YANGON - 23rd Dec. 2014 to 26th Dec. 2014

Our arrival in Myanmar was a bit shocking, other travellers had spoken so well of the country and all its people, that we were quite shocked in our arrival in this big and dirty city.

Yangon (until recently known as Rangoon) was the capital of Myanmar from the colonial era until 2006, when Naypyidaw became the new capital. However, Yangon remains the largest city in the country with about 5 or 6 million people. The city center, seen in a map, reminds us the streets of Manhattan, in New York.

Just outside Yangon airport, we were saturated by the insistence and persecution of taxi drivers, who do not leave you alone for a second. In fact there is no public transport to reach the airport terminal, so no choice but to take a taxi. What very few people know is that there is a public bus just 15 minutes away from airport. This bus leave you in the city center for much less money. You just have to go outside the terminal, walk to the right and follow the main road for 1km until it intersects with another big avenue. Once there, continue to the right following the sidewalk, for about 200m and then cross to the other side of the street and you will be in the bus stop (you will see  place with people waiting and Buses stopping). Ask someone to help you to discover which is your bus (because numbers are also written in their language). The bus ride costs between 100 and 200 kyats to locals (it is often difficult to know how much it costs them) but we pay the "price for tourists" 300 kyats (about 0,30 USD). The bus number to the center, towards the Sule Pagoda, is apparently 51.

The bus left us not far away from our hotel, near the Sule Pagoda. In fact, call it a hotel is perhaps somewhat exaggerated. In our room barely fit the bed and, the bathroom (supposedly private) was in the corridor. The room was old, very small and without window (but this more than an inconvenience, perhaps it was even an advantage for mosquitoes). Though, we had air conditioning and a small fridge. This room had cost us 35 US dollars per night, including breakfast. This was a crazy price for what we get, and if we think the cost of living in this city, this price is almost a steal.

The most interesting thing about this "hotel" were perhaps overlooking the inner courtyard from "the emergency staircase." It was like traveling back in time, probably European cities should be like that one hundred years ago. You could see through the windows the simplicity of life for these people and the court itself: the land accumulate a layer of garbage of uncertainty high, growing every day, where rats ran merrily nice. The downspouts drain pipes were mostly broken, so the noise of dirty water, falling from broken pipes, on accumulated garbage accumulated on the ground, suggested that perhaps it was raining. Due to the abundance of water drainage in that place, the facades of the houses had a beautiful and lush vegetation that grows directly from walls.

About the sightseeings of the city... some vestige of colonial architecture.

Markets, in this case the Theingyi Zei Market.

Bordering the market, a street market where you can find fruits, vegetables, meat and all kind of products.

The river port.

In terms of infrastructure, a small train / tram. We were quite surprised to see it going almost empty, perhaps because its low frequency.

Several temples and pagodas, as Sri Kali temple.

The central Sule Pagoda, located in the middle of a busy roundabout.

The Maha Wizara Pagoda.

The 65,85m long reclining buddha in Chauk htat Gyi Pagoda located in a building which remind us in a hangar.

The small Sein Yaung Chi Pagoda. Made of with mirrors. In fact, we saw this kind of mirrors in several occasions in constructive elements in Myanmar, but usually in columns. In this case however, the entire facade and roof are covered with them.

Finally, the famous Shwedagon Pagoda. The ticket price, as always exaggerated, is 8000 kyats (8 dollars).

The pagoda is situated on a hill, and like many other temples in this country, is accessed by long corridors covered with shops inside. In Myanmar you have to take off your shoes and socks around the temple.

From Yangon to Bago we took a train, and for the first time since we arrived in this country, it was priced according to the standard of living here. To make a journey of about 80km approx. 0.50 in second class, or approx. 1 euro in first class. So, we chose the upper class.

Fortunately, we were glad to choose this one, instead of narrow wooden benches of the second class, as the train passengers are "jumping" almost all the time.  

Fortunately, we arrived safely to our destination.

M Y A N M A R - (Burma)

The second country of our trip, is the Republic of the Union of Myanmar (often still known by many people as Burma). This countrie, opened to the world yust a few years ago. Also the entry of tourists is recently made easier. This fact, have some positive and some negative affectations to the visit of the country nowadays. As the country has been quite isolated from the world for many years, you have the feeling that time has stopped here, during the last hundred years. This gives a special charm to this place, but it is changing very quickly.

It is really a pity, that like many other countries, they have their own "tourist scam industry" and they can be really annoying. Obviously, these people are just a small part of the inhabitants of this country, but they are the ones witch you have to interact most of the time.

An other big issue in this country, is that all tourist services are extremely overpriced, and they are increasing prices every day. I guess they will continue doing so, until tourist really get pissed of, and stop visiting the country.

In Myanmar driving is on the right side, since they changed it on 1970, but almost all vehicles (even new ones) still have the steering wheel on the other side, as in the UK or Thailand. This is especially a problem in the case of the buses, as they have the passenger door on the wrong side. There use to be two kind of solutions. One is to make somehow a new passengers door on the other side, or just do nothing, and passengers have to enter to the bus from the street side.

Most of the population still wears the traditional longyi or sarong, consisting in a piece of cloth sewn into a cylindrical shape, which is folded and tied in the front side. It looks more or less like a skirt. It is cool, comfortable and there is no problem if you win or lose weight, as there are all one size.

It is also quite common to see women and children with yellow painting on their face. That's "thanaka" a kind of natural cosmetics, which also provides sun protection.

Althought for us it may look a bit strange, they love to put a lot of colorful shiny led light behind their Buddhist statues. We got sometimes the feeling of being in a casino.

Something most of burmese men love, is to chew something called "Paan". It consists of areca nuts, mixed with other things and wrapped in betel leaves. It has stimulant and psychoactive effects. It is addictive and it has adverse health effects. It generates a red colored salivation, like they would have blood in their mouth. When they spit it on the street, it leaves red marks everywhere, but it gets camouflaged among all the other dirt, that it's thrown on the street.

Here is a video of how to prepare it:

Regarding the money, the have also some peculiar "traditions":

When you are paying something, the bank note you give them must be in perfect condition (almost as if it had never been used), otherwise they won't accept it, specially it it is US Dollar. We don't know the exact reason for that, and not everyone is so strict with the "US Dollar acceptance guidelines".

Having Kyat (Myanmar currency) in cash its also not so easy. You cn only get them in Myanmar, it is even not possible to get Kyat in their neighbor countries like Thailand for example. This is specially very important to keep it in mind when you are leaving the country. Everything you didn't change before leaving the country, becomes automatically a souvenir that you never will be able to change into "real" money.

They don't apply the same exchange rates to all your bank notes, Smaller bank notes have a worse rate than bigger ones. The best is to go there with 50EUR/USD or 100EUR/USD notes.

The option to withdraw money from an ATM, is not much better. There are not many around the country, and the ones we found at the airport, just gave us a maximum of 20000 kyat (about 20 USD) and a processing fee of 5000 kyat! (5 USD), that's a 25% !!!!!!!!!

And guess witch is the firs word that every "tourist-scam-worker" learns in Myanmar... Of course, it is "MONEY", afterwards maybe they learn other useless words like "hello" and so on.

Visas and borders

for us, traveling within the European Union, passing from one country to another, is like going to the neighbor's house, it is even possible to cross borders without documentation. But one of the things you have to consider when traveling to distant countries, are the requirements they set, to allow you the entry. In this, every country is different. For some you just need your passport and nothing else. There are others where you need to apply for a visa and present a lot of paperwork. Often, you must also fill out forms at the arrival, where you do not always know what to put in all fields, so sometimes need to improvise a bit.

The countries we are visiting are usually easily accessible without many complications, for stays of less than 30 or 90 days depending on the country, although there are always little detail to consider.

We know that in some of the countries we want to visit, we need visas, but as we did not have time to apply for them in Barcelona, we are doing them here.

According to the official website of the Austrian and Spanish ministries of foreign affairs, most countries require a ticket out of the country, to allow you to enter. This makes the trip much less spontaneus. However, we heard from other travelers that in most cases, this only applyes if you enter by air. If you enter by land, they don't use to ask for it.

In our case, They checked at the airport of Barcelona if we had a ticket to leave the country, before they even issued as our boarding pass. Fortunately, we were informed of the conditions of entry to Thailand, and a couple of days before we bought a ticket to go to Myanmar (Burma). Once at the airport in Bangkok, we were stamped passport with entry without any problems. This is only valid for 30 days if you go by air or 15 days if it is by land. If you want to spend more time in Thailand, then you should apply for a visa and pay the fees.

Anyway, the second time we went to Thailand (also by plane, but this time coming from Myanmar), we were not asked for any ticket to leave Thailand. We even didn't have any. So may be, they only ask for it on transoceanic flights ...? Sometimes it is difficult to discover what criteria they follow exactly.

But, even had a ticket to Myanmar, we couldn't have used it, because we did not have a visa to go there, as Myanmar, do not have any kind of visa on arival (well, that's what we thought before going there, but recently, there is the option to acquire a visa on arrival).

Because we didn't know that, we applyed for it, on the Myanmar embassy in Bangkok, where you have to go in the morning from 8:00 to 12:00h, with your passport, two photos, a photocopy of your passport and a form (handed at the same embassy) and wait. When it is your turn, they collect all your documents, including your passport and also the fees, which vary depending on the rush you have to pick it up. We opted for the cheapest version 810 baht (about 20 Euros) wich takes three days. So we spend 3 days, far away from home, completely undocumented.

CHIANG RAI PROVINCE - 22nd. Dec. 2014

As well as from Chiang Mai, as from Chiang Rai, you can discover the mountains of northern Thailand. There are two options: either join an organized tour, which tend to be relatively expensive, or rent a vehicle and explore by your own.

As Chiang Rai is a small town, you can get quickly from there into rural areas. A good way and especially economic to do so, is to rent a motorcycle, so we chose this option.

There is a long drive to be in the mountains, surrounded by jungle and small fields.

Here you can still see bamboo houses where the walls are made of thin sheets of bamboo bark and the roofs made of leaves.

Besides rice and bananas, it is also a land of tea.

Tea plants, grow through the foothills of the mountains in rows, giving the appearance of terraces.

Inside the forest, where the terrain is steeper, there are many waterfalls.

Back in the main valley, we found a hot springs lake, witch is constantly sprouting at 56°C. We liked quite a lot this place, as it was very quiet and relaxing. We arrived there quite late, and maybe that's why no one else was there. In fact, we thought it would be a kind of thermal baths for tourists, with entrance fee and so on. perhaps for this reason, we were pleasantly surprised to find what we found.

We did the way back home, on the other bank of the river, passing through a wooden suspension bridge that was not without its charm.

Arriving at Chiang Rai, we suddenly saw a giant Buddha. In fact they were still building it. The sound of the machines and the workers, could be still heard coming out from the inside of the Buddha Statue.

As we approached, we saw that it was a large complex of temples, made by the Chinese. It was partially completed. With two large temples, one of them in the shaped of a 10 stories high stupa, and within which, you could climb to the top floor to enjoy the views. Too bad, that it was at night, for sure the views must be really worth by daylight.

Inside the temple, a two stories high figure of Buddha, made of massive wood. As you can see in the picture, everything here is big.

This was our last day in Thailand for a while, as we will be about three short weeks in Myanmar, before returning back again to Bangkok.

CHIANG RAI - 21st. Dec. 2014

A little bit norther of Chiang Mai, there is Chiang Rai. A much less touristic city which makes an effort to attract more tourists. In fact, the city itself doesn't have much to see, but you can make beautiful excursions around. It also has some recent constructions, which have been equipped with an appearance of ancient history, possibly part of a plan for boosting tourism in the region. In fact, it's a little bit like going to Disney Land. Here we present the three most important ones.

• The White Temple or Wat Rong Khun  วัดร่องขุ่น

It's located on the outskirts of the city, right next to the highway (to allow access to the masses of tourists).

The White Temple is still under construction and consists of several buildings, some of them are already completed.

The main buildings are painted completely white and there are only a few embedded mirror tiles to create drawings. These mirrors, reflecting sunlight, give an even brighter color to this buildings, almost like silver.

... And where there is silver, it should be gold too. With the same technique of little mirror pieces and painting the facade in yellow, they have created a golden house.

Despite wanting to give an old appearance, you can also find examples of contemporary sculptures in the grounds.

You can see how they are working on the details of construction and the figures that will be placed later, as well as the structures of new buildings.

• Bandaam Museum (or Black Temple)

On the other side of the city, also in the suburbs, there is a counterpoint to the white temple, which is known as the black temple. This however, is not a temple but a museum and it looks like the evil temple.

As in the case of White Temple, the museum also has several buildings.

Most of the buildings are made with an aesthetic of a temple of evil, but others have more contemporary or even futuristic style.

Everything surrounded by thick vegetation.

In any case, it's worth going there because it is much less crowded than the White Temple, but it is not so easy to get there as the other one.

Here you can find a quieter place to relax.

• The Clock Tower

Also following the aesthetics Disney Land and surrounded by a non idyllic scenery, there is the "famous" Clock Tower, which is located in the middle of a roundabout in the city center.

At night you can see a light and music show at this point.