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We arrived to Malaysia from Myanmar happy to be in a new country and excited to be nearing the end of our trip. We only had 6 days to see what we most wanted to see, so we chose to do what was recommended to us by other travellers- Kuala Lumpur and Georgetown. Kuala Lumpur (KL) was a pretty obvious one since we were there anyway, and Georgetown is probably the second most visited place that is famous for it’s street art.

We took a bus and the metro to get to our host’s house. They were a couple, Sasha was Malaysian and Olga was from Ukraine and living here for four years. We met up with them and they opened their beautiful apartment to us. It was a really modern place with a great view from the balcony, and also a gym room and a swimming pool. My kinda apartment.

Already we decided to go out and explore. We checked out the grand city, which is just as modern as any other downtown area in Canada, but maybe more beautiful with the palm trees and tropical flowers. Our first stop was the twin towers, which are really magnificent buildings. There are great viewing points in the park next to it.

Next was the viewing deck of what is their version of the Harbour centre or the Space Needle. We got a view of the whole city, which was nice, but maybe not quite as spectacular from above as some other cities. With the ticket we paid $1 extra to see the upside down house, which sounds kind of lame, but we actually had a lot of fun taking pictures in it. It’s literally a house build upside down with the furniture glued to the ceiling.

After that we checked out one of the fancy malls, which was HUGE. I’ve never seen a mall so big, but it’s very common in Malaysia as I found out near the end of the trip. From there we walked to Chinatown and the central market, which were really fun to look through. Lots of good deals around if you know how to bargain, but also lots of junk you don’t need.

Finally, in the evening we went to the somewhat hidden Heli Bar. It’s a bar on top of a heli pad that lets in anyone until 9PM when the dress code changes and it turns into a club. We just went for a (very pricy) beer to check out the view for sunset. It was really beautiful and I would recommend trying to find this place if you’re in town. It’s not advertised outside at all, you just have to map it well to the right building. But yeah, sunset was gorgeous and the view was maybe even better than the actual viewing centre.

That night we made it home still early enough to catch a movie with our hosts. They were going to see Star Wars and Harry and I went to the Avengers. Our movie times synced quite well so it was perfect, and we only had to pay $5 each for the tickets. Way cheaper than Belgium, so why not?

The next day we made our way to Georgetown. For 35 ringgit (a bit more than $10 CAD) we had a really fancy bus with super fast wifi. We watched Netflix the whole ride, it was great. We were dropped off on the island quite far from Georgetown itself, so from there we hitch hiked to the centre. We were picked up by a really nice guy picking up his daughter from swimming lessons and he took us to the central bus station in Georgetown so we could get a bus to our hosts place. From there it was an easy bus to his house (his name was Michael, Australian) and we were greeted by him and his friends and this Australian pub/restaurant in the downstairs area of his resort-style apartment, complex, whatever you want to call it. We had a great time meeting new people and eating western food, then we dropped our stuff off in his place.

I said the last host’s apartment was nice, well this place was AMAZING. Really a beautiful place, so fancy. The swimming pool was an infinite pool (we went for a dip a little while after dinner) and the gym had all of the latest equipment. Everything was very modern and was decorated with lots of palm trees and tropical flowers. And Michael was a super nice guy, really did whatever he could to make us comfortable and treat his guests well. He is someone we certainly hope to repay the favour to some day.

So Georgetown. First we went north to the beach, quite a ways outside of Georgetown. By the time we got there the weather wasn’t looking so great, so we briefly checked it out and then turned around and went to the downtown area. We spent the day just walking around and checking out all of the street art points. There are tours you can take, likely free ones as well, but we chose to do our own tour from what we found online and from good ol’ Maps.Me. There are some “ok” art pieces that are made out of wire, and they’re cool and tell a story, but not exactly what we were looking for so we tried to skip those ones since there were so many more to see. We found the best ones around the town and took a ton of photos, and even enjoyed posing with a few of them. ‘

We ended the night back at the apartment and looking for groceries to cook. We were shocked at how expensive the groceries were and ended up getting frozen pizzas for a much cheaper price. When we got back inside, there was another couchsurfer from Vancouver. We chatted about home and where we were both from and grew up; it was cool to reminisce a bit.

the next day we were really sad to leave already, but we had to. We made our way back to KL, but this time took a ferry across the water from Georgetown and hopped on a bus from Butterworth. It was a bit easier this way to go back, we figured, plus the ferry ride was free.

Several hours later we arrived and took the metro back to Sasha and Olga’s house. We arrived quite late so we said hello and everyone soon went to bed after.

The next morning was our last day. We went to check out the Batu caves, which were very close by, and Olga was nice enough to drive us to them and pick us up after. They were religious caves in the free section, and there was a paid section where you could go deep into the cave. Of course we stuck to the free part. It was nice, but I would say nothing special.

The rest of the afternoon we spent chilling out, and at 4PM we caught a GRAB (like Uber) to the airport, and that was that. Our trip was over, and we flew back to Belgium via Qatar (great airline, by the way). We had a lot of fun, now it’s time to relax our brains for a while from the travelling scene. I say this and yet in three weeks my parents are coming to visit and I’m showing them around Italy for 2.5 weeks. Anyway, ta ta for now, folks.

Harry and I have now finished our trip in Myanmar, and we can honestly say we loved it. We spent 21 days here and kind of wish we stayed a few more, but we did the best we could in the time we had. I have a lot to talk about and a ton of photos, so I’m going to split my blog post into three parts.

Part 1: Yangon – Kyaiktiyo – Hpa-An – Mandalay
Part 2: Pyin Oo Lwin – Hsipaw – Bagan
Part 3: Inle Lake – Naypidaw – Yangon stopover – Ngapali beach – Yangon

Once again a reminder of the currency- $1 CAD = 1000 kyat (chat)

The third and final part to my blog about Myanmar. I’m glad to be able to stop blogging for a while; it does get tiring and I am certainly no writer. One more after this- Malaysia. Then I’m done until I start travelling again in 90 days (visa requirements). Anyway, here I go.

After another long bus ride, we arrived in Inle lake. We had to pay a tourist tax of 5000 kyat per person (another rip off, we were sure), but there was no avoiding this one. We immediately began to look for a hotel, and after checking out several quite pricy options, we settled for the Golden Fish hotel who gave us a great deal of 20,000 with AC and breakfast included. I really don’t know how we kept finding these killer deals.

The next morning, we took a boat tour, because that’s the thing you do in Inle other than trekking. We began around 8AM, although sunrise would have been much nicer, and we paid a total of 18,000 between 4 people after bargaining.

We sped off in the boat and our first “attraction” was a man in a boat, who when saw us coming, immediately stood up and posed for the camera with his special Burmese fishing net. It’s something you see a lot of pictures of online and thing “wow how cool and cultural”, but in reality, these days it’s all just for tourism. It was so weird and awkward that I couldn’t bring myself to take a photo, and also I didn’t want to be asked to tip him.

Our next stop was fairly typical for boat tours, at least I’ve noticed. We went to a community on the water, held up by bamboo stilts, where they weave clothes- in this case it was out of lotus plants. We watched the women work away and make real clothes (this was slightly more authentic). All of their products ended up in their local store where you could buy them at a high price quoted in American dollars.

Next was watching some men make jewellery out of silver. The jewellery was beautiful, I will admit, but again, the prices were all in USD and for us it was a bit unaffordable and more-so unnecessary. I love to look at jewellery, I can stare at it for much longer than probably appropriate, but I never really wear it.

There were some temples included on the tour, nothing out of the ordinary, and then we went for lunch. We had a surprisingly not-so-expensive meal at one of the restaurants and I was happy to finally get to try the local delight, green tea salad. I love green tea, so why wouldn’t I love the salad? It is quite crunchy because it has dried lima beans in it, and I think I would have loved it if the sauce hadn’t been made with olives.

The best part of our lunch stop was there were so many kittens! They were all sleeping together, then one of them decided to play with me. You can’t go wrong with kittens…

Next we learned how they make their local cigarettes. They are all natural, wrapped in banana leaves and sealed with honey. We see people smoke them often and they are sometimes given in hotels along with toiletries. Neither Harry nor I are smokers at all, and we are super against tobacco, but we tried a puff of the mint one since we were there. And I can’t believe I’m saying this- but it actually tasted really good, super minty. I really felt like I just used mouthwash or ate a mint. Regardless, we didn’t buy any and I doubt I’ll ever try one again.

Next up was the floating tomato farms, which were exactly as they sound; a grove of tomato plants floating on the water. There were several fishermen around doing some actual fishing with different nets than “advertised” and pushing themselves around with the oars by using their feet. The water isn’t too deep so their oars can touch the ground if they’re long enough, and so that’s how they tend to paddle while standing and fishing.

Finally we went to our last stop, Indein. It’s a religious site with a ton of stupas that takes about an hour to boat there. It was cool to see, worth the extra 3,000 kyat (without Indein the tours are 15,000). We saw some puppies living inside one of the stupas and that was really cute, can’t go wrong with puppies either. We had to pay 500 kyat to use our cameras, but we skipped out on that and decided to take no photos. I may have snuck in a photo or two with my phone though.

After all that, we finally took the boat back home. The trip was good to do, worth it, but I wouldn’t say anything crazy or special. That could be the over-travelled version of myself talking though, after seeing so many things that are way cooler this just seemed mediocre. Like I said though, worth it.

When we got back we bought a bus ticket for the next day to go to the capital of Myanmar, Naypidaw, for 11,000. We took a walk around Inle one last time, checked out the market and all, and enjoyed the rest of the evening.

We were picked up the next morning by taxi and taken to our bus. We hopped on our bus and after around 7 hours, we arrived to Naypidaw. We got off the bus a bit early because we noticed we were much closer to our hotel than if we went all the way to the bus park. We were still 10km out and certainly did not want to walk it all, so we began thumbing (there are no local buses). We first got a ride in the back of a pickup with some government workers, they took us about halfway and dropped us off at a petrol station. Our next ride was a guy in an AC little black car, also a government worker. He luckily took us all the way.

We stayed at Jade City hotel for 25,000 with a free scooter rental. Scooter is the only way to get around Naypidaw unless you hire a taxi for the day, because the city is HUGE. Everything is super far away.

We checked in and we were the only guests of the whole hotel. The hotel was also huge, over 100 rooms, and none of the occupied. We were in a modern ghost town. They said their last guests had been there about a month ago. I’m not quite sure how these places stay alive- government funding I guess.

The story of Naypidaw, supposedly, is Myanmar feared terrorist attacks on Yangon so they built this whole new city to be a sort of distraction away from where everything is actually happening. The whole city is only full of government workers and the odd tourists who want to see a city full of nobody. It’s quite surreal; when we went to eat breakfast the next morning we were the only ones in a large banquet hall. Creepy.

So we scooted around and checked out the city. There is this area of a 20 lane highway with only a few cars here and there, and some police watching over it. The parliament building is around it, but it is heavily guarded and you’re not allowed to go too close.

We drove around several beautiful lotus roundabouts and watched as the workers kept the place so beautiful and clean. There was no inch of grass left uncut, the bushes were moulded perfectly, and the streets kept clean. So they could show off to who? Who knows.

We ate at a restaurant that evening and found a crowd of people, finally. There is a district where there are many restaurants, and I guess that’s where people spend their free time. After our meal we checked out the water park as it was dark. There was a show going on and we found an area where they were playing a movie by projector, projecting on spraying water. It was kind of cool, neither of us had ever seen that before. There were some lit up fountains and quite a few people here as well. I guess we caught movie night for the locals.

We then checked out a Buddhist temple and the lit up main pagoda of the area. Both were cool, nothing new for Myanmar though as there are temples and pagodas everywhere.

The next morning, we were off. One night in that city is certainly enough. We bought a ticket to Yangon (65000 kyat), although our next destination was Ngapali beach. There was no direct bus there so we had to make the detour. After a few hours, we arrived, and looked for an immediate bus to Ngapali. To our dismay, the buses for that evening were sold out. We bought a ticket for the next evening (15,000 kyat) and made our way to downtown, with hopes that our good friend Namit could host us that night. Luckily he could, so we spent the night and chilled out a bit the next day.

Around 1pm we made our way back to the bus station. We caught our bus and off we went on another night bus.

After a horrible, windy, ride (quite a few locals lost their dinners along the way), we arrived early in the morning around 5AM and began our search for another hotel. We settled with Kyaw Ngapali hotel for 25,000 with AC and breakfast included. We were a short walk from the beach, with access through the closest resort (which, by the way, was amazingly beautiful and we felt a little sad we weren’t staying there).

Since we were up so early, we caught sunrise on the beach, and it was gorgeous. The beach in general was gorgeous to our surprise, and we’ve seen some really nice beaches in our lives. Highly recommend it.

We pulled out the drove for some epic beach shots of the blue water, white sand, and palm trees. The long shadows made it perfect and in that moment we felt really happy we went because we almost skipped it due to it being monsoon season. The weather we had was beautiful for the most part, a little cloudy during the afternoon, but we couldn’t have asked for a better day.

Everywhere it smelled so nice because of all of the tropical flowers that bloomed all around. We hitch hiked to the other side on the back of an ice truck and quickly realized why there were no hotels on that end. It was dirty, the beach was full of plastic and glass, and there were dead fish everywhere either being dried or forgotten leftovers from fishing. This is the real beach, in a way, and needs some serious clean up. Even if I weren’t vegetarian, after seeing that mess, I wouldn’t eat the fish.

For sunset we made it back to the beautiful end of the beach. There were a few tourists, only a handful, and they were all sitting on the beachfront restaurants enjoying life. By beachfront I mean on the sand, footwear optional. Harry and I relaxed in some beach chairs and shared a beer while watching the sun go down. It was really spectacular- one of the highlights of the trip most definitely. There were no sand flies and not too many mosquitos; heaven for me. We wished we could spend more time there, but already the next day we had to leave.

We left the next morning to go back to Yangon. The ride back wasn’t quite as bad, but still it seems that Burmese people have a hard time with windy roads (from previous experience as well). We caught a spectacular sunset on a random beach where we stopped for dinner- really one of the best I’ve seen. Then off we went again.

We arrived in Yangon around 4AM and made our way back to Namit’s place. He left the door open for us and we quietly snuck inside and went to get in a few more Z’s. We spent the last day chilling around the house and eating dragon fruit (I miss it so much). That night we meant to go out to a bar, but ended up watching geeky videography videos together since we’re all into the art of making videos.

Early the next morning we left and said goodbye to our awesome host and to Myanmar. We had a great time and were so glad we got to see the country before it’s completely turned over by tourism. The people were some of the nicest we’ve met in Asia and we would recommend seeing this country ASAP if it’s on your list.

Next up, Malaysia!

Harry and I have now finished our trip in Myanmar, and we can honestly say we loved it. We spent 21 days here and kind of wish we stayed a few more, but we did the best we could in the time we had. I have a lot to talk about and a ton of photos, so I’m going to split my blog post into three parts.

Part 1: Yangon – Kyaiktiyo – Hpa-An – Mandalay
Part 2: Pyin Oo Lwin – Hsipaw – Bagan
Part 3: Inle Lake – Naypidaw – Ngapali beach – Yangon

So here we go, Part 2.

Once again a reminder of the currency- $1 CAD = 1000 kyat (chat)

From Mandalay, we were debating on taking the train or a shared taxi to Pyin Oo Lwin, because the train is dirt-cheap. We ended up going for the shared taxi because it saves you two hours in travel time and it wasn’t that much more expensive (1200 kyat vs 1500). It was still a long and very windy road, I think it took us about 2 hours, maybe a little longer due to some very dusty construction.

Anyway, we entered Pyin Oo Lwin with almost no expectations. We didn’t really know what was there, we went because a friend of mine told us to go. We found the Bravo hotel with a clean, AC room for 20,000 with breakfast included, and decided to settle there for the night. This place had poor reviews online but we actually found it to be really nice for the price.

The next morning we rented a motorbike from Grace hotel, who had the cheapest deal of 8,000 kyat for the day. We drove around in search of some waterfalls we had heard of (Anisakan and Dat Taw Gyaint), found the dusty parking lot right next to a very golden pagoda, and had to pay 500 for the parking. They said it was too dangerous to drive all of the way down, and once we started walking, we could see why. The road is mostly paved but it’s very steep and windy with many potholes and other obstacles. A little exercise never hurt anyone though, so we hiked for about half hour to get to the bottom. On the way there were some mini waterfalls and a stream to keep us cool.

When we finally reached the bottom (it seemed like forever since the path is so boring), we were welcomed with a spectacular sight. The falls were very impressive, and we got so excited that we pulled out the drone and shot for maybe forty-five minutes straight. Myanmar hadn’t impressed us that much with it’s beauty yet, but now we were certainly impressed.

After we were done shooting we jumped into the cool water. It was the perfect temperature, a little cold at first, but afterwards it was such a nice relief to the hot day. We swam up to the waterfall and even under it to reach the alcove behind. A few locals joined us, and aside from them there weren’t many other people around. When we arrived we saw two tourists leaving, and that was it.

After our delightful swim, we ate some noodles for 1500 kyat at the noodle stand that happened to be down there. They were soup-type noodles, not fried, and they were delicious. We then packed everything up and began to hike back up, but on a different path.

Along the way, we came across some more waterfalls that were the feeder falls to the ones we had just swam in. I’m not sure which falls were which in terms of names, but I’d recommend checking out both if you can. These ones were also beautiful, and they were more peaceful because there was only two men fishing in the water and that was it.

Continuing on, we were walking on a small path through bushes and forest, once in a while questioning if we were going the correct direction. Maps.me was our guide and it worked perfectly, the path was very accurate. After half an hour, we were back at the top.

Before we left, we decided to check out the particularly golden pagoda. I couldn’t go inside because I was wearing a strappy top and shorts, but the outside was more beautiful than the inside anyway (I figured). Some nice monks were there to greet us and welcomed us to take as many drone shots as we wanted, which was quite odd as most people are telling us it’s against all rules to fly around religious sites.

When we were done, we hopped back on the motorbike and drove to some other waterfalls. These ones were on the opposite side of the city, so it took a small while to get there. When we arrived, we had to pay a 500 kyat entrance fee. When we began walking around, we figured out why. This place was more like a park with fancy bridges, statues, and toys for kids. Regardless, it was still a beautiful place to be for sunset and the water was nice. The waterfalls were very small and not at all impressive, just peaceful. That being said, there were very busy parts of this park that had many locals playing in the water and floating around on tubes.

After this we went back to the hotel. It had been a long day in the sun, but a very good one. Just from these places we highly recommend checking out Pyin Oo Lwin if you’re ever in Myanmar, it was worth it.

Our next destination was Hsipaw. We did take the train this time, it was 2750 kyat for first class or 1200 for second, and since for us the difference is so little we went for first. Our butts thanked us big time; we would be sitting on cushy seats instead of wooden or plastic benches for the next seven hours.

We went over the “famous” (sort of) Gokehteik bridge and took pictures out the window of other people taking pictures out the window (damn tourists). The ride was quite beautiful at parts, including the bridge of course, and had some nice canyon views at times. Worth it to do once, but maybe not twice because it’s so slow and really not THAT beautiful.

We arrived in Hsipaw and stayed at the Red Dragon hotel, which if I remember correctly was 27000 kyat with breakfast. This was the first time we had fans instead of AC, but it was alright there because it wasn’t as blistering hot. We also had a bathroom outside and downstairs, but prices in Hsipaw were so expensive everywhere that we didn’t care.

In Hsipaw we honestly didn’t find much interesting to do. We visited some ok waterfalls that had a pool a 5 minute walk below them that was beautiful with the cherry blossom petals floating in it. That pool was nice to cool down in, but very small and when a local family came to join us, it became overcrowded with the six of them.

We also visited a “hot” spring (more like a lukewarm spring) that was less than impressive and not worth the bike ride there, but at least is gave us something more to do. We were going to visit another waterfall nearby that one, but as we were biking to it, we had to park our bikes in the horrendously stinky junk yard/landfill as well as walk at least an hour one way in the beating sun with no protection. Not to mention we couldn’t see any waterfall for miles, even though the land was flat and clear and we could see the hill it would be coming from easily. We had heard that outside of rainy season, it might not be active, so we opted out and biked back.

Our final stop was Mini Bagan. This was alright, the tree growing out of the pagoda was pretty cool. All of the vines and plants growing on the pagodas gave it a nice touch. Was it anything special? If you’ve been or are going to Bagan, no. But again, it was another thing to do and I’m glad we did it.

Overall, we felt Hsipaw was just a giant, overpriced, tourist trap. We don’t regret going exactly, but we could have certainly better spent our time elsewhere with the limited time we were given on our visas. So, after a night, off we went to the next city- real Bagan.

We took an overnight bus from Hsipaw to Bagan and arrived very early, around 4am. There is this tourist tax you’re supposed to pay of 25,000 kyat, but we had heard it’s a pretty BS fee and doesn’t go to conserving anything like it’s supposed to, so we opted to find a way to skip it. After negotiating with some taxi drivers, we found a guy who would take us into town for 6000 kyat. We had to fight though; those taxi drivers were pretty ruthless and trying to charge us prices upwards of 15,000. They said they would take the “other road” so we didn’t have to pay the fee (it’s a common thing), and after we heard their prices and started walking away one of them threated to call the police on us if we walked and didn’t hire one of them.

Our guy was nice though, I think he heard everything from a distance and came to help us a bit. He not only charged us a fair fee (we were only going 3km), but he also hid us from having to pay the tourist fee. He brought us to our hostel, a place we had heard doesn’t check for the entrance tickets, and we thanked hi for being so nice to us.

We stayed at the Lux Pillow II hostel. It was a bit pricier than normal, I think 30,000, and the breakfast was dry bread with ant-filled jam. They did have these doughnut stick things and veg samosas as well, but deep-fried isn’t my favourite morning food.

Right after we were checked in, we rented some e-bikes for 1,000 each per hour, and went for an hour to see sunrise. We checked it out at one of the nameless temples we had found online. You need to check online every time you visit to see which temples are open for climbing, because they rotate them for maintenance purposes- or so they say. We were a little late unfortunately, the sun had already risen by the time we were there, so I did not get my perfect sunrise photos. Also, the hot air balloons were not out, I suppose not the season for them.

We went back to the hostel and snoozed for a bit after our horrible nights sleep on the bus. When we were ready, we walked around a bit and grabbed some lunch and checked out the market. We had some typical noodles and I bought some dragon fruit later, it was delightful. We then booked out bus for Inle lake at a tour agency and rented one e-bike for the two of us to go check out sunset.

Two hours before sunset, we went out and explored more temples. There are so many to be seen- it’s impossible to see them all in one go. We chose the best ones we found online and just drove around from one to the next. We also had a chance to check out the riverfront, which was a nice break on the eyes after so many temples.

We eventually found a sunset point where there were a few other tourists and some locals trying to sell post cards and whatnot. One lady came up to me and showed me some books she had; I ended up buying Burmese Days by George Orwell from her for 4000 kyat. A good deal, I’d certainly say, because it’s hard to find books for cheaper than $10 in Canada, let alone cheaper than $5. She was really sweet too and a good saleswoman, so how could I resist?

Back we went to our hostel and readied ourselves for the bus ride the next morning. A nice cool shower was exactly what we needed, and at 8am the next morning, our transport picked us up to take us to the bus.

Stay tuned for part 3!

Harry and I have now finished our trip in Myanmar, and we can honestly say we loved it. We spent 21 days here and kind of wish we stayed a few more, but we did the best we could in the time we had. I have a lot to talk about and a ton of photos, so I’m going to split my blog post into three parts.

Part 1: Yangon – Kyaiktiyo – Hpa-An – Mandalay
Part 2: Pyin Oo Lwin – Hsipaw – Bagan
Part 3: Inle Lake – Naypidaw – Ngapali beach – Yangon

So here we go, Part 1.

We arrived in Yangon with not many expectations aside from it was going to be a hot, humid, and expensive country (in comparison to the rest of SE Asia, India, and Nepal). A lot of people have told me Myanmar was their favourite country because the people are really kind and not yet sick of tourists, and also it has such a great variety of landscapes. I did have fairly high hopes for the country and was excited to go out and explore.

We took a cab to our couchsurfing host’s house (Namit) in the morning from the airport. Luckily for us, Namit waited to let us in before heading in to work a little late, and left us with the keys to his wonderful, air-conditioned apartment. We relaxed a bit, got our things together, and figured out what to do in this city.

Walking around, we found a breakfast place to fill our empty stomachs. The place was called Craft and was full of white people on their MacBooks. We checked the menu: $3.50CAD for a tea, $2.80 for a croissant, $1.80 for two pieces of toast with jam. We knew it would be expensive, but not western prices. Might as well have went to a Starbucks in an airport. We were hungry though and had just done an ATM run so didn’t mind spending the money this time.

Back at the apartment, we decided to leave a bunch of stuff behind that we didn’t need over the next three weeks (souvenirs, trekking clothes, etc) because we’d be back in Yangon for our flight to Malaysia. Namit had given us an empty cupboard to fill with our things and had no problem with our plan, and our backs were loving him after that.

That night, we walked around a night market and through streets of street food. Not only did we find out how expensive Myanmar can be, but we also found out how cheap. We got some fruit shakes for 1000 kyat and sushi rolls for the same.
[Quick conversion- $1 CAD = 1000 kyat, pronounced CHAT, like “we should have a chat, son”]
We found a vintage camera (a Kodak Brownie) for 10,000 kyat, which took a type of film that is too expensive and hard to find, otherwise I would have bought it. There were all of the typical fake watches, shoes, and random trinkets you’d find at any night market in Asia. We were pretty tired after looking around so we began the walk home to see what our host was up to. After 20 minutes we arrived home, spent some time chatting with our host, and just ended up going to bed fairly early from exhaustion.

The next morning we decided to make a fruit salad for breakfast, so we went out and bought some dragon fruit, mango, papaya, orange, and bananas. While we’re in Asia we want to eat as much fresh fruit as possible since it’s served right from the tree/bush RIPE, instead of picked under-ripe, cooled, and shipped off to our cold countries. Man, does it ever make a difference in the taste. The fruit here is so sweet; it’s a dessert in its own. I’d much rather eat dragon fruit than chocolate cake.

We spent the day organizing our schedule as much as we could while we had wifi because we heard the wifi was really bad throughout the country. Indeed it wasn’t the greatest, but not as bad as some people made it out to be in the tourist hot-spots.

That night we all hung out together at one of the local bars with all of the Tuesday nightlife scene, which was actually bigger than I expected. We had some live acoustic guitar music (open mic night) mostly by people who couldn’t sing, but also with some really spectacular voices. It was really relaxed and a nice welcome to the hot and humid city.

The next day we took a public bus to the bus station. The public buses (the ones that come from downtown at least) are really nice and air conditioned, so it was a lot nicer than the expected sweaty, hour-long ride from downtown. We arrived and hopped on the cheapest bus we could find to Kyiaktiyo, the village of the famous Golden Rock pagoda. We found an AC bus for 7000 kyat each, so we booked that one.

The AC bus, although it had AC to start with, quickly turned into an open window bus when we started moving so for any travellers going this route, be aware of that. We had heard that all of the AC buses were super cold and so we packed our sweaters and long pants. It wasn’t needed at all for this ride. Actually we only took one bus that was considered “too cold” on the whole trip, which was a nice change from most of SE Asia where they blast their AC to the max needlessly.

Anyway, we arrived about four hours later, if I’m not mistaken, just as the sun was setting. We looked around for a guesthouse and checked out maybe five places, and settled with a place called Family Guest House, which was a nice, modern room with AC for 23,000 kyat. They claimed they didn’t have wifi, but Harry sneakily “hacked” in to their wifi by checking the password on the router. We weren’t sure why they didn’t want to share it with us, but they said they would have wifi next year. Strange.

The next day, we did what the tourists there do and we went to check out the Golden Rock which is this sacred rock that someone painted gold and it sits awkwardly without falling on the edge of a cliff. We took a strange vehicle up to the rock, like a giant jeep that sat maybe 50 people at once, and revved our way up the steep hills. We arrived and had to pay an entrance fee as foreigners and wear a badge that made us stick out like sore thumbs (as if we didn’t already). We were the only tourists there and the “fame” that we experienced in India had followed us here- many locals wanted pictures with us. But they weren’t as aggressive as the Indians were and asked politely, so we let them snap one or two photos.

We made it to the rock itself eventually, and took sight of its infinite glory. I wasn’t allowed to touch it, you know, being an inferior woman and all, realistically my chain shouldn’t go beyond the kitchen. Obviously I’m half joking here, but in the Burmese culture (not the Buddhist religion, Buddha doesn’t discriminate) they do not allow women to go up to certain religious artefacts. Such a strange concept in this day and age, but discrimination is still very real in this world. But you can’t make a big scene about it in countries like this, you just kind of shrug your shoulders and go do something else.

We walked around a bit longer on the top of the hill, then took the bizarre jeep back down. We grabbed our bags from our hotel and already began looking for a way to our next destination, Hpa-An. We found a share-taxi (a pickup truck with benches and a cover in the back for 4,000 kyat each, and spend the next four hours with the wind in our hair.

We arrived in Hpa-An again in the evening, but already had a feeling of where we would stay. We went to the Soe Brothers II guest house because we had heard they had great day tours and spoke good English. When we arrived they told us the Soe Brothers I guest house had cheaper rooms with fans and outside bathrooms, but for something like 6,000 more kyat we opted for the AC ensuite rooms (26,000 kyat total). The rooms were again, quite modern with wifi, and the AC was great until it shut off in the middle of the night, along with all of the power. Without the AC it was pretty deadly hot and both of us woke up sweating. It was very stormy that night, so we knew the cause, and just hoped for the best. Eventually after a few hours, it did turn back on, but it wasn’t an easy night.

The next morning we were informed the Soe Brothers weren’t doing a tour due to the weather. It had been pouring all morning and even though at that point it was clear, they still didn’t want to go. So we took our chances and rented a scooter, hoping for decent weather from then on.

The places we visited were some of our favourites of the trip. Our first stop was the Yathaypyan cave. This was a very well decorated cave, full of Buddha statues and special carvings. You could walk quite deep into it and even into some little crevasses to a candle lit prayer area. Probably the best cave we did on the trip.

We also tried to go to Kawgun cave, but were turned off by the entrance fee. Maybe it’s a great one too, but after the crazy one we had just seen, we didn’t need to pay to see another. So we instead went to something marked as “Waterfall/swimming pool” on our favourite app, Maps.Me, and since it was already really hot out it was nice to refresh there between sights.

After that, we attempted to drive to the Saddan cave, but the road there was so poor from the rain that we decided to turn around. Most of the roads in Myanmar seem to be new and well paved, but this one was muddy and slippery. So we continued on to the Kaw Ka Taung cave, and that was nice too. More Buddhas and there was another swimming pool there.

After a full day of scooting around, we finally drove back to the Soe Brothers. Our stuff was already packed up and ready to go so we caught the evening sleeper bus to Mandalay for 15,000kyat. It had good air con but was constantly playing loud Burmese movies, although that seems to be standard in any bus. As with any night bus, we had a horrible sleep and arrived in Mandalay the next morning around 5AM.

When we arrived, we “shopped” around quite a bit for a good hotel. Thankfully even at that time there was someone at the reception everywhere, so we didn’t have any troubles. We settled for Moonlight hotel, which we were actually really happy with. For only 18,000, we had a super modern room, great AC, clean bathroom, buffet breakfast, and bicycles included. For Myanmar, that’s a good deal.

With our free bike rentals we spent the day biking around town. We saw the usual in Asia- lots of pagodas. One of them was particularly interesting; it was considered the largest book in the world. Every stupa on the premises contained a different book that was all part of one giant book. So yeah, it was pretty big. We walked up to another pagoda to see it from above and it was pretty crazy.

That evening we took a motor taxi to see the U Bein bridge for sunset, which is considered the longest teak (wooden) foot bridge in the world. The bridge is nice, nothing too crazy, but it is definitely long to the point where you don’t want to cross it all if you don’t have to. We arrived a little later than we had hoped for photos of sunset, but it was still nice to see and we got a cheap dinner in the area (noodles as usual).

The next day we took a ferry for an hour to see Mingun, which is across a very large river. We got to see more pagodas (because we just can’t get enough of them) as well as the largest pile of bricks in the world. And yes, that’s exactly how the Mingun Pahtodawgyi advertises itself. It is an unfinished stupa and because it’s unfinished, it’s, in a way, just a pile of bricks I suppose.

There was also a bell you could ring and a pagoda called Hsinbyume Paya, which is made of all white. Aside from walking from site to site, we also got to chill a bit in the shade and eat/drink a coconut for lunch. Afterwards, we took the ferry back and prepared to move on. We collected our stuff and took a shared taxi to Pyin Oo Lwin. A weird name for English speakers, yes, but it ended up being another one of our favourite places in Myanmar, so stay tuned for my next post!

Harry and I have finally left the beautiful country of Nepal for somewhere new that neither of us have been- Myanmar. We said our goodbyes to Kathmandu yesterday afternoon and after some strange time change and seemingly redundant travel, we eventually made it the next morning.

Our last couple of weeks were spent between Pokhara and Kathmandu. We didn’t do a whole lot honestly with me being sick. We did rent a scooter in Pokhara for a day to go to Sarangkot for sunrise. Sarangkot is this hill where people often go paragliding (I did that 4.5 years ago) and to see sunrise over the mountains when the weather is clear. We were lucky to get to see the mountains light up that morning because most mornings recently it’s been very hazy. We also went to check out another nearby lake, Begnas. We putted our way there on our little scooter, took a dip in the lake, and relaxed a little bit before heading back to beat the rain.

When we eventually arrived in Kathmandu, we were happy to see some new scenery. The bus ride wasn’t nearly as long as I remembered due to most of the way being fully paved now. Thamel, the tourist area, was pretty much the same, although prices of places to stay went up a bit. We visited the Monkey temple, which was still full of monkeys, and somehow found a free way in. We did an overnight tour to Nagarkot where we were hoping to see some beautiful views, but due to crappy weather missed out there. It was still nice to get out of Kathmandu for a night. On our way back we visited Bhaktapur, which we also somehow got around the entrance fee. While walking around a bit we determined it wouldn’t have been worth the $15US anyway, so it was better we saved our money.

From our hotel in Kathmandu, we took a local bus to the airport (25 rupees per person vs a 500 rupee cab ride) and made it through the dusty streets with ease. We spent our last rupees on chocolate danishes and Snickers at the airport, and eventually flew off to our first stop while flying over Myanmar (the cheapest and only option), ending up in Malaysia. In Malaysia we had an overnight layover of about 9 hours (horrible) and tried to find some spots on the ground to snooze. We were pretty unsuccessful, that airport isn’t a great places for snoozers between flights, which I remembered from previous experience there. Our flight was at 6:50am, which we were happy to board to be on our way again. I tried to sleep the whole 2.5 hour flight, which I did a bit, and when we finally arrived we hopped in a taxi as soon as we could to meet up with our couchsurfing host, Namit, in Yangon.

Arriving in Yangon felt a bit surreal- we were both brought back to travelling southeast Asia. Walking out of the airport was hot and humid and we’re going to have to get used to that for the next month. We were so glad to be somewhere new though, so it didn’t matter too much. Our cab dropped us off at Namit’s place downtown and we were relieved to find an air conditioned apartment. We grabbed some breakfast and crashed for a bit while Namit went to work. That night we all celebrated Namit’s birthday and had a relatively early night.

This morning I bought all of the exotic fruits I could find (dragon fruit, mango, papaya, banana, orange, and durian) and made a wonderful fruit salad for breakfast. Although this is something you can easily do back home, it’s special here because the fruits are so perfectly ripe and fresh off the tree/bush. I’m happy to be in fruit-land for the next little while, I may end up with diabetes by the end of this trip.

Tomorrow we move on to the Golden Rock of Myanmar. I hear the internet is pretty horrible throughout the country, so I may not be able to update until I’m back in Yangon, three weeks from now. I don’t really have any photos to share, so I will make sure to add some next time. Shaka brah until then, my gnarly peeps.

Trekking- what an adventure. We hiked for 8 days between Mardi Himal and Annapurna Base camp (ABC). We could have just done Mardi Himal alone in 4 days, but we wanted to extend our stay in the mountains a little longer so we cut into the ABC trek when we could.

From Pokhara we started by getting a local shuttle bus to the Baglung bus terminal, grabbed a bus to Kande from there, and from Kande we started our adventure. We hiked the first day for about three hours after a late start to the trek (early start to the day, but waiting for buses takes a long time). We arrived to our first teahouse (like a guest house) in Deurali (2100m) thankfully just before the rain started, around 3pm, and then it poured for a couple hours solid. We met lots of other trekkers at the teahouse we stayed in; we were a group of about 20 who were all heading up the next day. There was a cozy wood stove that made the dining hall really warm and enjoyable to be in. I had hand washed our socks and underwear so the stove also helped dry everything by morning. After meeting some new people and playing a few card games, we went to bed early and prepared our bags for the next morning.

We woke up at 5:45 and had ordered our breakfast for 6:15 knowing the bigger groups were getting theirs at 6:30. We wanted to be ahead of them to ensure we had a room everywhere we went (we always did) because those trekking with guides would have booked the rooms in advance and we didn’t want to end up sleeping in the dining halls. Also the rain always starts around 2-4pm so we wanted to be done hiking by then everyday to avoid being soaked.

We made a stop in Forest camp (2600m) for some food (slightly cheaper food prices here than anywhere else) and kept on our journey to the top. We reached Low Camp (2990m) around 2pm (about 7 hours of hiking/rest stops), had some hot showers, I washed a few crucial clothing items, and there were more games of cards in the warm dining hall. The food here and service wasn’t so great, it took forever for us and this Dutch/French couple we met to get anything we ordered, but at least we had good company.

The next morning we were up again at 5:45 and ready to go by 7. Our washing had dried perfectly by the fire and we had high spirits of making it to High camp today (3580m). There is no actual lodge at Base camp (4500m), so High camp is as close as you can get to staying there. It was a short hiking day, only 2.5-3 hours, so we tried to figure out what to do with the rest of our day. I didn’t want to do any washing up there because it was just too damn cold, so instead we, along with the Dutch/French couple, decided to check out a part of the hike to base camp before calling it quits. It was really nice not having a bag to carry, but with the thinner air it still wasn’t easy to hike. As the clouds rolled in, we turned around and near the end of our hike the hail started. We made it back to the teahouse safely and cozied up to the wood stove with some tea. I stretched out my muscles a bit and thanked the heavens for the luxury of not having to camp outside, like some groups had paid for.

We were up extra early the next morning, at 4AM. I hadn’t slept well that night because I was so cold, so needless to say I was tired. I briefly debated not going for sunrise, but Harry bugged me until I got up and I finally crawled out from the blankets. Some people got breakfast, we opted for granola bars and that was enough for us at that early hour.

Equipped with headlamps, we headed out with the Dutch/French couple and began our ascent. The terrain was snowy, rocky, and slippery. When the sun eventually started to peak from behind the mountains, it became very muddy as well. Regardless, we all made it to the first, second, and final viewpoints of the trek. We were surrounded by giant mountains that felt so close we could touch them. It was an incredible feeling, one that keeps me coming back to these mountainous regions and forces me to keep trekking even though it’s very physically demanding. It was worth all of the effort and I would do it again in a heartbeat if I had another chance.

Harry and Steve (a British guy) continued on to base camp. The map said it was another 3.2km with 500m elevation gain, so everyone else wasn’t so ecstatic about it. The views from base camp aren’t any better than the ones from the third viewpoint, so going there just ensures certain bragging rights and an ego boost. At the time I was with a Danish girl, so she and I headed back while the boys went to base camp. We still have our own bragging rights because between the four of us, the Dutch/French couple, and a Spanish guy, no one else even made it to the final viewpoint, they all stopped at the second point, which still had a nice view but not quite the same.

I turned around because knowing how quickly the rain/snow comes mixed with how much longer it would take me to get there than the boys, it just didn’t make sense for me to go. We still had to descend down to Forest camp that same day so I didn’t want to waste my energy. Enough excuses though. We all made it down quick enough, the boys only arriving back to High camp 45 minutes after we did (it apparently wasn’t so hard after all), and Harry and I had a quick meal before going down as quickly as we could to Forest camp. Down is, of course, much faster than up, so we didn’t have too many problems. My muscles and knees were pretty done by that point though; I was ready to be finished for the day. We all had hot showers and I did some laundry. It dried nicely by the wood stove, where we played our last game of cards with the French/Dutch couple.

The next day, they left for Pokhara. We decided to take another route to the Jinhu hot springs. We trekked down to Landruk, then up to New Bridge and finally Jinhu. About half an hour before making it to Jinhu, we were caught in the pouring rain. We were hot from trekking but the rain and wind were very cold. By the time we arrived to Jinhu, I was shivering and ready for some warmth, but apparently there are no wood stoves along the ABC trail any longer, which was a HUGE disappointment. The coziness in the teahouses was gone. So, we dropped our stuff and hiked down to the hot springs. There we had to take showers in the natural hot water showers (which were really hot) before entering the pool (which was fairly warm-ish). The temperatures of the water didn’t really make sense, and also the water was still quite dirty regardless of people showering, so I can’t say they were my favourite hot springs I’ve been too. Still, they were nice to relax and warm up in for a short while before heading up to avoid more rain.

We were up especially early the next morning because along the ABC trail it’s super busy and you really never know if you’re going to get a room or not without booking in advance. It being the end of high season, there weren’t as many people so it was alright. We hiked for about 5 hours up to Bamboo camp. We debated going further, but I wanted to stop here to do some much needed laundry (I had slipped in the mud the day before in my only warm pants). So we stayed and read the books we brought. We found it a bit harder to make instant friends here because it’s mostly big groups, older folks, and families on this trek, and they often keep to themselves a bit more. We were in a teahouse with a group of 20 Thai people, so we made more conversations with the guides that afternoon and evening.

The next morning, the usual happened as on any trek I go on- I caught a cold. Knives in my throat, runny nose, headache, etc. We had been planning to go up to ABC all the way and were only a night away from it, it was so tempting to continue up. So we decided to still try in a way that made things a lot easier for me. We left my backpack behind and brought only the essentials for one night in Harry’s bag, and he carried everything (Good Guy Harry). We made it maybe half an hour in before I started feeling worse and worse, and eventually I told Harry I couldn’t go on like this. So, because of my stupid cold, we couldn’t make it to ABC. We turned around and headed down- we had still seen some amazing sights. If it had been warmer where we were with wood stoves and if I had some proper medicine, I might have stayed an extra night at Bamboo and let Harry go enjoy the views up top, but we knew I would only continue getting worse if I stayed and we still had to hike it down.

We grabbed our stuff from Bamboo (Harry carried all of my heavier items) and made it down to Jinhu. We considered going further, but the rain started and I wasn’t really feeling up for it anyhow. We were only three hours hiking away from where we would catch the bus, and we definitely wouldn’t make it today anyway, so we were in a pretty good spot.

We met a really cool French couple there who had gotten a very good deal on what must have been the best room in all of Jinhu. Harry and I had been staying for 200 rupees ($2) per night (total, not each) and they were staying for 600 per night in this “fancy” room that had an attached bathroom and two huge windows open only to the mountains and forest. The bed was super comfy and they even had hot water when the sun was shining. Had we known we could get a deal like that, we definitely would have done it (they were staying for two nights so had some bargaining power). But the room was taken now and we had already settled in our cardboard box room, so we stuck with it.

The next morning we slept in a little (6:30-7am) and made our way to the bus stop in Siwai. We got there just in time to catch the bus and were on our way to Pokhara again. After maybe an hour we made it, then hopped on a public bus to get closer to our hotel, then walked another 20-30 minutes to finally reach it. We arrived and had much needed showers, food, and rest. Despite not making it to ABC, we were glad to finally relax our feet and muscles for a while.

Now we are chillaxing in Pokhara and I am slowly getting better. We have moved to a nicer hotel closer to the center for the same price. It has comfier beds, fast wifi, and great showers, so it’s a perfect spot to get healthy again. And now I can get all of those pricy vegan, non-GMO, organic smoothies to help me get better (I’m too cheap so I go for honey, lemon, ginger tea and the odd carrot juice).

We are heading to Kathmandu in about a week, and I probably won’t have any updates until we head to our next country- Myanmar. So until then, folks!

I am now back in the country where the travel bug first really bit me- Nepal. Four and a half years ago I fell in love with the mountainous valley of Pokhara while volunteering at an orphanage and venturing into the Himalayas with some walking sticks and a large backpack. Before I get into that, I’ll finish off with India.

Harry and I arrived to Agra after about 4-5 hours of being on the train; the ride should have been 2-3, but it’s India so delays are expected. We hopped on a rickshaw to the Pizza Hut, where we would meet our new Couchsurfing host. From there our host, Rohit, took us to his hotel where we got an early nights rest in preparation for sunrise at the Taj Mahal.

After a poor nights sleep due to mosquitos buzzing around our heads all night, we dragged ourselves out of bed at 5AM to get to the ticket office by 5:30AM, which is when the crowd starts. You want to be the first person in the Taj to get the perfect pictures without anyone it your shots, but it’s hardly possible. Even at 5:30 the line up was long and the gates weren’t going to open for another half hour. My “perfect shot” actually took some hours of photoshopping out the crowd because by the time we entered there were already at least 50 people in front of us. But, regardless of people, it was still a spectacular sight to see. The architecture was, of course, beautiful; some of the detail was so intricate in the designs and everything was so symmetrical.

We learned the history behind the Taj Mahal- it is a Muslim structure (there is a mosque on site) and it was created as a tomb for the favourite wife (Mumtaz Mahal) of an emperor in the 17th century (Shah Jahan). It is one of the new 7 Wonders of the World. That is, of course, the long story short. If you want to know more, Wikipedia is probably more helpful than I.

Anyway, we were really glad we got to see the grand Taj finally. It nearly marked an end to our India journey- we had to then sit in our Couchsurfers clothing/gift shop for the next several hours while we waited for our night train to leave to Varanasi. It was alright though, we managed to find stuff to do and that night had a really good (and cheap) meal from the restaurant next door.

Around 10PM, our host drove us to the train station. Our train was to leave at 11PM. Something like four hours later, we finally caught our train. India, I tell you.

Our train being that late also meant we were arriving to Varanasi much later. We ended up being on that train for about 24 hours, it was supposed to be 10-12. At that moment we were really glad we hadn’t cheaped out and bought 3AC seats instead of sleeper or general. We knew it would be a long ride so we figured it wasn’t worth the pain of the lower classes. I wasn’t sad to be missing the heat of the day, the smells, the dust, people hoarking out the windows, etc. It was almost like we were in another world for 24 hours. Then we arrived in Varanasi and remembered where we were.

We were there around 3AM and still needed to get to the tourist centre. Rickshaws were trying to charge us upwards of 200 rupees, a complete rip-off, just because of the time (and our white faces). After much searching and bargaining, we finally found a guy to take us for 60 rupees. We were happy to have saved a total of about $2.80. I’m sure back home most of you are thinking, “Why would you even bother going through the hassle of bargaining for such a small amount of money??” There are three main reasons, the first being you can’t think in “back home currency”, you have to think, “What would a local pay” in order to know what a fair price is. The second reason is purely respect. The locals will think you’re just another dumb tourist if you don’t bargain to the bitter end. They might not like you so much if you get a cheaper price from them, but at least they will respect you and know you are to be taken seriously. The third is principle. It’s not right for locals to rip you off just because you have more money than them. I understand paying a bit more, and both Harry and I don’t mind it, but upping the price more than double is just wrong.

Anyway, we made it one way or another for a fair price to where we wanted to go, found a cheap room, and crashed until noon. We spent the next two days checking out religious sites and rituals, but blasted pretty fast through Varanasi because we just wanted to move on to Nepal.

After a couple nights there we were already making our way to the bordering country. We spent one night in a super awful hotel room in a city called Gorakhpur. We didn’t have a choice, it would not be a good idea to try to continue the journey through the night. All of the hotels were horrible. But I mean- this was reallllly bad. The dirtiest room I’ve ever stayed in, hands down. There was a little turd (about human sized) in the corner of the room, not even in the bathroom. That’s how bad we’re talking right now. We maybe would have chosen for a slightly better room but it was all we could afford with the currency we had left and it would have been really silly for us to get out more at the time (the ATMs charge you $5 every time when all we needed was $5). So we sucked it up and spent the night there. We were only there for about 6 hours anyway because we got up early to catch the 6AM bus to the border of Nepal, where we could finally live a little more peacefully.

We were still several hours away from peace because of the border crossing and the long bus ride to Pokhara (about 10 hours). But we were happy when we were granted our visas and were on the bus. Most of Nepal is a lot like India mixed with China/Tibet. Pokhara is the same but also with a very heavy Western influence. So until we finally arrived, we almost felt like we had never left India…except for the fact that the people are a lot less rude. That was an instant relief.

Over the past 4.5 years, Pokhara has become even more westernized and a lot has changed. The hotels have become much more plentiful and bigger, there are new outdoor shopping “centres” (not like a mall or anything, like a plaza with a few expensive shops). The prices have gone up a lot and it’s much harder to find cheap deals on things. And, on the positive side, it’s become a lot cleaner. There is still rubbish in the lake and here and there along the roads, but much less than the last time I was here. Also there are less cows on the road and stray dogs. I’m not sure if they were sent to other villages, adopted, dare I say euthanized, but somehow most of them have disappeared. They are also going to build an international airport here. I think to some extent they’ve gone too far- when I first came here, Pokhara had already lost it’s local charm but it still burned a bit beneath the tourism; now the flame has just been extinguished all together. You have to walk quite far out to see the real local side of the city. It’s nice to have decent western delights here, like REAL pizza, good (not great) baked goods, and all the vegan, raw, non-GMO, organic, soy free smoothies your hearth desires. But it’s really just another tourist city now.

Despite losing a bit more of it’s charm, we were super happy to be in Pokhara. We stayed a bit out of the tourist centre with some Polish Couchsurfing hosts, who provided us with the perfect room, super fast wifi, nice hot showers, and not to mention awesome company- everything we could have dreamed of. They were here for 6 months on their honeymoon and getting ready to leave because their visas wouldn’t let them stay another longer. Dominik is a software engineer, working on the road on some app development, and Patty is getting her massage therapy certification so she can eventually support herself that way. She is also a great cook and made us some really delicious meals during our time there. We ended up staying with them for about a week, maybe a bit longer even, and then they left to do one last trek before having to leave the country.

Harry and I moved to a hotel ($7/night), which was fine, but we did miss the luxury of being in their cozy house with the best wifi in Nepal. And that’s where we are now- prepping for our own trek. We’re about to do Mardi Himal, a lesser-known trek around the Annapurna Base Camp (ABC) area. I will let you know how it went when we get back; ttfn, ta ta for now.

March 18th Jaisalmer to Bikaner by bus: 6 hours, 6am-12pm
March 18th Bikaner to Amritsar by bus: 10.5 hours, 6pm-4:30am
March 19th visited the Golden temple until sunrise, 4:45am-7am
March 19th Amritsar to Chandigarh by train: 6 hours, 9:30am-3:30pm

We did that all in one go, and it was brutal. BUT, that’s what travelling is about sometimes. Not all parties, beaches, and “enlightening” experiences, that’s for sure. The journeys you make can take a toll on you; I’ve probably lost a year or two of my life just from the stress I’ve put on my body from crazy bus rides and lack of sleep. I will say though, I have never regretted a single adventure. Except for that time I got my camera stolen and didn’t have insurance. That I regretted big time.

Anyway.

We are now in Delhi again (yaaaay, everyone’s favourite city <3 [ehem- major sarcasm]) filling our lungs with pollution, dust, plastic ash from when they burn garbage, and god knows what else. The cows seem to live on a solid died of plastic and they survive though so maybe it’s not that bad after all 😐

So looking back a bit- Bikaner there wasn’t much to do so we hung out in an air conditioned Dominoes for a few hours, lost track of time, and ended up almost being late for our bus. Out of desperation we hitch hiked on the back of a motorbike to make it to the station on time. That was the ONLY bus going, and it was expensive, so we didn’t have any other option than to make it. No tuk-tuks were picking us up and one really nice guy stopped to see if we needed help, and since we didn’t have our big bags, he was able to help us get to the station. We are forever grateful to him.

After a long night bus where we didn’t even get sleeper class, we arrived in Amritsar to see the Golden temple in all of its glory. This was my second time seeing it, but my first time actually going inside. Last time I was alone and there is this really long line you have to wait in to get inside. When you’re alone, it’s boring. This time I at least had Harry with me to keep me company, so it was alright. No photos are allowed inside so I’m sorry to say I have nothing to show for that. I do have a million photos of other Gurudwaras (Sikh temples like this one) if anyone is REALLY interested. But this is THE Gurudwara of all Gurudwaras, so it holds a very special status.

After we were done checking out sunrise, we moved to a cafe to see what we should do next. We considered staying in Amritsar for a night, but we figured it was better if we just kept going for now because we wanted to go to a much farther place next (Shimla). We looked up trains and caught the next one to Chandigarh, with general class. We did not have assigned seats, but still managed to grab some in the crowded space. The train is a lot nicer than the bus because it’s quieter, no honking, only a distant train horn once in a while. Also the bus is jerky with its harsh stops and go’s, and the train is much smoother. ALSO. It’s so cheap if you go general class; we often only pay 50 rupees (1 CAD) for tickets to places that are several hours away.

A quick explanation on the more common train classes of India. (Note: currently 50 rupees = 1 CAD dollar, easy math)
General/2nd seating– It’s the same car, but for general you don’t reserve a seat and 2nd seating you do. There is a minor difference in cost, less than 50 rupees for shorter (4-6 hour) journeys. General is around 100 for a 4-6 hour ride, 2nd seating about 120-140. One time we just jumped on a train because it was leaving that moment and ended up going the whole way without anyone asking us to pay. Free ride! There are downsides of course, it can be dirty, either from people throwing trash or dust/ash from outside, but I never saw any rats like some people had told me. It can get REALLY crowded, or it can be really empty, it just depends on the time and the destination. You will have people coming through the trains trying to sell chai, snacks, water, etc throughout the ride.
Sleeper– This class has actual “beds” you can sleep on that people use as seats during the day. Same as general, it can be dirty, but it won’t be as crowded. During he day most people sit, but at night, you can unfold the “beds” and lay on your reserved rack. There are three tiers stacked on top of each other, which works out just fine because you still have enough room to breath. You aren’t given any blankets or anything, but you might not need them depending on the time of year and where you’re going. If you do, bring a light sleeping bag, or at least a sleeping bag liner is nice to have, and a travel pillow. You will also get people constantly running through the trains selling things, but it’s not so bad if you’re wanting something to snack on. The price is something like 200-250 rupees for 4-8 hours I believe, still pretty cheap. You might end up doing some berth swapping here, it happened to me a few times in the past, either because a whole family wants to sit in one section or you have a lower berth and an older person has an upper. Makes sense, no harm in switching. If you’re tall-ish though, you want the section that has six seats facing each other, because if you’re on the wall side then you won’t fit. On the 3×3 seats, your feet can hang off the edge at least.
3AC– This is where it’s at if you want comfort and not TOO expensive. It’s still pretty pricy for India, but likely still cheap for you. Usually we’re too cheap to pay it though haha. They go for around 550+ for a 4-6 hour ride, but they are much cleaner. The AC is nice if it’s hot, but even if it’s not all of the windows are closed off to the outside smells and dust. The people here are much more educated and often speak at least a bit of English, and they won’t be hoarking up throat goop or chewing tobacco like in the other classes. The people here have paid for peace and quiet, so that’s what they want, although they still won’t hesitate to strike up a conversation with you. There are less people running through here offering you snacks, but still enough if you want something. Otherwise, the layout is exactly like sleeper, maybe with a bit more room. Because it can be a bit chill here, they offer free sheets to keep you cozy.
2AC– We’re starting to get real fancy here. This is where the slightly more elite Indians travel. Ticket prices are, of course, getting quite pricy here. About 900 for a 4-6 hour journey. You do get a free bedding set here as well, and there are only four people per berth instead of six. People often keep to themselves a bit more here; many people are business men/women doing some work on their journey. It’s about the same price as some cheap buses in Europe, but I would say more comfortable than them.
1AC– This can be about the cost of cheap Ryanair flight in Europe, or maybe the cost of a cheap bus in Vancouver, going for 1500 for a 4-6 hour journey. I’ve never used this class personally, I can’t justify it when I’m travelling in a country that SHOULD be cheaper than home. From what I’ve heard, there are berths with 2-4 people, depending on which side you’re on, and the cushions are softer for sitting and lying down. You have actual doors and can slide them shut, even lock them! This might be a good class for someone travelling with a lot of expensive photography gear, or for famous people. For me, though, it’s just not necessary.

Back to the story. About 6 hours later, we arrived in Ambala, a city not too far from Chandigarh. We hopped on a cheap bus to Chandigarh, about an hour, and then caught a local bus to the Punjab University. There, we met up with our Couchsurfing host, who introduced us to some of his friend circle. We grabbed a quick bite, then all sat on the grass lawn within the university grounds. We chatted over chai, then finally our host took us to his place where we crashed as soon as we could. After being in transit for two full days, I can really say we were tired.

We meant to stay for one night, but we needed a full chill day so ended up staying another. We got to do some work and I played a bit with our hosts German Shepard puppy, who was just the most adorable thing ever. While walking to a lunch spot, we also discovered that weed grows everywhere in this area, completely freely. It was really bizarre to see, but interesting to hear that no one really picks it/uses it. It’s a cultural thing. That night we spent some time getting to know our host and he helped us do a bit of trip planning, then it was time for bed.

The next day we made our way to Shimla. We started by taking a bus to Kalka, then hopped on the “Toy Train”, one of the attractions, to reach Shimla. It’s a cute train, but very slow. The journey is fairly scenic and I recommend taking it so you can see sunset along the way. There are several different trains you can take; we took the cheapest one of course, for about 50 rupees each. If I went again though, I might take the more expensive one for about 200, only because the whole time the fumes were SUPER strong in the cars, and it gave me a big headache and sick feeling. The AC cars are closed so I’m guessing you can’t smell it at all. The downside is that you can’t take cool pictures or see the scenery quite as well as in the cheap cars.

Six hours later, we were in Shimla. We walked two km to meet up with our host there, who was our Chandigarh host’s brother. He was a really cool guy who lived with his co-worker in a government house, given to them rent-free because of the job they have. The brother let Harry try on one of his turbans (see below) and we generally had a lot of fun with them and will always appreciate their awesome hospitality.

Shimla is a small city in the mountains. It’s got some really beautiful viewpoints and lots of hikes/treks around. We didn’t do any because we will be doing two in the Himalayas of Nepal, so we’re saving our money for that. We did do a small “hike” (not really) to this monkey temple that had a giant monkey/man statue. There were a lot of monkeys around so it fit quite well. It was a lot cooler there than the rest of India; we actually wore long pants and sweaters, it was amazing. I really loved the colder weather, I still miss it, can’t wait for more mountains!

After Shimla, we took a bus to get to Rishikesh. Because the bus ride was so long, we had to make an overnight stop in Dehradun, which is maybe an hour from Rishikesh. We had a really cool host there, so it wasn’t so bad. I say cool because he was a night photographer, like me, and even had the same gear as I do. Being a shooter in India though, that’s tough when you’re doing night skies. The pollution really takes away most of the stars. Of course having a decent camera helps, but it’s really not the same as shooting in Australia, for example.

Anyway, we made it to Rishikesh the next day easily. It is another holy city like Pushkar, and like Varanasi (our next destination). It’s also a major yoga hub for all of the western yogis out there, offering lots of classes in both the physical and mental (meditation) aspects of the practice. It’s also a hub for many extreme sports, such as paragliding, rafting (Harry did this, I skipped), mountain biking, and trekking. It has a beautiful section of the Ganges running through it, one that is actually blue/green instead of mucky-dirt. The water looks clear and non-toxic, unlike what you would see of the Ganges in Varanasi. The water is quite chilly, but refreshing during the hot days.

We only stayed for two nights again because of the heat, and we’re now ready to move on from India at this point. It’s a hard country to travel, too much stimulation all the time. Some people do it for 2-3 months, I don’t know how they do it, we’ve done it for about a month and a half. So we made a quick two night trip in Delhi with an AMAZING host that I could not speak highly enough about. We wanted to stay one night, but his hospitality and kindness lured us into spending another night. Naveen (our host) lives with his wife, Pooja, and their two brilliant twin sons. He doesn’t speak much English, but through Couchsurfing has learned so much in just a few months and understands everything we say. He can mostly get his point across as well, which is good enough for us. Pooja’s English is great and the twins speak Hindi, English, and French very well, so that also helped. The twins are also talented in piano, guitar, rubix cubes, crazy fast math, and who knows what else. They are smart boys, way too intelligent for their age (around 13). Naveen and Pooja drove us around, had food prepared for us for breakfast and dinner, helped us figure out trains, and even paid for our ticket (we tried to decline but they had already booked!). We spent some cool nights together eating great food and chatting about anything and everything, and being amazed by the boys. We had a comfortable private room to relax in to top it all off- what more could we ask for?

But, we had to leave eventually, so we had the ticket booked and are now at the train station. They had made us a lunch but forgot to bring it, we said no worries and we didn’t expect a lunch at all. Of course they came back five minutes later with some drinks and a bag of snacks. They were too good to us! Anyway- off to Agra to see the Taj Mahal, something I missed last time, can’t wait to finally see it! We are nearing the end to our India journey, so close to Nepal I can almost feel it! I will leave with that for now, until next time.

We’ve been to quite a few places since my last post; we’re blasting through Rajasthan fairly quickly but still giving ourselves enough time to see what we need to see. We have lots of spare time on this trip so we don’t have to feel rushed or like we have a million deadlines to make. It’s nice to relax in a place for a couple days vs taking bus after bus after bus (which is actually what we’re doing today). So here’s what’s been up:

After Jaipur, Harry and I took a bus to Ajmer. From there we caught a local bus to Pushkar, a tiny little hippy town in the desert. It’s one of the holy cities in India, lots of ceremonies were happening while we were there. There are many temples and ghats (stairs leading down to water) all around this small, man-made lake that would be nicer to sit by if there wasn’t so much pigeon poop everywhere. It was otherwise a lovely sunset spot.

We walked around looking for a hostel/hotel, and came across a hotel with a great view and chill-out area on top for only 400 rupees (8 CAD) for a private room, the perfect place. We watched the monkeys jump from roof to roof while sunset was happening and relaxed after the long bus rides.

Pushkar is a city of European hippies who come to juggle, make jewellery, hula-hoop, or dance in a drum circle. This place sold the most jewellery, elephant pants, eccentric crop tops, and hookah I’ve ever seen. Regardless, it’s quite beautiful and quiet for India standards. Also the hippies are harmless so I don’t mind them.

In the morning, we did a sunrise walk from our hotel to the top of this hill, it took us about an hour all in all. We could have taken a cable car from the bottom but it was a pretty easy walk up in the cool dawn. There were some monks at the top to greet us, and a few other fellow travellers. We watched the sun rise over the mountains and slowly hit the city below; it was worth the walk up. On our way down, not too long after sunrise, we ran in to all of the locals who were singing and praying on their way up. Kudos to them, I would have cable car’d it up in the heat for sure.

We spent most of our time chilling at the top of our hotel because it was so nice, and there wasn’t too much to do there anyway. So when we were ready, we moved on to Udaipur by bus. That was about 7 hours if I’m not mistaken, and 250 rupees (5 CAD).

Udaipur has two lakes side by side and are connected by a dam of sorts. The main touristy lake has a palace and a fancy hotel on it that you can get a room for something like $20,000 if you like. Famous people stay there, according to their website.

We found a room for even cheaper there, we bargained for 1000 rupees for 3 nights (20 CAD), pretty good deal. Our hotel was very central too so we walked around after, got some food, and then straight to bed.

The next day we spent checking out the lake and doing another small hike, this time for sunset. It was worth it, very beautiful from the top because you could see the palace and the hotel from above. There was a temple up there as well, and some caged rats for some reason. We also could have taken a cable car here but with the time it would have taken to catch it from the line-up, we would already be finished with the hike.

After Udaipur, we took another long bus up to Jodhpur, the Blue City. The reason it’s the blue city is because there are so many buildings painted blue. If you ask the locals why they’re blue, no one knows the real answer. There are theories it is because blue helps keep the houses cool in the heat, or because there is a lot of indigo in the area and it’s an easy colour to make, or it was to mark who was and wasn’t Brahman. The truth will never be known.

There is a big fort at the top of the hill, Mehrangarh Fort. It’s got a lot of interesting history and some secret tunnels inside that were there in case the fort was attacked and they needed to move the women and children. It was also there to move royalty in secret, and only a few people know where the other side is.

Aside from visiting a fort, we mainly just walked around, looking for blue. We found lots of it around the old town, and from looking down from the fort. It is photographers heaven really, so much colour contrast with the ladies and their bright outfits. I found that was the best part of Jodhpur and almost wished I could stick around longer to explore more blue alleyways.

We visited a monument that looked like a small palace, quite beautifully built with marble. It’s a monument for a man named Maharaja Jaswant Singh II, built by his son as a memorial. The entrance fee is quite cheap so it’s worth a visit. Walking back from it, two men on a motorbike stopped by on the road and offered Harry a job as an extra on some Bollywood movie they were filming at the fort. It was an Indian version of Pirates of the Caribbean and he would be a British soldier. A pretty cool opportunity, definitely not something done for the money though (1000 rupees (20 CAD) for 12 hours). Had the hours not been so crazy (6pm-6am) he would have done it, and I would have gotten to join for the free catering. Unfortunately, we had to catch a bus early the next morning, so we’d couldnt say yes. Next time!

The Gold City was our next destination: Jaisalmer, which is right next to the Thar desert. It’s called the gold city because, like Pushkar, most of the buildings are painted/naturally one colour- gold. It’s got a large fort atop which must have been at least a partially man-made hill (maybe not), and it’s so large that there’s a whole city inside. Very touristy, not my favourite city I will say, but we got to go on an overnight camel tour in the desert and that was a lot of fun.

We found the tour from a hostel inside the city walls for 950 rupees each (19 CAD), and it was a good deal because most places were selling for upwards of 1500. We had heard about some bad tours for cheap, but this guy seemed very legit, so we went with his tour. We had made some Canadian friends at our couchsurfer’s hotel who were doing the tour with the hotel for 1700, so we thought we’d compare and contrast after.

On the tour, a German guy and a British couple joined us, which was great for the extra company. We started by getting a jeep ride around 2:30pm to a tiny, abandoned village. The history I couldn’t get super clear…but I believe the ruler was a horrible guy and so overnight all of the inhabitants up and left 200 years ago, and no one returned. Now it’s mostly piles of sand stone and plastic from tourists.

Next we drove off to another tiny village (inhabited) and got on some very healthy looking camels. They are treated well there because the locals know a lot of things wouldn’t be possible without them, so they want to keep them in good condition. We rode for about an hour until we found our private sand dune to camp out at, and stopped there.

Our guides made us a lovely dinner of dal (lentils), mixed vegetables, chapatti, and rice. Then we watched sunset and after they sang some desert songs with a large water bottle and tin plate for instruments. They rolled out our mats on top of the sand and that was where we slept under the stars, no tent required. For India, it was quite beautiful because it’s not that often you can see some decent stars. There were some large dung beetles crawling around throughout the night, but they didn’t seem to want to go on top of our mats so much as underneath them, so that was fine. The best part was that there were no mosquitoes, so for once I wasn’t being terrorized by tiny insects.

We woke up the next morning right before the sun rose. We all had slept fairly well for the mats we were given, no complaints from anyone. Two of our guides made us breakfast while the other one went searching for the camels, who had all disappeared during the night (normal apparently). In the end they found most of them but were still missing one, so we returned to Jaisalmer while the one guide and his brother went searching for this last camel.

That night we met a cool couple, another Canadian and an Australian, and ended up having dinner with them and chatting about our travels, work visas, world politics, and all the things travellers talk about. We then saw the others who had paid 1700 for their tour, and came to the conclusion it was nearly the exact same experience. So my advice to anyone doing it- fine a decent price, but only go with someone trustworthy, otherwise you might end up on one of the bad tours that are supposedly out there.

It was a good end to our stay in Jaisalmer; the next morning we were on a bus by 6am to Bikaner, which is where I’m writing this post. It’s a town less travelled, even we’re not here to see it. We’re just passing through to see Amritsar and the Golden Temple. We’re taking another bus at 6pm, overnighter that will get us to Amritsar around 4am. So it’s going to be a long few days, wish us luck.

I am back in India again, I really can’t believe it. It’s such a crazy place that drives all of your senses mad constantly. It’s hard to escape the noise, smell, dust, and general pollution all at once. But, nonetheless, I still managed to get myself back here so I could see all of the things I missed from my last trip.

Harry and I arrived in Delhi a few days before the Holi festival (more on that in a minute). The first thing I recognized was the smell when I opened the airport doors to officially enter the country. It’s a smell unlike any other I’ve ever smelt- but you get used to it. We hopped on the metro with our big backpacks (although we’re pretty lightly packed) and made our way to our first couchsurfers home (Aditya).

Three metro lines later, we walked a short walk to his house. Aditya’s wife, Nisha, was there to greet us. She is a lovely lady, very quiet maybe because her English isn’t so great, but super nice and welcoming. We met Aditya 15 minutes later and were treated with the highest hospitality they could offer. A great bed, warm shower, kitchen- what more do you need? There was a Colombian surfer there as well, who we got to meet later. He was also a really cool guy and he was travelling with his huge Nikon kit (body and three large lenses). It made me feel a bit ashamed for wimping out and bringing only my tiny Fuji, but this was exactly what I bought it for.

Nisha and I cooked some wonderful meals together and I got to try some amazing curries. Nothing I haven’t had before, but she really knows how to cook them well. Now I’m pretty sure I can make authentic butter chicken when I get home, which tastes nothing like what you make from the jar, mom.

Harry and I explored a temple (Akshardham) and some markets. At one of the markets, Harry bought a tailor made suit for only 60CAD; we haven’t seen it yet so we have our fingers crossed it doesn’t fall apart after wearing it once. I bought a shirt to cover my shoulders since I no longer own any for hot climates, and I am still on the look out for a nice skirt to cover my knees. Head, shoulders, and knees need to be covered here to enter certain temples, some it’s just shoulders and knees. Clothes here are cheap enough after some hard bargaining, so I figured it’s better to buy things here than in Belgium.

Then Holi happened. We came to India a few days earlier than we had to (my visa said I had to leave March 5th, but we left Feb 26) specifically so we could experience this festival. It celebrates spring, love, and new life and commemorates the deity Krishna. It’s the one I’m sure you’ve seen pictures of before, with all of the colour powder that gets thrown around. It’s super crazy in certain temples, people throw water on you and colour, sometimes it’s got some chemicals in it and it stays on you for a week. I’m still trying to get some of it off. But it was a lot of fun; we started by celebrating with some kids in Adytia’s complex. The photos attached will show what happened there. Then we walked the streets of Delhi and people would often stop and bless us with colour and give us a hug. That, or they would throw water balloons (sometimes buckets) at us. It was all good though, we had a great time and are really glad we got to see it.

Our next destination was Jaipur. There we stayed with another host- but in his hotel. We got a nice hotel room for free, with everything we needed to have a really comfortable stay. We got to hang out with our host a bit and he was also a really warm, welcoming guy. He made sure we were well taken care of and offered advice on whatever we wanted to know about. He is a well travelled man who has been to both Belgium and Canada, so that was kind of cool to chat about.

We visited a few forts I had been to before; Nahargarh, Amer, and Jaigarh. All very interesting places with a lot of history, and a lot of monkeys. Jaipur in general seems to have a large monkey population. When we were browsing through the street markets they were also jumping around from roof to tower to whatever else they could hang off of. We also visited the lake palace at sunset for some nice photos and to watch it light up at night. All of these places are very beautiful and well worth a visit if you’re in town.

We are now in Pushkar, a little hippy destination in the desert of Rajasthan. Here clothes are near-optional (for the westerners), or at least some hippies like to express that, but I can kind of see why because of the harsh heat that hits in the midday. It’s thankfully not humid, so I don’t mind it as much, but it still makes an impact on you. Harry and I are currently chilling at the top of our hotel (8CAD/night for a private room) and listening to some bizarre, trippy, indo-hippy type music that screams “let’s get high”- maybe not our style, but it’s a really nice break from the crazy big cities with constant honking. The honking is here too, don’t get me wrong it’s EVERYWHERE, but it’s less in comparison. Although last night there was a wedding going on and so the whole city/village had to hear it because it’s such a tiny desert community. The party went on maybe until 3 or 4 AM. Thank the lord Shiva for earplugs.

Anyway, it’s hot and I’ve been staring at my screen for too long, so peace, love, happiness, and all that other hippy mumbo jumbo, I will be back within two weeks if I’m not being lazy.