Myanmar
So Antia was left all alone in here travels, so me and Tondo stepped up and went to save her, read, travel with her. She was the guid for the trip so me and Tondo could just lean back and relax! Oh, Tondo and Antia are two friends from when I studied back in Australia! Anyhow, we went to: Yangon --> Inle Lake --> Bagan --> Mandalay --> Golden Rock --> Yangon
Yangon
We started of by wandering around in Yangon and visiting the local Pagodas
So much gold everywhere.
We stumbled upon these guys while wondering around, safety at the work place, not so much.
Okies... We also saw the tooth of Buddha, and his footprint.
So more bling, money and hair apparently
Bling.
The swastika is used in a lot of the temples and on graves, since it means good fortune or well-being, and is used in Buddhism and Hinduism.
In almost every temple the statues had led lighting behind them, This is because the people here like to make the religion more accessible (modern) I guess, where as we/I found it to be a way of ruining the temple. This is also why UNESCO are a bit reluctant to help out on temple sites. But different ways to look at it I guess.
Think we found one of the ghettos while walking around.
Oh yeah, tons of these "cars" where roaming the streets.
Not all was dirty and ugly, it was some nice buildings to spot around!
The three musketeers, Tondo, Antia and me! With a floating golden duck of some sort in the background.
It was a restaurant apparently.
More bling as we walk up to some other pagodas.
I wish I could've bought this for my aunt! Det er EEEEEEEEEEEEEEG som er Ugleeeeeeee!
Want to work as an electrician here?
Or maybe buy a fish?
1000kyat is equal to about a dollar, so, quite cheap!
Again more safety at the work place, this guy is actually standing outside the window behind the AC he is trying ti fix, seconds before he was lying on top of it.
Local food, yeah!
Local food, yeah!
The care package we got when we entered the bus for Inle lake, water, toothbrush and paste, medicine against the shits/runs and a mint.
The bus interior looked like it was from the 70s, nice "chandelier" also the lamps on the side lit up during night. The entertainment was provided through the tv in front playing sing along Burmese versions of western music, or local stuff, and Burmese movies. Not something I would recommend.
Inle Lake
The view from the boat taking us to the hotel in the middle of Inle lake at 0600 in the morning.
The view of me in the morning with water squirting all over.
Local cigar makers, the girl could roll one cigar in 22 seconds. All sorts of tastes, liquorish, pineapple, mint, honey etc.
Cool to smoke? Relax mom, it still tastes like crap.
Making silk.
The silk was extracted from the lotus plant.
The looms as they are called.
Almost all the girls/ladies in Myanmar has some sort of goldish "makeup" on their face, and this is it. It is a sort of tree, that they grind down and smear on their face to protect from the sun.
Found some cool silk clothes, sadly they only had this one in medium, I was too broad over the shoulders, and the jacket was too small across the gut, not the other way around obviously *cough* and it was only 45 dollars.
The local blacksmith making a blade of some sort.
Fruit carvings in the local temple.
Some ladies making scarfs or the like.
Some ramshackle bridges we had to cross to explore properly.
A silver bar anyone?
A silversmith in Lake Inle,, melting the silver.
The house of some of the locals, this was by far one of the nicer ones.
A beautiful view from the hanging gardens.
A beautiful view of a hunk with some scenery in the background at a abandoned cat monastery.
Seagulls everywhere.
Sunset at Inle Lake.
A lot of the shrines are in ruins.
More bling!
Not all the souvenirs are nice, and this type of bird I saw alive in Kuala Lumpur.
The local boat builders!
Found some quality reading at our hotel as well!
Oh, and some pictures from the hotel itself.
When we got back to the village at the end of the lake, we borrowed some bikes and went for a ride!
So we biked out to a winery and had a taste!
Afterwards we got a bit lost trying to find some caves, we cycled of the main road onto some dirt roads, through a garbage dump, through a small village, over a wooden bridge, past a school, when we at the end stops at some stairs. And a monk comes and greets us in English, in the middle of nowhere and gives us a small guided tour! In the caves they had small prayer mats etc, but it was to dark to get any meaningful pictures.
Paint me like one of your french girls!
I ordered chick curry and got all this, what to do?
Oh yeah, picture of the kitchen.
And inside, and the toilets are to the right here.
Where all looked like the one below obviously.
Bagan
Our taxi for a trip!
A pagoda from 1090!
And some more temples!
And a view:
Yeah, we ordered one dish each, and it came with a lot extra, this might have been 1.5 dollars each?
Two nice girls we met and cruised around with for several days!
Sunset from a boat in the river in Bagan.
Hot air balloons during sunrise in Bagan.
In the following pictures they make spirits out of palm sugar, it tasted okay actually, we tasted one plain, and one with honey,
Here they made peanut oil, one liter from 4kg of peanuts.
And this is the automated machinery crushing the peanuts!
A monastery on a mountain top we are headed for.
Us and Hervé a cool guy from Vietnam that we met!
The view from up there,
Apparently the monks, need satellite tv up here!
More view.
Us on e-bikes, cruising around the country side exploring temples, we felt like a biker gang!
We rented e-bikes, they're like really shitty scooters. However Tondo managed to get a flat tire twice! Here though we got help from some locals! Paid them like 4 dollars to fix the tire.
We got invited back for the next day for sunrise and local breakfast! Green leaf tea salad, so yeah, green tea, garlic, tomatoes and peanuts, quite ok!
Morning, so a bit chilly!
The kids in the local family that helped us! Well, the oldest one was 19 and had left school at 11 to help raise the family, the English she knew she had picked up from tourists, and she spoke very well.
A hot air balloon came quite close to us this morning!
The address of the girl wasn't a house number that we might be used to, no, it was a temple number. The house they lived in they got from the government which also paid their electricity bill in exchange for them looking after security at the temple.
This is their house, where five person at least lives, quite different from back home. You feel a bit bad everywhere you walk around. I mean, you kinda feel like a rich spoiled kid, when these people have nothing compared to what you have yourself, in terms of education and material value at least.
One of the larger temples.
We went to this restaurant in the evening! And yeah, we ate quite well!
We stumbled upon this beautiful shop, where a local man made umbrellas with all different colors, patterns and sizes, as you can see they are quite beautiful with a light behind!
Mandalay
The following pictures are from the royal palace, quite nice and pimp.
Some pictures from one of the larger temple grounds in Mandalay, these small white buildings houses the world largest book (not longest) in physical size, each one contains a huge stone tablet.
The stone tablets.
All the white ones contain a tablet.
Tree in the temple grounds.
Again more lights, somehow I found it to look nicer here.
The locals watching the cinema in the temple grounds!
The local marked, in need of onion or garlic?
We also went to a famous bridge with the name of U Bein Bridge or:
Yeah, at least we found the way!
A 1.2 km wooden footbridge (longest teak bridge in the world), also believed to be one of the oldest ones.
More nice scenery!
Back in Mandalay again we went to a old really cool temple called Shwenandaw Kyaung, that once had all been covered in gold.
Inside the old temple.
This was how my bus seat was fastened on the way to the golden rock, not at all! So every time the bus driver braked the bus seat would tip forward. In the windows sill I found the wrench and the bolts, no bolt holes though!
The golden rock, said to balance on a hair of Buddha!
MacGyver would've been proud!
Singapore
Not that much to tell about Singapore actually, we flew in and spent a few days there just walking around and enjoying being back in a bit more developed country. We went to the beach one day, ride luges, ate good food, drank nice beer, and had hot showers!
View from the marina walk during night. They have a sounds and light show every 45minutes here, quite beautiful, so nice classical music and laser lights penetrating the skies!
On the left here you can also see the Helix bridge, quite cool :)
During daytime. The funky building to the right is the arts museum as far as I know, or was it the science center, can't remember now.
Homeage to Gaudi in Singapore.
I don't know.
Went to the botanical gardens in Singapore as well saw these fellas.
Some beautiful Orchids.
Oh, this is how pineapples grow just in case you didn't know.
'
There is a small red bird in the picture, on the leaves.
During our stay they celebrated St.Patrick's day, however this beer was not green because of that, this was a normal one they had on tap all year around. Quite good actually!
I really like when they do stuff like this to cover up ugly concrete!
Swedes can be found everywhere!
It's just nice to walk around during nighttime in Singapore to look at all the people and nightlife, lots of bars with live music, nice restaurants, cool atmosphere, and quite expensive.
That's it for now, toodles!
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