Yes that's me in local costume and that's Teddy outside the biggest temple in Yangon.
Howdy strangers or as we say in Myanmar "Me la la Nook Nook."
That's not Myanmar language by the way, it's just me being a dickhead.
At last Sabrina and i have the opportunity to update our audience of the delights of the past two weeks here in this Socialist country. We are back in Yangon which in Myanmar means "Death to the Enemy" which just screams out 'Welcome to our country' doesn't it? Here are 10 facts about this exciting little Asian country.
1 - There are 227 rules and regulations to follow if you want to be a monk.
2 - Myanmar is roughly the size of Texas.
3 - I think we visited about 50-60 temples these past two weeks.
4 - Myanmar in the local language means "Land of The Quick and Swift"
5 - Myanmar internet access, unlike the country is not quick and swift.
6 - The people here are the freindliest we've seen on our travels.
7 - When your tour guide says "Lets share a beer" you will always pay for it.
8 - There is no such thing as a sex industry in Myanmar according to our guide.
9 - You can eat amazing custard with Banana at the 7 Sisters Restaurant in Kalaw.
10- The local Catholic preist in Kalaw think Sab and i are idiots.
For a more detailed description of where we went check out Sabrinas blog at spaces.msn.com/sabszone30. Just click on the title of this blog.
Amazing you say! Why haven't we packed the kids in the car and traveled here earlier? In hindsight our tour of this place has been pretty good. I wouldn't say it was excellent because as we found out besides Temples and Chinese Restaurants, our tour guide Myo never really took us to anything else. I know we were on a tour and we have agendas to follow but seriously, how many times can you fake interst in seeing a Bhuddist Temple? To be fair on our guide he was flexible in his thinking an adapted the tour to our needs. Instead of seeing a temple we can go and see a floating market. Brilliant we tought.
We floated right past it in our boat.
For two days we were staying on Inlay Lake (which by the way is 22km long and 11 km wide and during the rainy season is 9 meters deep) and when i mean on the lake, we were on the lake! (can i make it anymore clearer?) Now it's a lovely place for romance but no offence to my buddy Sab, it's doesn't exactly suit our needs as the pants off department is strictly taboo. Lord knows i've tried! ...Just Kidding everyone!
Earlier in the week we visited Bagan which is home for over 2000 temples built from the 11 to the 13th centuries. It is an amazing sight to see these temples..when you first get there but after a while Sab was completly turned off by seeing another temple. I myself was really getting into it. 'Yeah!' i thought 'This temple is certainly a late period templeswhere as the one before was an early age temple. The difference is in the number of entrances and the detailing of the stucco on the exterior.' I don't know if i was going cuckoo but maybe it was my failed attempt at being an architect that inspired me to enjoy seeing temples over and over and over again.
Bagan also teased us by having a swimming pool at our hotel where i decided to get sunburnt big time and even five days after i got burnt, i'm still red and yes mum i did put sunscreen on!
But what about the local delicacy you say? Well in Myanmar you have the choice of Myanmar food (basically fish and vegetables) or Chinese food and that's it. Sab and i have eaten so much Chinese food and Myanmar food that i can't eat anymore. My heart feels likes its been marinaded in MSG and its slowly cooking itself into a delicious heart attack but seriously we couldn't eat anything else becasue there was nothing else! I did have the fourtune to try bamboo shoots which smell and taste like cow shit. It really does, our guide Myo thought it was hilarious, my tastebuds disagreed with him.
Other highlights included
- Mandaly Hill. Mandaly is the cultural capital of this country and one of the 5 ancient capitals of the country. The view was supurb and was the numerous hand weaving and stone carving galleries we saw in Mandalay.
- Sab and i crossed the worlds longest wooden bridge. It's 1.2 km long and we crossed it twice as we had to get back to the car to go and see the local pottery barn.
- The devotion to religon here is amazing. The people are so devout here that it puts most Catholics to shame. Speaking of Catholics, fact number 10 said that priest thought Sab and i were idiots. In Kalaw, Sab, Myo and i went for a walk around the town where we stumbled across a Catholic church. It wasn't a temple so we decided to have a look. Whilst inside we ran into the local preist who we were invited to sit down and have a chat to. Whilst asking him such questions as "How long have you been here?" , "When did you want to become a priest", "Did you meet Pope John Paul?" eventually the hard hitting questions that we have wanted to ask a man of the cloth came out of our mouths...
"Have you seen the Da Vinci Code?"
"No..what is it?"
"Its a movie" (feeling like right idiots now as we have barely seen any DVD players in this country)
Our conversation turned into a slanging match between the preist and two Aussies wanting to debunk the history of the Catholic Church. Having not seen the film, our arguments to the priest were being taken at face value and judging by the look on the preists face..he thought we were morons.
"Well its in the bible. It's written text. Its been criticised and analised and its still here."
Sab chipped in with a question "but how do you know what was written was the truth"
Gotcha now buddy!
"Well how do you know what Shakespeare wrote plays?"
Me - "Well its in books"
Preist - "So you believe that Shakespeare wrote plays because its in a book so if its the bible must be right because its in a book too right?"
My thought - "Damn it, he snookered us"
Shifty Priest!
Well after our audience with the preist we were satisfied with getting the hard questions off our chest.
I could write so much more but ill leave that to Sab...hehe. Check out her blog for all the adventures we got up to.
Overall Myanmar was great to see and we are both glad we came but we are both looking forward to seeing different aspects of Southeast Asia and experiencing new adventures and observing other cultures.
Tomorrow we are back to Singapore and civilisation.
Speak to you all soon.
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