Jojo's new adventures in Myanmar

Verdict

Myanmar was definitely one of the best countries I've visited so far.

It's got the scenery of Cambodia with its flat rice fields, random palm trees and buffalos.

It's got the mountains of Laos, the smiles of Thailand. Amazing pagodas, Bagan's temples (the Angkor of Myanmar).

The craziness and easiness of India, where "everything is possible". Great Indian influence in the food and the feel of the big cities.

Amazing beaches, deserted as the ones in Uruguay...

But what really makes the beauty of the country are the people, still unspoilt by tourism. Simply incredible! It's hard to describe it. They are so nice, at first as a westerner you think there must be something behind it, they must want something from you, but they don't, they are genuily nice. Simple as that.

The down bits... not enough hotels for the incoming tourist crowd, so everything get fully booked easily and you are left with really expensive rooms. Simple rooms are also quite expensive in comparison to other neighbouring countries.

The transport too is a bit expensive considering the comfort you get.

Apart from that, I recommend this country very highly. Go now before it all changes as it might happen very soon!

Ps: re-read my last message and found out it didn't make sense at all so I changed it, if you want to re-read it.

My internet connection at home is rubbish so it's gonna be hard to upload pictures but will try my best.

The train journey was pretty good, no problem there.However the 'passing the border' bit was a nightmare. Silly me using 2 passports! First they took me to a place where they did passport but for twice the price, I told them I needed a business visa so they just told me to get out of the building. Didn't really understand why at 1st, but then i realized it was a scam and they couldn't make business ones. I walked for a bit, found the border and got my exit stamp from Thailand on my French passport and walked through the border...with my 40kgs. Arrived to the Cambodian side to do the visas on my British passport since my French one was expiring in January, but they didn't like that they wanted the stamp and visa on the same passport, so I went back to the Thai side to ask for a stamp on the British one, but she wasn't having it. Instead she  said I couldn't leave Thailand now and that I had to go back to Bangkok to talk to my embassy. What??? There was no way I was going back. So since all my bags were on the Cambodian side, I told her that I had to go and get my bags and that I will come back. I quickly left and never came back.

Talked to the Cambodian police and they said they will do me a tourist one on the French passport, however it was expiring on the 5th jan and the visa on the 6th...they told me to explain the situation at the stamping office a bit further and that it would be fine, but it wasn't! They didn't like that, I had to go from office to office explaining the situation over and over again and after 3h they agreed to give me a business visa on my British passport, which is what I wanted from the beginning! But had to struggle 3h and pay 2 visas but it's better than going back to Bangkok or just having a tourist one.

Arrived in Siem reap and stayed with my CSer who was nice but after 2 days was starting to get on my nerves, saw the house, beautiful!! The night market burnt down and a few people died which is terrible, decided to get a dog, for security, never had a dog so it's all very exciting. In phnom penh at the mo checking the photo and film festival!

i guess there will be one more message on this blog... So keep checking, I will add some photos too!

Boat journey

The boat journey really reminded me of the ones on the amazon, in South America. Same kind of boat, same atmosphere, same kind of vendors coming  in and out, same kind of scenery apart that there were pagodas on the shore evry now and again. People here don't have hammocks but sleep on the floor which is much more uncomfortable. Everybody has a number. A space is about 60cm wide, foreigners get 2 spaces, whcih was a good thing as my bag was taking a whole one anyway.I could have taken a cabin... but I wouldnt have had the same amazing experiences.

Everybody here looked after me, making sure I had enough room and that I was comfortable. they kept offering me pillows and blankets. some started giving me some foood. I 1st i refused as I was really full (just had lunch), but it looked good and I felt bad refusing. So I said i'll have "nene" (a little bit), it was delicious. Showed them I really liked it and everybody seemed so pleased they all started to offer me some of what they had. Couldn't accept some and refuse others, so I just tried everything and it was some of the best food I had in my whole trip in Myanmar.

In exchange, I gave them a bit of what I had.

Believe it or not, the only thing that bothered me was a monk. He kept talking to me (in Burmese) and asking me for things. Since they live on donation, gave him some food too, but it didn't want my oranges, he wanted my cake, he didn't want my half full bottle of water, he wanted the full one.... The girls with who I was sitting told me to pretend sleeping and that he will leave me alone. So I did,

But he kept toucjing me to wake me up. Weren't monks not allowed to touch or be touched by women?

After a while one of the girl started shouting at him, I guess she was telling him to leave me alone, which he did.

We shared more food with the girls and I felt part of their group. When I asked where the toilets were...they decided to all come with me!

Actually there was another problem, same as in South america...the bugs! Atracted by the light. I was just under it and seemd to be their target. I did not like that. I jumped in my sleeping bag, but got far too hot. Luckily I had my silk sleeping bag which was much better. 

Matt got me that freestanding mosquito net, thought of using it, but struggled putting it up ince I tried and actually failed, so I didn't want to look like a spastci foreugner with my technology taht doesnt work in front of them. I decided to put on with the bugs.

The monk went to sleep. The women were still talking. The men were playing cards, gambling.

No bars here like in South america. No shower or people brushing their teeth. I guess the journey wasn't long enoug..."only" 20h.

The heat and the bugs stop me from sleeping for a while but i finally managed to fall asleep and actually missed the sunrise I was planning to see. i was well annoyed. When I opened one eye, I could already see people staring at me with excitment "she's waking up" i felt them saying. And as soon as I sat up with my puffy eyes, I saw 40 people staring... not the best feeling first thing in the morning. Put my sunglasses on, to kind of protect myself from that intensive look whch I found obtrusive so early in the morning.

then they put their Tanaka (make up) on me and were ready to feed me again. I felt like a barbie doll they were playing with, for a bit...But there weren't THAT intrusive, they knew when to leave me alone too, which was good. Played for a while with the kids, making them paper planes and stuff. Tried to have a converstaion with a teenager who was practicsing his english and insisted on giving me a picture of his son (yes he had a son), which I thought was rather strange,

Arrived in Yangon at 1pm ,went straight to the guest house I first stayed at as I left a bag ther and decided to spend the night there instead of couchsurfing. bit of shopping, eating last buremese food, pagoda watching, experiences sharing with other travellers and I was ready for bed.

I landed in Bangkok, a yellow bangkok. As i went into the skytrain, i noticed loads of people wearing a yellow top. Was it a coincidence? where they people in the same work uniform finidhing work? Then I remembered it was the King's birthday, asked if it was the reason why people were wearing yellow and BINGO!

Same as in Yangon, went back to the same hotel, shopping, virus sorting out as well as camera cleaning!, eating thai food and putting pics on the blog. Went for dinner to Baptiste, a friend of Helene and had some wine!!! I forgot how good it was!!!! 3 weeks without drinking, well done me!

Now in 3h30 I will be waking up, ready to take my train to the border with Cambodia. My bags are ridiculously heavy and I am dreading the journey.

Cambodia, here I come!

Last day on the beach

Well the sun didn't last long but still managed to get a bit of a sunburn, even with factor 30 suncream on!!

Anyway as it's started to be cloudy I went for lunch in the village and found out there was a posh hotel with wifi. So I went there and pretended to be posh, which didn't work that well as I ordered the cheapest drink on the menu and stayed 5h! Ha!

The problem wasn't even sorted and I had to go back in torrential rain on a mototaxi which didn't have any lights. It was pitch black, dunno I he was doing but suddenly realised I had my headtorch with me, which made the ride back much safer.

This morning, I met 2 Spanish guys who told me they were going back to Yangon, by boat. First you've got to go to Panthein, then there is a boat taking 15h through rivers, you can have a cabin ($40) or sleep on the floor ($8). Defo having the floor as it will be full of locals too. I'm so happy they told me that as wasn't really sure about when to go back, wasn't really happy with the bus situation... the times. Now it's perfect, got to stay one more morning on the beach, take the boat round 5pm, spend the night there (save me a hotel room) and arrive in the morning in Yangon for a whole day. Arriving round 10 so will have a few hours of day light, so I can enjoy the scenery a bit and I will arrive close to downtown which is much better than the bus station. It couldn't be more perfect!

And on the top of that, would have done in Myanmar: bus, train, moto, car, bicycle, horse cart and finally boat...

Otherwise something strange happened during the night... I guess I had a visitor. Left a kind of candy (shredded coconut in some kind of hard toffee – sugar) on the table wrapped in some tissue. Found the tissue in the morning, on the floor, empty. Tatata... After a little investigation, looking out for clues and wondering if I was going mad and may be ate it during the night without remembering... I found, which I guess are mice poos, which will explain the mystery.

I had my usual swim, breakfast, chill out. Then wanted to hire a bicycle. The hotel didn't have any, I had to walk 30 min to the village (which was why I wanted a bike). As I came out passed a few shops and asked them if they had any bike. Hahahaha! That serve me right, they went to dig out a rusty old one, which was probably a child's one. It was tiny. But straight away they went to fix it for me and ended up being proud of their achievement. I couldn't refuse it. Took it. The pedals were going all funny, my knees were nearly touching the handle bar, it was squeaking so much everybody was staring (or were they staring at the tall gringa on a tiny shitty bike?) and the breaks didn't work, obviously. Probably the worst bike I ever used, but so much fun in that situation.

I went back to the posh hotel to play with my virus again, but this time felt bad and ordered a curry, which wasn't actually that expensive considering the place. It was huge and yummy, well worth it!

Ngwe Saung

The second day it rained all morning :( and cleared up a bit in the afternoon but not enough to go sunbathing, so I decided to go for a walk, which ended up being a very long walk. Before to go to Myanmar, there was a picture of some pagodas on rocks on the beach as the front page of a hotel's website. Tried to find out where that was, as it looked amazing, without success. Well, lucky me, it ended up being a few hundred meters away from my hotel! Two mini pagodas on 2 rocks, not as impressive as on the picture but still nice and it was a happy surprise. I carried on walking and a bit further there was an island very close to shore that we could actually reached walking. So I walked up there, went to the top of it, where I found a nice big branch where I sat to admire the view. After walking around the island that only took me half an hour, carried on my walk. I arrived at a fishermen village located amongst the coconut trees. I was very lucky as a fishermen boat arrived at the same time and I could see them at work. They unloaded the fishes from the boat onto baskets that 2 men carried to the beach and emptied them onto the sand. There, some people grabbed the biggest ones for their on use and spread the smallest ones across the sand. I guess it was to let them dry. The fishermen kept asking me to take pictures of them, at my great pleasure!

I then decided to head back stopping at a beach restaurant to have some more prawns. In England, when you ask for a prawn dish, you usually only have a few but there the plate was just full of them, huge ones. It made me laugh as they cut the back of them to make them like butterfly prawns. We normally do that to take out the intestine which can be full of sand. There they opened it but left the intestine!

 I woke up this morning and the sun was shining, woohoo! So I quickly hit the beach to make the most of it and I was right to do so as the clouds arrived round 1. I wanted to go to internet this afternoon to sort out my virus problem, but realised there is no electricity in the whole village until 6... so now I've got to wait.

Bagan to Ngwe Saung...la plage quoi!

The bus which was meant to pick me up at 5.30 from my hostel turned out to be 10 min early. Luckily I was in a restaurant in front of it and the owner of the guesthouse found me easily. So a bit of a panic, especially that right at that moment I was realising that I had a virus on my netbook and external hard drive..aaarrgHhhH! Can't believe this is happening, I looked online how to sort it out and hopefully it'll be fairly simple.

So..big rush, no time to pack properly, to organise myself, no time for my cigarette or even go to the toilet. I just had to go. And here I was, in the bus for another night trip. The thing is that it's hard enough to fall asleep, but as soon as you do, there is a toilet or food stop and everybody got to get off the bus, at 8, 11 and 1 in the morning, a pain in the bum but always good though when you're desperate for the toilet.

Around 3, quarter to, to be exact the bus stopped again and this time everybody got off and unloaded their suitcases and stuff...was I already in Yangon? I've been told I'll arrive round 4-5am. I looked around, it looked like India...so yes, I was definitely in Yangon. Damn! 3H to wait until my next bus!

I found out that the bus going to Ngwe Saung was departing from another bus terminal, miles away, so I took a shared taxi, while I put my bag in the car I noticed that my bag of shoes that I attached quickly to my bag wasn't there... Noooo, I can't loose anymore shoes!!! Thought it must have fell in the bus, since it was badly attached at the last minute. Went back to the bus company, tried to explain, they called the driver as the bus already left. Panic, panic, went back to the taxi to double check, and there they were, they fell at the bottom of the cover of my bag. Ooops! Matt will laugh, I always do that!

Panic at 3 in the morning over (not the best feeling at that time of the day) I jumped on the cab for the other bus station. The office wasn't even open! Had to wait and finally got my ticket for the shittiest bus EVER, it stank so much and was so sticky I didn't dare touching anything.

As we got closer and closer it started pouring down with rain!!! Haven't had any rain the whole trip and it's when I want to go to the beach that it starts, how unlucky is that??

The bus dropped me off at Panthein where I jumped into another bus, to go to my final destination. I was worried to only come across expensive resorts, but no! Managed to find a rather lovely room in a bungalow for $10, it even got a bathroom! Yoohoo! No sea views though. But at least the rain stopped!

First thing I did was putting on my bikini and dive into the sea. I was so surprised by the beach, it's much better than I expected. A huge beach with forest of coconut trees and no one around! It's so big that there are loads of space between each guesthouse/resorts, just coconut trees and white sand everywhere, it's magical. Unfortunately, I'm sure that if I come back in 10 years it would be a very different story!

After my dip, the clouds came back and it started raining again but not for long so I headed toward the village which is about 3km from where I'm staying. Had some huge prawns for lunch/dinner, it was yummy. Just hoping I won't get sick again....

Loads of people have said they are never sick, in India, Cambodia and all that but here everybody seems to have had a bad experience at some point... I have to say the hygiene here needs to improve a bit! Cleaning a dirty wet table with a feathery duster, using a cup from a tray, drink out of it and putting it back on the tray without washing it is not the way forward... and no hand washing at all. No wonder why I got sick.

Bagan - 28th nov.

So, clever me I decided to cycle for about 1h30, right to the other side of the area of Bagan during the hottest part of the day (I'm full of good ideas like that!). I thought that the takana, the mud on my face, will make a kind of paste with the sweat but surprisingly didn't. Instead I started to sweat heavily from my eyelids, a rather strange phenomenon.

Later on I started to sweat from the usual other part, forehead, chin and upper lip, which gave me the great idea to try putting that stuff tomorrow in the shape of a moustache!

I realised that many people here don't seem to know what my moustache necklace represents. It's true that as they don't have many hair, especially facial ones, I doubt anyone could ever grow such a curly one like that, hence not realising what it is.

The day was good, saw obviously loads more temples. People loved the make up and every body kept saying how beautiful I was, so it is definitely something to make you prettier over there.

I found a sweet little temple away from crowd to watch yet again another sunset. Stayed there until quite late as the full moon was rising, which just made it incredible. Also this time had some music with me, which changed the whole experienced.

I waited for the night to fall to pin point which temples had lights on and started my mission of Bagan by night.

 Well...cycling in sandy pathway in the dark (even with a headtorch) is simply impossible, I had to push, and I mean really push hard , by bike through the sand. On the top of that the front basket detached itself from the bottom due to the weight of my bag and the bumpy roads, which means that it was going on the side onto my knee and stopped me from cycling! Great!

I tried to fix it with a bit of fabric (200AD) that I found, but obviously only lasted a few minutes... Luckily when I stopped at a temple, a young lad who's English was incredible, managed to fix it for me.

The whole thing by night was a bit of a mission, nice to see the temples lit, but didn't come out so well on the pictures. It was 7, I hadn't had any food all day, the only thing I wanted is to be home, showered and fed, so I cycled back.

Met up with some Spanish people that I met in my guesthouse for dinner and had the chance to practice la idioma un pocito! As it was the start of their 2 days festival ( I found out it was the festival of the pagoda, couldn't be in a better place for that! Ha!)  we headed towards the main temple which is round the corner from my guesthouse, again couldn't have been better. We arrived and saw a huge crowd, praying... it was really impressive. It finished soon after we arrived but as we went out, a concert was starting...and what a gig. It was so cheesy, it was hilarious! the weird thing is that no one seemed to enjoy it. no one was singing along or dancing, but especially not one clap at the end of each song. Also the crowd was mainly male, which was a bit weird.

Today the whole town is receiving thousands of visitors. Wanted to see the sunrise but failed miserably at waking up so early. Instead I went to the main pagoda to see what was happening. So many people were coming to make offerings, women carrying their presents on their heads, while parents were buying cheap toys to their kids from the souvenir shops.

At 8 (there was no point going there at 6.30), thousands of monks started to queue up to receive the offerings made by those people. Children, teenagers, men and elderly, all dressed in their red robes were all in one line waiting for their turns. Some got food, some got money attached to a kind of handmade tree... 

It's then started to get very busy so left and about to return now, to see what's going on, before to catch my bus to Yangon and then straight to the beach... oh yeah!

Bagan - 27th Nov

Yesterday, 26 Nov, (Vivi's bday! ;) ) I watched another sunset after my afternoon in the swimming pool. Went to that temple close by as I could see some people at the top of it. When I reached I wonder how they managed to go up, they seem young and fit so I thought they actually climbed the whole thing. But no, much simpler than that, there were some stairs going up! However they were so tiny, that's why I didn't notice them, it was basically a small hole in the wall, quite tight for a European to be honest, then I had to go through tiniy door way and gates, was fun. The stairs were also so tiny and steep, I wouldn't be surprised if people fell from them before.

The sunset was nice, sorry but you gonna end up with lots of sunset pics... (and sry if they are not in order, it just put them in alphabetical order, its a pain) Then as I was leaving and the night was falling I noticed that some of the temples had light on them.

As I was starving, after not having any proper food for 48h which is NEVER seen with me... I thought I'll grab some dinner before exploring “Bagan by night”! (My dad would be proud of me!)

On the way back, a guy on his bicycle told me he was a headteacher and wanted me to visit his school. I agreed. It was a very small classroom, benches on the sand... When I asked him when were the classes he started to write the whole timetable on the board, just like a teacher do. Basically he was giving classes before and after 'government school', when I asked him why, he just said because government school is not enough. 

Obviously he asked me to make a donation so he could buy a new blackboard and some exercise books. Having learnt (or may be not) my lesson I told him, I will buy a few exercise books but that I didn't want to give him money. He said I could but that they will charge me more money because I was a foreigner...good point. So agreed to give him the equivalent of 3 euros, which I regretted soon after. Indeed as we were talking and watching the class starting, I could smell he stank of alcohol and wondered if that money will go straight into some whisky... I asked him to promise me the money will go into buying books for the kids. I will never know if it did or not. 

Anyway, I left around 20h30, on my bicycle directing myself by the light of that big temple I could see on the horizon. The road are every dark since there are no street lights, so it was the one thing helping me to know where I was going. I was getting closer and closer, when suddenly I couldn't see it anymore... how, why? What happened? I wonder... I carried on for a bit and suddenly noticed this black shape in the background. I think that was it, that was the temple, but lucky as I am they switched off the lights 2min before my arrival. I saw a moto coming out of the pathway and wonder if he was THE guy, who switched off the beautiful lights. I ventured into that sandy pathway and arrived at the temple. Some locals were surprised to see a (weirdo) foreigner at this time and asked me what on earth I was doing there. Told them about the lights and they said it was finished. They asked me if I saw a man on a moto leaving the temple, I said I did, well HE was the light man!! I was right!

As I saw a tiny temple with lights on, on my way, I thought may be i've got a chance to see that one, if I pedal hard and quick enough ,may be a can catch him up and at least see that temple. So I jumped on my bicycle and cycled as fast as I could, not caring about sand or holes in the road... that's it I could see it, it was still there, lit!! The sandy pathway going to that one was so bumpy I nearly fell over, dogs were barking, but I carried on. Thought of getting my head torch out but I would have lost precious minutes. So I carried on.. in the dark...scaring myself... an there it was, a tiny shitty temple which only had lights on the top of it and not even the bottom!

Such a disappointment...

But no, the top bit WAS beautiful, so as I cycled back … gently... I thought it would have been really nice to see some of the bigger ones lit. So I decided to see if I could change my bus ticket and stay one more night. Furthermore, I heard it was a festival for the next 2 days and thought it'll be nice to be here for that... AND $5 is the cheapest I'm ever gonna find for a room in Myanmar, so may as well stay one more day here and one day less on the beach where it's probably gonna be like $30!

Ticket changed, room booked for another night, I'm ready to hit New and Old Bagan today for a visit of a proper “Bagan by night”!!! To start this beautiful day, as it's festival I decided to go for the whole make up thing, like the locals... well I can tell you it's not easy as I thought it would be.

Also it feels a bit like 'argile' (face clay), well I guess it is really... so once you have it on, it is rather difficult to smile or if you do, you then notice how old you are as all your wrinkles show up... lovely! I do not call that make up! But I am still gonna stick to it... 

Kalaw to Bagan

The third day in Kalaw I took it easy and went mainly on internet to put pictures on the blog. Happy this one is working fine now.

 In the afternoon, went for a walk with Adèle. We just went around the nearby villages and in the countryside, admiring those pine forest, having locals who kept asking us: “ where you go?”, thinking we were may be lost. We arrived on the top of a hill and found this beautiful monastery, I realsied that was the one I could see from Kalaw and wanted to go there to catch the sunset. 2 monks were sitting outside, one of them made us sign to come.

We followed him in his house. He seemed soooo happy to have visitors. He offered us some avocado (man, the avocado there are so good, just like in South America!) and then offered us to listen to a lecture about “how to live without worries and fear?”. We agreed. Unfortunately Adèle had to go back to catch a bus to Yangon, but I decided to stay. The lecture which was meant to be an hour was in fact 2 h, but it was really interesting and I've learn loads of things. Then the monk (Ashin, was his name) tried to explain me a few things but it was hard to understand him as his English wasn't great.

I missed the sunset with all that chatting, silly me was a bit annoyed at 1^st but then realised that I can see sunsets everyday, but how often can I have such an important moment with a Buddhist monk?! So I came back to Kalaw, happy.

Caught a bus to Bagan that same night, which had nothing to do with the last night bus I took. There was so much leg room, no one sitting next to me, no loud music, it was heaven! On the top of that the one guy who was sitting on the last row got off the bus so the driver told me to lye there... what a luxury! Slept really well and arrived in Bagan at 4.30 again. They really need to review their timetable! Leaving at 6pm to arrive at 2 or 4am doesn't make sense for a night bus!

Then it was the mission of finding a place to stay, I've been recommended 2 by Richard, a French guy I met in Yangon, so went towards them. 1^st one was full, had to wait to see if people were leaving, 2^nd one was $15 with no bathroom!!! unbelievable. Didn't have the choice at the time, agreed, put my bags down and realised 2 French guys were going to see the sunrise in a horse cart. Left the registration to later and jumped in the cart with them. Since I was awake at stupid hours I may as well do something interesting.

The horse cart was horrible, really felt for the horse and decided to never take one again, poor skinny horse. We arrived to a temple which was already invaded by tourists buses, but there wasn't time to go to another one. It was nice to see it and was amazed by the scenery, a massive field (I think it's 50kmsq) containing more than 4000 stupas. It IS the Angkor Wat of Myanmar.

As I did in Cambodia, decided to hire a bicycle to go around the temple. The heat was scorching, I felt like cycling in a desert. But the beauty I was surrounded by, just took off any pain. It was magical.

Managed to see almost all the ones I wanted to see and went to one we could climb to see the sunset. Incredible.

 Yesterday, was gonna cycle and visit the old city but I was feeling poo. Ate lots of raw garlic the day before ( as you do!) and that destroyed my tummy, then woke up during the night with fever. No energy, whatsoever today, hard to get out of bed, even though I went to bed at 10 last night. So took a day off and relaxed to take my forces back. Haven't felt so drained in ages!

 Spent most of the day in bed, in my tiny room, with no bathroom, which is a bit annoying when you've got toilet issues!!

 Felt much better today but still decided to take it easy, so I just visited 1 temple today and then treated myself to a swimming pool in a nice hotel! Was lovely. Still caught the sunset from this temple where you had to go through tiny stairways and doorways to access the level above.

Pindaya - 22nd Nov

Went to the meeting point and met the “other customers”, a German lady who was kinda stuck up the ass but kept laughing hysterically and 2 Swiss ladies who seemed more chilled out. The German one didn't seem that up for me jumping in the taxi but I did anyway.

It took us 2h to go up there, passing trucks packed with cabbages and some others with bags of potatoes, tribe women who had the same navy outfit as the Hmong in the north of Thailand, Laos and Vietnam but had a bright orange scarf on the top of their head, women washing themselves or doing their laundry in some muddy water on the side of the road, fields of yellow flowers, reddish brown earth, fields of cabbages and oranges trees... The scenery was just amazing. Some of the nicest landscapes I've seen so far in Myanmar.

We unfortunately had to pay a $2 entrance fee to the area on the top of another $3 entrance fee to the cave I wanted to see. Left the 'lovely' ladies and started going up the stairs to reach the cave that was filled with 8000 buddhas. It was impressive, but actually prefered the smaller one in Kalaw. This one was also filled with hundreds of tourists which took off the charm of it.

As I read in the book there were 2 more caves one containing a sitting buddha and another one a reclining buddha, headed for those while the crowds were going back to their tour buses.

I walked on the side of that mountain and arrived to the 2^nd cave, which was small but so relaxing, only one monk was there, praying... I carried on what was kind of a pathway (as Stepan or Rad would say) but never found the 3^rd cave, I went right up to the top where there were some stupas and then carried on on the same direction, going through forest, wondering where that would take me.

As coming by taxi was just an easy way, I decided not to take it on the way back, I wanted a bit of an adventure, something exciting, so I decided to hitch hike back. Myanmar being probably one of the safest place to do so, I thought it could be fun. However I knew that it would take me more than 2 hours to get back and that I should hurry up if I didn't want to be stuck on the road in the dark.

So I had to do my little trekking adventure in the mountain at quite a fast pace, which wasn't the best in the hot sun, running out of water and starving too. Finally came across a road that took me right back to the village of Pindaya. Crossed it, bought water and munchies and started to walk on the road on the way to Aung Ban (village before Kalaw). As I was walking in that heat, with only bicycles going passed or motos... I started to think: “why on earth did I decided to do that?!”

But I was actually right, a tractor approached, I waved at him, he stopped and took me onboard, haha! That was so much fun!! Then I got taken by a kind of small truck, jumped at the back and sat with 14 other people, apparently from the same family. They kept staring at me, smiling! Luckily they were going all the way to Aung ban. As the time went passed they started to die like flies, one after the other one they fell asleep, all sleeping on the top of each other, it was so sweet...

They dropped me off at the junction and wished me farewell. I thought they might ask me for some money as some did in south america, but they didn't. So I 'treated' myself to a 1euro moto ride back to Kalaw! Love motos! Les cheveux dans le vent...

The whole journey back was just magical and I wish I could do that more during my trip.