Man who walks through door sideways get Bangkok

Right off the heels of Manila and that wasteland of a megacity, we arrived to our next Asian megacity-Bangkok. A little weary from the Urban PTSD (PUSD? (Post Urban Traumatic Stress Disorder)), we had four days to burn till we departed for Burma. Thankfully, Bangkok was the yin to Manila’s yang. Four days ended up being a great amount of time to spend in Bangkok, and I’m already looking forward to returning. Anyways, instead of being unleashed to the wolves that are the taxi drivers in Manila, there is a nice airport shuttle that takes you the short distance to the elevated rail transport which takes you straight into the city. Super nice, riding into the city you get a sense of niceness that is noticeably missing in every other place we’ve been to in Southeast Asia (and probably everywhere else in Southeast Asia save Singapore). Needless to say, it was extremely refreshing. The guesthouse we stayed in was excellent for the price. Waking up to a breakfast with a pot of black coffee, boiled eggs and bananas with BBC news playing in the background felt like a healthy dose of reality. Libby had to keep kicking me to get a move on our sightseeing. Which by the way I’ve come to realize that Libby is like sightseer extraordinaire. We balance each other out nicely though, because if we were on our own Libby would probably sightsee from dusk till dawn to the point the place turns into a list, and I would probably wander around in endless circles and miss some critical sight along the way. I’ve come to the initial conclusion that travelling is about 70 percent sightseeing and 30 percent local interaction.  You meet tons of intrepid travelers who love to talk about how staying with locals (the “homestay”) is their favorite part of travelling, but really it’s a catch-22. First off, authentic culture, the kind you see in National Geographic articles, is 1) really hard to reach, and I mean really 2) because of the aforementioned reason it is really expensive. I’m sure Libby and I will get to one of those places one day, but at that point you are truly expeditioning, and not just Le Expeditioning. Also, you need to dedicate some time to break the ice, interpreter, ect. Anyways, the homestays people are talking about are just poor, uneducated villagers in semi-remote parts of the country. If like this one hilarious Chilean woman was boasting about, they don’t speak English, then you presumably just watch them go about their day, going to the well/river to take a shower, going to the outhouse to take a bathroom break, ect, ect. If they know English, then they certainly don’t know much English and so you can have your 120948^th surface level conversation dealing with the number of siblings, relatives, age, and hometown. Without a proper education, there is no chance of them really thinking about how their environment shapes their view on reality, and so I’m convinced there is hardly a chance of having an interesting conversation.  Libby disagrees with this point.  Really what I think your left with is the uncomfortable situation of staring at an existential debate over why you have relatively everything in the world and they have relatively nothing in the world-a debate that has no answer obviously. Not sure how this tangent came about, will return to it when we get to the Burma, back to Bangkok.  

There are about 3 full days’ worth of major sightseeing which is a nice amount. Some excellent Pagodas/Wats, Royal Palace, Museums, ect. My favorite was the Ananta Samakhom Throne Hall complex near the Vimanmek Royal Mansion.  It was kind of funny that all of the “cultural artefacts” were created in the past decade or so with the express purpose of becoming a “cultural artefact.” Anyways, the Queen has started an arts institution to revive the ancient Thai arts of weaving, wood carving, and gold-work. What makes these not so historical pieces amazing and 100 percent worth going to and seeing is the what my rough estimates could possible work out to be 1,000,000 plus manhours (I think most of the artisans are women) of work put into some of these pieces. They take a couple of years to complete with hundred plus workers and the finished products are awe-inspiring to say the least. Pretty splendid idea on the Queen’s part I dare say.

The food. Simply amazing. A lot of pre-arrival thought and apprehension went into the Thai Cuisine. Was it going to live up to its superior expectation? Was it going to taste like the Thai food I love and adore back home? Will it be better? Worse? Will it be as spicy as I hope? First, Thai food back home does the Thai food in Thailand justice. Similar flavors, just better in Thailand, obviously. Some beautifully spicy dishes, nothing that was destructively hot which was slightly disappointing for me. There was one dish that could have been too spicy even for me, but it was accidentally cooked in a shrimp sauce so I could only watch Libby struggle with it for a few bites. I think the Thai food in Thailand will haunt me for the rest of my life. I fear I’ll just get spontaneous flashbacks and just start salivating uncontrollably. Thankfully, I get to go back to Thailand soon enough, and there are a plentitude of restaurants back in America. Come to think about it, the direct correlation of cuisine quality to amount of restaurants in America strengthens my case for the horridness of Filipino food (I’ve spotted zero Filipino restaurants in America).  

So. Extremely nice environment-check. Cuisine in a league of its own-check. Extraordinary sights-check. Easy public transit by river, rail or bus-check. So what’s the logical outcome=hordes of tourists. Sometimes some of the sights feel almost Disney-land esque there are so many tourists, but you can’t have your cake and eat it too. You just need to accept it. Bangkok is the perfect introduction to Southeast Asia I’d say, and also would be a great place to live. In fact, I met my first “above-average interesting person” on one of the famous street food streets in Bangkok. He started out, “this is the best mango sticky rice dessert in Bangkok, about .1 percent better than the place over there but still better” (on Sukhomvit 38).  Anyways, we got to talking and he’s an eye surgeon in a very small town outside of Mandalay. He was the only other person I’ve met who refers to Myanmar as Burma so I feel like we’re bros in that respect.  He’s worked with indigenous tribes in Indonesia and went ahead and validated our Indonesia plan to journey to Raja Ampat (“definitely worth going”). He validated my love for Bangkok (“sometimes I think I should get an apartment here”). And obviously he validated Burma (he lives there). We got to talking about his career path, we chatted about our mutual dislike for hospitals and the need for cognitive dissonance if you want to stay happy and work in a hospital for any amount of time (the ultimate reason I didn’t go into medicine). Basically, I used to read books about people like him when I was in my doctors without borders phase, thankfully I didn’t bring it up. He talked about his fear of turning into douchebag if he had gone into finance or law (something I should keep in mind), and finally he recommended me a book-Thinking fast, and slow. He told me it’s potentially paradigm shifting so I’m going to read it and email him my thoughts on it, and recommend him a book if I don’t like it.

So after four extremely pleasant, albeit hot, days in Bangkok, we were finally off to Burma. Burma, I was trying to explain it to another of my “above average interesting people” last night in Hanoi, and like all spectacularly unique things, struggled. First, Burma is shrouded in fog for the majority of the day. It gives it an almost mystical quality to the place. On a more practical level, you know that special lighting that makes for extraordinary photographs, that lasts for maybe the first 1-2 hours during sunrise/sunset? while for some reason the fog here lasts until what seemed to be around noon and so extended that special lighting for longer periods of time. It helped create stunning landscape panoramas whether it was Inle Lake, Bagan, or the train from Lashio to Mandalay, to name a few. Second, Buddhism permeates throughout the whole atmosphere in Burma. Thousands and thousands of Pagodas. Hundreds of thousands of Monks. You are literally and figuratively immersed in Buddhism in Burma. It makes for an especially unique experience. You see monks in ones and twos in Thailand and Vietnam, you see groups of monks in Burma. When monks walk together they walk in single-file lines. I feel like it was a distinctly Burmese experience watching a line of monks carrying their bowls through a market collecting their donations from the shop-owners that range from uncooked rice to money. Even better is watching the Baby monks (actually small children) go from restaurant to restaurant half singing/half chanting the cantation that you sing to solicit donations. I know it seems trivial but it is special seeing monks do all the normal life things that adds to the mystique of Burma (taking selfies, bathing in the hot springs, horseplaying, going to the ATM). Second most important thing, although Burma isn’t as old-fashioned as it was say ten years ago (so the intrepid travelers who’ve went then say), there are lots of things that remain stuck in time that is special for a “90’s baby” to see. People still either take their showers at the well or in the river. People still transport lots of materials via huge carts pulled by water buffalo. One particularly poignant memory in Burma was a line of oxen-drawn carts lined up to fill their 55 gallon drums at the well. Thirdly, Teak. Teak is a beautiful wood (as its price speaks for itself), so to see the average villager have a teak house makes a poor village still look beautiful, which I feel is very rare as far as rural villages in developing countries go.

Back to the day to day goings. We spent two days in Yangon. A nice city, tons of British colonial architecture still remains which creates a nice urban atmosphere to walk around in. A nice museum, and a brilliant Pagoda (Shwedagon). The biggest/nicest one I’ve ever seen. It gave you the chills hearing a group of individuals worship in one of the halls in the Pagoda. Again, it’s a weird sort of chanting/singing mixture. A sublime experience.

After two pleasant days in Yangon, it was off to Inle Lake. We took an overnight bus from Yangon and so arrived at Inle at around 5:30 am. We got to our guesthouse and decided to just go for it and hopped on a boat for an all day tour of the lake. That first hour on the boat was one of those tingling, make your heart race experiences that is really the pinnacle of travelling. The lake is extremely shallow and so indigenous fishing methods that take advantage of the depth has resulted. The fisherman try and trap the fish in a conical or boxed net with an open ending and then close the opening with a pole and bring the box or cone up to the surface. The fisherman fishing with the sun rising over the surrounding hills still shrouded in mist might have been my favorite scene in Burma. It was such a memorable scene that we took a boat out again the next morning just for that scene. Yeah one of the fisherman came over and posed for us and then asked us for money, but¸ there were  still many other fisherman just fishing around us and it was one of those rare authentic experiences that were decidedly different. Inle Lake was really a water-world type environment. Whole communities live their entire lives on the water. They live on the water, they go to the bathroom in the water, they bath in the water, they eat fish from the water and farm on top of the water. It was a beautiful ecosystem. The floating garden was another spectacular sight. Whole acres of crops being farmed was a sight to see. Seeing the farmers harvest the crops from their dugout canoes was amazing. Seeing cottage industries in action was surprisingly cool. We got to see cigar makers, weavers, silversmiths. On day two, after the sunrise boat ride, we took a short hour long bike ride to a hot spring. Basic manmade tubs without much of a view made it so-so as far as hot-springs go. But, the fact it was a hot-spring was enough for me to be there.

The only downside to Burma, and a lot of this was due to the fact that we are deep into the dry season, is that Burma is not very green. Orwell describes it as “Scrub jungle” and it is, very, scrubby. So the hills surrounding Inle are better seen from the lake, and even better, seen from the lake while shrouded in mist. So two days in Inle was entirely enough time, and even though it was sad to leave such a magical sight, it was time to move on to Hsipaw. Another overnight bus, another obnoxiously early arrival time-circa 4 am. Anyways, it was time to continue to carpe the diem and so instead of going on the “legendary” trekking into the hill tribes after an exhausting bus ride, we opted to rent a motorbike and a guide to take us all around. For some reason, this was a novel idea to the trekking guides and so unfortunately the guide didn’t have the best sense of giving a tour via motorbike (change is a difficult thing to cope with), the manager said “oh guides not so smart.” My favorite line I always ironically say to Libby when these types of things happen is, “it’s because he didn’t go to College.” Anyways, I don’t know why a motorbike tour was a novel idea to these guys because we got to see in one day what would take a week or more of trekking to see.  Anyways, he didn’t know enough English to answer our inquiries on whether we were missing any of the minority villages that the trekking took us to, but he made it seem like we saw all of them. And let me tell you, seeing all of these ethnic minority villages were strangely similar to all of the other villages we saw in Burma. Our “ethnic interactions” were limited to talking to a local about the violence that was happening a bit further north, and how she felt safe because the Chinese were funding a police station next to their petroleum station…anddddddd, how many siblings she had, how old she was, ect,ect,ect. Anyways, we saw all the villages, and saw plenty of the scenery, to the point where we felt like we didn’t need to go trekking. Still not sure why trekking in Hsipaw has a legendary reputation, probably because someone wrote it in a guidebook once upon a time. We ended our day at another hot spring that served as the village bath, and that was cool and unique. Bathing with the locals and the monks (speaking with him in the most broken English) and using their soap and puma stone was about as culturally authentic as we got up in Hsipaw. Unfortunately, what I expected to be the best part of Hsipaw was closed due to fighting. Namshan. Even the guide lit up when we talked about it. It’s supposedly a smaller version of Hsipaw located on top of a small mountain around a tea plantation. 6 hours north by motorbike, 1 guesthouse in town, it seemed like the perfect place, oh well. Next time.

One day by motorbike was enough to see Hsipaw, and we took the train from Hsipaw to  Pwin Oo Lyin the next morning. It was a beautiful ride through rolling hills, villages, fields of grain and rice, and over a large ravine. The windows were kept open and it was a perfect ride. Another testament to just how great train travel is. It was absurdly slow and swayed so much at times I thought the car was just going to flip on its side. I will say I was very ready to get off after 7 hours. The swaying did provide another funny bathroom story. The toilet is simply a hole which is quite funny, thank god we were warned about these toilets and so scheduled according. But, going number 1 was just like a fun game, it was like riding a mechanical bull and going to the bathroom at the same time. Anyways, Pyin Oo Lwin was a summer retreat from the heat of Mandalay for the British, similar to the French’s Vietnamese version in Dalat.  It was lovely. Peaceful, serene, the tree-filled neighborhoods with an interesting British colonial-architectural style was great for just riding around with the motorbike. There was a huge botanical gardens that was all around excellent. After a peaceful day and a half it was time for Mandalay.

We had a small amount of trepidation going into Mandalay as the general consensus seemed to be that Mandalay sucked. Of course, the eye doctor compared Mandalay to LA and said it really just depends on the person’s experience of it. As an anecdote, he said a national geographic photographer did a spread on Burma and took the majority of his photos in and around Mandalay, and you know what? It was the perfect anecdote to describe Mandalay. Mandalay is shockingly dusty. Mandalay is searingly hot after coming from the hills. But there is a certain majestic-ness that purveys itself through its hot, dusty and crumbling exterior. In a lot of ways, living in Saigon helped us appreciate the city. It’s not really a walkable city, and there is an abundance of 4 way intersections with no traffic aids so unless you’re used to those types of intersections, it’s probably not advisable to rent a motorbike in Mandalay. Anyways, one of my favorite memories of Mandalay was driving to the famous bridge (very long, very old, and teak) down the Buddha stone carving street that was just filled with people carving myriad sizes of Buddha, in various states of completeness and the whole street covered in a white cloud from the stone residue. My other favorite part of Mandalay was the jade market. It was fun, and I mean FUN, doing business in the Jade market. Honestly I’m kind of hooked like I’m hooked on the cockfighting. I can’t wait to come back with more than 20 dollars for both the jade market and the cockring. The jade market really becomes fun when you intend on buying something and then it turns into something of a rush similar to gambling.  

The next day we took a tour of all the ancient capitals around Mandalay and Sagaing was the highlight. It was so nice; it would be worth spending a night there. It’s a town full of monks. It’s set in really rolling hills and is studded with golden stupas with tons of monk monasteries set in the trees. No real destination per se, but was a great place to tour via motorbike and probably even better just to walk around for a day or an evening.  All around a great day.

After two days in Mandalay, it was another overnight bus to Bagan. We got in at the ghastly hour of 1:30 am and just spent the extra money for a room that night and slept in. The overnight buses were piling up and the frenetic pace of our travelling was honestly wearing on me. Thankfully we had 3 days to see Bagan which could be seen in 1.5 days.  Basically you go to Bagan to see the sunrise and sunset over a stupa filled landscape. You can do that either from the top of a stupa or from a balloon which was out of our price range ($320 for 45 minutes). 7 dollars a minute is steep by any standard. We did 2 sunsets and sunrise which was plenty. We were a little stupa/pagoda/wat’ed out by Bagan and in retrospect probably should have reversed our Burma loop to start with Bagan. It was our only encounter with a truly “touristy” part of Burma and still isn’t that touristy, certainly by Thai standards. But as Libby likes to remind me, things are touristy for a reason; the 10-12^th century architectural style is stunning, with a similar vibe to Angor Wat.  Unfortunately, a recent earthquake levelled something like half of the stupas which is disappointing, but what can you do? Anyways it’s an amazing sight and a must see in Burma no matter what. The architectural zone is big enough to get lost in and sure enough Libby and I got lost in it. Motorbikes are outlawed for some reason and so e-bikes are what you do. Come to find out, E-bikes are NOT as versatile off-road as a motorbike. I was feeling cool, getting really off the beaten track with the pitiful e-bike; Libby and I were ready to find a stupa all to ourselves to see the sunset, then all of a sudden, the beaten track became a little too sandy for the e-bike to move in. And somehow we were in the bottom of a riverbed quite far from…everything. Then the screen shut off on the bike, and things got a little more tense. I moved the bike up from the riverbed to a more “established” path. Thankfully after a closer inspection the battery had simply become unplugged after the bike was jumping up and down as it was half stuck, and half getting pushed by myself. We walked the bike back, and finally found our original path, when we saw a real dirt road with motorbikes. We hopped on, WE’RE HOME FREE then…flat tire. We walked the bike over to the one hut in view and the guy thankfully was able to call the number on our motorbike. Thankfully, he sorted the whole situation out because not sure how we would have a) called and b) directed someone to our location. Anyways, he showed us a few of the stupas which he painted himself (pretty cool) and then gave us some corn on the cob as we waited. A truck came and picked us up at which time it happened to be around sunset, and he took us to the one stupa everyone goes to to watch the sunset. It was the biggest stupa to climb, but the tour buses kind of wrecked the view. It was nice to be able to do the quintessential touristy thing on accident rather than on purpose (I feel slightly better about myself). Anyways, for the next sunrise and sunset we went to a slightly smaller stupa but without the tour buses (much preferable). On the last day, we did all the obligatory tours of the major stupas and then finished with a great look into the lacquerware process. One, it’s a fascinating process that requires an absurd amount of time and man-hours. I’m sure you can read about it on Wikipedia if you so desire (it’s layered many times over). Two, he had a 1971 National Geographic article about his grandfather and the lacquerware scene in Bagan so obviously we had to get something after that. It would really be a sick joke if the man in the Nat Geo picture was not actually his grandfather but at some point you really need to have an optimistic outlook on humanity. Otherwise, you’re just an overly cynical European.

One last overnight bus to Yangon, a day of toiling around in the market and the heat of Yangon, and a night in the Bangkok airport and now here in Hanoi with the parentals on the way.  Cheers.