Aaaaaaai really don’t like bus rides. Especially not the painfully slow ones. After leaving Mandalay yesterday afternoon around 2pm, the (reasonably decent) bus crouched up the narrow and winding road towards the Shan Hills. Traffic is heavy and many times the bus has to stop to let another heavy vehicle pass a narrow turn. Two […]
Getting around Myanmar
Travelling around in Myanmar takes a lot of time. Except for the Yangon-Mandalay highway, all roads are in atrocious condition and hamper travel speed immensely. I’m on my way to Hsipaw and the 300km journey will take two days. That’s only partially because of the roads but also because Hsipaw-bound transport leaves Mandalay before the […]
Dust
Bagan is a dusty place – and this is just the end of the rainy season! Under the shower the water quickly turns brown and when I open the computer, I have to give it a quick wipe first. During sunset the haze does add to the spectacle though. I’ve started the day with another […]
Sunrise in Pagoda Land
5:00 am, my alarm pulls me out of sleep with gentle melodies. Too early, no way I’m getting out of bed just to see the sun rise! Torn, I rest for another minute or two. Then my roomate’s alarm makes a noise you could hear aboard a nuclear submarine during critical reactor failure. Alright, I’m […]
Bagan
Yangon’s main bus station is more a small village than a station. The individual companies have their offices along several small streets, which are all packed with buses. The air is filled with suffocating diesel fumes and still, people sit down for a drink or a bite to eat. Most of the drive up north […]
Bubbles and News
When travelling, I don’t really follow the news, which is somewhat of a logical consequence. I already spend a fair bit of time online with travel research and am not overly keen on spending even more reading other stuff. As a consequence, I didn’t learn about what happened in Paris until people around me started […]