Bamboo Odyssey » Myanmar | Bamboo Odyssey

Kinpun, Kyaiktiyo Pagoda, The Golden Rock.

Jules — Thu, 06 Mar 2014 11:44:45 +0000

Theme park with a difference, cycling into Kinpun the gateway to the Kyaiktiyo Pagoda…. this was not the Myanmar we intimately sensed and experienced over the previous 5 days.
We were soon to join many tourists, mostly from SE Asia and Myanmar, and many, many more pilgrims that were making their way to the top of Mt Kyaikiyo. We were to witness a pagoda built upon a Golden Rock which is precariously held from tumbling into the precipice by a single strand of Buddha’s hair.
If not for the odd snake, yes snake, rats, mosquitoes and holes in the squat loos no bigger than a bath tub drain hole upon a concrete slab….Kinpun would be similar to a low key fairground. (As for the squat loo…. Fortunately there was a western loo in our guest house as I doubt anyone could aim a number 2 achieving a hole in 1).
The cacophony was overpowering, loudspeakers, music from a Burmese wedding and calls for the next truck up the mountain, intertwined and competing to outdo each other. Soon we were to learn that the sounds commence at 4am, repetitive and fast, frantic beats, spoken word, shouting, calling…insistent…. And so annoying.
No one sleeps in, in Kinpun.
As we were now a group of 5 cyclists, having enjoyed our beer, more sampling of Myanmar whisky and celebration of our new friendship and our arrival, we had decided to avoid the sun rise and sleep in! We would visit the mountain the following sun set, but it was impossible to sleep in. Do not got to Kinpun for relaxation.
Greg was mad enough to suggest cycling up the mountain, I was tempted to walk…. We were both tempted by the others suggestions of beer and an early evening trip to the top in a dump truck. Riding would have been impossible, the gradients averaging about 20% and more on the cambers, one lane, one direction and the trucks converted into an overstuffed people carrier were irresponsibly fast and hair raising.
Life insurance was included in the cost of a truck ticket….although the ticket never did materialise as we handed over our Kyat. The trucks are not dissimilar to tip trucks with rows of hard benches where they squeeze in as many people that it appears is possible…. Then they squeeze in a few more…ours held about 60!
Off the truck… more tourist tat, hawkers, food, people carting, carrying people as they cart luggage for the infirm and, more often, the downright lazy.
Large slabs of tiles and marble for the pilgrims to lay out their mats and sleep, signage prohibiting women to approach the pagoda,….while western men get close the women pilgrims hold their distance offering prayers and thanks. At first I am annoyed, my feminist self protests…. But quieter than a Western woman next to me who is vocally outraged…. I am here to look, listen and learn, hopefully understand…. I may not agree but this is not my place and I feel privileged to observe.
Slowly my feelings and emotions are transformed. This place begins to mesmerise me, men applying gold leaf to the Golden Rock, people quietly praying, monks taking photos with their latest smart phones. It does feel special here, as spiritual as any place of worship I have visited. The Kyaiktiyo Pagoda is nothing like what I had expected, yet sometimes this does not matter and I believe it was worth the experience.
And then we missed the last truck down the mountain, resulting in yet another adventure.

Myawaddy to Kawkareik

Jules — Wed, 05 Mar 2014 08:00:55 +0000

Myanmar….Burma?……we coast our bikes into Myawaddy, the poverty was immediately evident, and the notorious human and drug trafficking border town has a seedy, dangerous feel as the sun goes down and the majority of tourists….on a visa run….cross friendship bridge back into Thailand. Until August 2013 tourists were unable to travel further into the country from any land border and Myawaddy was a place to enter for 1 day only, before re entering Thailand to be granted another x amount of days Thai visa. During our visit the majority of people entering Burma were still doing “the visa run”. Yes it feels dangerous in that people are living on the edge, sandbag bunkers and soldiers, machine guns, crowds of people and very little street lighting as the rubbish piled up upon market streets and people prepared their meagre stalls for sleeping.
But the soldiers smiled, the men were curious, children stared, laughed and women beamed, all the more alluring decorated in their beautiful tanaka. (Paste that dries white to golden which is ground from branches of a tree and applied to the skin for both sun protection and make up.)
The Thai people rarely stare but entering Myanmar where people are less reserved, we are back to being the travelling circus. But it is a comfortable curiosity, friendly…and very quickly we feel safe and welcome. 11 kilometres out of town we come to our first police check point, a chaotic place full of trucks and food stalls. We are guided to the guard who needs to check our passports. We discover quickly that the people are more than willing to help and even in the smallest villages there is always someone that can speak at the least a few words of English. There are many knowledgable people, knowledgable about the world at large despite years of oppression and subjugation. People also instruct on how to avoid the fees at tourist traps, fees that will go to the Government and unlikely to go to the people.
The next police check we are given cans of red bull as we wait for the police to complete the necessary paperwork. As the road begins its upward journey, people at a road side stall beckon us over, give us coffee and refuse payment…..steeper….I am stopped by a truck and given another can of energy drink and cool water. The generosity of not just spirit, but peoples hard earned produce is challenging to one so fortunate.
Around 20 kilometres from Myawaddy the road begins to deteriorate and we understand why vehicles are only allowed to travel in one direction, the direction alternating each day. We see a truck overturned…..later a bus…. moments before having overtaken us….. on its side….and the walking wounded.
But the road is not too bad…. We have done worse in Georgia and Kazakhstan and I enjoy the ride…or at times the pushing over rocks and deep channels of sand.. We push past a traffic jam, cars, buses, trucks, vehicles for which I can not name….2 kilometres before we pass the broken down truck that is blocking the way….then a road all to ourselves for over an hour before the truck is repaired and the traffic slowly catches up. Pushing 3 kilometres upwards, then down because of the poor loose surface. The inclines are generally gentle and not too challenging as the temperature rises to a much more challenging 36 degrees. At around 40 kilometers we coast down slowly, avoiding creeping to close to the edge, avoiding the ruts and holes, stones, before the road flattens out. 66 kilometers to Kawkareik and we were almost as fast as the cars…taking broken down and overturned vehicles into consideration. We recognise vehicles passing us that we left behind at the beginning of the climb.
We pass 3 police check points between Myawaddy and Kawkareik. We are told to take it “slow and steady”. For me this ride proved to be my favourite cycle route within Myanmar, a relatively challenging ride with time to rest and enjoy what was incredibly picturesque, accompanied by beautiful hospitality and an area still relatively untouched by tourists.

Myanmar food?

Jules — Fri, 21 Feb 2014 10:27:41 +0000

Myanmar food? Exciting ….yes….. unique…… yes…. frightening… Absolutely, yes. Our first meal at a road side stall after we sidestepped rubbish and the odd sickly rat, mangy dogs….the food looked delicious, smelt scrumptious and spicy….and was served into our take away plastic bags…by hand. We survived half expected food poisoning in Uzbekistan, but here…..each morning we were to wake slightly nervous and then relived to find we are still very much….. well. After a week in the country my one and only bout of nausea, followed by the runs and vomiting hit me quickly after lunch and only lasted a few unpleasant hours. At first I had thought it was the sun…the beer….which I also thought was so very odd!
We have watched cats climb on plates and bowls to sneak away dried fish, watched flies buzz, drown in the oily slick, dogs, yet more commonly, people, sleeping on the food preparation surfaces……none of which stop the hungry cyclist from eating…..or the tired bus traveler……..food is always part of the adventure.
We drink tea from cups in the centre of tables, cups placed upside down in bowls of water to assume there cleanliness. Much of the time the water has evaporated or if not it is brown. We have also not said no to offers of drinks from communal cups, water in ceramic pots that adorn temples, the roadside, tea shops. We have no idea of the origination of this water. When not in company we sterilise water from taps with the UV light of our steripen.
Everyday, everywhere, cities, villages, farms….people cart water from wells and even the wealthy can not avoid the black outs, the frequent absence of electricity. Thus, much of the food, in this climate, makes sense.
Burmese food food has proved generally salty and oily, prepared and left to sit throughout the day, more often than not it has sat and it has sat and it is served cold. My eyes take in the sights, my nose the pleasant smells and my mind…. notes the hours allowed for bacteria to set in. Fortunately the oil does seam to preserve the food so that we avoided multiple bouts of food poisoning.
We learnt quickly that the food can be delicious, small amounts of curry and sauces mixed with lots of rice to take in the otherwise overpowering flavours. We had thought it rude not to finish the never ending bowls of food that appear each time one bowl is almost finished. It is not rude and not wise to consume an otherwise never ending banquet. Fortunately all sit down meals even in the most basic of tea shops in the smallest of villages comes with a brothy palette cleansing and thirst quenching soup….this can also be never ending….topped up in a blink of the eye. The locals also spoon this into the curry, rice concoctions which makes the heaviness of dishes somewhat more appealing.
What would have been rude was not accepting my gift of soup when we stopped for soft drink in the middle of the furnace, somewhere in the middle of Myanmar. Oh dear….I saw it coming…it was so hot that day and I was not at all hungry. OH DEAR! As I looked down at my offering….striped fowls feet, intestines, whole liver and ….All eyes upon me….I tasted the broth….not bad…. I gave Li the liver before I “enjoyed” the other bits and pieces….half gone…..all smiles…..the bowl again topped up! Well it did go down well with my first ever experience of palm wine. I was excited by what I expected was coconut or sugarcane juice in an old plastic bottle…..so the surprise at first taste was horrifying….and then refreshing and very quaffable…..and I never did finish my second bowl of guts soup!
Burmese food can be refreshing and more to our liking. Tomato salad with shallots, crushed peanuts and sesame seeds. Ginger salads with the glorious crunch of a dried and toasted assortments of beans. Fermented and tangy tea leaf salads. There can be a lot of tantalising texture.
We started seeking bastardised Chinese,Thai and Indian food which is readily available when in larger places, because it usually wasn’t swimming in oil and cooked fresh. For this reason I was looking forward to visiting Inle Lake in Shan State. Yet rather than avoid the food of Myanmar it was here that we discovered Shan Food. We had been searching for wine in the local stores when a tourist overheard us and said the wine we were looking for was available in a restaurant where he had just eaten. We asked about the food? …his eyes lit up and he literally sparkled. We headed straight to Sin Yaw for our first taste of Shan cuisine…..and we adored it.!Sun cured pork and spring onion tempura with tamarind sauce. Golden yellow crispy tofu with punchy coriander and lime sauce. White, local, seaweed salad. We returned to try more delicacies, always light, cooked fresh and immediate, and bursting with flavour.
Incidentally, near Inle we just had to cycle to both of the only wine producing vineyards in Myanmar, tasting 11 wines in total. The vintners are aiming at the local market and unfortunately getting your hands on a bottle outside of Myanmar would be difficult. Quality wine, of all shades including frizzante for the price at around $10 per bottle.
Oh…how could I forget the “donuts”. Guilt free because of our mode of travel. Many street vendors provide fried delights, samosas with hints of star anise, corn filled spring rolls, caramelised crunchy battered bananas, rings of batter with crisp palm sugared hard caramel….and our favourite, golden, soft centred donuts filled with fresh coconut and sugar. These were also a perfect gift…. along with tamarind and sticky rice flavoured cheroots, when we were granted the floor of a temple to spend the night…..our legs, nor the donuts were enough to propel us to the next town with a designated foreigner guest house where we could legitimately, legally, spend the night.
The best food comes with drama….a performance….and in this aspect the food of Myanmar is not lacking. The first time I placed my order, a young boy screamed this translated into Myanmar to a colleague….or perhaps his mum? As the order was being screamed down the line, starting a yelling match of banter back and forth….Li placed her order…..followed by the orders of our new found friends….no note pads or memory required….just a very loud cacophony of sound running through and over, and back and forth. This form of taking orders when sitting down at restaurants never ceased to delight and amuse me.
During meals and refreshment we also managed to provide entertainment. On several treasured occasions women merrily applied tanaka to our faces. Tanaka is worn by all genders but primarily the women and it is used as both make up and for sun protection. On a large stone the tree stump, (tanaka) is ground with water to make a smooth paste….and applied to the face ……”beautiful”!

The start, Myawaddy

Jules — Thu, 30 Jan 2014 01:13:55 +0000

Myawaddy, our shortest cycling distance of this this trip. 7 kilometres from the border town of Maesot in Thailand and into Myanmar (Burma). The plan was to get up early and ride 73 km to the next town with a guest house that will allow foreigners.
We woke before the sun and pedalled 5 kilometres to friendship bridge. The border was not open so we enjoyed watching the increasing crowd as we ate a breakfast of rice noodles at a local eatery. We were not hurrying, content to watch as the first people strolled leisurely from the Myanmar side.
Today I was slightly nervous as I always am when switching passports. Being a dual national I am fortunate enough to hold both a British and Australian passport. I entered Thailand on my British passport…..I get an additional 15 days in the country with this. My visa for Myanmar is in my Aussie passport….maybe I should have thought about it earlier and used my British as I am quickly running out of pages. Visiting central Asian countries is much more economical using my Aussie passport but the official looking visas and stamps really gobble up the pages. We have met some folks having real difficulties getting new passports on the road when the pages are depleted while the document has not expired. So to save money…..and pages….I will continue to fluctuate my identity.
Anyway….we planned to cycle…..no problems with passport control…..for me. Li was taking a while and eventually met me where I was waiting with the somewhat famous bamboo bikes. “They may not let me back into Thailand”
Oh…oh…..we will worry about that somewhere between tomorrow and 28days. Li has had several slight delays when border control authorities become confused by her british nationality, Danish surname and having been born in Hong Kong.
We are in Myawaddy and planned to cycle west….but today the traffic goes east. There is only one road, one narrow road and to ensure it flows, the direction of traffic is changed daily. So after 7km in total we book into a guest house, the River View.
From here we view Friendship Bridge and a trickle of pedestrians, motorcycles and the occasional truck crossing the border. From here we also view a small long boat, 100 meters up river from the bridge. More people appear to be crossing from Burma into Thailand, Thailand into Burma via this boat that has no authorities, no fence, just a dusty track winding up from the bank on both sides. There are men with machine guns in sandbag bunkers under the bridge but no one seems bothered by what appears unchecked passage. Later we watch children swim and it is evident anyone could easily walk across the sandy and gently flowing short expanse.
And…just a stones throw from Thailand….already….Myanmar is a place so very, very different.