This is a test entry and an introduction to my travel journal. If you are reading this, you are on my list of recipients for updates of our adventure in Burma and Thailand. Thank you for showing interest in our travels and I hope my writing is coherent and interesting for you (otherwise tell me and I'll do better!). The website…
I never thought it would be this intense. Sights, sounds, smells, physical sensations…from the moment we stepped out of Bangkok International Airport, the sensory overload began. Even with extreme jetlag, we both got our second wind as the taxi whizzed down the highway. We caught images of odd-shaped and very tall highrises, delapidated structures lining the road, pagoda spires looming…
It was an easy flight to Yangon and even easier to get our VISA-ON-ARRIVAL, despite the seemingly ambiguity of the entry process as discussed in travel forums. Dada, our guide, was waiting for us. He was a small, slightly-built man wearing the typical “longji”-or what we would call a “man-skirt’. And his English was excellent.
We were whisked away through town…
When our flight began its descent into Bagan, we couldn’t believe our eyes, it was so surreal. Temples and pagodas filled the landscape for miles, some glittering in gold, some towering like a majestic cathedral in the middle of a corn field, some pure white in stark contrast with the green of the forests. Bagan is an ancient city that…
We were on the “Road to Mandalay”, driving from the airport along a tree-lined street that was also lined with makeshift wooden huts with people bustling about. These were people who had their homes and fields destroyed by extensive annual flooding only a few months earlier and who were waiting for conditions to improve. We stopped at the “famous” U…
Airports in Myanmar are decades behind in technology. There may or may not be a flight departure board, and when a flight is ready to be boarded, there may or may not be someone with a sign yelling out flight numbers (in Burmese of course). Passengers get these little airline stickers to put on their clothes, so one needs to…
To get to Inle Lake (aka Inlay, Innlay, we saw it spelled many ways…) we drove for an hour from Kalaw to a small town, then to a busy jetty full of waiting boats. We transferred, with our luggage, to a small “longboat” with 4 seats down the middle and cruised down the canal to the lake. As the…
Our last adventure in Myanmar turned out to be a wee bit crazy. In my research of memorable places to visit I read that the Golden Rock was a unique and culturally significant religious site. This shrine lies on top of a mountain to which many Buddhist make a pilgrimage every year. A gigantic rock somehow (by a miracle?) is…
In returning to Bangkok, we realize that Myanmar needs only a few years before it experiences the same level of western commercialism as Thailand. More thoughts on our overall impressions of Myanmar later, but we feel forever grateful we were able to experience the country before western multinational corporations (aka McDonalds, KFC etc) take control.
Chiang Mai was a like a breath of fresh air after the chaos of Bangkok. Its population is similar to Vancouver and there was certainly traffic to contend with, but the area where we were staying, near the Old Town, had a small town feel to it. Circling the center of town was an ancient crumbling brick wall and old…
It was a long journey south to the island of Koh Lanta—2 flights, 2 ferries and a 2 hour drive. We arrived in the dark to Lanta Miama resort on Klong Nin beach and were immediately enchanted with the setting of our beach-front cabin and the facilities of the resort. Dinner was right on the beach, and the staff of…
IN RETROSPECT “I am not the same having seen the moon shine on the other side of the world.” ― Mary Anne Radmacher (author)
There are many thoughts shared by writers and others about the benefits of travelling. This one sums it up well for me. Travel is about change within. You are somehow different when you come home, and even…