Sweet, sweet Myanmar

Deb and I just finished 3 weeks in Myanmar and I think we are both in agreement that it is one of the most beautiful places we have ever seen. The main city Yangon is not that beautiful, but up north places like Inle lake and Bagan took our breath away.

The bus trip from Yangon to Inle was a little rough...22 hours in a seat with little to no leg room and the bus did not stop for the first 7.5 hours (I needed my sister Dena's iron bladder for that trip let me tell you). But the best part was the roads. We thought some of the roads in India were bad...ha! They were luxurious expressways compared to Myanmar. Imagine a single lane of packed dirt travelling through a farmers field. We bounced around like crazy...thank god for sports bras. There were times that I nearly bounced right out of the seat. I can't even begin to explain the roads. They were the main roads to travel, their highways and they were worse than the lease roads in Drayton Valley. If there was oncoming traffic the bus had to stop to let teh vehicle pass and practically had to go into the ditch. UGH!

But when we got to Inle Lake the bus trip was quickly forgotten. Deb treated me to 4 nights at a gorgeous place called The Inle Princess. Because it is low season and we stayed 4 nights we got upgraded to a Lake View Chalet...which was gorgeous. HUGE bathroom with stone walls and a great big tub, and outdoor shower which was fantastic...plus our chalet had a veranda that practically hung right over the lake. We could watch the sun set from our chaise lounges and watch the fish jump in the morning.

Inle Lake is wonderful and very quiet and quaint. To get to the resort we had to travel by boat, lots of people live on houses on stilts right on the lake and if they even want to go to their neighbours they have to take a boat. The canoes are paddles standing up, holding the oar with your leg and using your leg to paddle. I have never seen anything like it. Their balance is INCREDIBLE and they look so graceful.

Then Bagan, a town of about 5,000 people and there are over 2,000 temples and pagodas built in around the 11th century set amidst lush forests and vegetation. When we climbed to the top of the first temple and saw the view all the hair on my arms stood on end it was so beautiful. We hired a ponycart to take us around to the temples and our driver JO JO and his horse MU MU were wonderful. We fell in love with both of them. He ended up protecting us pretty well...telling us who was trying to rip us off, when we were getting a good price, etc. Wonderful man...if you are going to Myanmar and plan on visiting Bagan, ask for him...he is ponycart number 53.

I can't say enough wonderful things about Myanmar. The people are all very friendly and relatively few are trying to rip you off in comparison to Thailand where everyone is. The people have gorgeous smiles and beautiful babies.

On our way to Bagan our van broke down and we stopped in some ssmall village...probably the first white people to stop because within minutes the entire village had swarmed us. I started taking pictures of the people and showing them on teh digital camera the photos and you would think that I had shown them the most exciting thing they had ever seen. It was a lot of fun.

We met an older man in Yangon named Mien. He is from Myanmar but has lived in the states for the last 50 years. He was there on business...trying to get the schools software for their computers so they stop using pirated software. He took us for some traditional Burmese food. It was an experience. Poor Debbie isn't the most adventurous when it comes to food (not that I am either, but I did better than her). She has a hard time disguising her dislike and it ends up getting pretty funny watching her try to eat.

Mom gets here tomorrow and Deb and I are like 2 little school girls..totally excited. Probably won't sleep tonight.

The Pretty Woman Treatment

Well Deb and I finally know how Julia Robert felt in 'Pretty Woman' (not the part where she is a prostitute and gets saved from a life on the streets by a millionaire)...the part where she walks into a store and gets treated like she has leprosy.

We were in Bangkok doing a little retail therapy...and we walked into a rather nice store. Well all stores are nice in Siam Paragon Shopping Mall in Bangkok. Gucci, Chanel. Chloe, etc. Deb was trying on some clothes and everytime we took something out of the change room after Deb had tried it on she looked at it like she wanted to dry clean it before she hung it back out on the shelves. Silly cow! You should have seen the look on her face when Deb actually ended up buying a couple of things.

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On our way to Yangon

Tomorrow we head to Yangon. We have spent the past 3 days running around Bangkok getting some errands taken care of. We changed our return date home...now it is scheduled for March 1st (but that could change again), then we had to go get US dollars because there are no ATM machines in Myanmar and credit cards are not accepted. That was a challenge that should get put on an episode of The Amazing Race. We went to about 4 currency exchange places yesterday...no luck. This morning we went to 5 banks before we found one that had any. Everywhere we went, they would send us to another bank, and they would send us somewhere else. Finally...success. But man, too much work. We are on vacation...all we are supposed to do is sit by the pool.

Looking forward to Myanmar. My camera is itching to take some photos. I just hope that I can get my camera on the plane. With everything going on now with that scare in London, they are saying no carry ons. Well my camera is not going in my luggage...so we will see what happens.

Bangkok is a dangerous city for the 2 of us. We have to walk with blinders on because the shopping is crazy here. I know a few people who would pop a gasket if they came here. If I lived here I would for sure be a shop-a-holic. Everything is just so cute and so cheap.

I will update some photos soon...so you can all see the beauty of the grand palace here in Bangkok...it took my breath away.

oh and if I haven't told anyone yet...my mom is coming to Thailand on Sept 5th. Yahoo!

The two motorcycle mamas

Well we rented a little scooter for the last two days. Had a lot of fun scooting around the countryside. Checking out small villages just south of here and getting off the beaten track. We went to a wonderful temple on top of a hill...so quiet and peaceful with nature completely surrounding it and tonnes of fish ponds. Reminded me a little of a temple we saw in Bali several years ago...

We discovered an amazing restuarant on our way...it was right on the beach and it is called Let's Sea. Not the most original name that is for sure, but the food was great, the scenery breathtaking and the design of the restaurant was amazing. ok..this is going to sound strange, but it had the most beautiful bathroom I had ever seen. You walk in the door and the first thing you hear is the sound of falling water. Part of the bathroom is covered by a roof and part is open to the air, there is a gorgeous fountain by the entryway that flows into a pond. The pond floats around the outside of the room. When you open the door to the stalls (this is where it gets really cool) there is no roof and the pond flows past the toilets. So it is like you are sitting outside by a lake. I am sure I have not done a good job of describing it...but it was gorgeous.

Then there was the view from our table. The tide was out so the beac stretched for miles. Gorgeous white sand, blue sky with a few clouds thrown in, a few people walking on the beach, a couple of men riding by on horseback and some fishing boats off in the distance. Deb and I each enjoyed our beer and lunch there so much we went back the very next day.

Riding a bike in Thailand is an adventure...especially when the helmets are made of plastic, are about 4 times to big and when you are driving down the highway get pulled back almost completely off your head and begin to choke you. Then you have cars weaving in and out of traffic, bikes passing you, etc. But that said, we lived to tell about it.

We returned the bike this morning, a few hours before it was due because the front tire needed air. We returned it with a 1/2 tank of gas (when we got the bike, it was on empty) and the guy wanted us to pay for the tire. I just laughed and told him if that is what he wanted, he could pay for the gas. I think he saw the logic in that and we called it even.

Tomorrow we head back to Bangkok and then on the 16th to Myanmar. We have coaxed mom into joining us in Thailand...so she will arrive on the 5th and will stay for 3 weeks. Yahoo!

A day at the spa and a chat with a thai bar girl

So yesterday Debbie and I feeling rather crushed by the stressful life we have been leading here in Thailand decided to treat ourselves (this seems like the theme of our trip lately) and go for a 4 hour spa treatment. Can I tell you how GLORIOUS that was. Started off with a welcome drink, some cushy slippers and then we got to choose the scents we wanted for all the different things we were getting done. I chose pineapple for the body scrub and ylang ylang for the massage. Sigh.

Then we were off to the steam bath for 30 minutes, after we were completely wilted and made of jell-o, they came and took us into a beautiful room and gave us a full body scrub with the pineapple scrub I have selected. It smelt and felt divine. After washing you off, they put a black mud all over our bodies, wrapped us in plastic and placed a big cushy towel on us and left the room (for how long I have no idea as I quickly dozed to sleep). A hot shower and then you are back on the table for an hour long massage (drool, drool) and then they end it with an hour long facial (I fell asleep again in there somewhere). We left the spa feeling like our skin was made of silk but our feet were made of lead. We went out for a nice dinner, made the mistake of ordering a 1/2 litre of wine and barely spoke through our meal because our minds had turned to mush. We were in bed and sound asleep before 10pm.

But that is ok, because the night before we were out til 3am...which is a big night for us as I think it is the first time we have been out to a bar since we were back in Sri Lanka.

We went out with Denise...a lovely British woman who is Ben's neighbour and we met her while we were visiting Ben. She took us to this lovely restaurant that is kind of out of the way...tucked away and filled with thai's...which is a good indication that the foot is good. We had prawns in a sweet basil sauce, chinese broccoli with anchovies, steamed vegetables in an oyster sauce, steamed sea bass in soy sauce and some mussels to start. It was a feast.

After dinner we headed back to downtown Hua Hin and went to a bar. The first bar was mostly drunk Europeans dancing and being rowdy to loud techno music...so we moved on after only one drink. While walking down the street, Denise was accosted by a little thai bar girl. She managed to convince us to go into the bar and have a drink. She came and sat with us. Her English was amazing and we had a good conversation about what life is like for thai bar girls. How much of it is to be believed...who knows. She told us that she doesn't have a farang (foreign) boyfriend...which she says is kind of the dream of most girls. That she has no husband and no boyfriend at all. She said she has been in the business for a long time...and that she hoped to find a nice man to share her life with...but that experience has shown her that all men want is 'boom boom'. I quote using her words here, so if anyone under the age of 18 is reading this please pardon the language. She said "men same, same fuck".

She told us that most people think thai women don't have hearts because they are always smiling...but they are the same as the rest of us. She has cried herself to sleep before...and I can believe it. The impression you get from them is that they are always happy because they are always smiling...but I just think they are incredible actresses and my heart goes out to all of them. I think what they have to do for a living, must suck the very souls out of each and every one of them.

She was a very sweet woman. Showed us pictures of her dogs and her cats. We have been told that a book called Private Dancer gives a really good picture of the life of the bar girls here in thailand, so if anyone is interested in reading it...go out and get it. We bought it last night...so I will let you know what I think about it.

Thailand is a beautiful place, but it leaves you feeling really conflicted. Or at least that is the way it has left me feeling. Watching all of these men, taking these young, beautiful thai girls home, whether it is for the night or for a week...just makes my heart break.

Well Deb and I are off for a walk on the beach...so I will dip my toes in the sea for you.