October 2017

This morning (5 AM) we took a one hour flight to Bagan and checked into our hotel, the Thiripytisaya Resort (I have no idea how to pronounce it and just nod when at reception). It overlooks the Irrawaddy River and is situated within the Archaeological Zone, probably one of the reasons Bagan is not a world heritage site.
The Hotel sent a car to the airport.

Jan's new blue suitcase purchased after she blew out her lifetime guarantee "no matter what" Eagle Creek.

It's a small airport with dirt road to the luggage collection area.

The Bagan Archaeological Zone with it's over 10,000 temples constructed from the 9th to the 13 century is a main attraction for the country's tourism industry. It is seen by many as equal in attraction to Angkor Wat in Cambodia.


More hotel photos.
The hotel driver took us around Bagan. We visited several temples, but is's really the collective of all 2,000 remaining temples in the 40 square mile zone that is impressive. Visited an 11 story viewing tower at sunset, but the lighting was in the wrong direction. Went to the sunrise balloon launches ($320 US PP to ride in the balloon) 2 days in a row but there was no wind to propel them so they were canceled.

We'll be adding more photos here.

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Ananda Temple with four 10 meter Buddha images.

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I had been using our tap water for coffee until I drew a bath for Jan and saw this.

The hotel moved us to a suite

Arrived Yangon around 1:30 AM and the airport taxi drivers acted funny when we gave them our hotel name, but they took us. When we arrived it was still dark but it was clear the hotel had burned to the ground. 2 guests were killed. The Hotel's computers were also destroyed so they couldn't notify us.

Myanmar's Kandawgyi Palace hotel destroyed by fire

We booked into another hotel but we're not sure where we are until it gets light enough to sort it out. First built in the 1930s, it was my dream to stay there. It reminded me of the Raffles Grand Hotel d'Angkor.

We're in a club room at the Chatrium Hotel Royal Lake Yangon. Its' near our original hotel and that's all I know until we get some sleep and explore a little.

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Oct 21 - Our hotel room overlooks Kandawgyi Lake, but its isolation from the city makes it a long walk to anywhere. Today we took the hotel bus to a shopping area with a traditional market on one side of the street and a huge western mall on the other. No one spoke English but we were able to buy some necessities. We had a hotel taxi card written in Burmese but this could only get you back to the hotel, so we could not go to another location. Until we can get a Burmese tourist phrase book we are currently limited to one stop per trip. From the mall we walked down to an area with many colonial era buildings. The government has by design, or through neglect, not maintained these buildings so this part of town meets my travel criteria: hot, dirty, dangerous... I could have spent the entire day here, but it also does NOT meet Jan's criteria so I washed her feet upon return to the hotel.

Jan did not want to try Betel Nut


Shopping was good.

We set out again at sunset for the Shwedagon Pagoda. It is said to be the oldest pagoda in existence (2,500 years) and was originally only 66 feet tall.
Over the years it was rebuilt and regilded so that in 1775 it reached its current height of 325 feet. It's a massive complex with its gold and jewel encrusted pagoda that dominates the landscape.



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We returned to the hotel, exhausted, ordered room service, and went to bed early.

Oct 22 - We are getting no where, but we don't want to spend our days on a tour bus stranded in traffic and waiting in endless lines at museums and temples. Yangon is crowded with narrow streets and poor infrastructure. Going by bus takes forever, few taxi drivers speak English, and many cannot read Burmese. So what we need is a fixer who can go with us so we can do what we came to do. A Guy. A free lance tour Guide. A Guy'd. Someone who knows the City and speaks English. We tell him where we want to go and he fixes it so we can go by foot, taxi, ferry, train, and rickshaw. Quickly and effortlessly.

1 The burned-out Palace Hotel where we had intended to stay
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2 Walking trail around the Kandawgyi Lake

3 Many large trees have fallen, remnants of Cyclone Nargis 2008 which killed 138,000 people and severely effected Yangon and the Irrawaddy delta.

4 Karaweik Palace

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6 Chauk Htat Gyi Pagoda with Reclining Buddha- 217 feet long with long black eyelashes, completed in 1973

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8 The Yangon Circular Train was built by the British in 1954. It covers a railway track loop of 45.9 kilometers and stops at 39 stations. It takes almost 3 hours to complete the journey. Trains make both clockwise (Right) and counter-clockwise (Left) journeys daily along the railway loop.
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15 Dala is a small township located to the South of the Yangon River. Standing in contrast to the busy streets of Yangon, Dala’s dusty roads and cheerful villagers blissfully oblivious of their poverty stricken lives, are worth experiencing. To get to Dala, take the local Ferry from Pansadon street Jetty. Ferries leave for Dala every 20 minutes and the journey takes not more than 20 minutes.

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Last night we returned to "my" part of town for dinner. I did wash Jan's feet when we returned to the hotel.

If your eyes are closed, all is well... our table is perched over an open sewer and Buddhist chants are blasting from loud speakers across the street.

Moved up to Port Douglas to be closer to the outer reef. Checked into the Ramada Resort, time share and hotel, which immediately seemed odd. The front desk welcomes you with the molasses and the tour desk gives you the sulfur: you are 2.5 miles from town and there are crocodiles on the famous 4 mile beach. I'm going to write an entry about nightmare hotels separately, but now is not the time to be "bad husband". There is a stream and pool down the center of the resort and the restaurant looks like an Australian "river station". It's half Disney and half weird. It kind of grows on you. UPDATE: turns out every restaurant in town has no wait staff. You order your drinks from the bar and your food from kitchen. Condiments and salt and pepper are on the sideboard. WHY DON'T YOU KNOW THIS (maybe posting this somewhere would help). Once you know, it works pretty well. Travel can sometimes be like a thousand irritating cuts, some places are easier than others....

Guests waiting to place their dinner orders (no wait staff)

Four Mile Beach


Photo of a crocodile just 20 meters offshore on Four Mile Beach in August 2017 IMAGE: Newsport.

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Following our Cairns experience, we decided to double up our chances and booked two outer reef trips:
1). Mine is the Quicksilver Wave Piercing Catamaran tour (tomorrow) .
2). Jan's is the Calypso Reef Charters tour (the next day).
Different reefs and boat types.

We'll report back.
Quicksilver Wave Piercer Catamaran
The tour was aboard the 45 meter 480 passenger Quicksilver Wave Piercer Catamaran and its dedicated island platform anchored 72 kilometers out on Agincourt Reef. Travel time to the platform was 1 hour 45 mins (23 knots) the tour included a buffet lunch, semi submersible viewing boats, underwater viewing deck, snorkel gear, and sting suits. Underwater visibility was unlimited with many fish and coral. The purpose built boat and tour platform with its submerged step off snorkel decks, showers, and changing rooms made the trip effortless. Weather was perfect.

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4,000 HP engines

Calypso Reef Charters Tour
This catamaran tour goes to Opal Reef. The boat is 21 meters long 100 passengers (only 30 the day we went) and grantees three 1 hour long snorkel tours at 3 sites. It's more low tech than the Quicksilver and a lot rougher ride. The snorkel sites had higher waves and more current but the extra variety paid off with this meter long Maori Wrasse

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Canceling Bali has created a lot of itinerary changes and these rest days have given me time to clean up some loose ends.

1). We had to shorten our Port Douglas visit by one day so we could fly to Hong Kong (only weekly service to there from Cairns) then onto Yangon, MM (Myanmar) for 10 days. The only other route not stopping in Bali was to fly all the way back to Sydney and then from there to Jakarta, then Bangkok, and then Yangon, laying over a few hours in each place (18+ hours).

2). We pick up our planned itinerary again in Singapore on October 30, but we arrive there from Yangon late and leave for Kuching, MY (Borneo) early, so that only gave us 2 full days to visit. Singapore is our favorite city so we changed plans again. We're not going to Borneo and we got a serviced apartment right on top of the Clarke Quay MRT (subway stop) for 10 days. With an MRT stop below us you can be anywhere in the City in minutes, and Clarke and Boat Quays is where all of the restaurants and night life is. Singapore is a great city but hotels are very expensive and an apartment really brings the cost down. However, that means Jan will miss the Borneo long house native jungle stay (he's being sarcastic since I really didn't want to go). Hopefully we will see Orangutans sometime in the future.

3). Andaman Islands Thailand issues: We're flying to the island of Langkawi from Kuala Lumpur and we will enter Thailand via ferry. Because of the popularity and remoteness of these islands, hotels/beach huts must be booked far in advance, and many are non-refundable. We found out that regular ferry service doesn't start until November 21 (3 days too late for our Koh Lipe island stop), so we're researching the safety of hired speed boats and other ferry options. Once we get to Koh Lipe there will be twice daily ferry service to the 6 other islands we are visiting.