Bagan

Sunday 6 February: A pony-and-trap ride from the boat jetty takes me to May Kha Lar guesthouse in the centre of the bustling town of Ngaung U, where most independent travellers hang their backpacks. The US$10 government entrance fee to the temple area is unavoidable here as it's collected at hotel registration. Your glossy Bagan Archaeological Zone pass is then issued, but never subsequently checked.
Monday 7: Hiring a bike I take the 2-mile ride to the main temple sites at Old Bagan. Despite the military junta ignoring original architectural styles and haphazardly restoring buildings using modern materials the temple fields at Bagan are just wonderful. Ananda Phaya is splendid with an elegant golden stupa and four standing Buddhas with fingers in a circle (similar to the okay sign), the posture of imparting fearlessness. The older stumpier Thatbyinnya Phaya is next, where hawkers sell their wares of fine artwork and local laquerware. Bupaya's small single stupa, on the river bank, is said to be the oldest but now looks new, completely restored military junta fashion.
Cycling a mile or so further south I reach Manuhar Paya with statues of bell carrying monks and a wonderfully oversized reclining Buddha cramped in a small hall. Back towards Old Bagan is the tall Shwe San Taw Paya with great views across the temple fields, there are thousands of stupas and structures.
At lunch I meet up again with Sharon and Alex, an Irish-Italian couple (who I sailed down the Irrawaddy with yesterday) and we spend the afternoon cycling, mostly on dirt roads, to some of the more remote sites - Dhammayangyi Paya is the largest with delightful twin Buddhas, fingertips touching the ground the in the posture of linking with earth or calling the earth to witness - Sulamani Guphaya is next inside gated walls, then Thabeik Hmauk where we climb to the upper terraces relaxing for a spell amid the templescape. As the stupa shadows grow tall I head back in the dim light of dusk leaving Alex and Sharon to enjoy the sunset.
Tuesday 8: Guarded by white lions Shwezigon Paya, in Nyuang U, is a glimmering golden stupa-topped pyrimid, a wonderful working monastery of red-robed monks and pink-gowned nuns. After lunch I take a pony-and-trap, out of town, to Htilominlo Guphaya-gyi on the main road then walk through fields to Bu-le-thi to catch the sunset.
Wednesday 9: Overnight bus south, to Yangon, then north again for a couple of hours to Bago.
Photos of Bagan.

Pyin U Lwin (Maymyo)

Thursday 3 February: From Mandalay I'm heading north on a shared pick-up truck to the old British hill station of Maymyo (now called Pyin U Lwin). The town's Purcell Tower was a gift from Queen Victoria and the clock chimes are said to match those of London's Big Ben. I wander to the outscirts of town to see the stately colonial mansion of the Candacraig Hotel, made famous in Paul Theroux's Great Railway Bazaar, but at US$36 a night it's slightly over my budget. Walking back to town I climb the six-storey Pagoda of Chan Tak Buddhist temple with views down to the temple's ornate gardens.
In the evening, after a few glasses of strawberry wine, I have a fitfull sleep, the Purcell Tower's chimes, just opposite my bedroom window, do match Big Ben's in frequency if, not quite, in volume.
Friday 4: Pick-up truck to Mandalay, local bus to overnight at Monya with sunset the river.
Saturday 5: Bus to overnight at Pakokku for downstream ferry to the temples of Bagan.
Photos of Pyin U Lwin.

Saging Hill and U Bein's Bridge

Wednesday 2 February: Hiring a bike in Mandalay I peddle south to for a couple of hours and across the the old British bridge to Saging Hill for great, if hazy, views back over the Irrawaddy river and surrounding plains. On the way back through pretty countryside I take a detour to U Bein's Bridge, the longest teak bridge in the world. It's lovely to stroll across above the lake and engoy the slow pase of rural and monastic life.
Pictures of Saging Hill and U Bein's Bridge.

Mandalay

Monday 31 January: The brown dust of the country roads is replaced by the exhaust fumes that hang over the city. In just one day the colour of my shirt collar matches my snot - black. The old walled and moated Royal Palace is spectacular with Mandalay Hill and the foremost temples at it's northeast corner. It takes me an hour to walk around the palace and another half-hour for the barefoot climb to the top of the hill. Two large lions guard the entrance to the hill and the shaded ascent has pleasant resting places and good view across the temples, palace and hazy city rooftops.
Tuesday 1 February: A long morning stroll south takes me to In Bin Kyaung, a beautiful teak temple, on a bend in the river. Walking back I drop into the Moustache Brother's home and have a chat with Lu Maw, brother number two, of this famous Mandalay comedy troupe. They have always included anti-government material in their act and two of the brothers have been imprisoned for it - five years hard labour each, but their performance continued. Lu Maw invites me to this to see them perform in their front room in the evening and I promise I'll return.
The Golden Palace Monastery is a more touristy teak temple with government admission fee. I give it a miss and locals usher me into Maha Lokamarazein Kuthodaw Pagoda through a side gateway. The temple holds the world's biggest book. It's inscribed on 729 marble tablets each with a small temple erected over it - what a wonderful creation.
The Moustache Brothers are restricted to performing within their own home in English only and are under scrutiny from the secret police, so no Burmese are in the audience. It's a delightful evening, the best show I've ever seen in a living room. My donation for the performance is US$10 which is exactly the fee I saved by not visiting the palace which was rebuilt using forced convict labour.
Photos of Mandalay.

Mingun

Sunday 30 January: Arriving in Mandalay in the early morning darkness I have time, after a hot shower and a boiled-egg breakfast, to catch the 9:00am boat to Mingun. We board the tiny wooden ferry with a captain and one crewman, a wiry old man who's job is to constantly bale out water from the leaky skiff which is filling up only slightly quicker than he can bale.
The main sight is the massive unfinished stupa of Mingun Paya, earthquake cracked and crumbling. The government charge a three dollar 'renovation fee' to climb it. I do not believe this fee goes towards any renovation at all so, for a small donation, I climb the nearby whitewashed Mya Thein Dan Pagoda instead for similar hazy views over the Irrawaddy river.
The largest intact bell in the world (the larger bell in Moscow is cracked), intended for Mingun Paya, hangs in a simple building next door. Both monks and tourists duck inside the bell to feel the full effects of its tone. Back in Mandalay my foot is still painful so I take a cycle trishaw (78th mode of transport) back to the hotel for an early night.
Pictures of Mingun.

Burma: Yangon (Rangoon)

Thursday 27 January: Motherland Inn, north of the city centre, is an easy choice - they have a free courtesy bus from the airport - the taxi fare is 10US$, the same price as a single room. Three weeks later for my return trip the room rate (including airport transfer) is increasing to 13US$ - the curse of Lonely Planet.
Most of the city's colonial buildings are unloved, decaying and crumbling. This is a poor country made poorer by its military dictatorship. I thought long and hard before deciding to visit Burma (called Myanmar by the ruling junta) but my style of travel puts much needed money in people's hands and very little in the greedy paws of the generals. I'm staying in family run guesthouses, eating in local restaurants and travelling mostly by private transport (sadly, the state operated railways levy a heavy 'tax' for foreigners), this will be an interesting trip.
Friday 28: A gentle stroll along Kandawgyi Lake leads me to the magnificent Shwedagon Paya (temple), Burma's finest. When early British explorers reported 'mountains of gold' this is what they saw. Sixty-tons of gold plate covering the upper stupa make it gleam brightly in the sun, but that's not all. Above the cone is wind vane encrusted with jewels which is topped by a single sparkling diamond.
Spending most of the day here relaxing and reading I'm approached by Yen-Suyata, a young monk from the Mon area (a monk must speak to you first, not the other way round), and for several hours we discuss the virtues of Buddhist thought. He's been studying for only a year and is impressed by my knowledge and that I've been to Bodhgaya in modern day India, the place of Buddha's enlightenment. He explains, as only a novice can, the difficulties and rewards of meditation, something I must try. We leave mid-afternoon before the tourist hoards arrive for sunset.
Saturday 29: Changing large sums of money, illegally, on the black market is always tense, but as the exchange rate is so much better than the bank rate (and it circumvents the government) I feel I must try. Everything goes surprisingly smoothly in a dimly lit corner of the central market and I've swapped a crisp one-hundred dollar bill for 85,000 Kyats (pronounced chats) in one-thousand Kyats notes, quite a bundle. When I get fifteen pages photocopied from my guide book it costs 100 Kyats (about 10 pence in total) but they can't change my 1,000 Kyats note, the country's largest bill. This is an inexpensive and trustworthy country to travel in. Next, I reserve a seat on the night bus to Mandalay. Following a busy morning I enjoy lunch at Monsoon restaurant set in a colonial style house then relax near the river in Botahtaung Paya before catching the night bus to Mandalay.
Photos of Yangon (Rangoon).

Return to Bangkok

Friday 21 January: The scene from the open-deck on the Lambian 3 fast-ferry to the Thai mainland is a delight and after a short bus ride I'm at Hat Yai Junction awaiting the train to Bangkok - it's great to be back on the road again. In Hat Yai I just have time for lunch, a haircut, shave, face massage and a large jug of Tiger beer at the Swan Inn before the Special Express sleeper departs for Bangkok.
Saturday 22: I'm in a top-floor room in Bella Bella House with fast Wifi and views across the rooftops of Watchanasongkram Wat - it's a good option and only a short stroll through this busy local temple takes me to the hubub of Khao San Road.
Monday 23: A three-day wait for my Burmese visa means it's time for repairs - new turnups on my trousers and a new zip on my day pack.
Tuesday 24: Visiting the infamous Patpong Road in Silom on the other side of town, I can't believe how tacky it is. Even the swish Rose Hotel, where I stayed with my girlfriend Katherine in the mid-1980s, looks old and glum now, dwarfed by a new Meridian Hotel tower block next door. In the evenings I relax on Bella Bella's balcony drinking Chang beer and watching YouTube music clips from the late 1960s to the early 1980s - what a wonderful era to have to have lived my informative years through.
In Langkawi island I bought Australian backpacker Peter Moore's book, The Wrong Way Home, to find out how he journeyed overland from Indonesia to Darwin without flying - he flew. Not much of a storyteller, he seems to have just had his blog printed and called it a book, but his 1999 bus ride description from Taftan on the Iran border to Quetta in Pakistan sounds the same as when I took it ten years later:

". . . I reclined on my seat and tried to sleep, but it was as if I had been strapped into a vibrating massage chair that had somehow acquired a mind of its own and subsequently lost it. I gave up all hope of sleep, held on tight to the handles and concentrated on not being tossed into the isle . . . the road got worse. It wasn't a bus I was riding but a bucking bronco determined to not only throw me off, but also turn round and trample me once it had . . . By the time the bus crawled into Quetta I felt as though I'd gone ten rounds with Mike Tyson."

Wednesday 25: I pick up my visa, swap Peter Moore for a Lonely Planet guide book and print out my 120US$ Air Asia return ticket - tomorrow I'm up at 4:00am for the 7:20am flight to Yangon and Burma, a country, like Iran and China, with a paranoid government that blocks access to social networking websites. Blog updates will have to wait.
Return to Bangkok photos.

Langkawi Island, Malaysia

Tuesday 28 December: Taking the squeaky-clean Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) train to Woodlands station on the northern tip of Singapore island I board the number 950 bus to take me across the road bridge and through the border checkpoints to Johor Bahru in Malaysia, a two-hour bus ride from the east-coast fishing village of Mersing. This is the fast-ferry departure point to the popular duty-free island of Tioman in the South China Sea.
Wednesday 29: It's absolutely bucketing down. "Sorry Sir, there are no ferries today, a tropical cyclone is forecast and the seas are too rough . . . ". Not again, drastic measures are necessary if I'm to get anywhere near a party atmosphere this New Year. It's an eight-hour coach ride to the far northwest of peninsula Malaysia, away from the east-coast monsoon, to an overnight stop in Kualu Perlis, the ferry port for Langkawi Island near the Thai border - Malaysia's top tourist destination and duty-free zone.
Thursday 30: Finally I make it to Daddy's Guest House on Langkawi Island. Red wine boxes by the pallet-full, beer by the bucket-load, a beach of soft white sand splashed by a warm green sea, bikini-clad beauties, and jellyfish (well, nothings ever perfect). After three-months in Indonesia the range of food here is staggering, Mexican, Italian, British, Irish, Indian, Chinese and, of course, Malaysian fusion. With my passage to Australia delayed until mid-February, I may stay here for some time.
Friday 31: By the time I get there the beach party is in full-swing, glowing candles, blazing bonfires and burning lanterns slowly gracing the skies. As the old year fades away, exploding fireworks along the sands herald in the New Year. Happy New Year!
Sunday 9 January 2011: An island-hopping trip takes me to several offshore islands where the swooping Sea Eagles and Brahminy Kites are far more difficult to photograph than the pretty little Swallows, Tiger Fish and semi-tame Macaques.
Tuesday 18: Hiring a mountain bike for the afternoon I cycle to Seven Pools for a cool splash then take Langkawi Cable Car (77th mode of transport) to the craggy-limestone twin peaks, incredibly linked by a steel bridge, of Gunung Machinchang high above Pantai Kok. Even in the haze the views are incredible. A misprint in my guide book tells me it's a 12km trip but it's actually 22km one way. So, by the days end I've cycled more than 30 miles which has caused much pain to my recovering foot and to my calf muscles which have had no excercise since my motorcycle accident on Lombok two months ago.
Thursday 20: I'm sailing tomorrow for Satun in Thailand and onto Hat Yai to catch the northbound train to Bangkok. As I still have a month before my ship departs for Australia, I've decided to take a look at Burma.
Photos of Langkawi Island.