A flavour of the Orient
Rai & Stephie in Asia

Zooming down a dirt road in northern India while sitting on the roof of a 4x4, I was chatting with our well travelled english friend about his adventures in Asia. When Myanmar came up he was surprisingly semi depressed by what he had seen. Partly influenced by what he said, we decided to  go for a short visit. A big Christmas turkey is also waiting for us in Shanghai (fine second excuse).  As we absorbed the atmosphere on our 1st night at a food stall in the heart of old Yangon town we wondered whether we would agree or disagree with our friend...

Soooo 3 weeks later and no longer in Myanmar ..... Did we agree with him? Not  in a million years !!!! Myanmar is like the best bits of Thailand, Laos and Cambodia 30 years ago. Fabulous. The following account briefly describes the Rai and Stephie way of seeing Myanmar:

***Myanmar is covered in golden budhist pagodas, temples and monasteries. There are as many as 500,000 monks in Myanmar. The most famous archaelogical site in Myanmar is in Bagan which has a staggering 3000 plus temples (from 10th-11th century) in a 42-sq-km plain next to the Ayeyarwady river. You can visit the popular temples the dull way with a big tour bus and take pictures from inside; you can do it the lazy way and rent a horsecart; you can do it the expensive but memorable way and see them from a hot air balloon. You can also do it the rai-stephie way of renting a bike, finding a remote temple with no tourists and a nice high terrace, doing some yoga at sunset and then getting a puncture when you leave in the dark (this really did happen!)

***Try to break your personal record for total number of consecutive sunrises and sunsets seen during your trip! Raimon beat Stephie with seven sunrises one after the other !  With all those  pagodas sitting on hilltops and the beautiful lakes that look stunning in the early morning, Myanmar is not the place to have a lie in ! Wake up late for your boat excursion to Inle lake and you will miss the mist rising from the water, the peace and quiet, the busy floating vegetable market...what a pity!

***If you like the myanmar food (which we did) take a cooking course! Stephie obviously showed off her chefing skills.  Raimon's chopping of veggies was less impressive !  We also took  lessons in preparing the beetle nut snack from street vendors....day in and day out the locals eat the stuff, just like the Indonesians of Timor. The roads are covered in red spit as a reminder of their less than desirable habit (do you really want to end up with only 5 black teeth...!)

***Travel by boat at night during full moon instead of in the blazing daytime  sun. Our five hour journey up river during the night from Sittwe in NW Myanmar to the 17 century temples of Mrauk  U was bliss.  The moonlight guitar concert to the passing fishermen was good too.  Even better was having dinner in the garden of a local restaurant and realising we were about to witness a complete lunar eclipse without any prior warning! Very romantic.

 If you are templed out or your bum is sore from all the bike rides then head out for a trek in Hsipaw close to Mandalay to see the Shan villages. And dream away while you rest at Mrs Popcorn's garden and sip a delicious passion fruit- banana shake. Without question the best fruit shake to date in Asia.

The glorious touts of New Delhi railway station who Raimon adores (refer to blog entry back in August) are also non existent in Myanmar with the exception of one tout called Mr Learn. But he is harmless, he has a nice business card and he gives you bananas if you buy a boat ticket. 

With the new government in place since early 2011, Myanmar is going through a phase of transition. From a travelling point of view, a large proportion of the country remains out of bounds to tourists without some very special expensive permits.  With the country made up of many distinct ethnic tribes, plenty of empty beaches (Myiek archipelago) and tall mountains close to Tibet (Putao) lots of out of the way exploring can still be done. And if these areas become open and free we will definitely be back (with or without our friend)!

www.stephieandraigoasia.blogspot.com

Many more fantastic photos of Myanmar will be uploaded soon....stay tuned!

Our friend Rabi has written a nice article for the Nepali Times on the Manaslu trek which we did back in November. Photos from Raimon and Stephie !

http://www.nepalitimes.com/issue/2011/12/16/Nation/18823

Last time we saw our nepali friend mr Rabi  was in Paris in 2008. Our final memories with him remain pretty blurred due to the number of pints we managed to down together in Montmatre.  When we told him we would be coming over to his  home turf for some trekking in the Himalayas, he was stressing out trying to sort out a suitable trek as his last visitors struggled to go up Poon Hill known as the baby trek of Nepal. I guess he thought we would walk at a snails pace...maybe he remembered my beer belly too much!

 Weeelll we proved him wrong! This was our fifth trek since the summer and we were feeling healthy and ready to go ! So armed with an amazingly strong porter and some handy cereal bars, we set off on an 11 day trek around Manaslu peak (8156m) located nearby the well known Annapurna circuit but waaaaay less busy.

Most trekkers need lots of sleep. We were fast asleep earlier than a newborn baby  in cosy teahouses found along the trail. For food, we had a delightful variety of dhal bhat (rice and lentils) , chowmein noodles, eggs in all their varieties, nice thick porridge and more dhal bhat. On the really lucky days exotic dishes would suddenly appear on the menu like swiss rosti and spaghetti covered in melted cheese. Raimon also found time for some cheeky guitar practice,  learning the 16 bar blues at 3860m to be precise !

The scenery from start to finish was breathtaking. We walked through steeply carved river gorges, beautiful autumn leave coloured forests with rhododendrons and monkeys; neatly arranged rice paddies alongside tibetan villages, tall wild cannabis plantations and huge braided meandering river systems. Around the half way mark we had views of the more serious looking snow covered himalayan mountains with numerous mind blowing glaciers and stunning lakes. The 7000m plus mountains looked massive....a big thank you to plate tectonics for creating such beauty 55 million years ago! Even at the pass (5106m) some of the peaks were towering 2-3km above us. If only we could have touched them. The weather was generally well behaved  clearing when it mattered most. Seeing Manaslu, the 8th highest peak in the world free of nasty clouds after 5 days of walking was unforgettable.  Less unforgettable were our poor toes that had to put up with temperatures of at least of -10 degrees C. I guess the socks need replacing ! And so did Rabi's ridiculously sophisticated water "straw"  attached to his bag. It simply froze before the pass. Stick to the water bottles mate!

More than a 1000 brilliant photos later we were back in Kathmandu breathing the smog, eating juicy peppered steak and recovering at a 3 day yoga retreat. We also had to smarten up for Rabi's cousins wedding which meant going for some quick shopping!  It was the perfect ending to our 2011 adventures in the Himalayas. We will back in Nepal sooner rather than later and maybe one day we will climb to the summit of Manaslu !

Http://www.stephieandraigoasia.blogspot.com

Photo of rai and our guitar on the trek.