Day 228 – People

Today, I got the chance to meet Daniel and go with him to one of the slums in Yangon to see the work he is doing there.

But before I continue let me first say thanks to Daniel, for his help and support of the people you see in this post (and more), and the friends at My Place, who made this possible by introducing me to Daniel.

Every city has areas where poor people live who don’t always have the means or  the support from the government to improve their situation and have to make the best out of their situation. We call these areas slums and we have all bee driving or walking past at one point or another.

So has Daniel but unlike most of us he decided one day to step off the bus and go to see if he can do anything to help the people living under poor conditions in one of the slums in Yangon.

He managed to set up a school for the kids and teaches them English and other skills that might come in handy for them once they grow up to find jobs or try and improve their situation. This alone is quite impressive but he manages to do all this without any government support and only by using his own money and with help from his family.

He is now working together with the people at the My Place charity but a lot of the work is still done on his own money and in his free time on weekends.

After learning that I am in Yangon, Daniel invited me to come and see the work he does and also meet the children he is teaching but also the other people living in the slums and showed me the conditions they live in.

Now, I could go on and say how poor these people are and under what horrible conditions they live in, that they are very unfortunate and that we should feel sorry for them.
This certainly is true but the people I met are great people, they are friendly, happy and make the best out of their situation, they help each other, they share their houses with other families (so 3-4 families live in a small house), they are proud people who despite everything smile and don’t complain.

Sure, they live in poor conditions and don’t have a lot of money but they are not poor because they have so much more than a lot of people I have seen every day on my way to work in London.
They have neighbors they care about, they help each other, they deal with everything as best as possible without constantly complaining, they do their best to improve their situation and don’t wait for someone else to do something.
These are the people I have seen and met there, great and proud people, they all smiled and were welcoming.

Do they need help to improve their situation? Sure, they do need help and especially Daniel needs help so he can work with the children and provide them with an education.

So if you’re in Yangon, do get in touch with me or the people at My Place and see if you can help Daniel and support his help with the kids.

Just as a note, none of the photos were directed by me, the people chose where and how to pose and just asked me to take a photo of them. This is a longer series with a lot of photos but I felt it was necessary to portray it better.

You can find even more photos from the day on my Flickr set here.

Day 227 – Yangon and the Shwedagon Pagoda

Another day in Yangon and I decided to do some sightseeing today. After refusing to pay for the entrance to Kandawgyi Park, I managed to sneak in by going to the restaurants on the north side and from there to the park.

It was mostly to hang out in the shade for a bit until it got a bit cooler to head top the Shwedagon Pagoda.

Before entering the pagoda, I walked around the gardens next to it for a bit and then headed to see the famous pagoda myself.

Maybe it was me being a bit overloaded with temples and pagodas but I was not blown away by it. Sure, it’s a nice pagoda and quite impressive but it’s nothing to unusual if you’ve been around Myanmar and Thailand before.

It is a great place for hanging out and people watching though, you even get free wifi so this certainly is very cool.

After taking lots of photos of the pagoda and people there, I set out to walk back to my hotel and grab some dinner on the way.

Tomorrow morning, I am invited by a friend to go and see his work supporting and teaching the poor kids in Yangon.

Day 226 – Back in Yangon

After a slightly uncomfortable night, trying to sleep on a chair, I arrived back in Yangon.

I didn’t have anything planned or the day so decided to just take it easy, chill a bit and check out the market.

While it was fun, it didn’t provide the photo opportunities I was looking for so I decided to walk around the city instead.

Yangon is a very nice city and has character so it’s nice to walk around and take photos or just take in the atmosphere.

Tomorrow will be another day in Yangon but this time I will try and go do some more sightseeing and visit the Shwedagon Pagoda.

Day 225 – A Day in the Train

Had to get up early to take the taxi to the train station in Shwenyaung for the 8:00 train to Thazi for the first leg of my journey to Yangon.

Despite the distance not being that far, as usual here the train takes almost all day to get there. Still, the views, especially in the first half of the journey, are fantastic and it is definitely worth taking the train.

It is fun how people buy all kinds of stuff when the train stops at the different stations, from flowers to flower pots and of course the usual food and drinks.

Another very interesting aspect is how the train manages to go down the mountain by going forward and then reversing on to another track that goes slightly lower and so on for a few times. It is very interesting and at first I thought the train is turning back or some reason.

Still, the journey was fantastic although quite long and once in Thazi it was time to get the tickets for the night train to Yangon, unfortunately only seats were available but I guess better than standing.

I have said something similar before but you just have to take the train at least once in Myanmar to experience the country and people fully.

There is something special about seeing kids and adults waving at you when the train passes by, the restaurant attendants in the train recognizing you again and having a drink once they finish their shift or an old lady smiling and handing you a napkin after you finished eating. This you will only experience in the train and it makes the journey and experience even more special.

Day 224 – A Day on the Lake

I got picked up in the morning with a few other people from the hotel to go on the boat trip on Inle Lake. While I am not always keen on a tour with other people, you always pay the boat for the day and it’s the same price irrespective of people so $15 divided by 5 people is just a lot cheaper than by myself.

The first stop as soon as you get on the lake are two boats with ‘fishermen’ posing for photos and asking for money so this can be ignored as it looks fake.

The next stop is a jewelry manufacturer and shop next to the ‘floating’ market. I ignored the shop but was curious why the ‘floating’ market was not really floating but on land so I got told the market is only on water during the rainy season.
Still, I enjoyed the market quite a lot and took lots of photos around. Afterall a market is always interesting, floating or not.

After deciding we didn’t want to go to shops unless it was decided by us which shops we go and that we definitely didn’t want to have lunch in a tourist restaurant, it was decided to head to the Indein Temple next.
The temples and views from there were great and we also got invited by the monk there for tea so it was great. It is certainly worth a visit and I can imagine if you can make it here before sunset it would be even better.

The next stops after lunch were the silk shop, to see how they make thread out of lotus flowers, and right after the cigar shop, I mean who doesn’t like to try sweet cigars and cigars without tobacco.

The last stop before heading back and seeing the sunset from the lake were the floating gardens where they grow tomatoes and other vegetables on the lake.

Tomorrow will be another early start for a long 24h train journey back to Yangon.

Day 223 – Nyaung Shwe at Inle Lake

After a freezing cold night in the bus, I arrived in Nyaung Shwe just after 4:15 in the morning and found a hotel who let me check in right away without charging extra.

After breakfast, I set out to explore the town and see how far it was from Inle Lake, unfortunately it turned out to be around 10 km away from the lake. This meant I decided to just walk around and explore the area without going on the lake on my first day.

Walking around the town was quite nice and it looked like a quiet and laid back town, I also happened to come about a very nice old lady offering me (and other tourists judging from her guestbook) free tea and a nice conversation.

I saw a small road leading outside of the town towards the lake and decided to follow it and see where it leads.

The road led out of town to some of the small villages around and provided some nice view of the landscape around and the houses right by the river leading to Inle Lake.

While it was nice to walk around the town and villages today, tomorrow I’ll join some people on a boat trip on the lake, afterall the lake is the main attraction here.

Day 222 – A Day in Mandalay

Today kind of shows why it’s good to be open and just change plans if the opportunity comes along. At first I wanted to take it easy, sleep in a bit, go for a walk and then get a coffee and work on my blog.

While I was walking around the bottom of Mandalay Hill and was trying to decide if I should or should not walk up, one of the motorbike drivers approached me and asked if I want to hire his services for the day.

At first I declined since I didn’t want to spend much money and afterall I could just hire a bike and drive myself to places.
But since he insisted we ended up reaching an agreement and a good price, he would take me around to see all the main sights in Mandalay and bring me to the train station or bus station later to catch my train or bus to Inle lake.

This gave me the opportunity to go and visit all the main temples at the bottom of Mandalay Hill, get lunch in a locals only place, see some of the further away temples and go to the famous U Bein Bridge.

The temples were all quite nice, despite me being a bit unsure about spending more time looking at temples after two days in Bagan.

The real highlight however was the U Bein Bridge as it’s not only cool to see but there is a lot around it happening with people fishing, swimming and taking boats around the lake.

Since I quite enjoyed it at the bridge and it got late, I decided to just get the bus instead of the train. It also seemed not only to be the cheaper and faster option than the train, it also means not having to spend one night in the train and one in Thazi before getting to Inle Lake.
The bus makes this journey in just a few hours so I will arrive in Inle Lake at 4:00 in the morning.

Day 221 – The Train to Mandalay

Having a train station further away from the town than the airport is certainly one of the more ‘unique’ aspects of Bagan so it meant an early start to get there on time for the 7:30 train to Mandalay.

People at the station and in the train were quite excited to have a foreigner take this train as most just take the bus to Inle Lake or the boat or fly. As always it was a nice experience and nice to be around locals travelling.

Despite it being a short distance, the train takes forever to get to Mandalay but you can easily see why. The tracks are even worse than in England, at times it’s so bumpy and shaky that you expect the train to fall on it’s side or jump out of the tracks.

The views are not as nice here as on some other routes or the boat but you still get to see enough of the landscape and villages you pass through.

Despite the train being slow and bumpy, it’s very relaxing to take it and just sit by the open window and watch the villages and landscape go by.

The train arrived in Mandalay just after lunch and at first I planned to go around take some more photos but decided to just take it easy instead. The evening was spent celebrating a friend’s birthday.

Tomorrow late afternoon/evening, I will either take the train or bus to Inle Lake.

Day 220 – More Temples in Bagan

After walking around to most places yesterday, I decided to rent a bicycle today. Being cheap, I took one without gears so it was not quite as easy or comfortable to get along the dusty roads and I missed having a motorbike or at least better bicycle for this.

Still, having a bicycle meant I could go to some of the temples that were a bit further away to walk and go back to some of the temples I wanted to see again.

It’s funny how you can go to lots of temples but as soon as you look around from above you realize that you have hardly seen anything from all the temples around you.

Initially I planned to go to a different temple for the sunset but after seeing clouds in the sky, I decided to save the trip and enjoy a cool beer instead.

The evening was spent having dinner with a nice lady I met at one of the temples selling lacquer ware, I gave her some of my old t-shirts for her son so she invited me for dinner. This was very nice and also very interesting as I like spending time with the locals and appreciate she invited me although I insisted to pay.

Tomorrow will be an early start to take the train back to Mandalay.

Day 219 – People and Temples in Bagan

I just ain’t really the sunrise photographer as I didn’t manage to get myself out of bed in time yet again. On the other hand it meant I had enough energy to walk to the temples rather than rent a bike.

As with so many other places I have been to, I was not sure quite what to expect other than temples, lots of them.

And there were indeed a lot of temples everywhere I looked once I got out of the town but even in town there were some smaller temples and ruins of temples. It reminded me somewhat of Ayuthaya or Sukhothai just bigger.

There are over 2,000 temples in and around Bagan so one could spend months trying to see all of them but since I was walking, I could only see a more limited number. The good thing about walking is that I didn’t try to rush and see as many as possible but took my time at each of the temples I did go to.

There are a lot of temples that look similar, a lot of small temples and some that are just ruins but the bigger temples are all quite different from each other and worth seeing.

One thing that quickly became very annoying was to have to take my shoes off to enter each temple even if it was just ruins. It is here even more strict than in the rest of Asia where you can enter the temple with shoes and only take them off where people pray.

Still, it was great to walk around and see all the temples and it was almost as impressive as seeing Angkor Wat the first time, despite being to Ayutthaya and Sukhothai before and having seen a fair share of similar temples in Thailand.

I managed to find the most touristy an visited spot  possible for the sunset and as usual (when I make the effort to see it) the sunset was nothing too special.
The walk back to the hotel in the dark was also not so much fun but I stopped for a beer on the way so this helped me to continue.

Tomorrow I will rent a bike though.