Myanmar | Claudia & Carsten's World Expedition

MYANMAR - Yangon - Bagan - Mandalay - Kakku - Inle Lake

On the air While in Singapore, we had some weeks to kill before we had to be in the Philippines for our sailing trip, so we decided to visit Myanmar, "before it becomes too touristic" as everyone kept telling us during our trip.		The Golden Land Goldmember would love this place...
Yangon	Traditional food Excellent chili beef	Sule Pagoda at night
		Offerings Most of the population in Myanmar is Buddhist, so they normally give candle light offerings to Buddha.
	Street Food	Dinner
Local buses	Kandawgyi Lake in Yangon	Kandawgyi Lake in Yangon
Visiting the Reclining Buddha	Offerings Fruits (covered in gold) are also normal Buddhist offerings.
Reclining Buddha
	Breakfast We had breakfast here every day. It was right across from our hotel. It was great and very cheap.	Shwedagon Pagoda
Entrance Shwedagon Pagoda Leogryphs guarding the entrance. Shwedagon is the most sacred of all the pagodas in Myanmar, mostly because it contains eight of Gautama Buddha’s hairs, plus three relics of subsequent Buddhas.

	Nobody complied with this....

Greetings Every time you enter and leave a temple you need to ring the bell, as a way of respectfully announcing your presence to the spirits.	She also wanted to say hello

	Walking to the train station	Circular Train Ride The circular train ride takes about 3 hours and it goes around Yangon. The tickets cost 50 cents and it was a great way to see the outskirts of the city.
	Our new best friend He wanted to practice his English.
Along the tracks of the train	Countryside of Yangon	Always smiling
	Preparing Kwun-ya Kwun-ya is a preparation of betel leafs mixed with Areca nuts and tobacco. It is widely used in Asia as a stimulant and it is highly addictive. It stains teeth and mouth red and it is known for causing oral cancer. Nevertheless, as you can see, it is prepared and sold openly, same as selling cigarettes.
		Harvesting We could never figure out which plants they were harvesting.
Waiting for the bus to Bagan	Bagan bus station	Bagan Bagan is a city that has 4.444 temples. You can also see it from the air in balloons, but they start flying in October and we were there in August.
Bagan	The river you see in the back can be navigated to reach the city of Mandalay. The navigation is very beautiful and it takes four nights. However, we were there at the time when these trips were not available because the river was too high and the berths were under water.	So we got a little rain
	Standard view in rainy season	This was the patio of our hotel It got inundated in just two hours.
So they built a bridge to allow the tourists to reach their rooms.
Our carriage We decided to take a tour around the temples in this very common way of transport. We only took it half day, as we felt really sorry for the poor horse. He was pretty skinny and looked tired at the end of the day.	Rain bugs Appear all over after the rain. They are very colorful and look like they had velvet skin.	No comments...
Shwezigon Pagoda
	Htilo Minlo Temple


Deep conversations	Ananda Temple
	Bu Phaya	Lunch
Thatbyinnyu Phaya
Nanpaya		Dhammayangyi Temple

Sulamani Temple
	View from Shwe San Daw Pagoda

	Bus from Bagan to Mandalay	Street Food She was selling fried sparrows....not our cup of tea..
Mandalay Our stay in Mandalay was very short. We basically wanted to stop there to see the famous U Bein bridge, a long teak made bridge which you normally see in pictures of Myanmar. Turns out those pictures are taken in dry season, because when we were there, the bridge was underwater, so we didn't bother to go and see it. Mandalay was not particularly interesting according to us.		Our monk friend He wanted to practice his English, so he walked us from the temple to the post office where we could send our post cards.
Local life Cars always stop to take monks when they are walking on the street.	Tapioca???
Lunch stop on our way to Kakku After Mandalay, we traveled to Inle Lake and an American friend had advised us to visit the area of Kakku, so we took a taxi to get there and he stopped for lunch at this really nice place. Very tasty food.
Drive from Inle to Kakku	Kakku Pagoda Complex






		Inle Lake We spent Carsten's birthday in Inle, so we decided to have a nice dinner out and we went for pizzas and mojitos...just to change the taste from Asian food a little bit.
Boat trip We decided to take a boat trip to visit all the famous places in Inle Lake.



Daily life The tour around the lake is very touristic and there are not many alternatives to get around it. Basically the boat people, take you to different villages along the lake where traditional handicraft is made and sold. We were dragged to places selling silverware, textiles, cigarettes, boats, knives, etc. It was interesting to see, but it really is a tourist trap for spending money. You cannot really blame them for doing this, since there are not many options for making a living in Myanmar.
Making cigarettes

Extracting lotus plant fibers They use these fibers to weave clothes and linen.

Forging knives and blades
Making boats
Kayan woman The Kayan people use brass coils around their neck as a cultural identity. These women work at the lake as a tourist attraction. The area where they live is in the northeast and many of these people fled to Thailand in the early 90s due to the military conflicts in Myanmar.
	Floating plantations of tomatoes
Snail eggs

Finally the famous fishermen They are known because they use their legs to row. They had been posing for us all morning and finally on our way back, we caught them natural and without posing.
		Dinner
Waiting for the bus to Yangon		Shwedagon at sunset

MYANMAR - Yangon - Bagan - Mandalay - Kakku - Inle Lake

On the air

While in Singapore, we had some weeks to kill before we had to be in the Philippines for our sailing trip, so we decided to visit Myanmar, "before it becomes too touristic" as everyone kept telling us during our trip.

The Golden Land

Goldmember would love this place...

Yangon

Traditional food

Excellent chili beef

Sule Pagoda at night

Offerings

Most of the population in Myanmar is Buddhist, so they normally give candle light offerings to Buddha.

Street Food

Dinner

Local buses

Kandawgyi Lake in Yangon

Kandawgyi Lake in Yangon

Visiting the Reclining Buddha

Offerings

Fruits (covered in gold) are also normal Buddhist offerings.

Reclining Buddha

Breakfast

We had breakfast here every day. It was right across from our hotel. It was great and very cheap.

Shwedagon Pagoda

Entrance Shwedagon Pagoda

Leogryphs guarding the entrance. Shwedagon is the most sacred of all the pagodas in Myanmar, mostly because it contains eight of Gautama Buddha’s hairs, plus three relics of subsequent Buddhas.

Nobody complied with this....

Greetings

Every time you enter and leave a temple you need to ring the bell, as a way of respectfully announcing your presence to the spirits.

She also wanted to say hello

Walking to the train station

Circular Train Ride

The circular train ride takes about 3 hours and it goes around Yangon. The tickets cost 50 cents and it was a great way to see the outskirts of the city.

Our new best friend

He wanted to practice his English.

Along the tracks of the train

Countryside of Yangon

Always smiling

Preparing Kwun-ya

Harvesting

We could never figure out which plants they were harvesting.

Waiting for the bus to Bagan

Bagan bus station

Bagan

Bagan is a city that has 4.444 temples. You can also see it from the air in balloons, but they start flying in October and we were there in August.

Bagan

The river you see in the back can be navigated to reach the city of Mandalay. The navigation is very beautiful and it takes four nights. However, we were there at the time when these trips were not available because the river was too high and the berths were under water.

So we got a little rain

Standard view in rainy season

This was the patio of our hotel

It got inundated in just two hours.

So they built a bridge

to allow the tourists to reach their rooms.

Our carriage

We decided to take a tour around the temples in this very common way of transport. We only took it half day, as we felt really sorry for the poor horse. He was pretty skinny and looked tired at the end of the day.

Rain bugs

Appear all over after the rain. They are very colorful and look like they had velvet skin.

No comments...

Shwezigon Pagoda

Htilo Minlo Temple

Deep conversations

Ananda Temple

Bu Phaya

Lunch

Thatbyinnyu Phaya

Nanpaya

Dhammayangyi Temple

Sulamani Temple

View from Shwe San Daw Pagoda

Bus from Bagan to Mandalay

Street Food

She was selling fried sparrows....not our cup of tea..

Mandalay

Our monk friend

He wanted to practice his English, so he walked us from the temple to the post office where we could send our post cards.

Local life

Cars always stop to take monks when they are walking on the street.

Tapioca???

Lunch stop on our way to Kakku

After Mandalay, we traveled to Inle Lake and an American friend had advised us to visit the area of Kakku, so we took a taxi to get there and he stopped for lunch at this really nice place. Very tasty food.

Drive from Inle to Kakku