Postcard From Myanmar

Why get up early when you can just say it is a sunrise pic? (Mandalay Palace)

Travel fatigue ranks high on the Top Twenty Middle Class Problems no one Wants to Hear About list. As summer vacation ended back in late August, I was ready to just get back to work with a schedule and not constantly have extra underwear and deodorant with me (I keep it classy).  I was broke, didn't overspend but squeezed the budget, and my bucket list of destinations had a few new checkmarks.  Time to go home... To China, I guess. 

We can totally cut across the train bridge. Bus drivers are living motivational posters. You can do anything if you just beeeelieeeeve! (Road to Mandalay)

I had a week holiday looking at me at the start of October for Chinese Independence, but I wasn't quite itching for a plane/train/bus ticket yet. I thought about going back to Boracay, but the flight was $1k. I looked at Japan, especially tempting since a good friend was on holiday there, but that was also a $1k return ticket PLUS a week in an expensive country I've been to a lot. And kinda recently. Okay, no. Ukraine? Yes, Ukraine! Damn! Flight prices just kept climbing as I tried to book. With Friday flights selling out (procrastinating at its finest), the elimination process became 1) a cheap flight and 2) a place I haven't been before. Myanmar beat out Mongolia and Bangladesh just because of layovers. That's it. 

View from Sagaing Hill. (Near Mandalay)

Look, Simba. Everything the light touches is our kingdom.  (Sagaing Hill, Mandalay)

I think I needed Myanmar. I'm thankful I stumbled into Bagan and Mandalay. It's easy to compare this place to places I've been before. The city feels like Kalibo's big brother with the amount of scooter bikes and mud. The temples of Bagan reminded me of an ignored little sister of Siem Reap, less breathtakingly gorgeous but less popular with the lads. Food was like Bali: white-washed flavours when they saw my foreign face but good enough. 

There is something promising about food served directly in a plastic bag. Too bad foreigners have a reputation for spice-phobia. Hit me with your best shot! I like spice pain!!! (Nyaung U)

I'm not selling Myanmar well. Hang on. 

Random attempt at a Pretty Photo to counter the negativity I am dropping.  (Old Bagan)

What I am dancing around is the idea that the staples such as food, transport, and scenery were all familiar. The familiar is comforting and let me appreciate what was new. Too much new stuff starts to bog you down and you might miss details.  It sounds stupid to think and worse to write, but I really loved people watching here. I loved all the sarongs and yellow thanaka faces. I love how everyone wears sandals and walks barefoot all the damned time never actually seemed to have dirty or gnarly feet. Magic! Yes, I looked at a lot of feet. 

Indoctrination starts early all over the place. (Mahagandaryon Monastery, Amarapura)

This guy thought I was dressed like an idiot. Yes, I wear jeans and 3/4 sleeves almost every day even in Vegas in August. (Ava near Mandalay)

And despite being as hot and humid as Hong Kong, the cities didn't have that smell of spoiled food abandoned to rot or raw sewage or B.O. Nice change of pace. 

Even trash day after a hot rain didn't smell as bad as Beijing. (Downtown Mandalay)

Myanmar was a week of nostalgia with the added benefit of being somewhere new that is just starting to attract tourists. That's exactly what I needed to cure my traveler's blues. 

I love how many golden places ask for donations. (Sagaing near Mandalay)

So let's dive into a few specifics. I ate noodles. That's about it. I ate different takes of fried noodles once or twice every day.  Not especially great noodles, but different degrees of warm enough and I never got food poisoning or, I think, parasites. I keep my expectations high. 

Pretty noodles to go so I could chill on the roof of my hotel. You could see the stupas of dozens of temples from here. (Sky View Hotel, Nyaung U)

Also, for those who know me, I ate onions AND eggs. Ewwwww. 

I did more than just eat carbs in photogenic places. I did that thing where you make friends at the hotel and hire a car together. I didn't see the things Mandalay is famous for, the view from Mandalay Hill or the palace, but I had a great day seeing stuff I never would have known about had I not benefited from my friends' research. Plus, they were drinkers, too. We blew off a surprise tourist trap and sat by a river for an hour drinking instead. Pay to see a temple? Why. Everything else is free. You know what else we can do with 5,000 kyat?

Looking respectable. Wait. I JUST noticed... Who took this picture??? We we're several rounds in at this point. It's a bit blurry. (Downtown Mandalay)

I also rented an electric scooter for the first time. Now, my dad gave me a moped when I was a teen and a minibike when I was a wee Mary. I should be more comfortable with these things than I am. Bicycle? No problem. I'll rip it up on a pedal bike. Electric? Death! WHY CAN'T THIS THING TURN???? Bagan (Old, New, and Nyaung U) is an area that isn't just accessible by bike but better by e-bike as opposed to a car or foot.  Even with the muddy paths that throw thick clots of brickyard soil were great by e-bike. A pedal bike would be nice, but there were places I went I only would go 'cause it was easy to backtrack without effort on my little electric toy. The e-bike was as much fun to me as a roller coaster at Disneyland, bouncing up and down hills treating the poor thing more like a dirt bike than a street scooter. Didn't get stuck, drop it, or break anything so I figure I was better on the poor thing than the last renter!

Good little scooter! (Downtown Nyaung U)

I am not hardcore.  (Nyaung U)

Ah, this probably marks me as a bad writer for discovering my point while writing, but Myanmar was great because I had fun! You can travel to more amazing places, eat better food, see more inspiring sights, spend less (or more) money, but there was something about the combination of this country with my mindset when I arrived that really let me Vacation. 

Dorks on the water waiting for sunset. (U Bein Bridge, Amarapura)

Which was very nice. (U Bein Bridge, Amarapura)

The boat to Bagan breaks down? Awesome! More boat time on this great river with fabulous weather (I am so sunburnt). Umbrella gets tossed off the bus by an attendant? Well, that was different. Is there weather? Time for a drink. (I'm not an alcoholic.) Horses smell awful. Hey, new Turkish/Dutch friends? Hell yeah, we should hire a boat for sunset! Hell yeah, we should get dinner (cough, liquid dinner, cough) later together. Hell yeah I want to eat on the roof. Hell yeah I think my little bike can handle that mess of mud. Hell yeah I should visit that monastery, follow that path through through a thick over growth, talk to that stranger (soooooo many strangers), take a ride from that guy, buy crap I don't need from those pedlars (Xmas comes every year, I guess), and hop on the back of his bike. (I now feel like any trip where I don't end up on the back of something with two wheels is lacking.) 

I waaaaay overpaid for a sand painting. Oh well. Support that local economy? (Old Bagan)

Random goat picture because it amused me and I don't have any pictures of all the times the highway bus got stuck in traffic 'cause of oxen. (Road to Mandalay) 

Randoms are fun. This post doesn't capture the amount of gold I saw. (Old Bagan)

I. I had fun. A lot of fun. I'm sunburnt (worth repeating that fact), had a single hangover, saw a lot of things that made me stop what I was doing to look... That's the best you can do traveling, right? Plus, I'm heading back to China not totally slaughtered by exhaustion. That travel fatigue was cured by a good trip abroad and I am already excited for winter!

Thanks, Myanmar!

Countdown to winter, begin! (Somewhere near New Bagan)