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.

THAILAND Bangkok- Part 1

The electricity poles are still a mess but a lot cleaner than India!

Even though I do love India, we were definitely ready for a break from the noise and crowds and pollution, and were on our way to Thailand. I had only been here once before for 2 days on either side of a trip to Cambodia about four years ago, so I remembered a few bits about it but most of it was new to both of us. We landed in Bangkok airport and made an attempt to gather ourselves together and work out how we were going to get from the airport to the hotel. While clearing out my room before leaving England, I had luckily come across some Thai currency- Baht, hidden in the depths of under my bed (benefits of being a hoarder!) and it totaled about 400 Baht- about £8. Great- we can use it to get to the hotel before worrying about changing up money or paying the high charges of an ATM at the airport (we checked- about £3 per transaction). We first went to check out the train/bus situation as this was probably going to be the cheapest. No buses we could see, but there was a metro line. We had a quick look and we couldn’t immediately find that it stopped at the area we wanted, so thought we would give it a try and see how much a taxi costs. However, we couldn’t go straight up to a taxi and ask, we first had to take a ticket and queue up, then find the allocated taxi for us. After all this, the driver told us it would be at least 500 Baht, which we didn’t have. So we had to mess up the whole system and walk away, leaving the taxi driver having to go and explain to his manager he would need another allocated passenger as the first lot were cheap skates.

So, back to the metro line, and this time we found an information desk who told us which line to get on. We boarded the clean, organized train (after some train staff had done a quick safety sweep for any bombs and such) and got our first sights of Bangkok. Like the train, the area was clean and organized- rows of identical houses formed neat roads, the scenery was green rather than dusty.

So organised and clean!

 Once we reached the stop that we needed, we got off only to find that we were still quite far away from the hotel and would need another mode of transport. There were two available- a taxi and a rickshaw. Thinking we would be smart and save money, we chose the rickshaw option, only to discover that it was 250 Baht- £5. In India we would have refused immediately- this kind of price could have got us from Goa to Delhi- or pretty much anyway. However, we had no idea about Thai prices, so went for it anyway. On reading up about it, apparently rickshaws tend to be more expensive than the metered taxis as they know tourists will pay- oh well. Anyway, we arrived at the hotel we had booked, which was so clean for our current standards- we had towels which had been washed and packed in plastic wrapping, no scuzz in the bathroom- amazing! We did have a lizard friend who had made the bathroom his home, but he didn’t make too much noise and was kind of cute so we let him stay.

Then came the good bit- time to explore! Apparently we were located near where all the action took place, and it didn’t take us long to realise we were definitely not the only white people here. In fact, in most places, white people outnumbered Thai people. We found our local supermarket- a 7/11, which is definitely not a rarity here. In fact, most roads had 2 or 3 7/11s. Now, one of the things Jonno has a passion for when we go abroad is food shops. He can spend hours looking at all the weird and wonderful foods and brands. I don’t think I have ever seen this level of excitement from him- he was prancing about the aisles, picking up items and exclaiming “what’s this?” So I let him play around for a while and eventually dragged him out to go and find somewhere for dinner.

The excitement of food shopping!

As usual, we were looking for the cheapest places to eat and lucky for us, Thailand has an abundance of street food which ranges from about 30 Baht (60p) to 80 Baht (£1.60) per dish. This is often noodles in some form- either noodles with a broth and some meat and vegetables, or Pad Thai which is noodles stir fried with egg, chicken, peanuts and mung beansprouts. So we dined at one of the fine street establishments and continued our exploration.

Dining at these fine establishments

 We turned one corner and found ourselves on the famous Khao San Road- a hedonistic mess of bright flashing lights, bars with blaring music, waitresses in miniskirts advertising deals on beers and buckets (it is what is says- a bucket- filled with spirits and mixers), market sellers with wristbands you can buy that say anything you want, with some premade ones people had obviously not paid for saying ‘cock salad’ or ‘I <3 c***’, and tourists stumbling about after too many drinks. At first, we were in shock. Coming from a country where it is not appropriate for women to show their shoulders or legs and having not been to a bar in months, and landing headfirst into Khao San Road, we were not sure what to do with ourselves or where to look. Eventually we decided on the wise old saying- if you can’t beat them… so we sat ourselves in a bar an ordered one bucket with two straws. It seemed to take the edge off, so we had another. We still didn’t feel fully ready for Khao San though, and moved onto the next road along which was a bit quieter and had some acoustic live music. We settled there for a while with some more cocktails. We got back to the hotel and it wasn’t even midnight but it felt so rebellious!

Crazy Khao San Road

Mobile cocktail bar

The next day we found a cosy riverside restaurant with some cheap food to start the day, and tried to work out what we wanted to actually do in Bangkok- we hadn’t really thought about it until that point. We had been told that a good way of getting around was by riverboat taxi, so after finding the closest place to board it we bought a ticket for 40 Baht one way which apparently was for tourists and gave you a guide to explain points of interest along the way. We thought this would be a good idea to do, but were pretty disappointed when all the guide did was mumble the name of each stopping point, in a language that sounded vaguely like English but not enough to understand anything. We got off at the last stop and after this took every other boat journey on the regular 15 baht (30p) boat. We found a few market places to wander around and a shopping mall, which enabled us to sort out a Thai SIM card, and spent the rest of the day getting used to our new surroundings and getting our bearings.

The wildlife in the river next to our hotel

The day after we thought we had better do some sightseeing, one of the main attractions being a temple called Wat Pho. This is a temple famous for a huge reclining Buddha statue which lies in one of many elaborately decorated buildings and is among many thousands of Buddha statues in the complex.

One of the famous reclining Buddhas

Someone copied my wardrobe!

 We spent a while wandering around admiring it, then planned to continue on to the grand palace but by the time we had reached it they had closed. So alternatively we made our way on foot to the china town of Bangkok, and although we had arrived too late for the market or street stalls, the area did have a definite Chinese atmosphere with some streets adorned with lanterns and shops with Chinese produce. It was then that Jonno started to feel unwell, so we went to sit down on a step in one of the side streets. While we were there, a little old Chinese woman emerged and about 10 cats came out and surrounded her, and she proceeded to feed them while trying to maintain order and tutting at them when they did not behave. We then heard some gongs and some singing, and discovered we were next to a Chinese Buddhist temple and a service was beginning. We poked our heads around the corner and some women beckoned us in and motioned for us to sit in the congregation of about 8 other people. It seemed pretty interesting, so we took our seats and watched the Buddhist monks at the front give blessings to the large Buddha statue with two other small Buddhas, with musicians behind them playing traditional Chinese music and the congregation singing from hymn books that there was no chance of us deciphering. It was pretty soothing though, so we stayed for a while to enjoy the ceremony.

The Chinese Buddhist Temple

Chinese cat lady

After getting the boat back to the guesthouse, we decided it was time to brave it and fully immerse ourselves in Khao San Road. We were still carrying cheap Indian rum with us that we had bought in Daramshala, so we cracked it out and headed for some bars. After a couple of buckets at a fairly tame bar, we then found one that had on the front in big writing ‘VERY STRONG COCKTAILS. WE DO NOT CHECK ID’ so we ventured into it- more for the first reason than the second. The cocktails were indeed strong and it also had the bonus of a heavy set ladyboy in red lipstick and some very small hotpants waving a sign for laughing gas and pouting. There was also a customer who was also wearing short shorts and was trying to seduce a girl by dancing in a very effeminate manner and ended up braiding her hair- I think he might have been a bit unsure of which way he was swinging. So we stayed there for a few hours and enjoyed the crazy atmosphere before making our way back to the hotel.

Say what you mean

The ladies here are really something

The next morning we were feeling a bit delicate but had to get up and ready as we had planned on getting a bus to our next destination. We first went to get some lunch, which Jonno then made the mistake of ordering a wild card on the menu- sticky soup. It arrived and looked like congealed snot- not the most appealing thing with a hangover. Fortunately once you got past the appearance and the texture it didn’t taste too bad.

We picked up our bags from the hotel, and started the walk towards the bus stop. We had to get a local bus to the South Bus Terminal where we could then get on another bus to our next destination, Prachaup Khiri Khan. Jonno looked on the map and the bus stop was apparently a 20 minute walk away, so still feeling rough we heaved our bags there. When we arrived at the bus stop the number of our bus was not on there. As we were not really sure where else to go we stood around for a while hoping that they had made a mistake with the sign. But 15 minutes later and still our bus did not turn up. After walking up and down the street a few times we eventually found a tiny sign with our bus number on it, but a stern woman told us it was not here, in fact it was outside the museum, wherever that was. We then found a more helpful man who directed us to the bus stop outside the museum, and soon after our bus shows up. Hoorah! We arrived at the south bus terminal which was more like a shopping centre with an added extra of being a bus terminal, got on a beautifully clean air conditioned bus and started the four hour journey to the seaside town of Prachaup Khiri Khan.

Dharamsala / Mcleodganj

Fairly sure I caught him up to something...

The bus to Dharamsala was long, bumpy and along some of the most dangerous roads we’d been on so far. Sheer cliff faces, narrow roads and crazy drivers made for some interesting points. But all in all, we arrived in one piece. We’d received some details for a reasonably cheap hotel from the gentleman we had spoken to in Dalhousie, a place in Mcleodganj. This, we realized, was the main place to go, as everything was based there. So after disembarking the coach and having a man lift our bags out of the back and onto the floor, asking us for money for having done so, we were approached by an Indian couple who were on the same coach as to whether we would like to share a taxi with them. Sounded good to us, reducing costs where we can was something we were a fan of.

The taxi pulls up and the couple start loading in their bags. The driver, clearly unaware we were getting in also, looked very surprised when we started putting our bags in also. I have a feeling he’d negotiated a good ‘Indian’ price, and wasn’t happy he hadn’t had a chance to put a foreigner tax on. No problem for us, anyway. We make the way up the mountain side towards Mcleodganj, when it became a little more apparent why he didn’t expect us, the first incline we got to the taxi ground to a halt and couldn’t get up (Well, not with the way he was trying to use the clutch anyway…) so me and the guy got out and ran along side until the road evened out a little. We got back in, and just about managed to avoid having to do the same again on the following hills, although it was touch and go for a few points. It turned out the couple were travelling India due to them having just got wed and this being their honeymoon break. They asked if we had found a place to stay yet, to which we said we kind of did, and they said they planned on looking around to negotiate prices with people.

The narrow streets of Mcleodganj

The taxi arrived at the centre of Mcleodganj. We paid up and called the hotel to find out where it was. Once we worked out which direction to head in, we grabbed our bags and prepared to start walking. The couple asked us to wait up as they planned to come with us to see our hotel. Fair enough, we wait for them, and meanwhile someone approaches us and asks if we want a room for cheaper with all the same facilities. Seemed fine to us, apparently it wasn’t far, so we decided to go with him. The couple also decide to come with us, although they had two people carrying their bags for them now, I have no idea where they found them but they seemed happy about it.

We head down the hill following the man to his hotel. On the way, the newly wed guy went with the bags into another hotel. We approached a set of steps leading down a long way, although half way down they were no longer steps and more just mud and gravel. We followed down, the girl who was still with us to check the hotel out leading the way and not seeming very happy about it. Up to them, we thought. We finally get to the room, and it’s fine for us, so we say we’ll stay there. The girl checked out the room next to us, complaining a few times about the distance from the market and other points. After a while, her husband arrives and says about how great the other place was and the price of it. They talk for a while and then, bizarrely, decide to stay in the room next to us. At this point, we realised we had a pair of stalkers on our hands. I couldn’t think of a good reason you’d want to hang around with two strangers whilst on your honeymoon, but they seemed to. We closed the door to our room and waited until they were settled in theirs and snuck out to go explore. The area is home to many Tibetan refugees and Buddhist monks, and most famously the home and temple of the Dalai Lama. We took a look around to get our bearings and find something to eat.

A beast that greeted us in our room one night. T'was about the size of a human head, I swear.

The next day, we get up and go to sort out actually checking in to the hotel, as the day before they hadn’t been around to take our passports. Whilst we were doing this, our stalker couple must have heard us as they suddenly sprung up from nowhere. Whilst I was sorting out our check in, Diana was busy getting her photo taken with them, as is traditionally when you are foreign in India. They told us they had booked a taxi to take them around to all the temples and asked if we wanted to come and pay half. Not being too fussed about the walk, wanting to save money and not wanting to hang around our stalkers, we politely declined and went to see what the town had to offer.

After getting some breakfast and Diana exploring all the trinkets and clothing the markets had to offer, we decide to visit the temple in the centre of town. On the outside were a number of ‘prayer wheels’, an invention I can only guess was developed by a lazy monk, as spinning these once is the equivalent of saying a prayer. Upon walking around the temple, you can say the equivalent of maybe 40-60 prayers in no time. Genius!

Prayer wheels and a street momo vendor

On the subject of walking around the temple, clockwise seems very popular to the religion. The wheels spin only clockwise, you walk around the temple clockwise, there was a definite theme occurring. We entered the temple, after one clockwise lap, which appeared to be being renovated as people were repainting the main, huge golden statue in the centre. We climbed the stairs up to the top, where a statue surrounded by bowls of water was placed for some form of worship.

Our thirst for local temples not yet sated, we headed towards the temple of the Dalai Lama. A little further away, but with a little bit more going on. We arrived whilst a gaggle of monks were mid sing song, which was nice and we had another go on the prayer wheels. The dedication to their faith was incredible, at least until you realise almost all of them had a smartphone or a tablet. Considering the Slightly took away some of the magic.

Prayer wheels at the Dalai Lamas temple, along with instructions

Monks need to catch up on Facebook too, after all

Monks performing a ceremony at the Dalai Lamas temple

We saw some posters advertising a Tibetan folk show by an organisation called Tibet World www.tibetworld.org that evening and decided to take a look. We turned up to what seemed to be a volunteer run project to help raise awareness of the situation in Tibet and to teach skills to people such as languages, music and cooking. The show was interesting, one lady in particular didn’t seem to have an understanding of how small the room actually was and produced the most deafening high pitched shout it was hard to watch without wincing a little. We were also told a traditional folk tale, about a man named Uncle Emptiness.

Apparently quite a popular character in Tibetan folk lore, it’s about a man who is clever at tricking and scamming people. This particular story I’ll keep short and sweet, Uncle Emptiness has no food or shelter, another man has a stomach problem and needs surgery. Uncle Emptiness tells him he can perform the surgery for free if he can have food and somewhere to stay. They go to the mans house and he asks when they can do the surgery. Uncle Emptiness says tomorrow, and starts sharpening a huge carving knife. The man, worried, looks at it and asks if he’s done it before. Uncle Emptiness says he’s done the surgery over a hundred times. The man, a little more relieved, asked how often it was successful. Uncle says once. The man, now very worried, doesn’t want the surgery anymore, but because he offered the food and shelter, so feels he should still provide it.

Now, personally, I’d recommend against untrained, unlicensed surgeons you’ve simply bumped into who can’t afford their own food and shelter, but apparently there’s a meaning behind this story other than that. At the end, we are taught some traditional dancing and they ask the group for suggestions on dances and games to play. A game of Grandma’s footsteps ended the session, which was in all very interesting.

On the hunt for food, we tried a traditional Nepalese/Tibetan food called momo’s. These little bundles of delicious cheap joy are now one of my favourite foods. They’re simply shredded vegetable, usually cabbage and carrot, wrapped in a thin dough and then either steamed or fried. They’re awesome and only 40rs from street vendors for 10 of them. We then spotted a cake stall and had the greatest cake in the entire world. No kidding, we’ve had some disappointing cakes in India so far, but this was insane. In the end I had to ask what was in it, and got the reply:

• Dark chocolate
• Milk chocolate
• White chocolate
• Coffee
• Nuts

The result is the tastiest, moist slab of carbohydrate I’ve ever had, and I ended up getting one of these most nights. Amazing. If you go to Mcleodganj, don’t worry about Mr Lama, find these gorgeous cakey beasts.

Mmmmmmmmmmmmm... The picture doesn't really explain anything though.

The following day we decided to go visit Dharamsala, for three reasons. Firstly, Diana had her usual fascination for buying random apparel and there were markets down there. Secondly, we wanted to do lots of walking in preparation for Nepal. Finally, we had a prepaid phone SIM card, where we’d received a text saying it was going to expire due to our visas running out. Our visas still had a good 2 months left on them at this point, so we called up Vodafone who told us we’d have to visit our nearest Vodafone store to resolve this.

We headed down the mountain which took a fair amount of time and were greeted by a few market stalls and shops. Diana had a look around everything she could spot and we headed in the direction of the Vodafone shop on the map. Not finding the one we were after, we head to the nearest shop that seemed vaguely relevant and tried to establish with them what could be done. 

A hospital for torture survivor victims on the way down

After a few more calls to the main telephone number, they told us to visit a place back where we’d come from, further up the hill. At this point, we were aware we were on another of our famous Indian wild goose chases, which usually end with very little success, but we needed to try something. So we headed all the way back, and, after being unable to find the place we were looking for, went in the next place with Vodafone written above it. After mentioning to this guy, he barely let us continue before he wrote down a name and mobile number, saying we need to go see this person. He showed us on a map where to go, irritatingly back in the direction we just came from but further down.

After reaching the rough area on the map he’d pointed at and finding nothing, we called the number to find out we’d been sent in only vaguely the correct direction. Tired and fed up at this point, we walk towards a hotel he said was nearby and after many, many kilometres of walking at this point, eventually arrive. Expecting to see a shop, or office, or anything, what we actually found was a man stood next to a tiny Vodafone sign by an alleyway. We explain our problem, confident we were now talking to the right person. He asks where we bought the SIM and we tell him Mumbai. “Sorry, nothing you can do”.

Silent rage builds up after walking around 10km and being told there should be a way to resolve it. It wasn’t particularly serious, but as we’d be spending the next month in different places, it was the first time having a phone to use would be incredibly useful. Resigned to the fact we failed, we headed back up the hill, and treated ourselves to a small bottle of rum and more magic bars (Did I mention how amazing these were?).

We had one other goal in mind for while we were in the area. A place named Triund, up in the mountains around 9500 ft, only accessible by trekking. We headed first from Mcleodganj to a place called Bhagsu, another nearby town with more distractions for Diana and a waterfall. Our guidebook had informed us that the trek was just past the waterfall, so upon reaching it we asked some of the shop keepers there which way to head. The last shopkeeper we saw informed us to be careful, as there were not many people around and it was dangerous. No problem, we thought, although a little confused as we understood it was quite a popular trek that takes around 5 hours there and 4 hours back.

The Bhagsu waterfall

Well, approaching the first hour we understood what he meant. The climb was sheer, the path barely highlighted to us by a light gravel track. Up and up we went, not seeing a single soul until around the 1 hour mark, when we bumped into a few people on the way down. Good news, at least we’re on the right trail. We came across a few derelict buildings, god knows who would have lived in them as they were in the middle of nowhere. The path was now gone, we had no idea where to go, although we assumed up. I took a look at my phone, where, as luck would have it, Google Maps had the vague trail mapped out. Orienting ourselves back onto the trail, we finally managed to pick up a further light gravel trail, and we were back on track.

Not a simple walk in the park

The climb was incredibly steep. This was certainly not planned out well, and as we got to the second hour, we wondered if we’d actually make it the whole way. The views were absolutely spectacular, panoramas all around of the nearby towns. However, we were getting exhausted and had barely got half way. We ate half of our food rations (that was the grand total of four bananas) and pushed on. The trail itself was starting to fade, and instead, large piles of rocks were dotted around in the distance, vaguely marking out a path. Every time we’d see the peak of the part of mountain we were currently climbing, thinking it would be close to the top, we’d climb over it just to see another, far taller peak ahead. It was beginning to look impossible and we were conscious of how long it was taking, not wanting to try and negotiate the steep climbs and loose rock in the dark later.

Certainly a scenic route!

Approaching hour three and we’d seen a few more people on their way down. These people had been trekking a couple of days, sleeping in places further up. They told us we were only around an hour away, which was great news as we were expecting it to take 5 hours. However, we were also aware that this may not be the case, as an hour downhill is not the same as an hour up. Cloud was forming over us, which soon turned to thunder, and within 20 or 30 minutes, rain. We took shelter in the porch area of a building for a moment, gathered our thoughts and finished off the last of our nutritional items (that’s two bananas in layman’s terms). It was a lot colder now, we’d climbed perhaps 2500 feet and were getting more and more conscious of the time. Hail fell around us, we waited for it to calm down and carried on, deciding that if we didn’t make it in the next 30 minutes, we’d abandon and turn back.

Pretty awesome views though!

Continuing further, it was significantly colder now, ice and snow patches around us. But in the distance we saw some buildings and tents, it had to be it and we still had 20 minutes before we were at our ‘deadline’. Our legs were at this point getting tired and painful, but with the goal in view, along with more incredibly steep mountain sides, we carried on until we eventually managed to reach the camp, in just under 4 hours.

Feeling a sense of accomplishment, we found a chai shop and had an incredibly rewarding cup each, along with a bottle of water and a pack of biscuits, all overpriced but now beyond caring. A guy also sat in the shop was preparing himself a joint and smoking away, whilst we were struggling to find ourselves the basic necessity of oxygen. Takes all sorts I guess.

Victory chai!

We made it!!!

It was at this point, we had finished our chai and eaten our biscuits, the guy asks us which way we came. A little confused, we pointed over in the direction we had come from. He then points the other way, and tells us there is another path that takes around 2 hours. So we decided to try this way back, as a quicker way sounded ideal.

We had just scaled a mountain, at times literally having to climb up with our hands as well as walking, slipping on loose rock and putting our legs through 4 solid hours of uneven up hills. This route was literally a stair case. Hundreds of people climbing both up and down, this is why we never saw anyone..! They were all taking the easy way! However frustrating it was to find there was basically an escalator to the top, we did feel a sense of accomplishment that we’d taken the more “hardcore” route. We earned our chai.

You call this route a challenge?!

On that note, at the bottom we celebrated with further chai. It took a little more than 2 hours down, but certainly a much easier way than going up. The views were nowhere near as good however, so we didn’t feel cheated for long. The only thing left to do was to purchase our coach ticket back to Rishikesh, in time for Diana’s yoga training.

The coach back to Rishikesh was late in the evening, so we still had another days activity to partake in, which was mostly taken up with Diana doing some shopping, eating more momos and sitting in some café’s for a while. Getting ready for the journey ahead, we stocked up on more magic bars and were off, ready to ground ourselves for just over a month!