Gauntlet - Episode 4: Yangon

Yangon city, Myanmar - July 8-10, 2014 - Yangon is an interesting city. In the short time I spent there, I was opened to the mystery of the wealth of unknown information that one gets in their first time in a country remotely different from there own. In Asia, at least the city has an unusual atmosphere because motorbikes are illegalised in the city centre. What we saw in Yangon was, unsurprisingly, the epitome of rapid economic development and exposure to globalisation. The city has the aura of the old and the bizarre, the picturesque poverty-stricken Asia that so many charmingly idealise, and modern technology can be seen puncturing layers through decades of isolation. I get the feeling this is one of the most singular cities in the world.

A woman sew longyis (traditional Burmese pants, similar to a long skirt or sarong, worn by almost all Burmese men) late into the night.

Myanmar Humanitarian League.

The Shwedagon pagoda, apparently a 3000-year-old site, looms in the background.

Monks pray inside Shwedagon.

(The praying man is wearing an example of the longyi mentioned earlier.)

Burmese street food: Egg fritters mixed with chickpeas. Rating: 8/10

Burmese street food: The Bandgladeshi offerings - okra, tea leaf soup, mutton curry, spiced fish, spiced mango condiment, chili paste mixed with river prawns. Rating: 7.5/10 - would be higher if the okra was covered in the stickest most salivatory, alien substance i've ever seen.

Burmese pavements are nice.

China town sprawls for miles. The markets open right up onto main streets, going fully halfway across, and sometimes severely congesting traffic. The are beautiful interesting places to explore.

See the rest of the our Cambodia/Thailand/Burma/Laos trip:
Episode 1: Pailin, Cambodia
Episode 2: Bangkok, Thailand
Episode 3: Mae Sot, Thailand
Episode 5: Bagan, Myanmar
Episode 6: Mandalay, Myanmar
Episode 7: Vientiane and Vang Vieng, Laos
Coda: Sihanoukville, Cambodia

Gauntlet - Episode 3: Mae Sot

Mae Sot township, Tak province, Thailand - July 3-5, 2014 - Having acquired a Burmese visa in Bangkok, we travelled up to the town of Mae Sot as a stop off on the way to doing a border crossing into Myanmar - one which we would prove to bungle for one reason or another, and would send us scarpering back to Bangkok to catch a flight in our uncertainty of whether Cambodians could get vis-exempt entry over land crossing or was it only at airports and it was the weekend so there was no one we could possibly call to find out, the Internet had no solid information whatsoever, and Neng's bank card wasn't working, blah blah blah you get the idea. Anyway Mae Sot was nice. All we did there was rent a motorcycle and drive through the hills and rice fields for a couple of days.

The legendary and mysterious Kickapoo. Only to be found in remote Thai villages.

The Mae Kasa hot springs. The are currently under renovation, channeling five steams of volcanic water into a kind of park. 

The springs are very hot. The only purpose for them at the moment is to soft-boil eggs.

Oops.

A snake had perished in the boiling, mineral-rich waters.

This is what happens when you accidentally smash an egg into their egg borling basin.

The final, less-than-culinarily-satisfactory result.

See the rest of the our Cambodia/Thailand/Burma/Laos trip:
Episode 1: Pailin, Cambodia
Episode 2: Bangkok, Thailand
Episode 4: Yangon, Myanmar
Episode 5: Bagan, Myanmar
Episode 6: Mandalay, Myanmar
Episode 7: Vientiane and Vang Vieng, Laos
Coda: Sihanoukville, Cambodia

Gauntlet - Episode 2: Bangkok

Bangkok city, Thailand - June 26-July 2, 2014 - Big city cats.

Curry and chili paste.

The best thing we did was tour around the canals of Western Bangkok with Pandan Tours. I usually don't do tours or tour guides or any of that, but this was really good, and Tao our guide was great. Check them out at www.thaicanaltour.com

It is pleasant riding around the khlongs.

A temple was ahead, and I had never seen any temple like this before.

Then Tao told me it was this big white building across the way.

Inside lay extravagant riches, hundreds of millions of dollars worth of loot.

Notice the fruit in the upper corners, that ripens (upper middle) every 1000 years into a beautiful woman (lower).

The fruit ripening.

When the fruit is fully ripe it is time for the male angels to eat it.

This is another temple from a different sect of the Sangha; the forest sect.As you can see the interior of this sect seems much less materialistic.

Monks study.

At another temple we were lucky enough to witness these two massive turtles shagging.

Second take! How sacrilegious!

Thai-style noodles.

Pandan farm. 

It returns!

See the rest of the our Cambodia/Thailand/Burma/Laos trip:
Episode 1: Pailin, Cambodia
Episode 3: Mae Sot, Thailand
Episode 4: Yangon, Myanmar
Episode 5: Bagan, Myanmar
Episode 6: Mandalay, Myanmar
Episode 7: Vientiane and Vang Vieng, Laos
Coda: Sihanoukville, Cambodia