Ran into the same girl who had been the housekeeper for my room in my previous trip to Mandalay. She still had the note I had left for her last year safely stored in her little locker at the hotel and remembered me right away. Ended up spending some time together and getting to learn a bit more about life in Myanmar for a hotel housekeeper. They...

Just when we thought all our bad road experiences were behind us........on the bus on the way back to Rangoon over a particularly m**************, the already cracked windscreen busted open and swung in, almost decapitating the front row of passengers. The driver's mate knocked out most of the window, but decided it would be a good idea to leave...

From Bagan we took a boat up the Irrawaddy (Ayeyarwaddy) River to Mandalay. A boat trip on the Ayeyarwaddy is one of the highlights of any Burma trip, I guess, regardless what length or direction. We were told the upper part was with much prettier scenery, from Mandalay up to Bhamo on bigger boats, and even further on small boats to Mytkina. Unt...

So this morning, feeling much better than yesterday, I got up, had a nice shower, and had some decent breakfast at the hotel. Then I waited for the other 2 people the front desk guy had said wanted to share a taxi with me to the 3 ancient cities. Then I waited some more. 45 minutes past the meeting time, I had the girl call the hotel, and sure e...

Mandalay - From Yangon I took a 16 hr overnight "express" bus to Mandalay. I met a couple of guys from Sweden and England who I travelled around with for a while. Independent travellers are not that common here. Again as most places in Myanmar there were a number of Payas and religious sites to see. Firstly we went to see the Mahamuni budda whic...

Very busy time, cramming in as much as possible. taking some notes from each day and will fill these entries out in good time. off to bagan by local boat tomorrow morning (17th). hotmail not working, people are the friendliest of any country i have visited...

After leaving Thazi, we hopped onto a pickup truck that took us 13k's to the next town. this short drive took us about an hour and a half. This was due to the fact that we had to litterally drive through rivers in order to get there. Also, we had roughly twenty people hanging onto or riding on the roof of our vehicle. I'm not kidding about this....

Go to the Summary Page ___________________________ I had been advised by a Burmese-loving British girl to read Burmese Days... and as it was written by Georges Orwell, there was really no reason for not doing so. I found the book in Luang Prabang, Laos, but it took me some time to finish it. The main subject of the book is the behaviour of Briti...

Go to the Summary Page ___________________________ I arrived in Mandalay with Nacho, David, Marc, and Chiara, early in the morning, after a quite bad night in the bus: lots of noise, lots of rubbish thrown everywhere inside and outside the bus, and a window problem: they have to open the windows to spit their betel juice... so you are cold and h...

i just brought forward my trip to mandalay from tomorrow to this evening. argh. now i have an hour before taking the bus to mandalay (reaching at 4am tomorrow). i hope that the bus will get there on time so i can buy ticket and hop on to the bus heading to hsipaw at 5am. amazing race, this will be. if i miss that bus to hsipaw, i will have to ca...