the same pagoda who had two of the worst teeth I have ever seen, and the two were her full set, offered to show us the way to the ‘lucky dragon statue’. The statue basically looked like a tall thin rock that had been adorned with some fabric and given offerings of coconuts and drinks. Then the woman started telling us to give some ‘lucky money’ to have a lucky future. We weren’t convinced, as we figured if it had worked then the woman should have had more luck with her teeth. There were stalls with souvenirs at most of the pagodas, and we did get lured into buying some tourist rubbish that we regretted afterwards. After a few hours of seeing pagodas and nowhere near the target of 4,000, we decided it was time to call it a day and cycled back, the last part of the journey being dark and we had no lights on our bike which was slightly terrifying.

View from the top of one of the temples

What is this? A temple for ants?

The next day we got on our bicycles again for some more temple exploring. We had heard that there was a good cycle path to some nice temples, so we started along that. What hadn’t been mentioned was that the path was entirely loose sand, which did not make for easy riding, especially with smooth road tyres. Along the path we also stumbled across a small village of wooden huts and a café, so we stopped for a drink. The woman serving us offered to show us around her village which we agreed to. As she started explaining about the village a car pulled up and some other tourists got out for a tour too, obviously this was not an undiscovered place. The village lady showed us the cotton weaving (with a whole table of souvenirs and clothes), the equipment and tools they use to make peanut oil from the peanuts they grow, the ox and cart that they use for the fields and the kitchens and living areas.

The area for melting down metal in the village

After the unexpected tour, we carried on down the path and saw about a thousand more pagodas. Once we had got bored of pagodas, we found a small market area and wandered around there for a while. Jonno, in his research, had discovered that there was a restaurant named after a popular upmarket English chain, and decided it was worth a visit for some western food (noodle soup was getting quite boring).

Going for a cheeky Spoons

The highlight of Jonno's day

The following day we had booked a bus to Mandalay, and even though it was definitely not travelling like the locals as the minivan was filled with westerners, it was very convenient as we were collected from our hotel and taken to our hotel in Mandalay. The hotel we had been recommended in Mandalay was called ET Hotel, and even though sadly there were no small waddling aliens with long fingers about, it was a pretty nice hotel.

Before we could explore the beauties of Mandalay, a place made famous by the Rudyard Kipling poem, we both required some medical attention. Jonno was in need of his next rabies vaccine, and the pain in my jaw hadn’t gone so a dentist was in order. So off we went in search for another hospital, a familiar routine now, and found one not too far away. As we learnt from previous experiences, we went straight to the A&E department which was more of a hut, and the receptionist (who we hoped was also a trained medical professional of some kind) gave him the shot straight away. As this was being done, there was a stray dog wandering in and out of the building, as if to remind us why we were there.

After the successful and easy rabies shot, we prepared ourselves for a struggle to find a dentist but after asking the person who stabbed Jonno with the needle, he pointed to the building next door and sure enough this was a dentists. We went up to reception and again there was no waiting, they took me straight to a dental chair and I was seen straight away. They recommended I get a dental x-ray, which they did not have there but there was a place a few streets away, and I should return to them the following morning with the x-ray. The x-ray place was not so easy to find but by process of elimination we figured out which building it was, and it only cost about 3 pounds.

Look at those beauties

After our successful medical outing, it was late afternoon and we had heard that there is a temple on top of the only hill in Mandalay with some beautiful sunset views. So we decided to take a walk there.

The walk was a lot longer than we expected, and it took us an hour and a half to reach the bottom of the hill. From there it was a long climb up to the top- I counted 971 steps. Each time we reached a flat area there was always another set of steps hiding around the corner. We finally reached the top just as the sun was beginning to set, and we were treated to some amazing views, a treat for Jonno’s camera too.

Stunning views

 While we were watching the sun set over the city, a group of monks came over to us and asked if they could practice their English with us. We agreed, and had some interesting conversations about their lifestyle and routine and what they knew of England, which actually turned out to be more than us. One of the monks told us it was the Queen’s birthday which we had no idea about.

The lighting around the temples makes it seem like a disneyland attraction

After our lengthy monk conversation, we made our way down the many steps in the hope we could find a taxi at the bottom to take us to the hotel- we had done a fair amount of walking that day. However, we reached the bottom and there were no taxis in sight, so we decided to start walking towards the hotel and hail a taxi on the way. This was easier said than done- we had passed many taxis on the way there who had all disappeared. After about 3km down the road a motorbike taxi stopped, and we balanced ourselves on the back. As we were riding along, we passed a crowd on the other side of the road and the driver told us that it was a road accident- there was a lot of accidents on these roads. When I asked if they were usually serious and did people die, he said yes and started laughing. After this comforting information, I was quite relieved when we reached the hotel.

The next day we rented bicycles from the hotel, as Jonno had a cycle tour route on his guidebook app. Firstly though, we had to pay a visit to the dentist to see how many teeth I needed extracting and if I would emerge looking like the lady with the ‘lucky dragon’ statue in Bagan. We got on the bikes we were given, started to cycle down the road and got to the first turning when I felt a jolt and a huge bang noise- my tyre had burst. Luckily it only took 5 minutes to walk back to the hotel and get a different bike before starting out again. We reached the hospital and there was a huge line of people waiting, but I got westerner privileges again and somehow went straight to the dentist’s chair. They told me there was no evidence of any damage, but it may be an infection so to take some antibiotics and go back to a dentist if the problem was still there. They then handed me a pile of small bags filled with unmarked pills, and told me there was no charge. We definitely can’t complain about our Myanmar healthcare experiences!

Loadsa drugs

We left the hospital and started on our cycle tour of the city. It took us to a church, a few pagodas, some smaller residential roads with a jaggery factory and alongside the river, where a local man asked us where the next place we were visiting would be and told us where to get the transport from.

One of the churches on the route

Women washing their clothes by the river

The cycle tour didn’t take us very long though and we had most of an afternoon left. We managed to find a huge marketplace to get lost in, with areas full of clothes, fresh foods and religious items including monks clothes. We then stopped for a typical Myanmar extended tea break at one of the street stalls, where the lady running the shop bought me some flowers for my hair.

The appetising sight of dried fish in the market

A sweet gift from the lady at the tea stall

We found an Indian restaurant for dinner which served unlimited style thalis, and on the way back to the hotel we passed an ice cream parlour, and decided to treat ourselves. Jonno ordered chocolate ice cream with cream, and I ordered strawberry. However, Jonno’s cream turned out to be some kind of cottage cheese texture, so I offered to swap so he could have my strawberry one. After about half way, he started to have a puzzled look on his face and said to me ‘I think this ice cream has a bit of an onion taste to it’. I tasted some, and sure enough it had a strange oniony taste. After a few more mouthfuls, the onion taste got stronger and was unbearable, I have no idea what they had done to it but it was awful. I got one of the waiter’s attention, and did my best to explain that the ice cream tasted of onion to somebody who didn’t speak any English (Jonno managed to use the translation bit on his phone to find the word onion), and that the waiter should try it to see what I meant, but he shook his head and let us only pay for the chocolate and cottage cheese one.

The next day we wanted to travel to a place called Pyin Oo Lwin, a place in the hills which was only a two hour drive away from Mandalay. We were told there were regular shared pickup trucks which we could get, and we managed to find the area they left from. There were six other people in the pickup with us, including a local couple and the wife’s sister who were going on a short holiday. Jonno and the driver seemed to have a bit of banter going on, and the guy accompanying the driver managed to forget the footstool and had to run back for it, and drop his phone off the back of the truck and had to run back for that too. After a couple of hours with a few stops we arrived in Pyin Oo Lwin.

Pyin Oo Lwin was an area that the British lived in as the summer capital when they colonized Myanmar, and we could see why when we arrived; it was cold, grey and raining. Just like home. We got off the pickup and walked towards the town. After dropping our bags off at a guest house, we went to explore the area. The buildings are all built in an old English style, and there is even a clock tower which is supposed to be a bit like Big Ben. Even though there were some other westerners around, there wasn’t as many as Yangon or Bagan, and when we walked past the school area at finishing time we caused quite a few heads to turn and a lot of waving. We decided to go to the night market for dinner, where we found our cheapest meal yet- noodles for 17p each. Unfortunately they did taste like 17p, and at this point Jonno decided maybe we should treat ourselves to some slightly more upmarket food occasionally, just to keep our taste buds happy. Pyin Oo Lwin is also famous for strawberries and strawberry related produce, so I thought I should try some of the strawberry wine. I did choose the cheapest one though, which tasted artificial and very vinegary. I’m sure some of the higher quality wine would have been quite nice.

Not the typical Myanmar style of building

A mini Big Ben

The next day we hired some bicycles again, to get to one of Pyin Oo Lwin’s famous landmarks; the gardens. We paid the $6 entry fee, not being sure what to expect. The gardens are centered on a lake, and have well looked after pretty flowerbeds. Also surrounding the lake there was a swamp area, a bamboo area, an orchard which was definitely not in the right season, an elevated path through the trees, an aviary and a butterfly museum. It took about two hours to see all of it and even though it was nothing amazing it was a nice walk around.

The gardens on the lake

After lunch, we decided to cycle to a nearby waterfall. Jonno worked out on his map that the best route would be down some countryside lanes, and we set off. The area was beautiful and there were some fancy looking houses. We had to stop at a few checkpoints that had guards on them and answer a few questions but they let us continue. As we were riding down one road, someone behind called for us to stop. It was a man in a military style uniform, and he asked us where we were going and told us we would have to find another route- we could not continue down this road. We didn’t ask questions and turned back to find a different way, but feeling very curious as to what it was down the road that we couldn’t see.

After a long cycle downhill we reached the start of the footpath to the waterfall, which was a steep downhill walk which took about an hour. The waterfall was quite impressive, and there were quite a few local families who had come to visit it as well. There was a café next to the waterfall which was being looked after by a young guy who had made a great game out of picking up his chickens and getting them to jump down again.

After a rest at the waterfall we realized we had to hurry up to get back to the hotel, as we had no lights on our bikes and did not want to be riding on the main road in the dark. We hauled ourselves back up to where the bikes were, then had a six mile cycle uphill with no gears back to Pyin Oo Lwin. This wasn’t an easy task but we managed it. When we got back to the hotel, we got a knock at the door and were presented with a huge bowl of cake- it was one of the other guest’s birthday and we were treated to some of the birthday cake.

A tiny fork for a huge piece of cake

The day after, we planned to get a bus from Pyin Oo Lwin to Hsipaw, a small town a few hours drive away. We were told that the bus left at 4.30, so we went to visit another marketplace while waiting for the bus. After collecting our bags, we got a horse and cart to the bus station where we had an hour to wait for the bus. When we were asking where to get the tickets for the bus, we were offered a space in the minivan that was leaving sooner and managed to haggle down the price to nearly the same as the bus. Jonno didn’t have the best experience on this minivan ride, as the guy sitting one side of him had a bad case of travel sickness and spent the three hours puking into a bag very loudly, and the guy the other side of Jonno was spidering himself out on the seat and pawing at the window trying to escape. At least I had a nice neighbor who was a little old lady that offered me mangoes. 

Yangon

At about 6pm, the bus dropped us off in a miserable, raining Yangon and as usual there were a group of taxi drivers waiting to pounce at the door of the bus. After checking on our phone map we realized that the bus station could hardly be classed as Yangon as it would take around an hour to drive into town from where we were. We were quoted 17,000 (10 pounds) by most of the taxi drivers, and when we said the most we would want to pay is 10,000, we were shown in the direction of a shared taxi. We squeezed in the back seat with another passenger, while an old woman sitting in the front gave us a very distasteful look. When we started driving, she ferociously started talking Burmese with the driver, although it then became obvious what she was talking about when the only words that came from her mouth in English were ‘foreigner in car’. When I smiled at her and acknowledged that I understood that the conversation was about us, she looked even more displeased and turned her nose away (I know we look like dirty travelers but we do still try and maintain a level of hygiene, I didn’t think we were that bad!) and blanked us for the rest of the journey.

We were recommended a hotel in Yangon with the very sophisticated name ‘Beauty Land’ (Best said in a Geordie accent) and even though there were no pageant girls strutting around in ball dresses and twirling batons when we arrived; the room was a reasonable standard. We did have to pay a bit more for it though at $28. It had A/C, ensuite bathroom and a TV but with only one English Channel, which played lots of news programs and short documentaries promoting everything Myanmar. We set about transforming the room into a launderette, washing clothes in the shower and draping the clothes around the room. Deciding we needed to search for dinner, we managed to find some street food with childrens sets of table and chairs. The ‘waiter’ was very proud of his bland, oily meat with oily rice and kept hovering around us to check that we liked it- to which we responded with lots of ‘mmmmm’ noises. At least it was cheap.

A family on the street we stayed

We awoke the next day and went downstairs for our included breakfast and were treated to a feast of bananas, mango, papaya, toast, eggs and pancakes. The first thing on our list of things to do was to get the next, much anticipated installment of our rabies vaccines. When we had looked up the nearest health clinic to the hotel, we managed to find an address which turned out to be on the fourth floor of a nearby shopping centre. Stranger things have happened. After a bit of hunting, we managed to find the shopping centre, which was western in both style and prices. We went up the escalator to the second and third floors, and then the escalator stopped. There was no way of getting further up, and all the signs listed items up to the third floor. I’m not sure who was having a laugh with the westerners, possibly the grumpy old lady in the taxi, but luckily we also had the address of the nearby hospital which seemed a bit more plausible.

We found the hospital with not too much difficulty, and after a bit of wandering through various departments we stumbled across a sign on the wall which said ‘Rabies Vaccine’ in both English and Myanmar. After a short victory dance, we took a photo of the sign and proceeded to flash it to everyone we could see, and were soon directed to the Accident and Emergency department, which looked pretty empty. We were then sat on a bench, a nurse opened a box and took two needles out, and we were done within two minutes. After expecting something a lot more of a challenge, this was a bit of an anticlimax. At least we would probably have to pay an extortionate amount for such a quick service. However, when we asked about payment we were told ‘No charge’. After checking a few times that this was definitely correct and receiving the same answer, we skipped away very happily (and quickly in case they changed their minds). After expecting the hospital trip to take a lot longer than this, we had a whole afternoon free, which we spent wandering around the streets and killing time by loitering at the many tea stalls scattered along the pavement. Unfortunately for me, that evening I was struck with another ailment, in the form of a stabbing face and jaw pain on the right side of my face, which kept me awake most of the night.

The only chain store we saw and it hasn't quite finished yet- We arrived just in time!

Local gin for about 50p, I couldn't resist buying some!

The following day we decided to try the tour of the other side of the river which had been recommended by the Australian couple in Mawlamyine, despite the fact that I was tired and in pain with my jaw and the only relief from the pain seemed to be when I had lukewarm water in my mouth (which Jonno found hilarious and continued to remind me how hilarious it was every few minutes). Still, we walked over towards the ferry crossing and were taken past the queues of locals and shown to the ‘foreign’ office who proceeded to charge us about ten times what it seemed that the locals were paying, and we were directed onto the ferry. Immediately we were pounced on by a guy who said he could take us around the area in his trishaw (a bicycle with attached seat in a sidecar form). Fortunately, we had been told that a good price for this cycle tour would be 7,000 kyat for both of us, so armed with this knowledge told this tour guide that this was the price we were willing to pay and would not be paying more than this. His response was- no problem, 3,500 each for half an hour. Feeling pleased that we had got away with the deal we wanted and no conflict, we happily followed the guide off the ferry and over towards his trishaw. While here, we were joined by another man with a trishaw and were told that it was illegal to have two foreigners on one trishaw but seeing as we had already agreed the price we were still happy with this.

On the trishaws in our attractive waterproofwear

 The tour took us around the local area and villages, which was quite a bit different from the other side and the main city of Yangon, this area had been hit by a cyclone in 2008 and had still not been able to rebuild everything, they had not got the wealth or resources to do this quickly. We were taken to one of the local pagodas first, then to the fisherman’s area, and a local village. When we arrived at the village there were groups of small children who were excited and wanted to walk with us and hold our hands- I am not sure if this was a tourist trap or if the children were genuinely excited by us but the guide then mentioned that we could get a donation of rice for the families that lived here, so we agreed to go and have a look. We were taken to a warehouse with huge bags of rice which had clearly been prearranged, and were told one bag was $50. We explained that we didn’t have that much money on us, we just had enough for a small donation and the guide said ‘No problem, you give some money and the next person will have to pay less’, but we weren’t convinced by the story. 

The fisherman's area, it did seem pretty bleak

The beautiful children from the village

I gave them polos and they were not quite sure what to make of them

After this, we were taken to another temple, but realized that the tour was taking a lot longer than we had agreed and it was coming up to 2 and a half hours. The guides had not said anything, so either they were being very nice and giving us a long tour for our money or they might try and get some more money out of us. So we thanked them for the tour but asked if we could return to the ferry, and they agreed. We got off the trishaws and straight away the guide told us that because the tour had been three and a half hours long it would be 25,000 kyat for each of us- definitely not what we had agreed to. We told him that even though it had been longer than what we had agreed on, it was less than 3 and a half hours and he should have discussed this with us first anyway. We offered him double what we had agreed- 15.000 and told him that we wouldn’t pay any more as we had not agreed to it. However, he was not happy with this and continued to demand 50,000, which resulted in a stand off where he would not take any money unless it was the amount he asked for. This lasted for a painful fifteen minutes until another trishaw driver came to ask us what was happening, we explained the situation and he told us if we paid 20,000 he would talk the angry guide down (who was now sitting on the floor having a strop). Accepting that this was probably going to be the best solution, we gave 20,000 to the mediating trishaw driver and walked away, feeling cheated and unsatisfied which was a shame because it had been a great experience.

After arriving back at the other side of the river, feeling annoyed and still in pain with my jaw, we decided to try and find something relaxing to do and found an address for a cinema which supposedly screened western films, however when we reached the cinema the only western film they had on didn’t appeal to us, so we continued to walk around the city. We walked through the Chinatown area of Yangon, which had lots of street bars and food stalls with bits of unrecognizable meat and fish on skewers, which strangely enough did not appeal to us, and instead we stuck to the standard, bland Myanmar noodle soup.

The following day, the pain in my jaw was still there and I had decided it was bad enough to warrant a doctor’s visit. We managed to find a health centre that spoke enough English, but had a long queue out the front of the building. Fortunately for us (possibly because we are white) we were taken straight past all of the queues and directly upstairs to a doctor waiting conveniently in an empty room. After a quick checkup and not much explanation, I was written up a prescription and told to collect the drugs from downstairs, one of which turned out to be an abortion pill. I assumed that the medication had some other purpose as well as to terminate a non-existent pregnancy (At no point did the doctor check I wasn’t pregnant and if I was that I didn’t want to keep the child- it could have led to a distressing situation), and started taking the drugs.

We had also heard that there was a train around Yangon which we could take to see the surrounding villages and countryside. The central train station was easy to find, and after a bit of searching for the ticket office we were herded into an area with other white people and told to wait. About 20 minutes after the train was due to leave, a man from behind the ticket office counter sprang into action, beckoning all of us to follow him and twirling the umbrella he had in his hand in all sorts of ways like a baton. We went up and down stairs and crossed tracks to keep up with this pied piper man, until we reached a platform with a rickety old train and were ushered into one of the carriages. A few moments later, the train pulled away and we were off. If you don’t mind being thrown from side to side for three hours then this is a worthwhile experience, it was a nice way to see the outskirts of this busy city and some of the smaller villages, markets and workers in paddy fields, I feel I didn’t appreciate it enough as the abortion pills had not yet kicked in so I was still nursing my painful jaw.

MIND THE GAP

Train rules: No smoking, littering or kissing

A market set up at one of the stations

A manual level crossing, I think Ashtead station would benefit from one of these

One of the main places to go and visit in Yangon is the famous Shwe Dagon Pagoda, and even though we resented paying the $6 per person entry fee, we decided that it would be silly not to go there, on every website it is the number one thing to do in Yangon and it is a pilgrimage site for Buddhists all over Myanmar. So we got off the Yangon train a stop early to get to the Pagoda.

When we reached the Pagoda, it didn’t seem like much from the outside. We had to follow the sign for the special ‘tourist’ entrance (where they can charge you money to get in, the locals were free) which then led to four or five escalators up to one of the gates. Even though we had seen a few Pagodas in Myanmar by this time, this one was by far the biggest and most impressive. There was a massive Paya at the centre, surrounded by a whole complex of temples and shrines dedicated to Buddha, and wherever you turned there were more shrines that emerged.

A 360 degree view inside the pagoda, you can tell by the strange sets of twins walking around 

 The only criticism I do have though was that it was raining and the floor was made of marble, and with bare feet this did not make for easy walking. As we carefully shuffled towards some of the sights, a tour guide approached us and asked us if we would like a guide, to which we said no thank you- we didn’t want to spend any more money in the Pagoda. A few minutes later, another two men approached us very nervously and in broken English, explained that they had just got their tour guide licence but they needed to practice their tour in English and would we mind if they practiced with us. Me and Jonno looked at each other with suspicious eyes- after our experience the previous day we were suspicious it may cost us more than we would want to pay. But after we asked and they confirmed there was no charge, we dubiously agreed. They took us to a few parts of the complex and explained some of the history and significance of parts of the Pagoda, which wasn’t easy to understand all the details due to their level of English and that they weren’t sure on all the facts either, there was lots of giggling and prompting each other, but we got the jist of it and it was more information than no guide which we had planned. It got to the end and we braced ourselves for a request for a ‘donation’ but they were happy enough just to practice with us and we had gotten away with a free tour, bonus! 

Our amateur tour guides

He got style

We then walked around on our own for a while, and went to visit our special ‘corner’ which wasn’t even a proper corner. Apparently the day of the week you are born on is significant in Buddhism- it gives you a dedicated creature. You can then go to a temple, find the statue of your creature and give it a wash for luck. Around the Pagoda was dotted Monday to Sunday corners, with Wednesday split into two as the Buddhist calendar has eight days. Anyway, we went to Friday corner for Jonno and Saturday corner for me, and cleaned the funny looking statues that had probably had a few thousand washes already that day. We also went to find ‘Buddha’s footprint’ which was only to scale if Buddha was Hagrid.

Not quite to the scale of a regular persons footprint

Its Friday, Friday, wash your statue for Friday

During our search of things to do in Yangon, we came across a puppet show that had the most amazing reviews, it seemed like it would be a shame to miss it. So with just about enough time to spare, we power walked from Shwe Dagon Pagoda to the puppet show, called Htwe Oo. And it definitely didn’t disappoint. The room was tiny and there was only 6 of us in the audience which made it seem cosy and personal. The owner started the show by explaining that puppet shows used to be a popular form of entertainment in Myanmar, with shows lasting from sunset until sunrise the following day. However, the tradition has mostly died out and most puppet shows are put on more for tourists than locals. There are only three of the original puppeteers left from the traditional era in Myanmar, one of which was at this puppet show and was 84 years old. The show was made up of 2-5 minute sets which told stories of people, animals and Buddhism, and the puppets were beautifully made with amazing costumes. The puppeteers were also very skilled, and could make the puppets do intricate dances and backflips, although in some of the fighting scenes they thought the best effect was to throw the puppets into each other which looked quite funny. Anyway, it was a great experience and I would definitely recommend it to anyone visiting Yangon.

The puppets are all made in great detail, in proportion and fully equipped!

Eyebrows inspired by the great Richard Batey himself

Pretending i'm a professional

We had originally planned to leave Yangon the next day for a town 2 hours away called Bago, where we had got mixed reviews about- some people said it was lovely with beautiful temples, other people said there was not much there. However, during dinner on that evening I had got a text through on my Myanmar SIM card which said that it was the first international day of yoga in 2 days time- 21^st June, and there was a yoga event being held in Yangon. This sounded like it could be interesting, so we decided to stay for another two days so we could go and see what the event was about, and skip Bago.

We had a day to kill the following day and fortunately or unfortunately our hotel was right next to a road full of fancy camera shops. Jonno already had a chunky camera with a good zoom, but he had been complaining about it for a while that it wasn’t good enough- a similar situation to the laptop, he needs to have a good gadget that does complicated things far beyond what I am bothered about. And after he had spent an hour looking doe-eyed through camera shop windows, his mind was made up that he could not function in everyday life until he had a fancy camera. So we reckoned that because we had brought a wad of dollars with us and there were plenty of ATM’s around, Jonno was allowed a technology treat and could get himself one. So the first half of the day was spent in search for the perfect camera. After a bit of haggling where we returned to a shop that we had been to a few days before and they had quoted us a much lower price, a different person working in the shop quoted us another and we said we would only take it at the other guy’s price offer, and Jonno had got himself a shiny new toy- cue some amazing national geographic style pictures from here on! The next hour or so consisted of Jonno taking lots and lots of pictures of nothing in particular- there was about 50 of one cup of tea, until it began to rain.

Such a beautiful cup of tea, taken by an exquisite camera

 We retreated back to the hotel to wait for the rain to die down, which took a good few hours, and then went to go and find a lovely travel agent lady who had helped to translate at a street food stall a few days before to book our bus tickets to our next destination; Bagan. After this was sorted, we went out in search of dinner, and the street food place we chose served us noodle soup with ‘chicken’. This turned out to be some strange looking rubbery tubes, definitely not a part of a chicken that I would recognize. Jonno’s stomach wasn’t too keen on them either and made him feel pretty ill the next day.

The following morning we were up early to get a taxi to the Yoga festival- I was expecting a hall full of stalls and various classes happening to join in with, and a chance to talk yoga with lots of different people. We arrived there and were shown through to the seating area- it turned out that it was more of a spectator event for various yoga classes from around Yangon, and speeches from various ministers of health and wellbeing, with most of the audience being groups of schoolchildren. After about 20 minutes of watching the mass of yoga classes in white polo shirts do some gentle stretches, I became too agitated (I was so ready to get my yoga on, watching it wasn’t going to satisfy me) and after checking with a confused looking steward, I made my way down to the ‘performance area’ and found a spare mat on the side to join in with the action. However, it wasn’t easy to blend in as I wasn’t in the white polo shirt uniform that the other hundreds of people were in, but I carried on regardless until a member of the organization team became too embarrassed and handed me a white polo shirt to put on.

Before

After camouflage

 I then took part in a very unsatisfying yoga routine, before having to sit and listen to the speeches until I could sneak away. As we left the building, we were each given a free yoga DVD which was in Burmese so was pretty useless anyway, and had an odd introduction, see the video below.

We got the train back to the hotel, and sat around in the communal room to wait until we had to leave for our overnight bus, with Jonno’s stomach still wasn’t happy from the random animal parts it had to digest. We had been told by reception that there were public buses we could take from nearby to the main bus terminal to save on the expensive hour’s taxi ride there, so we went in search of the bus stop. The bus stop itself wasn’t difficult to find, but all the signs on the buses were in Burmese and each bus driver we asked just pointed to the bus behind. After five or six buses, eventually one told us that they would not accept us with our bags unless we paid 1,000 kyat each (About 60p). This was still a far better deal than a taxi so we paid the extra and sat ourselves on the bus. When we reached the bus terminal it was huge and scattered down many different streets, luckily we found lots of helpful people to point us in the direction of our bus. When we got on the bus we were pretty impressed- there were huge soft blankets for every seat, the seats moved apart from each other so that the aisle was narrowed but you had more room, and at the food and toilet stop we were given toothbrushes, a mini toothpaste and face wipes. However, an overnight bus is still not the place to get a full night’s sleep and at 4.30am we were awoken and told we had arrived in Bagan.