After that, Bangkok. We stayed a day before heading to Ko Tao. It was a bit difficult to decide on an island wouldn’t be too crowded, as we figured the small resorts on Andaman Ko Chang would be pretty much closed for the rainy season already. We found a nice enough place at Tanote Bay and stayed a few days. Two big lizards liked to spend their days in our toilet.

Then Bangkok once more, we stayed almost a week at the Atlanta Hotel at the end of Sukhumvit soi 3. What a place – see the their website:) Again, we didn’t do much.

Air Asia to Macau where it was hot and humid, a lot more than in Bangkok. A strange place with a lot of churches and old portugese buidlings, Macanese cuisine i.e. Portugese Cantonese cross kitchen (with some Brazilian, Indian and African twists), very tacky casinos, less than clean Chinese eateries and so on.

Ferry to Hong Kong and 4 nights at Chungking Mansions again. We shopped for some electronics and saw some sights. The Hong Kong history museum is pretty good. The art museum is not (too much porcelain) . We flew back on the 4th of June, 19 years after the Tiananmen square massacre in Beijing. There were some performances at Times square and a bigger demonstration in Victoria Park later. We had to leave before it really got going but there were a fair amount of people. Surprisingly middle aged crowd though. See photos.

Left Hong Kong luckily a day before it rained a bit too much there. Waited for a connecting flight for 10 hours at Heathrow. And arrived in Helsinki at about nine in the evening, having left on July 30th last year, with a train to Moscow.

The future of this blog is open. Maybe i’ll have something to say.

Then on to Phonsavan and the plain of Jars. The last time I saw the Jars there it was late July, and it was raining and looking very stonehengy. I expected thing to be brown and dry now, but no, the rains have started early this year. It was all very stonehengy again: dark clouds hanging low, green green grass and grey rock.

Also went to the old capital of the province, Xieng Khuang where there is a Buddha with a quirky smile – I suppose a bomb went off right next to it and it got some shrapnel in the face. It’s one of the most bombed countries on earth, the often quoted statistics say that US bombers dropped 2000 million metric tonnes of bombs from 1964 to 1973, meaning that on average a planeload came down every 8 minutes for 9 years. The Plain of Jars area was especially hard hit. There are craters everywhere. It is estimated that up to 30% of all ordnance did not explode.
Lao governments UXO LAO and NGOs like MAG are cleaning up places and have more info.

The bombs dropped include approximately 270 million anti-personnel submunition bomblets or “bombies” released from cluster bombs. The Finnish military wants to replace its stock of anti personnel mines with this stuff. PM Vanhanen thinks theyre OK, and so does president Halonen, but these more modern things will all explode with 99,8% certainty said Chief of Defence Kaskeala, so things are fine.

Phonsavan and the surroundings were nice and quiet after Luang Prabang and Songkan in Vientiane.

From Phonsavan a long ride to Houa Phan province where neither of us had been before. I did try in July 2002 but was stopped by landslides on route 1 between Nong Khiaw and Sam Neua. The main reason for going was to see the caves in Vieng Xai where the leaders of Pathet Lao (the party in power since 1975) hid from american bombers. A small pretty valley with karst mountains and small lakes. It was rainy. The caves have been restored somewhat and are now named after Pathet Lao leaders, and have some nice french style mansions built in front of them (after the ceasefire fire in 1973 the guys could stay outside the caves and had these built for themselves). The Lao government wants to push the caves as a tourism destination, but at least now there were very few tourists around.

Sam Neua, the capiptal of Houa Phan is as small and sleepy as the usual Lao provincial capital. Surrounded by green mountains, cold and rainy. A lot of Chinese is spoken in the streets, and as usual most of the guys working at construction sites seem to be Vietnamese.

Heading west from Sam Neua we stopped at Nakorn village and trekked 6km to Hintang “archeological park”, where someone erected some 1-2 meter high stone slabs some 1500-2000 years ago for some reason. There are some also some holes under the slabs, and stone discs covering these. It was green, grey and rainy again. We walked back to the road and flagged down a Vientiane bound bus and rode until Ko Hing, the intersection of routes 1,6 and 7, called Phou Lao on the map (?!?) and stayed in a very basic guest house (no water, no electricity, sticky rice and tinned sardines in tomato sauce for food).

Next morning we stopped a Luang Prabang bound songthaeow and rode it until Nong Khiaw, landing firmly on the tourist track once more. The banana chocolate pancakes were ok. We didn’t go to Muang Ngoi Neua where everyone else was going but stayed for 2 days not doing much (i needed to spend a lot of time in the toilet after eating some slimy greens with my laap in Sam Neua).

Spent one night in Udomxai between Nong Khiaw and Luang Namtha. It is raining and green here too.

As we arrived we spotted a 3 day forest trek available at Green Discovery. 6 persons had already booked so it was fairly cheap for 3 days and we went for it. The trek was a bit different from most, as we didn’t stay in villages but a lodge built in the forest for the first night and a house in an abandoned Akha village for the second night. We had a Lao and Tai Dam guide, Two Khmu ladies cooking for us the first night and two young Akha boys for the second one (there was a wedding in their village so the parents sent their kids as they wanted to party), all friendly people. We went through forests, at times old with huge trees and at times younger swidden fields on their fallow period, and in the end some just burned forest. Also bamboo thickets, a bit boring to walk through. As it has been was raining, there was slippery mud and leeches. Got stung by 2 bees and 7 wasps and got 2 leeches suckomg blood and ripped many more off me before they got into it. The trek was “moderate” on the brochure, trekked 4-6 hours a day, up and down a lot, which was ok.

After the trek spent one more day in Mueang Sing. It was raining all day so we didn’t do much. In the morning eyeballed some colorful people at the market, and then rode a bus back to Luang Namtha. We’ll take a 13.30 bus to Huay Xai and cross back to Thailand today or tomorrow morning.

edit: photos added.

A couple of days ago in Thakhek i spotted an interesting gekko outside my hostel room window and stood up on the bed to see it better. As i turned away from it, the ceiling fan hit me in the head. A pretty big one, the diameter being about 1,5 meters with blades of steel and spinning fast. So, bang, it hit me and cut me. Surprisingly not too badly (about 5cm long and not too deep). Got some stitches at the local clinic, and now it is healing, but i’m supposed to keep it dry, so no water throwing for me. (Sonkan involves a lot of throwing water on other people. A lot of fun in the heat but not for me this year. I just sit at the hostel balcony and try to hit the passers by from a safe distance. One day to go.)

Other activities since the last posting:

From Siem Reap we rode a bus to Kampong Cham next to Mekong river. We rent a motorbike and rode around the countryside for a day. It was very dusty. Lot of rubber plantations in the area. There’s a very long bamboo bridge to an island on the river, and a Cham neighbourhood. Otherwise not much there. Nice enough still.

Then to Kratie. We saw some (backs and watery burps of) Irrawaddy dolphins (in the distance). Otherwise peaceful and quiet again, sunsets by the Mekong, etc.

Then up to Banlung in Ratanakiri, where we swam in a very deep round lake, drove around with motorbikes & drivers to some remote waterfalls and villages with gem “mines” – very narrow (maybe a meter wide max) deep (1o meters maybe) holes in the ground. There are some nice forests in the area, and also lots of old forests just recently cut down with rubber trees and cashew nuts replacing them. Driving through cashew orchards i learned why the nuts are so damn expensive. The plant is smallish tree that has red “fruits” (accessory fruits to be exact) and the nut (the fruit proper) itself is hanging below this thing, inside a hard shell. Inside the shell there’s still a reddish skin to be removed. So just one well packed nut per fruit and not too many nuts per tree and so on. A lot of handwork picking the things, getting the nut out of the shells and pealing them. Yields per hectare are low (916 kg/hectare on average says Wikipedia).

The waterfalls were OK too.

After Banlung we head north to Lao PDR (after a little detour south). I went to Don Det on Si Phan Don in July 2002, and expected the place to have changed quite a bit. And so it had: now there are internet cafes, restaurants, trucks for taking Lao and Thai tour groups to see the waterfalls and so on. But laying down in the hammock, swimming in the Mekong and not doing much else was good for a few days.

Then to Pakxe. It has changed quite a bit too. We rent a Thai built 110cc Suzuki to drive around the Bolaven plateau for some days. If you do the same please check your bike properly before taking off. I didn’t and we had some troubles. As we rode off the chain on the bike was jumping with a horrible sound, and i took the bike back. The guy at the rental said it was just loose, tightened the chain and we went off again. I should have insisted on seeing the sprockets (the bike has a full chain guard as these bikes often do, a good thing otherwise, but it needs to be taken apart a bit to see how the chain and sprockets are really doing). I was rewarded for this stupidity after about 120km: the chain was jumping again. We took the bike to a mechanic in Salavan. The front sprocket was missing some teeth, and the rubber dampers inside the rear hub were in pieces. Paid 150000 Kip (about 12€) for new sprockets, front and back, a new chain and the rubber dampers, including work. Cheap and i even got it reimbursed without arguing when paying the rent for the bike. So no real harm there, but still, i’ll check it better next time.

Otherwise the trip was nice. On the first day drove east from Pakse before turning north towards Tat lo, a very picturesque village (with lots of backpackers) for the night. There’s a waterfall about 10km from the village (Tat suong). Not much water in it at this time of the year, but good views from the top.

Next day on north to Salavan, where we had coffee, saw the market, and got the bike fixed. Not much there. A bit backtracking south and then the dirt road from Ban Beng to Tha Taeng and on to Sekong, where we spent the night. There’s pretty much nothing to see or do in the town. For obvious reasons we wanted to stay in the Woman Fever Kosmet Centre Guest House but had to go elsewhere because we didn’t find any staff.

The final day was long, first south towards Attapeu to Ban Bengphua Kham and then west towards Pakxong along a dirt road, pretty steep at places. It rained the night before so the air was clear. The road goes through green forests with big trees before getting on top of the plateau. There’s a 100m high waterfall (Nam Tok Katamtok) on the way too. The dirt road ends in Pakxong. We first planned to stay there but as we were early and there isn’t much there we rode on back to Pakxe, stopping at two waterfalls on the way. About 450km in 3 days, a good trip and a sore bum.

The next day on to Thakek where we went on a trek organized by the provincial tourist office. Never really been on these organized treks before. The karst mountain landscape is scenic and the forests too, we went to caves and swam in streams, ate ants and something like a squirrel, drank a lot of laolao, and the villagers were friendly too.

As we came back to Pakxe i had my ceiling fan incident and next morning we came to Vientiane, and now i’m trying to keep dry here.

Got email from Oasis Hongkong: they are bankrupt and finished flying (thanks to rising jet fuel prices say the papers), so i had to buy a new ticket from Hong Kong to London. So i’ll be in Finland on 5.6.2008. I doubt i’ll ever get my money back for the Oasis ticket.

edit: photos added

In brief, the following has happened since i returned from Burma to Bangkok in the end of February:

Marja flew to Bangkok so there’s 2 of us now.

Went to Kanchanaburi and Sankhlaburi for two weeks almost. Drove around with a Honda Dream, saw waterfalls with too little water, read books, etc. Marja worked.

Came back to Bangkok and saw some movies, spent time in Bangkoks posh malls, ate a mint / cookie dough ice cream with almond and mini marshmallow toppings plus cream fudge at Cream Fudge. Also ate sushi and some good Thai salads. Stayed in Chinatown, in the area where all the people taking car engines apart work and live. It is a lot nicer than Banglamphu.

Went to the bigger Ko Chang near Trat. It was very very different from what it was 6 years ago. The west coast (Lonely beach, Bailan beach, White sands,…) of the island is awful. And they are still building. However, Long Beach on the east coast is still nice and quiet. But if you want a quiet place go to the other Ko Chang near Ranong, it’s nicer.

A day in Trat and on to continuing my 10 month holiday in Cambodia. We took a moto (= honda Dream or similar + driver; we and our luggage fit nicely) from the border to Koh Kong. “Welcome to Cambodia! Here you can do anything you want,” said our driver on the way, trying to sell weed and everything else.

Koh Kong was quiet and dusty. With some crusty barang (Khmer for farang) sitting in bars. The next day we took a boat to Sihanoukville, a strange place, Costa del Kampuchea as a guide book puts it. A lot of people including those crusty barang again. The beaches near town are dirty. Otres beach a bit south from town is OK.

Kampot was nice and quiet. For some months the Bokor hill station was closed for tourists as the road up the hill is being renovated, but now it is possible to get there again – the price has gone up from 8 dollars to around 20 dollars, the difference consisting of course of bribes to the contractor redoing the road, the police, etc. A cool place in all senses, great views, eery old buildings and the air is cold.

Took moto from Kampot to Kep and a boat on to Koh Tonsay (rabbit island) near Kep likewise, a little like the Ko Chang near Ranong, but even less developed. Did nothing there. We only spent a day since we we’re tired of beaches.

On to Phnom Pen, a big city, but pleasant. Did the mandatory gore tour of Khmer rouge attrocities, the Tuol Sleng prison also known as S21 and some killing fields. Depressing places of course. The reamaining Khmer Rouge leaders are to be finally tried in the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia for the Prosecution of Crimes Committed During the Period of Democratic Kampuchea, but the news tell that this tribunal is out of money.

The garment industry is producing a lot in Phnom Pen. At the “Russian” market you can buy your H&M, Gap, Polo Ralph Lauren, Abercombie & Fitch, Tommy Hilfiger, Burberry, etc. gear very cheaply (shirts for 2-3 dollars). Some of the stuff even has the destination country’s price tags on (50$…70£).

A LOT of NGO offices in town. A part of the town seems to be known as NGO land. Hopefully they do something good with their dollars.

Lexus LX470 or RX330 seem to be the cars of choice if you can afford one. There are lots more motorbikes than cars of course, and old cars too, but still, a funny amount of those huge Lexuses. (Or is it Lexui?)

From Phnom Pen a bus to Battambang, which is a small place. Took a cooking class and made Amok, Lok Lak and sour soup. Very nice to cook after 7 months of no cooking.

On to Siem Reap. The town is not as bad as i’ve heard. There are no beggars (where are they?) and it is pretty quiet. We have just finished 3 days of seeing Angkor Wat and other very old ruins and they are very very nice. A lot nicer than Bagan i have to say. The season isn’t the greatest though, I think the ruins would look nicer in the rainy season. The moss and leaves would be greener.

Tomorrow on to Kompong Cham and elsewhere, should cross the Laotian border before the 3rd of April.

edit: photos added!

3.1. AirAsia to Yangon
5.1. overnight bus to Nyaungschwe (Inle lake)
8.1. overnight bus Mandalay
11.1. bus to Hsipaw
13.1. bus Kyaukme
14-16.1. Trekking near Kyaukme
17.1. Bus to Mandalay
19.1. Boat to Bagan
22.1. overnight bus to Yangon
24.1. bus to Chaungtha beach
27.1. bus to Yangon
29.1. AirAsia to Bangkok

All in all a very pleasant trip. I felt very welcome.

The trip in short

I started in Yangon, the dusty and messy former capital. It’s quite a mix of people; lot of Indians and Chinese plus Burmans and other Burmese of course. Betel vendors everywhere and pavements red with spit. Many streets and buildings crumbling and people seem to have a thing for painting them in pastel colors, a bit like in Tirana, Albania (not quite that extravagantly though, see some old photos)

It is easy to spend a day walking around and talking to people as many stop to chat, mostly not about politics but some people are open (more on this below). Shwedagon pagoda is big and the the “other side” of Yangon river is interesting, swampy delta. I happened to be in town for Myanmar’s 60th independence day. It was curiously celebrated with small sports (relay running, football) events for kids all over the streets and alleys around town. Someone said there we’re some parades at the stadium, but this was a very closed event.

Long distance buses in Myanmar are OK, but the bus rides can be long. Sometimes the seats are too small for me, the backrest not reaching my neck. The longest ride was Yangon Nyanugshwe (Inle lake), and took about 20 hours. Others were shorter. At some routes some companies have half the bus for cargo and half for passengers, and these are slow as cargo is loaded and offloaded. So ask around for the best bus company. I didn’t try the trains, but i heard they are full and slow, but can be fun. They are government run though, so your money gos to the wrong place if you use them.

Inle lake is beautiful, see photos. I let a boatman take me on a “standard” full day cruise around the lake, which involves visiting a bit too many small workshops-with-a-souvenir-shop-attached (blacksmith, cheroot factory, lacquer ware factory, silversmith, parasol factory, etc.) But the lake is very nice so i wasn’t much annoyed. Quite a few tourists are around, but not nearly the numbers there is infrastructure for, as tourists have not come this year as they did before. At least 10 “wood fire pizza” joints in Nyaungshwe town, which is not very interesting. It’s very popular to go trekking between Inle and Kalaw, but i didn’t.

Mandalay is dusty, and again a mix of people. There’s not much interesting to see, apart from dusty streets and some temples. But people are friendly as usual, and like to talk, teahouses are everywhere and markets bustling. Mr. Slim at the main market, second floor, sells interesting Naga handicrafts. Not that i bought any but the stuff is worth seeing.

Hsipaw in northern Shan state gets a lot of tourists, but I didn’t like the place. Luckily on my way to Shipaw my bus stopped to offload goods in Kyaukme and a Palaung trekking guide came to chat. After spending a day in Hsipaw returned to Kyaukme, looked up the guide and the next day went trekking.

Kyaukme is a small but lively trading town, almost all the goods being from China. As we are in Shan state, Shan, who call themselves Dai (and are more or less the same people that are called Dai around Jinghong in China) are the biggest ethnic group. In addition to that there are Chinese, Burmans, Indians, Palaung and Nepalis (remnants of British army Gurkha soldiers’ and their families). The Indians are mostly muslims, and some of the Chinese too. Different flavors of christianity are also supported – there are many churches, as elsewhere in Myanmar.

Language wise the situation is interesting: Shan is the language of choice for inter ethnic communication, unless there’s a burman involved, who might not speak Shan. Even the “silver” and “gold” Palaung subgroups speak Shan to each other as they cannot understand each other’s Palaung dialects. If someone doesn’t speak Shan then he surely must speak at least Chinese or Burmese. My guide spoke English, Palaung, Wa and Jingpaw (Kachin) in addition to those. Burmese is spoken with government officials of course.

There’s a market in the center of town, and even a big (old and crumbling) movie theater, with and Indian man tending his Italian Zedi projectors in the back, with a hat pulled deep to cover his ears in the chilly night. When i visited, only Burmese karaoke videos were shown on DVD, though.

For a day i went around on (the back of) a motorbike. The biggest industry in town is making “gold paper” which is mostly exported to China, and burned there in ancestral ceremonies. The paper is made of bamboo and covered in with a thin film of led, which is then painted with transparent yellow to look like gold. Burning that and inhaling the smoke isn’t probably too healthy.

Not many tourists come here. A group of teen girls (1 Nepali, 1 Chinese, 1 Shan and 2 Burmans.) chased me on motorbikes and was very eager to try their English with me. They gave me oranges and asked if i like Britney Spears. All spoke Chinese too but mine isn’t very good.

Trekking in the hills was good, except for the hazy weather, and the slow walking pace of Germans who came along. People are welcoming and scenery is nice. Mostly Palaung live in the mountains, growing tea and rice mostly.

Spent two and a half days cycling around the ruins and temples of Bagan, which are nice. Pictures below tell more. Too many souvenir sellers of course. Full moon was on so there was a temple festival one morning with a lot of monks getting offerings.

At Chaungtha beach burmese middle class goes on holiday; swimming and snorkeling fully clothed and so on. I had a bit of flu there on my 2 days there, so didn’t do much, except for eating some red snappers, barracudas, prawns, fish air sac salad and other delicacies.

Politics, etc.

No protests since the end of September 2007. Now, things seem to be calm, at least on the surface, so I really don’t know. Occasionally politics comes up in conversations. The opinions range from highly critical if not very analytic “fuck Than Shwe” to defensive “European liberal democracy is a foreign idea to us, we have our own thing.” Someone said that the things are OK, but there’s just too few people making decisions, so things are not efficient. (I heard the same point made in China, where someone said that the 9 members of the CCP politburo standing committee are not enough to run a country of 1.5 billion.)

Some of the eager talkers are probably some sort of informants for the regime, as they really try to ask opinions about burmese politics, without saying much themselves. Or maybe i was paranoid. Trishaw driver thought that the biggest problem facing the country and the biggest reason for the September protests is the price of fuel. Some in Shan state are very critical, still wanting independence or autonomy for the state. I got the impression that people there don’t trust the Burmans much.

Very often while talking to people i felt that the Burmese talker would like to say more, but seemed afraid, trying to wear a “you know, things are not good here” face with some murmurs. I of course wouldn’t ask, but just try to wear my “yeah, i know, try to hang in there” -face.

Most people are poor everywhere, that’s clear, but some are of course rich. There are department stores and supermarkets with everything in Yangon. At least the military is rich; see than Shwe’s daughters wedding on youtube.

There are tourists, but of course infrastructure for a lot more. Some working in the industry are quite desperate, souvenir sellers in Bagan and markets near Inle lake for example.

Should you go? I have voted with my feet of course. It seems most of the money will go to the people, not the government, unless you use trains, and expensive hotels & restaurants that have a 10% extra tax. And the people are definitely happy to see visitors.

Food

Shan food is good. Burman is often quite bland, except for the “national dish” Lahpet thouk tea leaf salad which is very tasty. Just about every guest house has an egg-toast-coffee breakfast included in the room price. Tea is good, if you like it very strong, with a lot of sugar and condensed milk. Teahouses are everywhere, and nice places to sit.

Now i’m back in Bangkok.