Bicycling Bagan...and taking pleasure in screwing the Myanmar government

It always feels good to scam the authorities, but never more so than in ultra-corrupt, military-controlled Myanmar. Technically, all foreign tourists have to pay a USD$15 entrance fee to the archaeological zone of Bagan (the country’s most important tourist attraction), the proceeds of which go straight into the already deeply-lined pockets of the military government. However having arrived at 5am on an overnight bus from Yangon, we missed the usual checkpoint where tourists have to disembark and pay the fee, and scammed our way into “the zone” for free.

 

The scenery around Bagan is extraordinary. There must be hundreds of individual temples, with the slender spires of pagodas rising above the parched plains. As the dry season draws to its hot and dusty end, the landscape often makes outback Australia look lush. Think sandy earth, scrubby bushes with lethal spines and dust-laden air that coats your skin, gets up your nose and helps create those magic, red-tinged sunsets. 

Although the guidebooks list several must-see temples, we found that some of the most spectacular were unmarked ones that we stumbled upon, cycling haphazardly over shitty, sandy tracks. Some fairly severe earthquakes destroyed a lot of the original temples, statues and paintings but there are still a few remaining which have not been subjected to dicey restoration works. 

Seen individually, the temples of Bagan can't compare with the ancient Khmer or Thai sites, but taken as a whole, the area is completely breathtaking. Probably the only thing better than exploring on two wheels would be taking a hot-air balloon ride over the plains at sunrise....a hideously expensive, but no doubt spectacular way to appreciate the scale and grandeur of Bagan. Hmmm, maybe next time.

 

The Rum Diaries Part XLVII

I'm not sure what is more surprising- the fact that they make rum in Myanmar, or the fact that it's actually drinkable. I assume we can thank the British for the fact that there is a fairly significant rum industry in the country- one of the few happy leftovers from colonial rule...like railways. 

Perhaps the happiest thing about Mandalay 12 Year Old Aged Rum is the fact that it costs 2700 kyat a bottle. That's around AUD$3. Seeing the expression of disbelief on our faces, the girl in the shop was quick to point to the standard Mandalay Rum at just 1500 kyat...but we assured her that 2700k was well within our price range and practically skipped out of the shop. 

At 43% it's verging towards roughness, but that's nothing a can of soda water can't fix. And with an extensive line of different rums under the Mandalay label, we're quietly confident that The Rum Diaries will hit their Golden Jubilee edition long before we set foot back in Australia. 

Yangon

I made a snap decision about Yangon. I love it. We’ve only been here for a day, so perhaps it’s not the most informed opinion, but fuck it, it’s mine.

We arrived into Yangon at around 1am after a horrendous 26 hour trip from Bangkok- the city was comatose, 4.5 million people all tucked away in bed, leaving just the gorgeous lit-up golden stupa of the Shwedagon Pagoda and Sule Paya to greet us. We checked into our somewhat dodgy-sounding (Daddy's Home!), hideously overpriced guesthouse (USD$25 for a concrete box with no windows and a shared bathroom) and passed out instantly.

 

  

In the morning we got our first sense of the city- the crumbling grandeur of colonial buildings, untended since the British departed in 1948; the gossip-magnet tea-shops on street corners; men clad in traditional longyi; thanakha-besmeared girls tending snack stalls; the taqiyah headdress of Muslim men; sari-clad Indian women folding samosas; Burmese hipsters and an awesome, frenetic energy that became more intense as the afternoon shadows grow long. 

The traffic is snarled and inches along the broad city boulevards but, unusual for a South-East Asian capital, there is not a moped/scooter/motorcycle to be found. There are a number of rumours on why motorbikes have been banned since 2003, the most popular seems to be that a top general's son was killed while riding one. Either way, the lack of two-wheelers seems to make the traffic less chaotic and certainly makes crossing the road less of a death-dance.

Notice anything weird about the traffic in Yangon? No scooters!!

By sundown, the street vendors crowd the pavement; betel-nut sellers are doing fine business and the male population of the city (plus at least one aussie female tourist) is settling down for an icy cold Myanmar draft beer.

Street vendor preparing betel nut packages

And the food. Oh my god, the food. Today we sampled leq p’eq thouq, fermented tea leaf salad with fried garlic, peanuts, tomatoes and some kind of magic that elevates these simple ingredients to the fucking sensational realm.  For dinner we had two different kinds of curry, accompanied by vegetables with some sort of pickled fish paste, raw cabbage and rice. For our entire days’ food consumption, including water, drinks and snacks…we spent AUD$7. So while accommodation is a joke, food is a joy.

 

Within a 1 kilometre radius of our guesthouse is a synagogue, two mosques and one of the most important Buddhist sites in Yangon. Between the muezzin and the chanting of Buddhist monks there are a million and one amazing cultural (read, culinary) experiences to be had.

In short, I love you Yangon.

Amazing stuff we've eaten in Thailand

Thailand is without a doubt one of the best places in the world to tantalize your tastebuds. Street food is cheap and wonderful, markets are an endless source of joy and regional variety is awesome. Like the Chinese, Thai people seem to eat out for almost every meal so there is always a street stall nearby whipping up their own specialty for next to nothing.

This is FAR from an exhaustive list...just a few of the things that we found, loved and had the presence of mind to write down at the time. 

1. Yam Naem Khao Thot: we first tried this awesome spicy salad as we wandered through the Sunday night market in Chiang Mai. It's a potent mix of fermented pork, ginger, peanuts and curried rice croquettes and at 30B (AUD$1) for a serve, it absolutely rocked our world.

2. Kaeng Hung Lay Moo: we tried this delicious pork curry at the Women's Correctional Facility in Chiang Mai. The prison is famous for rehabilitating their inmates and training them in massage and if they massage as good as they cook...well, just get there. Although it didn't mention chili on the ingredients list this one packed a more-than-modest punch and also contained a healthy dose of ginger and pickled garlic. Yum.

3. Som Tam: the ubiquitous green papaya salad is found at almost every restaurant in Laos and Thailand. All the best ones so far have been at various night markets, prepared in enormous mortar & pestles so you can watch the art of combining shredded green papaya with sour lime, hot chili, salty fish sauce and sweet palm sugar to create the perfect balanced dish. 

4. Tom Yum Soup: a lot of places serve surprisingly average Tom Yum Soup, but when it's good, it;s freaking amazing. So far the best one was in Chiang Mai...but the search will continue until we leave the country!

5. Spicy fish soup: I wish I knew the Thai name for this unbelievably good soup that we ate in Nong Khai. The fish had been fried and then added to a broth absolutely loaded with chili, ginger and lemongrass- it didn't take long to break out in a sweat but the advantage of lunch along the Mekong is that there is always a breeze to cool you off!

The Temples of Angkor

For some reason I wasn't inspired to update the blog in Cambodia but it seems unfair to bitch about Bokor National Park and not mention the country's most famous attraction- the temples of Angkor. It would be impossible to try and cover even the most famous sites in one day- we bought three day tickets and probably still could have used extra days to see some of the more outlying temples.

Angkor Wat is the world's largest religious complex and attracts some 2 million visitors per year; it is by far the most important symbol of Khmer culture and appears on the country' flag, banknotes, national beer label and countless other products. On our first day we got our tuk-tuk driver to take us out to the temple at 5am so we could watch the sunrise over the ruins...what we didn't realize was that the other 5000 tourists visiting that day all had exactly the same idea. 

Rather than watch the sun come up through 5000 LCD screens as people craned to get a view of the "money-shot" over the water, we entered the complex proper and had the place almost to ourselves for a short time, before making our way back to the tuk-tuk and continuing to Ta Prohm.

  

Ta Prohm is touted as one of the most atmospheric ruins and the huge kapok trees which spread throughout the temple certainly create a wild, Indiana Jones feeling. Although it is probably the second most popular site at Angkor, the labyrinthine network of rooms and cloisters make it easy to lose the crowds and enjoy the beauty of the site in peace.  

All the temples feature beautifully carved apsaras (female nymphs in Hindu mythology) and scenes from the Ramayana, often hundreds of metres in length, etched into the temple walls. It's impossible to imagine the hours and hours of labour that went into such intricate work on such a vast scale.

 

For our second and third days we rented bikes and pedaled out to Ta Kao, enormous Preah Khan, the magnificent Bayon temple and some of the lesser visited sections of Angkor Thom. Cycling is definitely the best way to get around- we were able to leave the crowds behind and cycle along dusty dirt tracks through the forest to reach parts of the temples where not even a fruit/t-shirt/drinks vendor could be found!!

  

With temperatures in the mid to high-30's it's hot and thirsty work exploring the ruins. Luckily the guesthouse we stayed in had a swimming pool...and almost every restaurant in Siem Reap serves icy cold draught beer for 50c a glass!!

Bokor National Park- corruption and destruction in Cambodia

Bokor National Park must once have been one of the most beautiful spots in Cambodia- a 1500 sq km park famous for lush, primary rainforest and an abandoned French hill station perched upon it's 1100m peak, with views sweeping the coast all the way to Phu Quoc island in Vietnamese waters. 

These days, instead of stunning vistas of unspoiled rainforest and the atmospheric remains of the 1920's French settlement, you get to see the kind of pockets-lining, zero-planning development evident wherever a corrupt government holds power.

 

Behind this eye-watering development is Sokimex, the ultra-connected petrochemical company which also has holds the ticket concessions at Angkor Wat. The Cambodian government awarded the group some 14,000 hectares of National Park land to build a casino, hotel complex and luxury housing estate. Not surprisingly, Sokimex owner Sok Kong is also (gasp!) a senator in the ruling Cambodian People's Party.

 

As if the widespread destruction of one of Cambodia's most important ecological areas isn't bad enough, it seems there aren't even any tourists to allow money from this pitiful enterprise to make its way back to the local community. The 650 room hotel, casino and dining hall for hundreds of people all stand eerily empty; the luxury housing estate is destined to become a sometimes occupied ghost town of second homes for the tiny Cambodian elite.

Aside from the firm that was contracted out to cover the mountain top in concrete (probably also Sokimex owned), it doesn't look like anyone is really going to gain from this astonishingly short-sighted project.

We had been really looking forward to visiting Bokor, having read in a 2007 Lonely Planet about the lush forest and myriad endangered animal species to be found there. I hope the updated edition advises people to avoid the "national park" entirely.  It was probably the most depressing thing we've seen since leaving Australia (and considering the day before we had visited the Killing Fields in Phnom Penh, that's really saying something). 

The other awesome thing about traveling...

It occurred to me the other day that I must have trawled my way through quite a lot of books since leaving Australia. Since I have an e-reader it's pretty easy to keep track of just what you're read and after a quick glance at the Amazon accout (and, ahem, download list), it turns out that I've come in at somewhere over 100 in the last 20 odd months. 

So...what are some of the ones that have stuck with me? In no particular order....

1. Into Thin Air and Under the Banners of Heaven (Jon Krakauer)- journo who writes gripping non-fiction on a disastrous attempt on Mt Everest (1) and the growth of the Mormon sect in the US (2)

2. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks- quite a crazy story about the impoverished black women who was unwittingly the source of the first human cell line

3. The Blind Assassin & the Year of the Flood- Margaret Atwood- two beautifully written and very visual novels- i think she was Booker nominated...it's not hard to see she is also a poet.

4. Likewise- anything and everything by Pat Conroy- granted the man has a bit of obsession with southern USA but he paints beautiful, vivid images of the Carolinas with his stories (Prince of Tides & Beach Music were probably my favourites)

5. Game of Thrones- I mocked Martijn for his love of elves-and-gremlins, fantasy novels...and then I read the first of George R Martin's books and promptly chewed my way through the next four in one concerted effort. If only the damn man would hurry up and finish parts 6 and 7!!!!

6. Les Miserables- stayed with me for all the wrong reasons. Urghh...how did anyone ever get through this?? I really wanted to find out if Jean Valjean and Cosette would ever find happiness....but then Victor Hugo got in the fucking way. Sorry Victor, you are not for me.

7. River of Darkness: Francisco Orellana's Legendary Voyage of Death and Discovery Down the Amazon- awesome account of the one of the craziest feats of exploration. Best read when you're huddled under your mosquito net in the jungle!!

8. Into The Silence: The Great War, Mallory and the Conquest of Everest  (Wade Davis)- I love these tales of derring-do from back in the day when there was still uncharted territory to explore. The story of Mallory and the earliest attempts on Everest are nicely placed in the historic context of Britain between the world wars. 

9. Inside Scientology (Janet Reitman)- do you already think Scientologists are fruit-loops?? Read this- the truth is much, much weirder than your imagination is capable of believing.

10. Hellraisers: The Life and Inebriated Times of Burton, Harris, O'Toole and Reed: admittedly, this book gave us both a chance to feel good about the amount of booze we ingest. Makes Justin Bieber look like a fucking choir boy (I mean ever more of a fucking choir boy). There are numerous jaw-dropping anecdotes in this book but Oliver Reed downing 126 pints in a single 24 hour session is definitely up there with the best (worst?!?). 

Ahhh, and so many more. The Kindle is by far the most loved item in my backpack. If anyone has any recommendations to see me through the next six months, let me know!!