Myanmar & Men in skirts......

Happy New Year or Sawatdi Bi Mai Kah (as we say in Thai) !!!

I hope you all had a good time over the Crimbo and New Year thing!!! Anyway here's the latest "novel" installment of what's been happening in my life for the last 4 weeks or so in Myanmar.....

We have had a wicked time and it's an amazing country and the people are just so much fun and friendly...It is one of those countries like Laos where you go to meet the people...... shame about the government!!!

First stop was in Yangon the capital and staying in a really weird guesthouse... first impression of Yangon were that it's kind of like chaos and busy and lively and you are constantly asked if you want to change money....Myanmar has this ridiculous exchange system whereby you have to / are supposed to change at least $300 into FEC's (Foreign Exchange Certificates) at the airport ..the way to avoid/reduce this is to give the cashier a "present" ..anyway FEC's look like Monopoly money and are frankly a crazy scheme as although they are legal tender and accepted currency no-one really wants to take them or change them for Kyat (the "real" money) as they want you to change US Dollars so they have real greenbacks....

We met an Aussie called Ed in Yangon and we hung out together for a few days and he told us about ABC Pub which became our sanctuary in the evening as most of Yangon is either sitting in a tea shop or in bed by about 8 p.m. and well frankly Yangon's not renowned for it's nightlife as we were to discover!!! We got chatting to the manager of ABC called Bobo and that evening after a few too many beers we decided to adopt him and a couple of the waiters after closing and they took us to a nightclub .... let's just say it was an interesting experience. Bobo then confessed that he'd never been to a nightclub in his life (such a tragic confession for a 38 year old!) We also adopted a couple of the trishaw drivers who hung out outside the Pub. now these boys are strong...they pedal three or four people around the cities in the heat for a handful of kyat....they are all really great fun and smiling and laughing....One of them ,also called Bobo was my particular favourite as he knew the words to the Road to Mandalay...more of that later....

The day after the nightclub experience Bobo took us to the area where he lives and showed us a couple of paya's (temples) one of which floats in the river...after our paya visiting we went back to his place for lunch which was a scrummy Burmese coconut soup and noodles and all sorts of great food prepared by his wife...it was kind of like watching the lions feed as word got around that foreigners were around so not only did we have Bobo his wife and three kids examining us, the neighbours came along and passed through, plus a couple of sisters and a cousin or two....

Evenings were spent in ABC, there's a live band and cover versions of songs are sung by a colletion of girls that take it in turns to sing....they do not get paid and what happens is that if someone (usually some man) likes the song they are singing then they will buy a plastic flower and give it to the girl. For each single flower they get 1000 kyat ($1) for a basket they get 3000. Anyway, Olwen and I decided that it wasn't fair as all the girls were getting tons of flowers from a group of Burmese guys so we trotted up and bought all the guys in the band a flower each to which we got a massive round of applause from the locals as we walked away ....

Olwen and I managed a visit to Shwedagon Paya later that day which is one of the "must sees" according to Holy Planet....now one thing that I perhaps should explain is that in the months of travelling Olwen and I have visited, well let's just say, a pretty stunning number of temples, pagodas, payas and the like and to say that sensory overlaod has hit would be a bit of an understatement so we really had to make some real effort to visit Shwedagon. To be fair it didn't disappoint as it is plastered in jewels and gold and spangly and just incredibly beautiful ..right at the top of the paya in the hti there is a HUGE diamond that is some ridiculous amount of carats....

However, what really kept us going throughout the Myanmar experience and what Olwen and I studied with far greater interest and attention were the men in longyi's......Yummy! For those not in the know the Burmese guys wear what looks like a sarong type skirt thing ..it's a stitched piece of fabric that they step into (pull up to their waists obviously) and tie at the front in a kind of knot and it shows off their pert, gorge asses to perfection (believe me we have studied well!) These guys look stunning in them (in fact the Burmese guys are pretty stunning anyhow) We also discovered that these versatile pieces of fabric can be pulled up between the legs and tucked in to look like shorts when they are bathing or playing football (remember that comment for later in this message!) So while others were off visiting the floating markets, payas and temples of Bagan; Olwen and I took to hanging out at river banks, football pitches and tea shops for hours of undisturbed perving bliss at all the Burmese guys and checking them out and their asses and bodies in general...!!! We also became a bit of a local attraction ourselves as two girls travelling together and no matter where we went word was out within a few hours that there were two girls in town and we were greeted like royalty everywhere we went and treated with immense kindness...Loads of people shouting hello and stopping to chat at us and feel our hair and stare at blonde hair and big blue eyes. The people are just amazing and we were surprised at the amount of English spoken....We made some friends in the city market too as we innocently went into one of the food halls for a drink we got dragged to a table.....as the only foreigners in there at the time we were of course highly amusing and got asked all the usual questions like THEM: "Where you from ?" ME: "David Beckham" THEM: "Ah England very good" THEM TO OLWEN: " You" OLWEN:" Ryan Giggs" THEM: "Ah Manchester United" OLWEN: " No Wales" THEM: "Where...? (several times) and so it goes.....Anyway we made good buddies with the guys in there and went for lunch and some money changing activities on the black market and they were really good fun and really pleased to see us back. On our return to Yangon a few weeks later we got a round of shouting and cheering as we walked back in .....Bless em all really, really friendly......

After Yangon it was a long journey north to Inle Lake...our bus was due to leave at 12 and at 2 we were still sitting on the bus and hadn't moved one inch...this is just the way it is in Myanmar and we were later told that you shouldn't ask when your bus will arrive as the Burmese don't like to disappoint by telling you it's going to be 3 days late so it's more a "we'll be there when we're there" kind of attitude....We discovered Yellow smarties in the bus station which everyone seems to pop and then you sleep like a baby while being flung up and down and all over the place by the oh so amazing Burmese roads...yep it's bouncy heaven on the road!!! And the added bonus is that there's no aircon that really functions, no smooth bits of road nor tarmac to speak of and the bus sometimes has the odd window missing so you are covered in a slick of dust within no time...the bus is of course over laden and packed to the rafters and a 45 seat bus will have at least 60 or 70 people on it...just as in Laos out come the plastic chairs and stools to line the aisle of the bus......Of course add to this the breakdowns and stops and you've got a list of stories as long as your arm to tell your mates at home!!! But you meet some cracking people which is the best bit...At a lot of the bus stops people become intrigued by my belly piercing and at one point we had a crowd of people around us examining me as I try to hoof down my food before the bus leaves...then Olwen sticks her tongue out at them and shows her tongue piercing and they are all completely flabbergasted about it and before you know it you've got about 20 people around you asking you to lift up your t-shirt (always pleased to oblige on that one!) and stick your tongue out! Hilarious fun with the locals at 1 in the morning I can tell you.....

Meanwhile back at Inle Lake, it was really lovely and chilled out and we hung out there for a few days and took a boat trip on the lake and visited floating markets, more temples (doh!) an umbrella factory and hired bikes and took a trip out to some hot springs and lounged around there.....The fishermen on Inle Lake are fascinating as they row their boats by wrapping their leg around the oar and rowing with their feet, it looks quite bizarre but apparently this methos means that they can see the reeds and such under the water surface and also smoke at the same time - gets my vote!

At night the temperature really drops there and you do get decidedly chilly but Olwen and I managed to find a great place for hot chocolate to warm us up, just down the road from our guest house and taught the guys who run it how to make "western size" hot choccie i.e. huge - they're going to put it on the menu apparently!!!

We had the massage from hell in Inle by a couple of old Burmese women at the house of a guy we met in a restaurant. He was really nice and his cousin took us trekking the next day but the massage was a total killer and we were bruised for days. It was great though to hang out at his place and meet the whole neighbourhood who came round to look and laugh at us, ever the source of amusement.....We met Patrick in Inle, a Swiss guy on vacation for three weeks, and he came along on a day trek with us. It was a bit of a climb up to a monastery in the hills behind Inle but well worth it for the views and the amazing lunch our guide prepared for us at the top.

We said goodbye to Ed in Inle and Olwen and I moved on to Mandalay......We nearly didn't make it to Mandalay as we somehow managed to end up in the next town to where we should have been and at the ticket agents office instead of the actual bus stop and yep we managed to miss our own bus....Burmese resourcefulness to the rescue though they shoved us on another bus which was full of locals and by far a whole lot more posh than we would have been on had we been on the right bus.....We should have known it would be a bad idea for us to travel anywhere on Friday 13th...!!!

So there I was on the bus on THE ROAD TO MANDALAY !!!!! Now...let me think, which handsome, sexy, drop dead gorgeous, stud muffin, sex bomb do we know that has a song about the Road to Mandalay ...?????? YEP ROBBIE!!!!!! Olwen will vouch for the fact that for the entire trip until Mandalay I had been singing this song, teaching people the song and repeatedly singing it until frankly I thought she was going to kill me (she did threaten once or twice!) So there I was on the Road to Mandalay...bom bom bom ba da bom bom bom, bom bom ba daa bom bom bom, bom bom bom baa daa bom bom bom bom ba dom.......Tragedy though as when we stopped it was around 1 o'clock in the morning and I was totally spaced out on the smarties and didn't have my Robbie shirt to hand for a photo of yours truly on the Road to Mandalay (fear not though for there was another opportunity and the photo has been taken!!!)

Mandalay is a kind of strange city but we managed to get adopted by an alcoholic trishaw driver. We had a walk around the city and then decided to bail off up to Pyin U Lwin for a couple of days as being the organised folk we are we had missed the boat to Mingun that day and could not get a bus ticket we wanted so decided to chuck in a side trip to Pyin u Lwin while we waited for tickets and the banks to reopen on Monday as we were sort of nearly out of cash too!!!

Pyin U Lwin turned out to be a bit of a highlight as the journey up there was in a pick up truck that was jammed to the rafters with people (we busted the front seats!!!) and the poor truck literally crawled up through the hills to get there. Bless it, it had to stop for a big drink of water at the top of the climb ..which gave us just enough time to visit the classy bathroom facilities (with all the great stuff we're used too like - classical music playing, automatic taps, heated loo seat, gold taps, tiled floors, aircon, moisturising hand lotion and someone to dry your hands for you!) and enough time to try the local culinary attraction that was a kind of floppy sticky pancake thing made out of sticky rice and sugar and kind of tasted a bit caramelly but had the consistency of thick snot (sorry it's the only thing I can think of!!!)

We arrived in Pyin U Lwin and got adopted (again) by, what we called, the local mafia.....we had only been in town about two minutes and a guy on our truck knew a guy who had a hotel and before you can say "mingalaaba" Olwen and I were in a horse drawn carriage (Yep!) being trotted off down the road to a hotel with two guys in tow who "worked' at the hotel! After that they tracked us down in the afternoon to a tea shop and told us they had a shop and could get us bikes, and all sorts of anything we might want! We had coffee in a "brothers" tea shop. we ate in a "cousin's" restaurant we shopped in the "Uncle's" shop and so the story goes....

To be fair it was really funny as they were really lovely guys called Ko Pyie and Kyaw Swa ...... they met us in the evening at an Indian restaurant and then took us to a Karaoke Bar where they sang songs and Olwen and I drank the bar out of beer ...they walked us home and bless on the way Ko Pyie threw up! Not used to the amount of beer we are!!! Tee hee!! It was doubly funny as as we had left the restaurant earlier in the evening they had said to us "Ok we go back to your hotel!" - And Olwen and I said " No we go drinking..." Pheewwww! And also funny because the Karaoke bar was owned by a "friend" and anytime we asked a question they would know who could sort it out and we asked if they were Mafia too and they said "Oh yes!" They got us bikes the next day and we went off to Anikasan waterfalls which was one hell of a descent to reach and a monster of a climb to get back up again. But it was really beautiful and stunning and peaceful. Again we got adopted by some of the local women who walked down with us so they could sell us drinks at the bottom and charge us a ridiculous sum for the pleasure....they were kind of funny though and on the way back up they told us we'd go by a "short cut" ..the short but turned out to be a vertical climb back up to the top!!!!!

Back in Pyin U Lwin the Mafia Boys managed to get us Father Christmas/Santa hats sorted! While we had been at the waterfalls they had checked around town and managed to track down the Crimbo hats for us..so Olwen and I were now sporting bright red and white Santa hats walking around town! Sadly the next day we had to head back to Mandalay as we were running out of cash but it was a funky, friendly place to be for a couple of days and as usual the people were amazing....

Back on the Road (back) to Mandalay...... which I should just add that, Kipling never actually took the Road to Mandalay (and I mean the poet dude as opposed to the geezer who makes exceedingly good cakes!) Anyway back at AD1 Guest House our own geezer cockney rhyming slang welcome committee was waiting for us - Diamond Geezer as he was known, works on the reception and was cute and really funny and had we had room we would have definitely kidnapped him and took us with us as he was hysterical and would call us his "cool chicks"...He wanted us to go out with him one night but sadly we couldn't do as earlier on the way to Mandalay Hill who should go past us in a trishaw, but Patrick who came trekking with us so we met him and then he followed us all over for the rest of the trip (joking... he's a really cool dude and for a Swiss bloke he's loads of fun not too serious and gave us as much s**t as we gave him!)

 Mandalay Hill was a funky little climb up to the top for the sunset and they were making a video and the guy was just gorgeous so we kind of just caught sunset.....

Back in Mandalay we paid a visit to the Moustache Brothers who are, well, let's just say, a legend in their own right but not popular with the government. They are supporters of the democracy movement and Aung San Suu Kyi. They are comedians and two of them landed up in jail for several years after making a joke about a traffic policeman's helmet being a "donation box".....True it is though as sadly they are a corrupt regime in Myanmar and it's the people who suffer, oppression and a fear of speaking out about the military junta....The brothers are not given permits to go and perform anywhere so they basically rely on foreigners pitching up at their house and supporting them by making donations to see the show. A lot of pressure was put on the government to release the imprisoned members of the family and they were finally released a few years ago but told they could never perform again...Some tourists pitched up at their house though to see a performance and now as they are not allowed to perform, every night they put on a "demonstration" of what a performance would be like if they were allowed to do it! For as long as foreigners keep going then the government and police turn a blind eye as they do not want the bad press and publicity....Politics aside these boys are very funny and we had a great time with them and smoking free cigars....

We took a side trip to Mingun by boat down the Irrawaddy River. Mingun would have been the site of the world's largest paya (temple) had it ever been finished. However, it is home to the World's largest uncracked Bell. You can get loads of people inside the bell and Patrick took great pleasure in hitting it as hard as he could with us inside to listen to the sound.....it is a whopper.....The whole area was hit by an earthquake some time ago and now the paya has loads of earthquake damage but you can still climb to the top and the views are great although the stability of it all is questionable!

After Mandalay we took the bus to Bagan which is a gorgeous site of ancient temple ruins and beautiful payas and although not as stunning as Angkor Wat it is a very beautiful site and we hired bikes to cycle around for the day... Being the massive fans of temples we are, Olwen and I left Patrick to go around himself with his fancy camera while we bummed around chatting to the locals and shopping and chatting to the touts! Next day we decided to go to Mount Popa in the morning before heading off to Pyay and THE BEACH for Crimbo......this day has to be one of the funniest as we had got around half an hour away from our hotel in the most beaten up death trap of a taxi and it broke down...seemed judging by the driver that perhaps a wheel or something might come off...A couple of kicks of the tyre and a slap and off we go again only to get 500 metres down the road and the thing grinds to a halt at which point the driver walks off to get us another car and we are joined by the locals who come to stare at the freaks standing in the road with a broken car!!! An hour or so later a new car arrives and we're on our way again to Mount Popa....

Mount Popa is one of the holiest payas in the area and had I known there were loads of monkeys there I would never have gone! Tricked again...however they seemed ok and I escaped incident free.....Another climb to the top and great views (are you getting a hint at my enthusiasm here?) After Mount Popa, Olwen and I caught the bus to Pyay.....and oh what a trip...about an hour into the trip the driver stops, breakdown number one......a couple of people get off and go to the back and examine the bus, poke around a bit while we sit around waiting and then move on again. We get a few hundred metres down the road and there's a smell of smoke the driver stops and the bus gets a tad smokey and funnily enough everyone gets off and here we are for the following hour while the driver's crew poke around with the engine and the engine makes some painful uncomforting noises and all the men on the bus go and squat next to the mechanics and look knowingly at the bus as if willing it to live.....At this point two foreigners flag down a passing car, grab their bags and disappear, spoilsports, it's only one breakdown and a small fire!!!! We drive in first gear with not much of a gearbox to the next town and there we remain for four hours while the bus is taken apart.... Eventually however this dream, posh new bus pitches up and on our way we go to Pyay...see no worries. We met a Burmese doctor during our short break in some random Burmese town and she's fascinating and Olwen's impressed as this woman has actually been to Wales!!!!! As Olwen and I plan our trips to precision timing this meant that we were stuck in seats in the middle of the bus that were shall we say interesting and we still have the bruises to prove it.....So after two breakdowns, a four hour delay, a small fire, we are now on our fancy new bus and then people's luggage decides to jump off the racks and proceed to land on my head......Ahhhhh! But at least we're moving...Solution to this nightmare is more smarties and Robbie on my minidisk player!!!!

We eventually arrived in Pyay and we're so knackered after 17 hours that we took a room in the SHITTIEST hotel (recommended by Holy Planet!) and pay $8 to sleep in there for about 7 hours as we decide to leave that evening on the night bus (yep we are into punishment!) to Ngapali...driven by the desire that Ngapali means beach, sun, sea, sand and Father Christmas we are not deterred....Thankfully the bus to Ngapali was a bit of a shocker but no breakdowns and while we're sitting in the office waiting for the bus they put the ever present Karaoke machine on and guess what .....IT'S ROBBIE...only it's not it's the Burmese version of The Road To Mandalay...so while they sing in Burmese I sing the REAL WORDS!!!! Then out comes the minidisk player and they get to hear the real version and let's face it we all know the chorus right !!!!!

It was heaven to reach Ngapali beach and know that there were no more journeys from hell for a few days and that Father Christmas would be pitching up soon too....Ngapali was in moderate Christmas spirit and after one night in an absolute shit hole we checked into a nice hotel on the beach as our Crimbo treat.....We met a Burmese guy on the bus who kindly took us around to find somewhere to stay and then we bumped into him again just before lunchtime and drank beer with him and he took us to a really funky Burmese seafood restaurant and we had some amazing food and some beers and he wouldn't let us pay.....

After that it was sun, sea and sand all the way and relaxation...Patrick arrived the next day with a Swedish guy called Simon he'd met in Bagan and so the festivities began with a Christmas Eve feast and session at their guesthouse and then a full on party for four on the beach on Christmas Day. In the absence of snow and because the sand wasn't optimum for construction according to our Swedish Engineer friend we opted to built Frosty the reclining Sandman.....there's a couple of photos attached.....So Christmas on the beach was great fun especially in our Santa hats but it was kind of weird not being freezing cold and wet.....

In the evening the local guys came down to the beach for the daily game of football (remember what I said about tucking longyi's up to play sport in and Burmese mens bods!) Well ding dong for an hour or so Olwen and I were in hormone heaven chasing these boys.. oops I mean the football around and I scored (a goal!)..... As a Christmas treat the boys decided they would hire bikes and give me and Olwen a lift back to our hotel to change for dinner...this is kind of where the plan went wrong.. Simon's bike only had the saddle and no seat or holder on the back so this entailed Olwen sitting on the saddle hanging on to Simon while he pedaled ...hmmmm...Patricks bike had a padded extra seat so I was Ok ....then it became obvious that in the incredibly pot holed roads Olwen was either not particularly safe or would take a very long time to get back to the hotel...so plan B was Patrick pedals and has his seat, I sit on the seat squashed up and Olwen stands on the footpegs .....the philosophy being that if these Burmese and Asian folk in general can get a small army and at least 5 people on a motorbike then we MUST be able to get three on a push bike .....hmmm..this worked for about 50 yards until we arrived at the gate to the staff quarters of one of the hotels, yep there were plenty of off duty staff gathered around chatting, yep they spotted us and yep they roared with laughter when right on cue the bike went splat and we all ended up flatpacked, face down in the tarmac .... Back to Plan A ....safer to walk....the scrapes and bruises have gone now.....

Boxing Day was slightly more subdued with a swim and talking a local fisherman into taking us to an island in his boat and then chilling on the beach....and so a wonderful warm, sunny and funny Crimbo was had by all and only a few injuries to show for it......

After Ngapali it was back to Yangon on the back seat of the most knackered bus so far, even the back seat wasn't attached to the bus and we had to keep putting it back together ourselves! Cool!

For a couple of days we were back to the sanctuary of ABC Pub and then a farewell dinner with Patrick and a couple of others on the last night there. We managed to adopt one of the postcard selling kids at Sule Paya in Yangon called Adi and his brother Nico. Adi approached us with the usual buy postcard thing and we said no we were going for lunch so in his broken English he said he was hungry so we took him to meet our chums at the market who were oh so pleased to see us again.. Adi and Nico are so incredibly adorable. Their father died a few years ago and this has left them practically destitute with five other brothers and sisters and their Mum. When we met Adi he had no shoes so after lunch we bought him some shoes (he wanted a Spiderman t-shirt!)......afterwards Olwen and I went to another sanctuary Cafe Aroma in Yangon and if you've ever had the pleasure of Burmese Coffee mix you'll know how amazing it is to find a real coffee shop.....Half an hour later Adi turns up with his brother Nico who is equally as adorable and then his Mum turns up and waits outside. They spend the rest of the day with us and frankly all these poor kids want is a bit of attention...they walked back us back to our hotel and said goodbye for the day. Not a mention of needing any money....They would be spending that evening in the paya as they had lot their home as their mother could not pay the rent.....We missed them the next day but managed to catch them to say goodbye before we left and gave them a few things...just adorable....You'll be able to see how adorable when the website's updated with my photos....

As mentioned the last night in Yangon was spent in ABC pub ripping it up and the last song played that evening before it closed earned the guy a basket of flowers as it was Robbie - Better Man...then it was off to the dodgy nightclub for the last time this trip......A tuly amazing trip and a lack of enthusiasm for temples and payas does not in any way flatten the trip, and longyi's aside, the people are the amazing thing about Myanmar they are truly wonderful....

So now back in Bangkok and complete with fluffy pink and purple halos Olwen and I have had a funky new year....we met a Thai guy called Phitchit on the Eve of New Year's Eve, he now lives in Oz and he'd met some New Zealand guys and we all kind of ended up getting rather drunk that evening ..well we had to celebrate being back in a land with real roads, and signs, and traffic lights and chocolate and cake and spangly stuff like that.... After the pub kicked us out we ended up sitting with a group of Thai folks drinking beer with them sitting on the tarmac on the corner of the street (sorry Mum but it's allowed in Thailand - well on the Khaosan Road it's obligatory!) and then one of their mates turned up with a guitar and sang Robbie songs to us and it was awesome literally a party in the gutter but great fun and a great photos of it too! New Year we all met up again at 5 o'clock and managed to see in a fair few time zones kicking off with New Zealand at 6 p.m......We saw the New Year in with about a few hundred thousand of the good folks of Bangkok outside the World Trade Centre, right in front of Prada and Louis Vuiton downtown and then back to the Khaosan until Gullivers kicked us out at 4 a.m. Didn't quite make seeing in the Brit New Year but we did surface in time the next day to see the New Year in with a cup of tea and some toast with New York!!!!

Since then we've been milling around and catching up with people who are back in Bangkok too and organising ourselves....Olwen and I will be separating soon as she's got another three months in Asia and I'll be turning south towards Malaysia and on to Oz on the 23rd Janaury.....

So you know what I've been up to for the last month or so what about you's lot.....?

Take care, Happy New Year and Loadsa love

Lillie, Lisa

xxx