Kandy, Sri Lanka

We took a private driver from Kamburugamuwa to Kandy, our longest travel day of the Sri Lanka trip. The folks at the Imagine Villa said normally people would break the journey into two, going by train via Ella. The train ride from Ella towards Kandy is supposed to be really scenic.

Anyways I had booked our hotels back in June (as it's busy season now), and the LP had said it was a seven hour train ride from Matara to Kandy, which sounded okay. What the LP didn't mention is that there's two ways to go, the scenic (long) way, or the fast way going back through Colombo. I thought it was seven hours for the scenic route.

We didn't fancy seven hours in 2nd class going back through Colombo, so instead booked the private driver. The fast route by car takes the new (finished in 2013) highway, and about five hours. We booked the driver though the Kandy B&B cause they quoted us a much cheaper rate.

We arrived in Kandy around 12:30pm. Heather said that over our trips, we've now visited Sucre, Salt and Kandy.

We stayed at Hantana Range View, a B&B run by an older couple that reminded me of some of my parents' friends. It had a great view overlooking Kandy.

We had the obligatory tea, which was excellent. Patrick had worked in the tea industry for 45 years, with Patrick and his wife Francis living in estate houses on the tea plantations. A long way to say, they knew their tea. They favoured BOP from a particular estate (I forget which one), served very properly from a white ceramic tea pot, at just the perfect temperature and steepness (degree of steep? steepidity?)

We hadn't had lunch, and also hadn't counted on having the afternoon free (we had been told the drive could take all day). So took a tuktuk into the centre of town, and found a restaurant for lunch, Midland Cafe. Turns out this is place rates highly on tripadvisor, we stumbled across it. Had the rice and curry, which was good, and inexpensive.

There was a sweet shop across the street, so we treated ourselves to some burfi, (an Indian sweet), and a "Lipton tea". Unlike Myanmar, where a Lipton tea meant a black tea, in this place it was sort of a Nespresso for tea, with instant chai-in-a-cup.

Well fed and on a sugar high, we walked around a bit of downtown, scouting out the sites to see the next day. Also stopped into a couple souvenir shops.

The B&B had lent us a cell phone, so that we could call the tuktuk driver to pick us up. Cleaned up back at the hotel, and then went back into town for dinner. Kandy is mostly a dry town, with only tourist hotel restaurants serving alcohol, so we went to the Royal Hotel for dinner. We found out later that the hotel had once been owned by Patrick's grandfather, and only recently purchased and restored. We felt transported back to a colonial era. The food was okay. The staff were very eager, but had no clue. Anyways, we were there for the atmosphere which was great.

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We had breakfast at the B&B (i suppose otherwise it would just be a B), and then took a tuktuk into town. Visited the Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic. They have three periods a day where the relic is open for viewing (and prayers and offerings) called puja. We timed our visit for the 9:30am puja.

There was a large lineup of devotees already there. We joined the throngs, squeezing into queue and shuffling past the relic. You don't actually see the tooth (it's inside multiple caskets), but it's more about the experience of seeing all the devotees.

Next was the World Buddhism Museum. It's part of the temple complex, and so it's the first time I've visited a museum barefoot.

The museum was excellent. It showed the evolution of Buddhism through the world, and had exhibits from many countries. We were surprised by how many we had already seen, although our reasons were for the ruins. The museum was very extensive, we spent almost two hours there.

Had lunch at the Olde Empire Cafe, which was targeted at tourists, which suited us fine as we wanted the use a clean washroom.

We then took a tuktuk to the botanical gardens. It was pricey to enter ($11 each vs 50 cents for locals) (a lot of sites in Sri Lanka are priced much higher for tourist). We've seen a lot of botanical gardens recently - in Myanmar, Singapore, and now here. There was some cool stuff, the best was the cannonball tree. It was a nice refreshing walk around.

Just as we were leaving the gardens, it started to rain. Got a random tuktuk, except we didn't have an address or phone number. I knew the way by sight, but the driver took a different main road. Aargh. Also we had the rain covers on the tuktuk so we had very little visibility. Ended up back in the centre, so decided to walk back from there as we knew the way.

It was now pouring, and our little fold-up umbrellas kept our head and shoulders dry, but that's about it. We were soaked by the time we reached the B&B, but we had to launder our clothes anyways so it didn't matter. The only thing was our shoes were soaked too. I had my big hiking shoes and Heather had her flats, so we had shoes we could wear for dinner.

We tried another place for dinner, Senani, recommended by Frances. It was overlooking the lake and temple, and we got the last railing-front table. The wait staff here was much better. We were still full from lunch, so just split the deviled cashews (which were excellent) and the chicken biryani. We arranged a pickup time with the hotel tuktuk so we had no issues getting back home :)

Kamburugamuwa, Sri Lanka

I had booked with Scuba Diving Weligama to go diving today, but the weather was really stormy when I woke up, so I called to cancel. The dive itself would have been fine, but I didn't like the idea of being in dive boat in the choppy seas. Plus there had been thunder and lightning all night, and forecast to continue through the morning. Heather said the thunder was shaking the ground; I slept right through it.

It was cooler in the morning with the heavy cloud cover, a nice break from the heat. We had breakfast on the porch as usual, and then read our books for a bit.

Around 11am we started to get antsy and decided to get a tuktuk to go into town for a couple hours.

First we went back to Mirissa for lunch. I had chicken roti, Heather tried the kotu, which is roti chopped up with vegetables and other fillings. The rotis were made to order, and really fresh.

Next to the east of our hotel to Matara. It's a transportation hub for the region and there was way more traffic. There's a couple small forts to see, and we just wanted to walk around the town a bit.

The forts were okay, one was really small, the other was under renovations. But we stumbled across the local food market which we really enjoyed.

Walked across the pedestrian bridge to see the temple on a small island, but didn't want to take our shoes off and get our feet dirty, so just looked at it from the outside.

Met up with our tuktuk driver at the temple as planned, and went back to the hotel. Matara was a nice little excursion to while away the day. Jumped in the pool to cool down.

We chatted with the owners while having a sundowner. They offered us a drink on the house so both of us had the daiquiris that Heather liked the other day :)

For dinner we had the fish special. I can't remember the type of fish, except that neither of us had had it before. It was okay. Dessert was a repeat of our first day, and very tasty as usual.

Kamburugamuwa, Sri Lanka

We were up early to be ready for the tuktuk that was picking us up at 6:15am for the whale watching excursion.

It was a quick 15 minute drive to Mirissa harbour. We zipped through the fishing boats unloading their catches, and selling the fish on the docks. It looked pretty cool, but we had bigger fish to fry (haha).

We paid our $60 each and boarded the whale watching boat. It was about 50% full, with a steady stream of tourists arriving by tuktuk. The boat had a covered upper deck, where we grabbed two seats. Staff came by with tea and ginger cookies for everyone, and also Gravol for those who wanted it.

By the time we left at 7am, the top deck was rather crowded. It was hard to keep an eye on the horizon with all the tourists standing at the railing. Fortunately the sea was pretty calm.

We headed straight south for at least an hour. No blue whales, but there were a few dolphins that most of the other tourists rushed to one side of the boat to get a glimpse, obviously not understanding the physics of a floating boat. It was going to be a long excursion...

The blue whales are hit-and-miss in the Indian Ocean and we had a miss day. After a few hours of puttering about looking for blue whales, we finally headed back to land.

On the way back, we had the misfortune of spotting some right whales. That meant another hour of circling around, with most of the tourists doing their inadvertent best to tip the boat. Heather and I just wanted to get back to ashore, and go for lunch.

Finally around 2pm, we got back to the harbour. We both agreed it was one of the least enjoyable excursions ever.

Our tuktuk driver took us back to our hotel, where we had a late breakfast. (The hotel does breakfasts made-to-order, and serve you breakfast after a whale watching excursion, no matter how late you get back). It was a plentiful breakfast, although about average taste: fruit platter, eggs, assorted breads, yoghurt (not plain :( ), cheeses. It was also the first place that didn't have loose leaf tea.

Booked the fish special for dinner, and then relaxed around the hotel. It's one of the few places where the wifi doesn't reach the room, so we had to hang out in the common areas to surf.

For the sundowner, Heather tried the hotel specialty, a cocktail based on arrak, a local distilled alcohol from coconut. It was excellent. I stuck to my beer.

The fish special was also really good, pan-fried barracuda in a penne pasta with lemongrass sauce. Mmm good. Dessert was amazing, a molten chocolate brownie with vanilla ice cream.

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We were up even earlier the next morning, at 5:10am so that we could get to Mirissa harbour in time to see the fishing boats come in. We had driven through the fish market yesterday on the way to the whale watching excursion, which turned out to be the best part of the excursion, so decided to get up early just to see it on its own.

Dawn was just starting to break when we arrived at Mirissa harbour. There was a 50 cents entrance fee (we didn't have to pay that yesterday cause we were just passing through).

It was pretty cool to wander about taking pictures, mostly just trying not to get in the way. The fishermen were helpful when we asked about the type of fish. At first they didn't understand the question, but if we just pointed and said "tuna?" they'd tell us the actual name. The biggest were the yellow fin tuna, which we recognized by the yellow fin (oddly enough). There was no smell at all of fish - it was fresh from the ocean. Buyers and sellers bartered and selected their fish, weighed and then sometimes carted away in wheelbarrows, depending on how much they bought.

Around 7am we headed back to the hotel, and had our breakfast. We then walked down the beach to a point about a km away, before it got too hot outside. The south coast of Sri Lanka is favoured by surfers, as there was constant pounding of large waves. We had a friendly dog follow us the whole way, just like trekking in Bhutan.

Somehow it was already 11ish and so we had lunch. It was sandwiches and fries again, not very exciting. With the great dinners, we had hoped for better lunches, but oh well.

Napped / read / daydreamed away the afternoon. Had some drinks at sundown - Heather tried another cocktail, a coconut daiquiri, which was one of the better daiquiris she's had. My beer was also good. This hotel didn't have coolies so they poured out a glass, and then kept the bottle in fridge until I was ready for the 2nd half.

We had the grilled seafood platter again, which our resident seafood expert (Heather) said wasn't quite as fresh as the first time we had it. It was still pretty good though. Dessert was a pineapple slice inside a banana fritter, topped with vanilla ice cream. Mmm good yet again. There were more mosquitos out tonight so we called it a night early.

Kamburugamuwa, Sri Lanka

After breakfast, we had some sightseeing and souvenir shopping to do in Galle before getting to Kamburugamuwa. We also needed to get cash but the power was out in the Old Town so the ATM's didn't work.

We asked our hotel about the costs for a private driver, in the meantime we went to see the Main Gate and Moon Bastion of the Fort Walls. Unfortunately the clock tower was under scaffolding, as it's the common subject of pics of the fort.

We could see the train station just outside the walls, just a few minutes away, so walked over to check out the Sunday schedule. There was a train at 11am and 2pm. Maybe we could get our shopping done and catch the 11am?

First we hit the ATMs (power was good in the new town). We walked back and bought the souvenirs we had our eyes on - an acrylic-on-wood painting, and some incense oil. The power had just come back on in the old town so we could pay by credit card.

We also got the contact info for our favourite item we saw. It's enormous wooden fan blades from an old tea factory. They were used in the drying process, and are about 9' tall. They were pretty expensive and would have to be be shipped home. Definitely not a carry-on item! (I don't even know if I could lift it at all!)

It was 10:15am so we rushed to pack up and check out of the hotel, and took a tuktuk to the train station (we could have walked but we had our packs and it was only $1.50), with plenty of time to spare, enough to track down the station master and figure out how many stops we had to go (4 stops).

The train arrived on time, and was only half-full so we were able to get seats together. I tracked our progress on the cached Google Maps map, so even without knowing it was 4 stops, it was easy to see when to get off the train.

There was a (single) tuktuk driver at the station who asked Rs 150 ($1.50) to take us to our hotel (Imagine Hotel), so we piled in. Turns out our hotel is very close to the train station, and it probably took longer to get in and out of the tuktuk with our big packs, than the actual drive. Oh well.

Heather had found the hotel on tripadvisor, it was away from the bulk of hotels in Mirissa, with a long stretch of open beach. We checked in, freshened up, and had a quick lunch, which wasn't that special.

Walked down the street in Kamburugamuwa to buy some water, as well as to see whatever else was around. Not much. We'd have to head into Mirissa or Matara (10 minutes / $4 by tuktuk) if we wanted to go out. However this wasn't a problem as we had planned to mostly relax at the hotel, catch up on reading by the ocean, and have dinners at the hotel.

Walked down the beach a bit, it was really hot in the sun. The sunset was nice, although not as spectacular as Kawthoung in Myanmar.

We arranged for a whale watching excursion for the next day. Blue whales migrate around this part of the coast.

Dinner was excellent. We had pre-ordered the grilled seafood platter, and everything was fresh and grilled perfectly. Had shrimp, lobster, crab, squid, plus two kinds of fish, served with garlic rice, salad, and a butter sauce for dipping. Mmm good. We ate outside on the porch, with the ocean waves crashing just beyond. It was very nice.

Galle, Sri Lanka

Our hotel in Colombo (Taru Villas - Lake Lodge) looked very cool - made mostly from brushed concrete and cool art on display. Functional too, except that there weren't any extra outlets in the room to recharge our devices.

Breakfast was good, served by a very proper waiter, who flicked our napkins into our laps, and then handed us the menus, opening to the breakfast page in a single motion, just like in the movies.

We were taking the train to Galle, and even though there's 10 trains a day, there were none between 10am to 2pm. So we had some time to kill until 2pm.

Took a bajaj (tuktuk) to the train station a couple hours early cause we figured it would be more interesting people watching there than sitting in the hotel.

Bought our tickets at counter #4 - it was only $1.60 each for the two-hour train ride in 2nd class. Presented our tickets to enter the station, and walked up and down the stairs to platform 5. It was one of the few times this trip that we've actually unzipped the backpack straps of our packs; mostly we've been using them in suitcase mode.

After Bhutan, the 30C+ and high humidity felt very hot to us. Grabbed some seats, and then I walked around the station taking pictures. There weren't any food options inside, so I wandered outside the station and bought some rice and lentils take-out (served in a plastic bag) from a busy restaurant. It was slightly spicy and hit the spot.

We tried to figure out the difference between 2nd and 3rd class (so we knew which car to get on). But we couldn't tell. We should have just bought the 3rd class tickets for 20 cents :) There was no 1st class otherwise we would have booked that :)

Our train arrived in Colombo on time, and then we pushed our way onto the train, everyone for themselves. There was no hope of getting seats - all were already taken - we just wanted to get a suitable standing area.

Got lucky that we ended up under a working ceiling fan. The ride started off squished, but got better as people emptied out the further we got from Colombo. We actually got seats about half way through the ride! It was a cool way to see life in Sri Lanka, both on and off the train.

Our stop, Galle, was fairly obvious as most of the remaining tourists disembarked. We got a bajaj to our hotel (Fortaleza) in Old Galle, where they were expecting us and greeted us by our first names as we walked in. (It's a small boutique hotel with only 4 rooms, but still!). Because I'd booked back in June, I was able to reserve the Library room, supposedly the best of the rooms. It was great, with a big circular window letting in lots of light. The hotel was a spice warehouse in the 1600's and had lots of character.

Our hotel was also listed as one of the places to eat in Galle, so we cleaned up and went downstairs for dinner. Had a Lion Lager (625ml, 4.8%, but in a coolie so it stayed cold), Heather had a white wine. For dinner I had a seared tuna main, Heather tried the pan fried mahi mahi. Both were excellent. While we're on the coast we're taking advantage of all the fresh seafood. Sri Lanka looks to be more of a foodie trip than the other two legs, if our first dinner is any indication! Their chocolate brownie dessert was awesome.

After dinner we took a short walk down the street, as we'd been in Sri Lanka for a day and not done anything outside of transport and hotels, and I was getting antsy. Wandered into a hip clothing store / art gallery / bar, a place way too cool to be allowing the likes of us to enter. It was very surreal, with huge art on the walls, which seemed to have no end. The music was great too. We had had a few drinks at our hotel with dinner, and didn't have much rupees on us, so just went back to the hotel before they called bouncers to oust us (just kidding, the staff were very nice to us, Lenny Kravitz-lookalikes them all).

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Woke up ready to tourist after a few days on the road getting from Paro to Galle. The old town of Galle is pretty small - there's just a handful of streets, surrounded by a wall and then the ocean, so you can't get lost even if you tried.

We first walked around the perimeter, and then wandered around, stopping in at the small boutique stores. The old town is a UNESCO something, very pretty.

Picked a place for lunch based on their interesting fish options. It was tasty, but not too much food.

We were still adjusting to heat, so went back to our hotel room for a couple hours to cool down, before heading back out to walk the ramparts at sunset (it's the thing to do here). It was nice, but not as photogenic as I had hoped. Lots of wires and garbage and construction and other non-picturesque stuff seemed to always be in the frame.

Had dinner at the hotel again, the decision driven by a combination of the great meal from last night, an approaching storm, and laziness. It was good, but not quite as great as the previous night. Tried the local dessert of curds with treacle, very sweet and yummy.

Colombo, Sri Lanka

We had a couple travel days to get from Paro to Colombo via Bangkok. We could have booked connecting flights in Bangkok (and avoided the drive in and out of the city), but the idea was to drop off souvenirs and winter stuff at the Bangkok hotel so that we didn't have to haul them across multiple flights and around Sri Lanka.

Our flight from Paro to Bangkok wasn't until 2pm so we had a relaxing morning. We actually slept in for the first time on the Bhutan leg of our trip, waking up around 8:30am. Breakfast was okay; we asked for porridge which turned out to be rice porridge (I suppose more common). I had just a little to be polite as I'm not a big fan. The hotel was empty except for us and other couple, it sort of reminded us of the salt hotel in Uyuni.

Yeshey and Hasta picked us up at 10:45am for lunch in Paro. They had gifts and a nice written postcard for each of us! We drove to the restaurant; however the chef had had an emergency and so Yeshey made a couple quick calls and we went to another restaurant, that we had eaten at previously. It was great - our last chance for chili cheese and other Bhutan specialties. We used the opportunity to give them tips for making our trip so great, this time properly in envelopes (we had picked some up at the paper factory). (On the trek, we didn't learn about the envelopes until we were trekking, and so gave the crew tips in makeshift envelopes made from napkins).

Yeshey was also able to have us checked in ahead of time, so we had prime seats up front on the right side, the best for viewing the Himalayans on our flight.

We said our good-byes to Yeshey and Hasta after 13 days and checked into our flight. Security didn't mind about water bottles through the scanners, which was good cause then we didn't have to buy water at the gate. Exiting immigration was very straightforward, just a few flips through the passport, a stamp and we were through.

We also had no issue with some very large souvenirs we took as carry-on.

The flight left the gate on time. We flew through a different city in India (not Kolkata as on the way here) I forget the name. We had a nice view of the sunset on the 2nd hop.

We touched down in Bangkok about 8pm. It didn't take too long through immigration once we changed to the faster lineup (about 20 minutes). Our luggage was already on the conveyor belt by the time we got through! Getting a taxi was easy enough, just a five minute lineup. However we then hit traffic on the way into downtown, taking us over an hour.

Lots of 'Sabadee, welcome back' as we checked into the Eastin Grand Sathorn. We were upgraded to a fancy suite with a huge bathroom cause we were returning guests. We also got a late check-out of 4pm, as our flight to Colombo didn't depart until 9pm the next day.

It was getting late, almost 10pm after we washed up, so we just headed to the lobby bar for a couple drinks and 'tapas'. The tapas were more a marketing thing as it was just a regular menu. Had some breaded squid and chicken satays, which tasted a bit bland after all the chilies we had become accustomed to in Bhutan :) We chatted about our favourite moments of our just-completed Bhutan trip, and then crashed, quite late for us on this trip.

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Slept in again, and went for breakfast around 9am. It was a lazy morning, as we didn't have much to do except catch up on emails, blog, and go to the 7-Eleven for some toiletries.

Re-packed our backpacks and the left-luggage, which had now grown to five pieces. After the Sri Lanka leg, we'll buy a big suitcase in the market in Bangkok to take everything back home.

It was hot and muggy out (34C) in Bangkok, which after the cool clear air of Bhutan, felt especially warm. We didn't have any get-up-and-go so went to the hotel restaurant for lunch (Luce), which turned out to have excellent Italian food (the chef was Italian too).

We finished our packing, checked out, and went to the lounge to hang out until it was time to leave for the airport. The helpful concierge suggested we check-in online for our flight cause then we could leave later for the airport, and catch the start of happy hour at the hotel (with what's called here as 'free flow' drinks).

The drive to the airport took half the time because it's a public holiday today. Our flight was delayed 30 minutes, but all the extra time was eaten up by the line-ups to exit immigration.

The Sri Lankan Airlines plane was new and very comfortable. It even had in-flight entertainment, which we weren't expecting. Luckily we both watched short movies, cause they collected the headphones with an hour still left in the flight.

It was pretty quick through immigration and luggage collection, less than 20 minutes. We had arranged with the hotel (Taru Villas - Lake Lodge) for airport pickup cause of the late arrival (almost midnight). Our driver was waiting with a nice "Eric D'Souza" sign. Got cash from the ATM (all large bills, $50 CAD equivalent) and we were on our way. The airport is in a neighboring city, 45 minutes from Colombo downtown; but it was quick due to the time of day. The hotel was expecting us (I had emailed about our late check-in). It was almost 1:30am by the time we went to bed, excited about this last leg of our trip.

Paro, Bhutan

We had a traditional breakfast at the farmhouse in Haa. While I love eating local foods wherever we travel, for some reason I've never been able to adapt to a non-western breakfast. But we were at a homestay where it was about the culture, so we gave it a go.

Our hosts had been up very early to prepare a local delicacy, dumplings made with buckwheat flour and filled with minced vegetables. Normally they're served only on special occasions in Bhutan.

The full breakfast included red rice, chilies, a chicken curry, vegetables, and the dumplings, as well as butter tea. It was very good, although I would have enjoyed it more as a lunch :) maybe one day I'll get over my provincial breakfast tastes.

There's not too much to see in Haa, the main tourist attraction are the homestays. Yeshey went to boarding school 15 years ago in Haa, so we walked about town and he pointed out the changes and a bit of the history of the main street.

We also visited two temples. The first one was okay; the second one was amazing because we were fortunate to finally see a ritual in progress. I suspected we might be in luck as we approached the temple, as I saw lots of crocs (the footwear of choice for most monks) outside the door.

The monks sat in opposing rows, with the front rows beating on large drums. A couple monks off to the side blew on low-pitched horns. A monk near the front had thick cymbals. Seated rather sternly at the front was an older head monk. The monks read through their readings in unison, while complex rhythms beat out on the percussion instruments. Yeshey said they studied for over six years before being able to participate in the ritual.

It was very cool to listen to, especially as we were the only tourists. However after about 10 minutes we felt like we were a distraction especially to the younger monks, and that we were imposing by staying much longer, so we left.

We drove back through the 3988m pass, and then descended almost 1800m to Paro. We had lunch, and then got down to the serious business of souvenir shopping.

We had a few things on our list (scripture cards read by monks, cymbals, a large mandala (circular Buddhist painting), masks, and antique butter tea churner). Unfortunately a lot of the items were very pricy - I think there's been a lot of tourists with money to spend in the past, and the vendors have adjusted their prices accordingly. For example older masks were almost $1,000, and mandalas 2'x3' and medium quality were $500.

We did find an antique butter tea churner which was the least likely item I thought we'd find. I guess the low demand for these kept the prices down too. The store did a great job packing it - it's over 40" tall, about 8" diameter. I think we'll be able to take it as carry-on back to Bangkok on DrukAir, but getting it home on Emirates will be trickier.

By 3pm I had reached my shopping limit, and so had Heather. We drove to the Raven's Nest Resort, an upgrade for our last night in Bhutan. You can see Tiger's Nest from the hotel, which sounded way cooler when I booked the place. It's newly opened and they're still figuring things out. Our room was nice, but had oddities like the shower door opening to the side of the bathtub.

Dinner was okay, I had to ask for chillies on the side as their was no spice in the food. The chef made up a Bhutanese-inspired dessert for us, yak cheese in a heated butter-sugar sauce. Yummy, but probably not the healthiest :)

I was concerned that they might not serve beer as Tuesdays are the "National Dry Day"; but they make exceptions in tourists hotels. So we were able to have a Druk Superior Lager to celebrate our fun trip on Bhutan.

Haa, Bhutan

We had another early start at 8am for the 7+ hour drive from Punakha to Haa. We retraced our route from Punakha back to Thimpu, and then to Paro. We had walked from Paro to Thimpu so the views were new to us.

Approaching Paro, we stopped at one of the two original iron bridges left in Bhutan. Back in the 15th century, one of the monks had a vision to build bridges across the rivers. Until then, Bhutan was fractured, separated by the rivers. The monk built many bridges of which only two survive.

We walked across, which was dizzying as the bridge swayed over the running water below. It was also rather rickety. There was a newer bridge that we walked back across. Both bridges were covered with prayer flags.

We had lunch in Paro, and then continued on to Haa. The road passes through Chele La at 3988m, the highest drivable road in Bhutan. It's impassable during the winter months due to snow.

The road down to Haa was recently repaved (very recently - the paving equipment was still on the side of the road) and so it was a much quicker drive than Hasta had thought.

Haa Valley had only recently opened up to tourists. Before that it was off-limits. There's not much to do there - in fact most tourists visit as a long day trip from Paro. It's also possible to do homestays, which is what we did.

We arrived in Haa around 3:30pm. Our hosts had a large farmhouse that was over 200 years old. It allowed us to see inside a typical Bhutanese home.

The centre of action is the kitchen - that's where the wood stove is. There's no chairs - we sat on cushions around the wood stove, had some tea and snacks (roasted rice, popcorn (!), and a deep fried snack we had tried in the Thimpu market). We chatted a bit with our host, with Yeshey doing the translating.

We had another hot stone bath, this one was very relaxing. We watched the process again - red hot stones are taken from the fire, dunked in a bucket to clean off the ash, and then into the bath. They had two baths, which had separators for the stones. They also added some herbs in a larger version of a pot pourri bag. One of the stones exploded on the dunking, which caused a brief moment of excitement, luckily no one was hurt. They had a nice setup where they could add stones from the outside, while Heather and I were inside the bathhouse. We were toasty warm after the bath. It really heats up your core.

Dinner was served in the traditional manner, around the wood stove, with us seated on the cushions. It was excellent, in particular the beef was really tender. They also made one of the better butter teas we've had. It's also typical to eat with your hands; but we stuck with cutlery.

After dinner we had some arra, and then headed to bed around 8:30pm. The sleeping arrangements were also typical - mattresses on the ground, with plenty of blankets. We were warm, but sleeping on the floor still gives us the willies.

Punakha, Bhutan

We checked out of the Norbuling Hotel after breakfast. It was one of the larger laundry bills we've had, but we did wash about half the items in our packs.

The drive from Thimpu to the Dochu La pass (3140m) took about an hour. We were lucky that the sky was clear and so we had great views of the Himalayans, with several peaks over 7000m, including Gangkhar Puensum at 7541m, the highest peak completely in Bhutan.

Our travel agency (Bhutan Travel Club) had arranged for us to spend an hour discussing meditation with a lama. At the pass there is a monastery, and so we spent some time with the resident lama, getting an introduction on Buddhist meditation. It was interesting, although our guide (Yeshey) is really knowledgable and we've learnt quite a bit from him.

We then continued with the drive to Punakha, arriving with enough time to visit Punakha Dzong. This Dzong is one of the highlights of Bhutan, and I was looking forward to seeing it almost as much as Tiger's Nest.

Punakha Dzong sits at the confluence of two rivers, with an old pedestrian bridge leading to the entrance. At this time of year it's home to about 500 monks who winter here (it's one of the warmer cities in Bhutan). The monks provide convenient subjects for pics :)

We spent almost two hours exploring the Dzong and getting the history from Yeshey. It was really cool to see.

That was it for our day. We drove back to the hotel, had a nice dinner and then to bed.

...

We had an early start to the day, meeting Yeshey and Hasta (our driver) at 8am. Breakfast was a buffet, they did have a local honey which tasted great on toast.

First was a short trek up to ? It's supposed to take about an hour, but I think cause we had acclimatized from our trek, we only took 30 minutes. We had great views of the valley below. The rice harvest had just completed, and we could see different groups threshing the rice, putting aside the rice stems for animal feed. Power lines got in the way of some of the pics.

The temple itself was nice, with three levels plus the rooftop with even nicer views. On the 2nd level there was a monk repeating a mantra, while beating on a drum, and occasionally the cymbals. It was cool to listen to him. The monk repeats the mantra every morning and evening to appease the local deities.

Next we visited Nalanda University, a monastic school. Supposedly it's cool to attend a debate, because the monks are very dramatic although they don't raise their voice. It's all in an ancient Tibetan language so we wouldn't understand, but it's more about watching. Unfortunately the monks have exams coming up and so they were all studying, and weren't debating.

We had a picnic lunch at the university, provided in tiffins by our hotel. It included a dried fish dish (we had seen the dried fish a couple days ago in the market and were curious about them). Locals eat the whole fish, bones and all. We just ate around the bones. It was salty (as you'd expect with dried fish) and yummy.

We then visited a nunnery (Khuruthang Goemba), drove to Pana village for some souvenir shopping (we were looking for a little higher quality so didn't buy anything) and finally Chimi Lhakhang, a temple built for the Divine Madman, the nickname of one of the historical religious figures in Bhutan.

It was a long day, and we had a nice relaxing dinner back at our hotel before calling it a night.

Thimpu, Bhutan

It felt great to wake up in a bed after four nights of camping. It was so much easier to get out of bed when it's not below zero outside the blankets.

There were two large groups taking up the rest of the hotel, and the restaurant didn't have enough room to hold everyone eating at once, and so we had to come back down 30 minutes later for our breakfast. Breakfast was pretty good - à la carte, as opposed to the buffet for the groups.

First on the list of touristing for the day was Buddha Dordenma, a 50m tall Buddha overlooking the city. This was quite impressive, even though we've seen some big Buddhas on this trip. The inside will eventually hold 125,000 statues of Buddha, which was about 50% completed and looked cooler to us than Pindaya in Myanmar.

Next was a stupa that you could walk into (one of two in Bhutan). This was okay; the cool part was all the elderly walking around chanting their mantras.

We then visited a heritage museum where we were dressed up in traditional garments and tried out archery (albeit only about 10m, not the 140m in competition). Heather hit the target; I was happy just to not maim anyone.

We rushed to the post office to get there before noon, under the mistaken impression it was Saturday. Turns out it was Friday, so we didn't need to rush. We got personalized stamps made up on the spot - they even have USB cables to connect to my iPhone to download the pic we wanted. Bought some postcards which we'll have to write at some point.

Had lunch, and then visited a couple factories. First was a paper making place that was way more interesting than the one we saw in Myanmar. This one was an actual factory as opposed to a made-for-tourists place.

The incense factory was really cool. I've never put any thought to how incense I made. Well now I know. Various ingredients are made into a pulp, which is squeezed into long strands about 1/4" thick. The workers then roll and cut to the final length, and it's dried in batches on boards. The finished product is packaged in bamboo containers for selling. It was fascinating, and smelled great.

Because it was Friday and not the weekend, we had to wait until 4:30pm to visit Trashi Chhoe Dzong, the highlight of Thimpu. (The king works there until 4:30pm so you can't enter till he goes home).

To pass the time we visited the Weekend Market, a well-organized market. Our guide was great at pointing out the various fruits and vegetable we had eaten. I was thinking it would be useful to have a guide take me through Loblaws or TnT back home in Toronto to explain what everything is. Half then stuff we saw in the market is sold at home, I just had no idea what it was or what to do with it.

Finally it was 4:30 and we went to Trashi Chhoe Dzong. It's an impressive fortress, and we were lucky to see the tail end of the changing of the guard.

For dinner we went to a place a little outside the centre that served momos (dumplings). I first had momos in Tibet about 20 years ago, and had a hankering after seeing a lot of restaurants advertising them. The momos were great, along with a bunch of other dishes.

Back at our hotel we crashed pretty early, around 9:30pm. I suppose this was late compared to the 8pm on the trek, it's all relative.

Druk Path Trek - Day 5

It snowed on-and-off throughout the night. The wind would pick up and flap the snow / rain every so often, a sound we weren't used to, and so it would wake us up. We were lucky that during our trek it didn't rain / snow and there weren't high winds.

I got out of the tent around 6am, to check out how bad the trail was based on all the precipitation. It wasn't too bad - just a coating of snow on the ground - I think our imaginations from all the sounds got the better of us.

The trekking crew was up early too, and we had breakfast, packed up, and started off by 7:30am.

First we checked out the nearby Phajoding Goemba. The sun was melting the snow on the roof which looked like rain falling from the inside.

The trek down to Thimpu was pretty easy. It was through tall pines, and the fallen needles provided a nice cushion on the ground for walking. The smell reminded us of Christmas. The 700m descent took us about 1.5 hours.

Our driver was waiting for us at the pick-up point. Along the way to our hotel we drove by the Takin Reserve and spotted some takin, the national animal of Bhutan.

It felt great to finally shower after five days of trekking. We gave three bags of laundry to the hotel, containing all of our trekking clothes. We had saved a clean set of clothes to wear when we finished the trek, almost everything else was dirty.

We had lunch at the hotel, a little bit of a let down after the great food we had on the trek.

We had asked our guide, Yeshey, while on the trek, if it was possible to arrange another hot stone bath at the end of the trek. He had suggested going to the home of our trekking guide, Sunam, which we agreed to, as it would be a more authentic experience.

Sunam's place was about 30 minutes outside the city. His house was a five-minute climb up paths from the road. I guess that's not unusual here so no-one mentioned it; but we were in our clean set of clothes. Anyways, it's all part of the adventure :)

We thought we would head straight to the hot stone bath. But first we had to have tea and snacks. We were then fortunate to watch the whole process. River rocks were heated in a fire until red-hot, then quickly dunked in a pail of water to get rid of the ash, then placed in the tub. It took a while to heat the rocks, and so we were offered arra (a home distilled drink from wheat). We then learned customs around drinking - first you dip your ring finger in the drink and flick it in the air three times, say cheers ('le jembay dja'), and then you have to add a little more to your glass after the first sip.

The arra wasn't too strong (I would guess about the same as wine) so the full glass they poured us didn't impact us too much.

Eventually the water was hot enough and so I went first. In the commercial hot stone bath we had in Paro, there was a wooden separator between the bath and the rocks, with holes for the heated water to flow. In a backyard hot stone bath, there's no such niceties, and we were instructed how to lie down without burning ourselves on the stones. It started to cool down and so I asked for another stone; this sizzled under water for almost five minutes. It really heated up the water.

Next was Heather's turn. They replaced all the rocks in between, but Heather is okay with a hotter bath.

By the time we were done it was dark, and we descended the path back to the car using our smartphones. (We had originally thought we'd done by 4:30pm so hadn't planned for flashlights).

Dinner was supposed to be at the hotel, but based on our mediocre lunch experience, and the fact that we were in the capital with the best opportunity for non-Burmese, instead went to a pizza place. Our guide and driver picked us up from the hotel and drove us there. They were going to wait around until we were done and then drive us back, but we were just a 10 minute walk away so we convinced then we'd be okay, and so they were able to have the rest of the night to relax (our guide had started the day trekking just like us).

The pizza was pretty good. We chatted about the trek and had a couple Druk Lagers, then walked back to the hotel to sleep in a bed for the first time in five nights.

Druk Path Trek - Day 4

The sun didn't hit our campsite until 8am so we stayed in our sleeping bags until 7am. It was so cold overnight that the water in our water bottles froze inside the tent! Although we were quite warm in our sleeping bags.

I got up to see the view, and also to see if I could spot some blue sheep with the great curved horns in the sun at the top of the mountain. I saw some animals, but they turned out to be yaks.

Yesterday we had seen some blue sheep in the last stretch before camp. However we were so focused on getting to camp while it was still in the sun that I didn't stop to take out my camera and take pictures. Earlier in the day we also saw pheasants and Oriental turtle doves.

I took some pics in the morning of the yaks at about the same distance we had seen the blue sheep, about 500m above us at the crest of the mountain. At that distance the yaks looked like blurs, barely recognizable as animals. So it's just as well i didn't try to take pics of the blue sheep - we wouldn't have seen the horns at all.

Today's walk was shorter, and as we were adjusting to the altitude, a little easier too. We crossed a number of passes between 4,000m and 4,200m. There were some flat stretches (finally!) that were more our style of trekking.

Lunch was yummy (tuna cooked with onions and garlic, with rice and vegetables). I was impressed that it took until Day 4 to get into tuna - based on our last trekking experience in Ethiopia I was expecting tuna or boiled eggs for every meal. But on this trek we haven't had the same thing twice yet, including breakfasts!

We reached the final pass at 4150m and had a great view of Thimpu in the valley below. Our camp was near Phajoding Goemba, an organized campsite with washroom facilities. It felt strange to have other people around after trekking with just our group the past few days. The last stretch from the pass to the campsite was very steep (more than 45* at places). It took us an hour to descend at our knees were pretty sore, even with using poles.

Our whole trek we had been followed by 4-5 rather healthy-looking dogs. They latch onto a group because they get the leftovers from meals. They follow a group one way, and then catch another group going back the other way. Because we're getting out of busy season there wasn't another group going back, so the dogs just hung out at the Monaatery. Animals are well-loved in Bhutan so they should be okay.

We had our last dinner cooked by our trekking chef, which was excellent again. We chatted with the crew - they had all completed the Snowman Trek, supposedly the hardest trek in the world. Our trekking guide, Sunam, had done it three times!

We went to bed around 7:30pm. Just in time too, as it started snowing (more like small snow pellets) at 9pm and continued through the night.

Druk Path Trek - Day 3

We didn't sleep well, maybe because it was too hot in the double sleeping bags. At 6am I got out of the tent, it was still about 30 minutes before the sun would reach us, but again I couldn't stay in a sleeping bag that long. The view was great - we were above the clouds, and everything was covered with frost. Eventually the sun came up, and melted the frost. We warmed up and had breakfast - porridge, scrambled eggs, toast. Yummy.

We started today's trek heading up to 4,100m, and then spent the next three hours up and down between 4,000m and 4,100m. It was very tiring, although a beautiful path to trek. There wasn't a cloud in the sky.

I wore my trekking pants, a longsleeved base layer top, a neck gator and sun hat, and was quite comfortable. When we stopped for lunch I put on my fleece to keep warm. The temperature was maybe 10C (?).

In a bowl between two passes we saw a couple prepping and drying a plant that is used as incense. It grows wild above 3,500m. Our guide spoke with them, they sell large sacks of the dried plant for 700 Nu in India (about $12). They were okay with me taking photos so I took a bunch.

We finally reached our lunch spot after three hours, a great viewpoint of the valley and the Himalayans. Lunch was a hot lunch again (!).

We then descended to 3,600m to a lake, and then up the other side of a valley, around a bend, finally to our campsite at 3,800m. It faced west, so caught the late afternoon sun. It was a long walk today - 11km over 6 hours 15 minutes mostly above 4,000m, and we were exhausted.

Dinner was excellent, and then we had another campfire. We were at a lesser-used campsite (it's more common to camp at the lake we passed earlier, but this campsite was better if you can reach it). There were semi-nomadic locals nearby, from whom I think we bought some firewood.

We chatted with our guide, tried to learn some more Bhutanese, and went to bed around 8:30pm.

Druk Path Trek - Day 2

It was freezing cold out (although we were nice and toasty in our sleeping bags) but my back was sore from sleeping for 11 hours so got up around 6:30am, just as the sun was hitting our campsite. It felt good warming up in the sun.

Breakfast was really good - cereal with hot milk, then omelettes with sausages and toast. There was even peanut butter! There was a large thermos filled with boiling water and lots of tea, coffee or hot chocolate to go around. (At almost every occasion the thermos would make an appearance - I've never drank so much tea in my life). Anyways lots of energy to keep us going on the trek.

We walked up past the Jili Dzong to a peak. Before we left for the trek, we had purchased prayer flags in Paro, for Heather, me, and our Moms. The colour of the prayer flags depends on when you were born. It's similar to the Chinese calendar, except there's also an element attached which determines the colour. I was born in the year of the Iron Dog so my flags were white. There's 10 flags, each about 8"x10", with the same prayer written on each. The belief is that the prayer is said when it flaps in the wind.

Heather's flags were green; Heather's Mom was the Iron Horse so also white. There's a different prayer (for compassion) for those who are passed away, and always white, for my Mom.

The guides strung the flags for Heather, me and Heather's Mom, and then attached to wooden poles about 20' tall. The poles were then places in post holes. My Mom's flags went on a separate set of poles.

It was cool to see the flags flying in the wind, overlooking Paro Valley with 7,000m peaks in the distance. My Mom always liked traveling, and liked that Heather and I travel, so we though it was very appropriate.

We continued on the trek, along a ridge overlooking Paro Valley. There were many ups and downs, between 3,800 and 4,050m. The altitude affected us a bit, we got tired easily. But no headaches.

Lunch was a hot lunch again, rice, meat, vegetables, fruit for dessert. The cook sure knew what he was doing. It was tasty and nutritious.

We reached camp around 3pm, on a east facing side of a range, at 3,600m. Once again we were the only group at the site. It got cold quickly once the sun disappeared behind the hill. Because we were the only group, we were able to have a campfire with dead wood gathered by the trekking crew. (It's a safety concern if there's a lot of tents).

Dinner was excellent, and then we huddled around the campfire and looked at the stars in the sky. We even saw a shooting star! I had thoughts about waiting for the moonrise, but then realized that I'd have to wait until 9:30pm, so instead we called it a night around 8pm.

Druk Path Trek - Day 1

Yesterday walk to Tiger's Nest was a good warm-up for our 5-day trek from Paro to Thimpu. Before roads were built in the 70's, the Druk Path trek was the "road" between the two cities.

We had separated our stuff into two packs, one that the driver would take to Thimpu, and the other to be carried by horses as we trekked.

It took about 30 minutes to drive to the starting point, at about 2500m, above the National Museum. There we met our trekking crew: a trekking guide, a cook, and the horse person. Yeshey (our guide for the whole trip) also joined us, so there were four people and five horses just for the two of us.

Today's walk was 1,100m up to Jili Dzong, which overlooks Paro Valley.

The first hour was along an unpaved road, although only one vehicle passed us so it wasn't dusty. We started around 10:30am, and looked to be the only group starting this trek today (it's shoulder season).

After the hour we broke off onto the old paths, now used primarily by tourists and their entourages. It was a very scenic walk through pine. It was a great temperature for trekking - about 14C or so.

Lunch was a hot lunch, rice with chicken and a couple vegetable dishes. The trekking guide carried the food in tiffins in an insulated container.

We reached camp around 1:30pm, early enough that we had time to visit Jili Dzong. It had been impacted by the 2011 earthquake, but a benefactor was paying to have it restored. The temple inside was completed, and so we heard the history.

We walked down to camp (at 3500m, about 75m below Jiii Dzong). We were very impressed with our tour operator (Bhutan Tour Club). There were three tents set up, one for Heather and I to sleep in, another for eating (which doubled as the tent for the guide and cook; the other trekking crew slept near the horses away from camp), and a kitchen. The equipment was all pretty new and designed for the temperatures we would face (about -5C at night). We had two sleeping bags each, Marmots rated for -20C, so we were plenty warm at night.

We only got cold between sunset and getting into the tents. Dinner was at 6pm, multiple courses with plenty of nutritional value, and tasty. They even gave us a hot water bottle to warm up after dinner! We stayed up for a few more minutes, then took them to warm up the sleeping bags. We were asleep before
7pm.

Paro, Bhutan

The flight to Paro departed at 6:50am from Bangkok so we had a wake up call at 3:30am (ugh). The traffic was pretty good at 4am though.

We flew on Druk Air, one of the few airlines with pilots licensed to land at Paro. It's a difficult approach through Paro Valley to the airport.

The flight stopped down first in Kolkata, where half the passengers turned over. I was surprised that that many people boarded, but then remembered that India was one of the regional countries that didn't pay the high visa fees.

For the rest of the world, Bhutan charges about $250 USD per person per day. (I say 'about' cause there's discounts for offseason and premiums for smaller groups). However that includes everything - hotel, guides, food, trekking, everything. You don't need to bring money - but it's useful for souvenirs, tipping, and beer. (It's like an all-inclusive cruise, except reasonable prices for drinks). Each group also gets a guide assigned for the whole trip - something I wasn't too keen on prior, but it's mandatory. The visa fees include a mid-range hotel, but it's possible to upgrade if you want (we did for a couple nights).

Anyways I had booked through Bhutan Travel Club (BTC) way back in June, based on reviews in tripadvisor. It's a little disconcerting sending bank drafts based on email correspondence, but the internet said BTC was good and if you can't trust the internet who can you trust.

Anyways so we had a nice view of the Himalayas on the flight to Paro, seated on the left side per advice from BTC. Maybe we saw Everest, I took some pics that we tried to match up in Google, but the peaks look different depending on your point of reference.

It was really quick through immigration (they didn't even look at the print out of our visas - we must have been on a list), picked up our luggage (our packs were now very large because of the addition of winter clothes), and met our tour guide, Yeshey, who was waiting with a 'Heather / Eric Paul' sign.

Our driver (we have a driver for the full trip too) whisked us off to the Gangtley Palace in Paro, about a 10 minute drive. The hotel was originally a palace that's now converted to a hotel. Our room had a lot of character, and a great view of the Paro Dzong across the valley.

We had lunch in a local restaurant, served family style. The rice here is a red rice, probably much healthier than white rice. Chilies are very much part of the diet on Bhutan, but for tourists they make dishes non-spicy. I tried the one chili dish, and it was very hot.

It felt like dinner cause we were up so early, but we still had an afternoon of sightseeing. Went to the National Museum and then to Paro Dzong. Our guide was excellent. Not enough to switch me over to having a guide everywhere, but if it's mandatory to have a guide, he's the kind of guide I would want.

The Dzong (fortress) was really cool. You have to see Dzongs in person - pics don't really capture the feel. Apparently the Paro Dzong was where 'The Little Buddha' was filmed, for those Keanu Reeve fans out there.

We could have done some more touristing before dinner but we were beat, so rested up for a couple hours in our room. Dinner was good, the restaurant had nice panoramic views of the valley. Watched the moon rise over the far hills. It rose so fast that I didn't have time to get my camera.

...

We were up early for breakfast, excited cause today we were going to see Tiger's Nest Monastery (Taktshang Goemba). Heather's wanted to see Tiger's Nest for a long time, even before it starting showing up on lists when you google cool places to see.

Our driver and guide picked us up at 8am and we drove to the start point of the trek up, about 30 minutes west from Paro. Unlike other sites that you trek to, you can actually see the final destination from the start point.

It took us just under two hours (including a stop for tea and cookies at the restaurant at the halfway point, with nice views of Tiger's Nest). There's a few viewpoints along the way to take pics. The last part now has proper steps and a railing, so it's not a dangerous walk at all.

Tiger's Nest was really cool to see, and got better the closer we got.

At the entrance you have to check your bags and cameras, and there's a security pat-down. It's a very holy site for Bhuddists. As with Myanmar you have to remove your shoes, but in Bhutan you can keep your socks on. Good thing too, cause it was pretty cold inside.

The inside is a series of connected structures, a mix between inside and outside (so the temperature throughout is the outside temperature). There are eight temples inside, of which we visited four. Our guide gave us the history of each as we visited. I was starting to shiver near the end cause my feet were cold (if you remember we had just climbed from 2500 to 3100m).

We had lunch at the restaurant half way down, so had lots more time to look at the view.

We then drove to a couple more sites: the oldest Dzong in Paro and a fortress ruin which looked like a castle.

We had a traditional hot stone bath before dinner which felt great (we had been fairly inactive over the past few days so we were a bit sore from today's little trek).

Had a couple beers (Red Panda, a weiss beer) with dinner to celebrate seeing Tiger's Nest. It was cloudy so we didn't see the moon rise - I had brought my camera this time just in case.

Bangkok, Thailand

Bangkok was more of a rest stop between trips, so we didn't plan much touristing. It was also pretty hot (35C) so we didn't want to spend all day outside.

Our hotel is in the business district, with direct access to a BTS stop. It was easy to catch a skytrain (60¢) to the river, and then by ferry ($1.60) to the historical area where most of the tourist sites are located.

We went first to see the 50m gold reclining Buddha in Wat Pho. The buildings were pretty ornate and very bright and colourful. There was a big difference in tourism numbers between Myanmar and Thailand - in Yangon we had a similar site to ourselves, here I queued to get the right position for a picture. And forget about tourist-free pictures - here the main objective was not getting my eye poked out from a selfie stick.

Unfortunately the feet of Buddha were undergoing restoration, as the inscriptions on the soles are the coolest part. Still, a 50m long gold Buddha is pretty impressive. The interior of the building housing Buddha was also cool, with murals and carvings filling the walls and ceiling.

We then wandered through random streets to the flower market, about 2km away. Our wandering wasn't completely random thanks to the offline maps and GPS (I'm using tripadvisor for offline maps).

Along the way we stopped in a local restaurant that served bbq'd pork. The chef was chopping the pork in the front and they had the biggest rice cooker I've ever seen (about 3' diameter). Anyways it looked like their specialty was rice with bbq'd pork, so we had an order each. It was delicious. Although, and I've said this before, we're spoiled for food choices in Toronto because it's easy to get similar quality back home.

Continued walking and sampled some more streetfood, pork satays right from the grill, and a fried dough bite-sized treat filled with condensed milk, corn and green onion. We really enjoyed our little walk, as it was largely tourist-free.

The flower market was huge. There's a festival tonight where people float elaborate flower offerings on the river, so it was busier than usual; but it's busy every day. The flower vendors filled up the sidewalks and spilled out into the streets.

We caught the river ferry back home, with some difficulty in finding the port.

We cleaned up and went for happy hour in the hotel lounge on the 32nd floor. Being city folk, there was something comforting about seeing major streets filled with car lights.

Later we checked out the night market a couple skytrain stops down from us. The sidewalks were just filling up with vendors (we had lucky timing as it poured rain before and after we went out). They had pretty decent quality stuff (per Heather).

...

The next day was similar, just different sites.
We went only to see the Grand Palace today, which is the top tourist site in Bangkok. It houses the Emerald Buddha (actually made from jade), but today was the ceremony to switch from summer to winter clothes so that particular temple was closed.

We were almost crushed by the busloads of tourists, with almost all of them waving selfie sticks about. We must have hit a wave of them when we first arrived because there was no room to move, but after a while it got a bit better.

Despite the overwhelming number of tourists it was still cool to see, even more colourful and grander and elaborate than Wat Pho.

On the way back to the ferry we passed through the Amulet Market. They sell little amulets (duh) to collectors that search through the tables filled with little Buddha heads and other designs, peering through magnifying glasses for a rare find. It was interesting to see.

We had an early morning flight to Paro the next day (wake up call at 3:30am) so took it easy after dinner and just went to bed.

Bangkok, Thailand

The Myanmar Andaman Resort folks dropped us off at the Victoria Cliff Hotel around 10am. Fortunately we were able to check in that early. Even though we were in a smallish town there was a feeling that we were no longer remote.

We took an expensive hotel taxi ($10) back to the jetty and walked around Kawthoung. It's a cute little town. Walked through the market, saw the clock tower, had a Myanmar tea, looked for an ATM (found one but it wasn't working), had some freshly made samosas. The day was getting too hot for us so we got a three-wheeler back to the hotel. This was a bit of an effort as at the jetty they're more used to tourists from Thailand making a border run to renew their Thai visas, and those tourists just want the two hour tour of Kawthoung before heading back across the border. We had to get the taxi driver to keep on driving towards our hotel, we finally got there.

Lazed about until evening and then watched another beautiful sunset from the lounge.

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The next morning we had a mid-afternoon flight back to Yangon, but the hotel advised we should get there early in case the flight left early. They also made 8 (!) photocopies of our passport cause they said we would be asked by for them by immigration (even though it was a domestic flight). We ended up using just 2 copies but I guess it was good to have in case.

Got the tasty shortbread cookies again on the first leg to Dawei. In Yangon took the long taxi ride through traffic back to our same hotel. Went for dinner at Union Bar cause it was late and we weren't motivated to try a new place.

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After breakfast we went to check out the 66m reclining Buddha at Chauk Htat Gyi Pagoda. It was impressive even though we were out-pagoda'd.

We would have liked to go to Scott Market for souvenirs but it's closed on Mondays. So walked downtown checking out art galleries and the like. Ended up at a crafts store near the Strand Hotel that had really good stuff at reasonable prices. We stocked up on our souvenirs.

Heather had spotted a cool-looking cafe (Ragoon Tea House) so we went there for lunch. It was excellent, in a hip exposed-brick atmosphere. We liked it so much we made reservations for dinner and returned later that evening.

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A long travel day brought us back to Bangkok. First a 75-minute taxi to the airport in Yangon. No problems through immigration, nor with the multiple carry-on bags of souvenirs. The flight itself was just over an hour. Then a 90-minute taxi to our hotel in Bangkok (Eastin Grand Sathorn).

We have a couple days here before we head off to Bhutan. Looks like there's more than enough in Bangkok to keep us occupied.

Macleod Island, Myanmar

Breakfast was standard at the Victoria Cliff Hotel. They did have bacon, and didn't mind when we asked to have it "extra crunchy".

We were picked up at 11am by the Myanmar Andaman Resort folks for the 6km drive to the jetty in Kawthoung. There was another couple in the car who had just been picked up at the airport. (The next day we found out that Victoria and Chad were from Vancouver :) )

At the jetty we transferred to the very nice speedboat owned by the resort. There were 14 of us headed over: Victoria and Chad, a couple from Germany, two British guys, and a group of 6 Russians traveling with a guide.

The water was glasslike for the two hour ride pretty much due west from Kawthoung. I had an offline map of the islands so could trace our path as we went. Macleod Island is at the western-most edge of the islands in the Myeik Archipelago, almost in the open sea.

The approach to the resort is really cool. The island is shaped like an upside U, and the resort is inside the cove formed by the U. The water was even more still inside, protected from the larger waves. The resort is tucked in behind the long beach at the end, with 8 beach front cabins and 14 cabins behind.

The whole resort crew came out to greet the boat (they work on the island for the full 8 month season). A welcome drink and short intro from our host, Mr Win, and then we were showed to our cabins.

We had a yummy lunch (the chef was amazing), and then walked down the beach to the dive center to get snorkeling gear. We just snorkeled out from shore, although there wasn't much to see so close. But still, we were in the water :)

The cabins were large and clean but pretty basic. The did have a/c and a mosquito net over the bed so it was comfortable at night.

This is one of the more remote places I've been to, and they had wifi with decent speed. So I'm not going to ever say again that we're headed to a place without wifi, cause I'm always wrong.

We had a drink at the bar before dinner, and then enjoyed a 4-course dinner with salmon for the main. The dessert was labeled as "calamari pudding" which confused us at the bar, but it turned out to be caramel pudding lost in translation.

The next morning we were up at 6am so we walked along the beach, watching the hermit crabs disappear into their shells when we approached, but scurrying about in the distance.

We went for breakfast early. The usual breakfast, plus croissants that weren't too bad, especially considering that they have to bake everything themselves.

I went diving later in the morning. The first dive was just for the divemaster to evaluate us, and was inside the cove and not terribly exciting.

Typically on a dive excursion you spend about 45 minutes getting to the dive site, so you'll do two dives while you're out there. However cause we're already so remote, the dive sites are only 5-10 minutes away and so we just returned back after each dive. It was also quite nice not to have 10 other dive groups at every site, like safari jeeps around a lion. Just me, one of the British guys, and the divemaster.

The 2nd dive wasn't until 2pm so Heather and I took a kayak out to one of the other beaches in the cove. The resort wasn't visible so it really felt like we had a secluded beach all to ourselves. (Which, we did).

After lunch I went for another dive, this one at a tiny island just outside the cove. The currents were strong here, and I spent a bit of effort just trying to maintain my buoyancy and not drift into the wall. Anyways there was lots more to see here, nothing checklistable but still cool to see.

The dive itself was 45 minutes; shore to shore was just over an hour.

I was really hungry at dinner, which was excellent again, tonight we had seafood curry for the main with lots of squid.

On Friday we were supposed to go on a boat ride around the island (the resort does this every week). However I woke up feeling like I was getting a cold, and as we have a lot more travel to go, decided just to take it easy and stay at the resort. It was a relaxing day, reading in our hammocks, jumping in the sea when it got too hot.

Lunch was excellent (fish grilled perfectly plus a chef salad). In the afternoon we watched one of the local fishing boats (the waters are populated by sea people who I don't think have a nationality - they go between Thailand and Myanmar waters) come into shore to trade some fish and fill up their fresh water barrels. The episode took over an hour, by then it was time to shower and head to the bar. Dinner was again excellent, including squid tempura.

The next morning we were up early (5am) to catch the speedboat back to the mainland. Some of the other guests had a 10am flight to catch, we were staying in Kawthoung for the night so didn't have to rush, except there's only one boat :)

I'm glad we took the side trip to Macleod Island as it was cool to have an island (almost an archipelago) to ourselves (+ about 10 others). The only place I've been to that was similar was when JP and I found a little beach place in Zanzibar after climbing Kilimanjaro.

Kawthoung, Myanmar

The flight from Yangon to Kawthoung stopped down in Dawei. I was surprised that the jet was filled, although we were the only westerners on the 2nd leg. We got served very tasty shortbread cookies for a snack!

Kawthoung is about south as you can get in Myanmar. A little further south on the peninsula and you're in the very busy Thai resorts at Phuket and Krabi. For now the Myeik Archipelago in Myanmar is empty of tourists, but that will quickly change. There's also only two hotels / resorts in the whole place.

Our destination is the Myanmar Andaman Resort on Macleod Island, a 90-minute ride by speedboat, where we'll have 3 nights. We have an overnight on each end in Kawthoung.

Our hosts at the Thahara had warned us to be careful with the food in Kawthoung, so we didn't have high expectations on the tourist infrastructure. Based on the advertising in the airport, the Victoria Cliffside Hotel seemed the place to stay (and where we had booked on Agoda). At least we didn't have any issues explaining where we were staying to the immigration folks (who photocopied our passports) or to get a taxi.

Our taxi was in the back of a truck, so I couldn't see much. It's a common made of transport here. As we turned into the hotel, I could see the grounds, and they looked pretty nice. We transferred to a golf cart (always a good sign) to take us up a small hill to the lobby. The hotel had amazing views of the Andaman Sea! This was way better than what we were expecting!

Turns out they've just soft launched after doing major renovations, my guess is in anticipation of the coming tourist boom. For now though, there were just a handful of other guests (enough so it wasn't creepy empty like the time we stayed at the salt hotel in Bolivia). The surrounding islands are completely untouched!

We had lunch (pad thai - there's more Thai influence here than Burmese). We had plans to read but instead ended up just watching the scenery. The sunset was amazing.

Had a nice dinner under the stars and called it a night. Not a bad place at all to kill a night in transit!

Tomorrow we go even more remote, to Macleod Island, for diving and snorkeling.

Yangon, Myanmar

The flight from Heho (near Pindaya) to Yangon stopped down in Bagan and so we had another view of the temples from the plane. We knew where to look now so they were easy to spot.

In Yangon they're constructing an overpass from the airport to town, so traffic is a mess now. It takes over an hour to get to and from the airport, which I think would normally be a 15 minute drive. We get to do this a few more times, yay.

We had a view of Shwedagon Pagoda from our room again, but now that we've seen similar pagodas everywhere in Myanmar it didn't seem as impressive.

It was an admin day as we caught up on emails etc in the afternoon, and then went for a dinner nearby.

...

I had left a week unplanned at the of trip in Myanmar. I had roughly planned seeing more temples in towns near Yangon, but we're out-templed and instead looked for some beach time. The southeast area on the Andaman Sea has been off-limits to tourists for a long time, and has just started to open up. There's just two hotels/resorts in all of the Myeik Archipelago - and one of them, the Myanmar Andaman Resort, just recently reopened after renovations. So we booked into the place for three nights.

The resort is on Macleod Island, a 90 minute speedboat ride west from Kawthoung. It's pretty remote!

Kawthoung is only accessible by air for foreigners. There's only four hotels listed in tripadvisor so we booked the top one, which just seemed to be the least bad of the lot (and that was based on only two reviews).

We had to find the Myanmar Andaman Resort office in Yangon to pay cash (they didn't take credit card). We had the street address and also that it was beside KBZ Bank. Unfortunately there's a KBZ Bank every ten feet (or so it seems). After entering a bunch of wrong buildings we finally found the office. The person we needed to talk with wasn't in yet, but they called her and said she'd be there in 30 minutes. They offered us tea and coffee while we waited. The person arrived and we paid, no problems.

We wandered around looking at the big old colonial buildings in downtown Yangon, and then had lunch at the trendy Union Bar. It was so good we made reservations for dinner.

We wanted to visit the Bogyoke Market (aka Scott Market), supposed to be the best place for souvenirs, but it's closed Mondays. Unfortunately when we return it will be on a Monday again, so we we'll miss the market.

Had dinner at Union Bar, just a $3 taxi ride from our hotel. I'm still staying to western food for now, had the braised beef. It's odd to have people smoking in restaurants but they're still a bit old fashioned that way here still.

Pindaya, Myanmar

I was still pretty sick from lunch the day before, but managed to get myself together for the flight to Pindaya. The airport in Mandalay is way out of town - over an hour drive. We checked in with just our web receipt on my iPhone - didn't even need to show ID. There's no assigned seats, just board the plane and seat yourself. We had lots of carry-on bags thanks to all the souvenirs we had bought but there were no issues, and lots of overhead space for them.

The flight itself was really quick, 35 minutes. They did take time to serve a drink :)

We had booked with Thahara for our stay in Pindaya. They were fairly new when I booked (only 8 reviews in tripadvisor at the time) but had an established sister hotel that got great reviews so figured we'd be okay.

Thahara Pindaya has five guest rooms in a farmhouse-type building outside Pindaya, surrounded by farmer's fields. It's really upscale inside, with the best beds and duvets we've had on this trip. Pindaya is at 1500m or so with very pleasant weather - highs of 22C and lows of 12C at night at this time of year.

Thahara offers an all-inclusive 3-day package including full board, excursions and airport pickup, which we had signed up for, and so there was someone with a nice little sign with "Eric D'Souza and Heather Murray" waiting to pick us up.

I was sick and so missed the scenic hour-long drive to the hotel. We even passed by a cattle market that I didn't get any pics of.

We reached the hotel around noon, just in time for lunch. It's a family-run place, with the best cooking we've had. I picked a really good place to get better! They made me congee for lunch and a chicken noodle soup for dinner; Heather had the normal meals which were ginormous and way too much food.
By the next morning I was feeling much better and ready for sightseeing. We had some leisure time in the morning and spent it catching up on our books, in the sunlight-filled common area overlooking rolling fields.

We actually cooked our own lunch! One of the activities we signed up for was a cooking class. Our host (Aye Aye) had done all the prep work - I did have to cut up some garlic and shallots, but the rest was adding to pots and stirring. (Maybe not 'cooking our own lunch' per se, but still) Made a chicken-based broth (her secret is to use skinless chicken neck for flavour), a chicken curry, all added on top of Shan noodles. While everything was simmering we munched on freshly-made fried pork rinds with a lime soda to wash it down.

After lunch we drove out to see Shwe Oo Min Cave, which has been filled with thousands of statues of Bhuddha over the years. It's supposed to be one of the highlights of Myanmar according to the Rough Guide. We thought it was okay. I had pictured a natural limestone cave floor; however the path is tiled and all the remaining floorspace is taken up by statues, with wiring all about for lighting and cctv. Didn't have much aura to it at all.

The small villages that we drove through were really picturesque, we liked that part better than the cave. Stopped in a couple workshops where crafts were made by hand. The paper making one was touristy, although it was cool to see how fast the guy could turn a piece of bamboo into an umbrella handle. Less touristy was the textile place where we placed an order for 12 napkins for pickup tomorrow ($6). Also watched cigars being rolled using cocoa leaves, and were offered a couple samples for free (!).

We had a couple of cocktails just after the sunset. Aye Aye's husband said they were "light" but I think now that he was referring to the flavour and not the alcohol content.

Dinner was excellent, now that I could actually eat. Over the three days we stayed here, Aye Aye served us something different every meal, all traditional Shan dishes. Very yummy.

...

We were up early the next morning (actually, at 6am, our normal waking time this trip) so that we could participate in the daily alms offering. Every morning, the students at the monastery walk through the villages with bowls in hand. A younger student walks a couple minutes ahead banging on a metal pot. Villagers come out and offer food to the students (they're not allowed to ask for food, so this is the system).
So we parked on the corner, and Aye Aye gave us large bowls of rice, with instructions for one scoop to each student. Both of us found this oddly stressful. The students file by fairly quickly, and it's not that easy to spoon rice equally without having any spill out the side. Anyways we made it through without any faux pas.

Aye Aye had to go to the morning market so we wandered through while she picked up a few groceries for dinner. Then it was back to the farmhouse for breakfast, more leisure time, lunch, and then the afternoon excursion to a Heritage House.

We weren't sure what to expect with the Heritage House. It was a big old house built over 100 years ago. What made it interesting was the owner, Rosie. She's about 80 and was a former history professor at various universities in Myanmar. She was full of stories as she took us through the house. Her father was knighted (or something, it wasn't clear from the picture) by the British / Indian something way back when, so now Rosie's treated as royalty.

Next we visited another very old house, this one over 200 years. The owners (not sure how old they were, maybe 80 as well) had moved into a more modern house on the property. The old house was still standing to visit; the doors were much shorter than today (about 5' high). It was made of teak and most of the wood was still original.

Back home, we freshened up and then had a pre-dinner drink at sundown. Dinner was excellent again, grilled chicken breast and grilled vegetables, mostly from Aye Aye's garden. We had our cigars after to finish off the meal which were pretty mild and fresh, looking at all the stars, our last night in Pindaya. Tomorrow we head back to Yangon by plane.

Mandalay, Myanmar

Our last day in Mandalay was mostly rainy so we didn't do much. Based on the forecast it was supposed to stop raining for a few hours after lunch so we booked a driver to visit Inwa.

Lazed around most of the morning in our hotel room, then went out in the rain for lunch. We had tired of most of the places near us, so tried out Shan Ma Ma, a restaurant serving Shan food (as you could probably guess from the name). Shan food in restaurants is typically served buffet style, so we've been avoiding it, but we figured for lunch it would be fresh. It's also an open air restaurant which makes it more street-food level hygiene. Anyways we weren't really impressed, and I think it was why I got sick later on that evening.

After lunch the rain cleared up just in time for our excursion (yay weather forecast). It's about a 45 minute drive south to the jetty, and then a 5 minute (if that) boat ride across the Ayeyarwady to Inwa.

On the Inwa side, a million horse-drawn carriages were waiting to take us on the 90 minute tour of Inwa (it's the thing to do here). The track was really muddy from the rain and horses. The ride started off a bit bumpy but then we got to gravel / paved roads and it was smoother.
Saw a bunch of temples and pagodas. We needed to show the multi-day pass we had bought a few days ago to visit some sites. There was nothing special, (I took my camera out as a courtesy), but it was an okay way to spend the afternoon.

Took the ferry back across to where out driver was waiting, drove back to the hotel and so ended our touristing of Mandalay and area.
Towards dinner I started feeling not so well !(see lunch). Heather was okay so I joined her for dinner but didn't eat.

Mandalay, Myanmar

We had planned a day trip to Mingun, a short boat ride up the Ayeyarwady, but after reading more about it (and having spent a full day on the river) decided instead to check out the jade market in town.

We walked down to the market on the busy roads (there's no sidewalks here). The streets are numbered in Mandalay which makes it easy to get around, except the Rough Guide had marked it incorrectly on their map. Fortunately the hotel map had it right, a couple blocks away.

We saw most of the finishing process for jade. Cut pieces are shaped and polished on foot-powered grindstones, holding the jade with one hand and constantly splashing water with the other.

It was more of a jade production center and wholesale market than a tourist market. We saw some bulk buyers (I'm guessing store owners) carefully examining the pieces with penlights over white tableclothes. There were a couple small stalls selling to tourists and we stopped into one to try to understand what made a better quality piece of jade. A high quality piece was priced about 10 times a similar low quality. Aside from generally being more consistent in colour, I couldn't really tell. Plus I thought the low quality ones looked better.

Anyways it was pretty interesting to see.

We had a late lunch at the top-rated restaurant from tripadvisor, Bistro 82, just up the street from our hotel. It served mostly western food, and we just wanted a break from the heavily-oiled local food. At first we thought it was just us, but anyone we've met who's commented on the local food had found it very heavy in cooking oil too. The food at Bistro 82 was great, although it charges western prices so we won't be eating there very often.

...

The next day we took a day trip to Pyin Oo Lwin, a hill station about 90 minutes from Mandalay. It's at about 1000m and somewhat cooler, and less polluted. (Mandlay's pretty polluted, I would think thanks to the high volume of motorbikes and old trucks on the roads). Pyin Oo Lwin was recommended by my friend Elaine who had visited back in the day. When she visited there were no cars in Pyin Oo Lwin and just ox-pulled carts and horse-drawn carriages. Now there's way more vehicles of the horseless type.

There's a really cool market that we spent about an hour wandering about. We saw all kinds of fruits and vegetables, including baskets of avocados, long green beans, watermelons, tomatoes, corn, apples, chestnuts, various kinds of garlic and onions. Had a Myanmar tea at a stall, and watched someone preparing buns filled with coconut and sugar. He told us they'd be ready in 10 minutes so we wandered around some more, and then fortunately found our way back. The buns were deep fried (as opposed to steamed like we had guessed/hoped), and tasted excellent.

Next we visited the Kandawgyi Gardens, which was beautiful and well-manicured. My favourite was the 30ft tall bamboo.

Had lunch at Feel, overlooking the lake and gardens. They have three menus (plural), for local food, Japanese, and western. The food was pretty good, the noodles were a bit disappointing as the noodles have been quite excellent here.

Saw some more temples (we're starting to get out-templed) and a couple waterfalls on our way back to town.

We walked over to Simplicity Organic Foods for dinner, about 25 minutes. At first our hotel wanted to arrange a taxi, but we convinced them that we could walk. At night you can really see the pollution in the headlights.

The owner at Simplicity (who was Shan) said he found Burmese food pretty oil-heavy too. We had the river fish two different ways, one steamed with lime, the other crispy sweet and sour. Both were excellent, served whole. The mixed vegetable side was also very tasty. If our hotel was closer we would return but we didn't like the walk in the pollution.

Mandalay, Myanmar

Everything was closed on Election Day so we just walked about town and had a relaxed down day. Stopped in at a little streetside tea place for some Myanmar tea. It's tea served with condensed milk and some spices (cloves?). Sat on the tiny kids-sized stools and sipped our teas. Other locals came by for tea with their friends and showed off their dyed finger which meant that they had voted.

We wandered around some more. Saw a very busy restaurant so went there for lunch (Top Choice). We were the only tourists (although they did have any English version of their menu). Had the noodles which were really tasty. It was served with a wonton-like soup. We weren't sure if we were supposed to pour it on the noodles or just have separately so did both. I also tried some freshly-made chapatis which although probably not very healthy cause of the oil tasted great. Finished with another Myanmar tea (Heather said it was the best one she's had here so far) and I tried a coffee with sugar and lime (!), a local drink, which was interesting. I liked it enough to finish but not order a 2nd.

We escaped the afternoon heat reading on the shaded hotel patio. The hotel staff had also suggested that we be back at the hotel before the polls closed at 4pm just in case, but there were no issues.

For dinner there were very few places serving alcohol, so we ate at the same restaurant we had dinner the previous nights, and then walked home to watch the election coverage on tv.

Mandalay, Myanmar

We're still getting up early and so had breakfast at 6:30am, well before anyone should be awake while on vacation.

Because of the early hour, we were able to book a car and driver for the day ($45) starting at 8:30am to see the highlights of Mandalay and finish off with the sunset at the U Bein bridge. The highlights are spread out enough that walking wasn't an option; the hotel provides bicycles free of charge, but the roads are a little crazy for us.

With a car we were able to see twice the amount that I had planned. First we drove almost all the way up Mandalay Hill. It's otherwise a 45 minute walk, shoes / footwear not allowed. I probably couldn't make the climb anyways as I wouldn't be able to wear my ankle brace.

The terrace at the top is fairly large and nice to walk around for the views of Mandalay. It's supposed to be packed at sunset, but was nice at 9am. The temple itself is very colourful. We got asked to be in some more pics by locals.

In quick succession we visited Kyauktawgyi Paya (with a giant 12m tall Buddha from a single piece of marble), Sandumani Pagoda (surrounded by 1774 slabs engraved with commentaries on the Tripitaka scripture) (one of my favourites today), Atumashi Kyaung, and Mandalay Palace. There's a $10 admission ticket that covers all the major sites in Mandalay - they stamp the site at each one you visit.

We stopped for lunch at a tour-group focused place (Unique Myanmar) that had good toilets but mediocre food. Oh well.

After lunch we stopped in at a number of crafts places. The gold leaf place was most interesting. A small piece of gold is pounded for over 9 hours until it's super-thin. Small squares are bought by locals to apply to the Buddha in Mahamuni Paya. (They also sell samples to tourists).

A few more pagodas and temples later and we were at U Bein bridge around 2:45pm, with plenty of time to walk across and back, arrange for a boat for sunset ($12 for one hour) and sip a coconut from a viewpoint bar. Around 4:20 we headed out by boat, first to get pics with the nice lighting, and then to the other side for silhouette pics. About a dozen other boats were also out there, all arranged neatly in a line by the rowers so that everyone had a view. It was great, Heather and I found it more peaceful out on the water than in the hot air balloon. I'd definitely recommend taking a boat.

Back at the hotel, we cleaned up and headed out for dinner. Some restaurants had a no-alcohol policy because it was the night before the election (not sure if this was to prevent drunken violence or drunken voting). So we ended up at the same Thai restaurant as last night as they were serving beer.

Ayeyarwady River, Myanmar

We took the MGRG Express on the Ayeyarwady River from Bagan to Mandalay. The 12 hour boat ride ($42 each) was pretty comfortable, except for leaving very early morning at 5am. There were about 20 other backpackers on the boat and we spent most of the morning chatting away as the sun rose. We could see the balloons over Bagan in the distance as we left. By about 10am it got pretty hot and we sat in the covered shady area, which was still pretty warm.

We passed by fishermen in their small wooden boats, lots of small villages each with their own golden temples. I took a lot of very similar pictures.

Lunch was pretty good, a choice of rice or noodle stir fry. We also were served a breakfast, and tea/coffee and bottled water throughout the trip. It was better than what I was expecting.

Approaching Mandalay we passed by Sagaing and Inwa, filled with temples and giant Buddhas on both sides of the river. It was a grand entrance to the city.

Our hotel in Mandalay (The Home Hotel) arranged for pickup from the jetty, and sure enough there was a driver with a nice "Eric D'Souza" sign waiting.

We cleaned up and headed out to a Thai restaurant for dinner. Mandalay's pretty cosmopolitan with a large selection of regional restaurants. It should be good eating here :)

Bagan, Myanmar - restaurants

The restaurants in Bagan were hit-and-miss. We found the local food, especially the soups and curries, to be a bit sodium-heavy, and not much meat. The fish dishes are a bit better, so we've had a lot of seafood. We were biking all day on sandy paths so we worked up a bit of an appetite.

We ate at San Carlo a couple times. The first night in we had their pizza and a bottle of local Cabernet Sauvignon, which was pretty good. The next day we went there for lunch and had some local dishes, which we didn't much care for (see above).

Based on a food blogger we tried Starbeam for lunch, in Old Bagan. It was excellent. Bagan's on the Irrawaddy River and so we figured the fish should be fresh. Heather had the sea bass with a celery sauce. I had a whitefish in a lemon butter sauce which so far is the best meal we've had. We actually returned a couple days later and both ordered it again. We also had a fried banana dessert which was perfectly carmelized.

The coffees next door at Moon were pretty good. I tried their fried banana there too, served with a local honey. The honey was yummy, the banana okay.

We had lunch at the highly-recommended Sarabna, but found it disappointing. It looks like they cater more to the tour guide groups.

Our favourite restaurant was Kyaw Kitchen, near our hotel. We had dinner there twice. Heather had the grilled river prawns the first day, served with a carrot-cauliflower mash and other vegetables. It was so good we both had it the next time.

Breakfasts at our hotel were standard (toast, fresh fruit, fresh juice, eggs to order, tea/coffee). It was served on the rooftop terrace, overlooking some minor temples. It was a great setting for breakfast.

Bagan, Myanmar

We spent four full days exploring the temples, monasteries and stupas in Bagan, which was amazing. It's in the top three things I've ever seen in the world.

We wanted to explore the temples on our own (rather than with a guide) so rented bicycles for the whole time ($2.50 per day). This is by far the best way to see them (in our opinion :) ).

The 3000+ temples are strewn across everywhere you look, across an area about 70 sq km, built between 1050 and 1280. I had originally planned out the major ones we wanted to see, carefully circling them on the map and plotting the optimal route. We threw that planning out the window about an hour in. The real fun is just cycling along and stopping at the ones we found interesting. Locals pointed out hidden staircases where it was possible to climb the temples for amazing views. The top-listed temples were invariably packed with tourists, which kills the mystique. Our favourites were the not-so-famous ones, which allowed great views of the top ones, and usually had no tourists at all (North Guni was my favourite).

The first time I climbed a temple and saw the view I couldn't believe it. It really is amazing.

The first day we biked on the road between New Bagan (where we were staying) and Old Bagan, about 5km one way. The following days we explored the plains, biking on sandy paths, which was far better. Aside from no traffic, there were also very few tourists. We biked past ruins and sights that anywhere else would be a destination - here it was just background that we just glanced at because there were even cooler views. It was so much fun exploring!

It had just finished three days of rain when we arrived. Our first day was really overcast (and cooler temperature), the next days were sunny and hot (29C).

We booked the balloon ride based on the weather forecast, which turned out accurate and the best morning to go. We were picked up from our hotel at 5:20am and drove to the lift off site. A short safety review, they inflated the balloons, we got in the basket, and we were off, just as the sun rose.

The balloon experience itself was cool, but I preferred the views from climbing the temples. There's great pics from the balloon, and I took my favourite pic from there, but you don't get the same magical feeling as being on a temple looking out.

Likewise we watched the sunset from a semi-popular viewing site. It was cool and had great pics, but you lose something when there's a couple hundred other people there with you.

Overall we had an amazing time here. It's still possible to see Bagan tourist-free if you stay away from the main temples. Even if those were tourist-free, I'd still recommend the secondary ones because they have the best views of the main temples. After three days we were out-templed, and spent our last day souvenir shopping and relaxing.

FYI I've posted some pics, to both Facebook and Google Photo. You can see them by clicking on the link in the right nav bar (under This Trip). I'll be adding pics as we go.

Yangon, Myanmar

We figured Shwedagon Pagoda was good for a couple visits so went to see it yesterday without reading much of the history. It's best visited in the evening (and also most crowded) because it's cooler in the shade and the lighting is amazing as the sun sets. There was a lot of traffic gong to the south stairway so our driver took us to the almost deserted west stairway. As a bonus (to me anyways) there's also escalators the whole way up so we didn't have to walk the 166 stairs. The bottom of the stairways is considered the entrance (and so where your shoes and socks come off). I've never taken an escalator in bare feet before and was a bit careful getting on and off. At the top we paid our $8 entrance fees and got a sticker (stickers as proof of payment seems to be the in thing here).

It's almost an overload of sights at the top. The main stupa is almost 100m tall, plated with 22,000 gold bars, topped with a 76-karat diamond. There's also thousands of other precious stones. The main stupa is on a terrace with dozens of shrines and pavilions, each one of them gold plated and something I'd go out of my way to see except here it's just background.

We walked on the terrace clockwise around the main stupa a couple times. It's popular for locals to come up in the evening and really busy and atmospheric. However there really is too much to take in in one visit.

Walked down the south stairway, put on our socks and shoes, and found a nearby restaurant for dinner, which was so-so. Took a taxi home and crashed early (9pm), still a bit jet-lagged.

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This morning we caught an AirKBZ flight to Bagan. I had bought the tickets online a few months ago, which was much cheaper. The flight only had 10 passengers, and actually departed 30 minutes early because we were all there already! They also served a drink, then lunch, followed by tea or coffee and mint, much more than what we expected on the 75 minute flight.

We didn't have much to do today except plan our four days here. It's been raining the past three days but thanks to wifi we looked up the forecast. It's supposed to drizzle tomorrow and then clear up, so we booked our balloon ride for three days out. Also booked our boat ride to Mandalay, and bikes for touring around Bagan.

After our initial experience with ATMs at the airport in Yangon, we've had no problems getting cash from ATMs. Even here in Bagan we were able to withdraw cash. Although they all dispense only 5,000 kyat notes ($5), so you end up with big wads of cash.

We've been asked to be in local's pictures a couple times, and we've seen it with other tourists as well. I guess tourists are still a bit of a novelty.

Bagan is still a pretty small town. Our hotel in New Bagan is on a dirt road. Except for the main road, everything else is paved just a single car width. I haven't seen a building over theee stories. I'm sure this too will change very quickly.

Internet speeds were pretty good in Yangon. I was able to upload all my pics (including outtakes, about 300 pics) overnight to Google Photos. Here in Bagan it's a little slower, but there is wifi in most hotels and restaurants.