Trains to Delhi are impossible for the next few days. Even with the tourist quota I can't get a sleeper class out until Sunday night (and then it's 24+ hours to Delhi). So, I'm catching a train to Lucknow tonight, spending a day there, then catching another train to Delhi. Turns out this gets me to Delhi about 12 hours earlier than waiting for the direct train on Sunday. And I get to see Lucknow, something I had to skip last spring due to time constraints.

Made it to Calcutta. Dhaka was not the nicest city I've ever been too, and the transit process in the airport was a complete mess (which is rather nerve-wracking when they're holding onto your passport and ticket overnight). At least I made footfall in another country, but the experience didn't exactly make me want to travel in Bangladesh anytime soon.

Pathein was another nice little city. It's a busy port town on one of the many branches of the Arawaddy delta.




Tomorrow afternoon I leave Myanmar. I'll have email access again once I arrive in Calcutta on Thursday.

I'm back in Yangon for a night after a couple days in Pyay. I'd planned on going straight to Pathein today, but by the time I got back to Yangon it was too late to get across town in time to catch the last bus. Oh well, I like Yangon so I'm not too upset about having to spend another night here on the way.

I was unable to get a flight out as early as I'd hoped so I'm leaving this Wednesday (the 24'th). The cheapest flights are on Bangladesh airways so I have to spend a night in Dhaka on the way, meaning I arrive in Calcutta on the 26'th. I guess it's a good thing I didn't manage to stop in Pyay on my original try last week otherwise I might not be able to fly out until after my visa expires.

Pyay itself was great and I'm glad I finally got there. There weren't too many sights in town (and the big draw nearbye - the ancient city - was barely worth the time and not even close to worth the $4 entry fee). However, it was a pleasant little town on the banks of the Ayerwaddy river. I could have easily spent another day or two there but decided to try to fit in one more town (Pathein) instead.



Tomorrow I'm going to try to get to Pathein in the morning to run out my last few days here. I seriously doubt there is internet access there so don't expect another post before the 24'th.

After Mandalay I'd hoped to be able to make regular updates through Bagan since it is such a major tourist town. Unfortunately the guy who ran the only email place in town was a bit clueless and kept telling me "no internet, only email". To demonstrate this he fired up internet explorer with the modem turned off then turned it on and launched outlook express!

So, to continue where I left off...

After Pwin U Lwin I headed back to Mandalay. On the way I stopped off in a small town, dumped my backpack in a coffee show, and made a long steep hike down to see a waterfall I'd heard good things about. Then it was back to Mandalay for some in-town sightseeing.





After Mandalay I took a day bus to Bagan which was simply stunning. I thought it was more impressive even than Ankor in Cambodia. The temples aren't on the same immense scale but there are thousands of them. I many places you can look around and have literally hundreds of temples and stupas in view.



I'd planned to go to Pyay last night on the way back from Bagon but there was no real station there and the driver forgot to let me know where I should get off. To my surprise I found myself in Yangon this morning. Tomorrow I'm going to buy my ticket to Calcutta in the morning then take the bus back up to Pyay for a couple days. It actually worked out OK because the flight schedules to India aren't as flexible as I'd hoped so it's good that I'm buying my ticket further in advance than I'd planned.

Since I was in Yangon I decided to go see the inside of the Shwendegon Paya. For something with that amount of normally gaudy gold paint it was surprisingly nice, especially with the late afternoon light around sunset.



I don't know whether Pyay will have internet access but I'll try to update again in the next few days.

Continuing with the Myanmar catchup...

From Bago I took a 17 hour overnight bus ride from hell up to Nyaungshwe on Inle lake. While this bus ride might not have been quite as bad as the overnight local bus ride from Hyderabad to Hospet with which I started my India trip last spring it came an awful close second. Anyway, when I arrived in Nyaungshwe I had planned on going straight to sleep but I met up with some people at my guesthouse who had already booked a boat trip around the lake so I joined up with them for the day. I'm amazed I managed to stay awake for the whole day.



I spent the rest of the time in Inle walking around the town and some of the nearby villages on the north side of the lake. After Inle I took another overnight bus ride (only 10 hours, of which I got almost 3 hours of sleep) to Mandalay. Instead of seeing sights in Mandalay itself I went to some of the ancient cities (Mingun, Sagaing, and Amarapura) nearby. When I return to Mandalay tomorrow I plan to see some of the sights in town.



After one night in Mandalay I caught a pickup up to Pwin U Lwin. Yesterday I wandered around to see some of the town.



Today I took a 2 hour train ride out to the Gokteik Viaduct which gave me the opportunity to see some of the surrounding countryside. When it was built in 1901 it was the second highest railway bridge in the world. Unfortunately you are not allowed to take pictures of the bridge itself (there are soldiers around to enforce this rule) and none of my pictures from the train ride came out all that great. Oh well.

I'm finally caught up with the Myanmar trip. Tomorrow I head back to Mandalay, hopefully stopping on the way to see a waterfall that's supposed to be pretty impressive. I think I'm only going to spend one more night in Mandalay before heading down to Bagan on Friday.

Back In Business

I found a free web-based ftp site so I can upload pictures again. :) Time to get caught up...

On my first day in Myanmar I spent the afternoon wandering around Yangon seeing some of the sights.



Since I'll be back in Yangon at least once before I leave I decided not to spend a full day there. So, the next morning I hopped on a pickup to Bago and from there caught a bus to Kinpun, the base-camp for Kyaiktiyo (the balancing pagoda). I decided to spend an extra day in Kinpun so that I could see the pagoda again in the morning when the light is best. Also, Kinpun was a nice little town which I needed after Yangon.



The next day it was back to Bago. I spent that afternoon and the next morning wandering around seeing the many sights. I also spent some time checking out the very picturesque market.



That's probably enough for now. Tomorrow, after I get back from sightseeing, I'll continue catching up with pictures from Inle lake, Mandalay's ancient cities, and Pwin U Lwin.

I'm in Mandalay now and finally found an internet connection. I'm going to make this short because I'm absolutely exhausted after an all night bus ride with little sleep followed by a full day of sight seeing. Also, I'm using a hotel's internet connection and it's absurdly expensive.

So far I've been to see the balancing stupa at Kyaiktiyo, Bago, Inle Lake, and now Mandalay. Tomorrow morning I'm heading slightly further north to Pyin U Lwin hill station for a couple days then I'll be back in Mandalay for a day or two before I start working my way back south.

That's about it for now. I wish I could post some pictures - I've already taken about 180 in the 9 days I've been here. In fact I'm going to have to transfer them to CD in the next couple days before I run out of space.

Well, there are web cafes in Yangon now and I can access blogger to keep my weblog updated (for now at least). However, Yahoo mail is blocked so I have no email access. Also ftp appears to be blocked as does access to the management console port for my hosting service so it looks like I'm not going to be able to post any pictures. Bummer.

Tomorrow I plan to head to Kyaiktiyo to see the balancing stupa then to Bago for a couple days before heading north.