Myanmar/Burma: a day on the lake

K20,000/$20 for the boat (seats 5) for the day (without Inn Dein it would be cheaper, but that add on is worth it).  The boats seem to follow a similar route, with the workshops and restaurants varying by driver.

Left at 7:00, when the sun was behind the mountains, my thermometer showed 16C and I could see my breath.

Actually there was mist and smoke and clouds for the first hour, where other boats appeared suddenly out of nowhere in an otherworldly scene, and the sun wouldn’t really comes out for another hour (this doesn’t happen every day).

The boats have 5 chairs set single file, each with a cushion and a life jacket as the seat back cushion. I also received a blanket to use, which I used despite wearing long pants, socks, a T-shirt, light sweater, jungle shirt, hat and buff around my neck. The lake water is cold, and so is the air above it.

It takes a good 20 minutes down the river from town to even reach the open lake, which has a very wide “shoreline” of floating vegetation.

In a nutshell I saw:
1. Slow drive past local fishermen, famous for their leg rowing technique, who hammed it up for me with poses holding their large conical firm nets

2. Ywama (pronounced je-wama) – which no longer has a floating market for which it was famous (it was too crowded, so no it’s on land). It also has teal houses, which reminded me of the old west.
Today happened to be its turn for the rotating 5 day market, so it was busier than usual.
There were tribeswomen there with elongated necks (with the metal rings).

3. Inn Dein – 15 minutes up a river from Ywama, it has interesting ruined stupas on the edge of town, and a pagoda up the hill (easy walk up a covered trinket-stand lined walkway) which has some views and over a 1000 stupas. Yes a thousand. I could UK need them to be sure they weren’t exaggerating :-)

4. Silversmith shop. Brief English tour, not a must see.

5. Phaung Daw Oo Paya – island pagoda that is the holiest site on Shan state.
It has 5 little buddha statues that are now golden blobs as people keep adding a teeny bit of gold leaf (conveniently for sale) one person at a time.

6. Nan Pan – a winding drive through a fishing village on stilts. Not too many people around, the fishermen being out on the water, the kids in school, the women?

7. Lunch stop… In my case at Royal Palace, one of many restos on stilts, with slightly inflated tourist prices.
I enjoyed a nicely seasoned grilled whole fish Shan style (turned out to be tilapia) K4,500 + rice K500 + mixed fruit shake K1,500, and then I needed a can of Myanmar beer K1,500 – total K8,000/$8.

8. In Phaw Khone – weaving and loom workshop. Little explanatory tour was informative, the looms are interesting (klackity klack) but new to me was lotus plant fibre, more expensive than silk (a little coarser though).

9. Blacksmith workshop – mildly interesting, this one seemed to specialize in swords (no explanations)

I skipped the tobacco workshop…

10. Floating Gardens – there must be several square km of gardens set on dirt atop floating vegetation. The drive through is interesting, though colorful it was not – mostly green. Green tomatoes (the most common one, rows upon rows of staked tomatoes), green beans, green squash…

11. Nga Hpe Kyaung – island monastery with a huge wooden hall and old Buddha images from various forms of Buddhism), though it no longer has jumping cats (the monk who trained them to jump through hoops passed away last year).

By mid afternoon I was wearing shorts and a T-shirt (zip pants to the rescue!)

Returned a little before 16:00

Will repost next week with more photos!

Myanmar/Burma: train part 2 – over the mountains

This smaller milk run train from Thazi to Shwenyaung, over the mountains from 800′ above sea level to almost 4,000′. It took 10 hours, and arrived only 15 minutes late.

Live chickens – check (not by my seat though – I think it was in lower class).

Once out of the plains, the beautiful scenery changed from jungle to alpine forest (yes, pine trees!) before descending into the large valley.

Most stops in little villages were very brief but a few were 5-10 minutes long, giving time for a little stretch of one’s legs on the platform. The conductor kept an eye out for us 3 westerners to make sure we were back on the train, as did a local man who sat in my section of the train, with whom I shared some enjoyment of oddities.

Two hill towns in particular were no wider than one house next to the train platform before the hills dropped downwards, and the train had to backtrack a few hundred meters before continuing the journey as the station was on a short dead end side track.

At each station, a cadre of hawkers sold food and drinks, for much cheaper than in Yangon. For K100/$0.10 each at various stops I was able to purchase the following:
– small bag of yucca chips (plain or spicy)
– 2 avocados
– freshly made snack

This train only had 3 passenger cars and one cargo car: 2 of the cars were “upper class” which were padded Bechtel seating, 2 persons per side, with each pair of benches facing each other. “Lower class” was similar but unleaded and with people and more stuff in the aisles.

The rattling was much less severe, likely due to the slower speeds.

Tips:
– get a forward facing seat
– get a seat on the left side of train is better (going east as described above)

Myanmar/Burma: the train part 1

This was my itin from Yangon to Inle Lake:

1 – 17:00 train in sleeper car to Thazi, arr 4:55 (12hrs; K12,500/$12) actual arrival 1hr late (it’s a stop on the way to Mandalay)
2 – 7:00 slow scenic train to Shwengyaung, arr 17:00 (10hrs; K3,000/$3)
3 – taxi to Ngayng Shwe, the town in the northeast corner of the lake (15km, K10,000/$10, split with the other couple on the train). Yes, that is the previous town name transposed word-wise, like Tokyo and Kyoto, except in Japan those cities are hours apart.

First train:
Small gash in floor through which you can see the ground, check.
Spiders on the ceiling, inc one over my bunk, check (they were mostly in the hallway).
Amazingly rickety, check. the writeups weren’t kidding and perhaps even underdescribed it. At first, moving slowly through the burbs of Yangon, it rocked either side to side like a ship, or up and down like riding a horse. Forget about reading or writing (but ‘rithmetic OK). Which meant we basically laid down to sleep by 18:30…
Except I was often woken up during the night by the violent rocking and bouncing, sometimes literally tossing me 1-2″ above the bed.

Sleeper compartment has 4 bunks, I had a top one which is less desirable, esp when getting off at an intermediate stop in the middle of the night (you can’t look out the window). Plus I didn’t have a station list, nor did I know if we were running late or not… so I ended up getting up just before scheduled arrival time (around 4:30, not as hard as it sounds given the early bedtime), and kept asking locals (in the non-sleeper car) which station it was, as I couldn’t always see the sign (at one little station, the master shone a flashlight onto the name sign).
Several people said my stop was next, though it was actually several stops later. I ended up standing in the hallway for an hour…

You get a pillow with case, and a sheet, but that’s it (the conductor gave them a quick spritz of something, either freshener of bug spray. Hopefully the former, as I don’t care for bug spray on my face).

It was an experience, to say the least. No wonder the night bus is more popular…

Oh, the toilets were pretty clean (one squat, one western) since they were hard to use due to the rocking, and I don’t think people from lower class cars snuck into my car. Thank goodness for Immodium!

However, train #2 made up for it…

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Myanmar/Burma: cold at night

Being at ~4000ft above sea level, you need a light sweater in the evening and early morning. And when boating on the lake… Doh, barely have enough warm clothing again – I should have read up more beforehand.

Inle Lake is in a valley between two mountain ranges, and this town is on a river leading to the north end of the lake.

During the taxi ride from the train station lay night, the full moon came up over the mountains to welcome me.

I rented a single speed bicycle from my hotel (K1,500/$1.50 per day) to poke in and around town, and will do an all day boat trip tomorrow.

View from my hotel roof early this morning, close to river. On the street are monks receiving rice from a guy.

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Myanmar/Burma: welcome to the Golden Land

In contrast to the dark stormy clouds and rain in Singapore this morning, it’s sunny and hot hot hot 32C and humid in Yangon.

Traffic is brutal, even with my driver taking side streets and dodgy left turns. It’s about 25km but took 45min (leaving the airport at 11am). 15,000/$15 fixed price (which might have been high – the businessman on the plane next to me thought 8,000).

Internet might be too slow to upload photos…

Singapore: awake all night in Changi airport lounge

After sleeping a good 3 hours on the flight from Tokyo last night, which landed at 0:40… Next flight is at 7:55 to Yangon, Myanmar/Burma.

I did some research a few days ago and executed a plan in 1hr from touchdown, only doable at the best airport, Changi (SIN):

– clear immigration and pick up checked bag ANA bag
– go upstairs to checkin level
– change clothes
– split out winter clothes, presents and papers that I don’t need in Myanmar into a soft duffel bag
– checkin at Singapore Airlines counter – open until 1:40 (at T2) and reopens at 4:30, though at T3 they are open until 2:00
– go back downstairs to the manned luggage storage – open 24 hours (there are ones inside security too) which cost S$33/US$26 for 8 days)
– go back through exit immigration and security and head to lounge to relax (open 24 hours – only 6 of us, until 5am, then a steady trickle of passengers)

Since there happened to be a “repacking station” and scale, I split out 5kg of stuff from the original 18kg bag).

Why did I do that you ask?
My bag was more stuffed than when I left due to buying clothes while waiting for delayed luggage, I wanted a lighter bag in Myanmar, I had 2 separate tickets on 2 airlines, and I’ll be spending a day in Singapore on the way back next week. Hence there was no need to keep the bag inside security. Oh, and I had to check my bag due to my bug spray and liquids.

And I managed some needed Myanmar research and hotel availability.

Japan -> Singapore: ANA B787 Dreamliner!

On an ANA one, which has a 2-4-2 configuration, unlike UA and AC which cram 9 seats across instead of 8.

Extra bonus, I’m in the 2 seats on the side with an empty seat beside me(and in front of me)! Actually last night during online checkin I changed my seat from the one in front of me to this one which had an empty seat beside it at the time…

I thought the new window was larger than it is… Basically it’s a little taller than a regular window.

The overhead lighting is nice but ultimately it comes down to the comfort and spacing of the seats (see note above)

Since it’s a new month, the are a few new movies in the personal seatback entertainment system versus my ANA flight last week (this us an evening flight so no sleeping).

The washroom door cantilevers around a third of the width, and there is a light above the door indicating occupancy. But why is there a little ashtray when it’s new and non-smoking, and above the seats they didn’t bother with a no smoking sign.

The washroom also has a touchless faucet and flush, the latter makes the toilet lid go down automatically.

Overall I can’t say the plane feels much different and is overhyped. Sigh.

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