Monkeys Monkeys Monkeys

This is just pictures of Monkeys

Peter Sleeping



Shan Penn Grooming Peter


Peter Eating Stolen Cake


Katie and Peter


Peter at the Petronas Towers KL


Sunny The Smallest Monkey


Pinky The highly strung Baby


Mongabi The only remaining Gibbon


Mongabi and his friends


Me, Susan and the oranges


ET

Myanmar Stories part 7 (Bagan)

Well at last I have got around to writing my last installment from Myanmar. I currently have a baby monkey called peter on my arm so I have to type one handed.

Bagan is, well I don't know how to start this. It's pretty cool, it's an area about 10km long and probably about 5km wide (just guessing really) and there are a few thousand temples and stupas ranging in age from the present to about 1000 years old.



Riding around on bikes is a very nice way to get around. We didn't see half of the area but it was nice to see what we did at our own pace and being able to scramble through the prickle bushes to see temple that hardly see any tourists. At a few temples you can still climb up the narrow stairs and onto the upper levels where the view is breathtaking every time. These photos really just don't do the view any justice.



We somehow managed to see the same temple twice, once in the morning and once near sunset when all the souvinear shops were packing up or had already left. It was much more enjoyable the second time around. We discovered that squirrels can run up the walls and jump from one piller to another. At this temple the light started streaming in through the westerly entrance and lighting up a new looking golden Budda statue which could be viewed from the southern side. It was quite cool looking and very nice to be the only people there to see it at that time.



An ogre at one of the first temples we visited.



On our second day way we took a horse cart to old Bagan and explored some more. The unfortunate part was we picked a cart with an old horse and the driver kept whipping the poor horse to keep it going which was a bit depressing to see.

Overall it was a very cool experience. One that is easy to draw comparison with Angkor in Cambodia but it is of course very different and unfair to compare except to say they are both amazing religious sites.



Dylan

Myanmar Stories part 6 (The Beggar and the Mandarin)

12/1/06

While waiting at the Mawlamyaing bus station for the bus to bago an elderly Lady Beggar arrived. At first I tried to ignore her or at least not to make eye contact. As she hobbled around with her tin I couldn’t help but notice she had obviously suffered horrific injuries. She was missing most of one foot, most of the fingers on one hand and the other hand was deformed. She also had a serious problem with her chin, like her jaw had been badly broken and never got set right before the bone healed.

I don’t like to give money to beggars, not because I am being tight but it doesn’t seem that giving them my change will really help them. Especially younger able bodied beggars, it doesn’t seem the right thing to so. I have no problem however in giving food to people who obviously can’t help themselves like the elderly or disabled.

I looked in my bag of snacks and decided that a mandarin was the best option. I was hoping she could eat it ok. As soon as she got it her eyes changed. She scratched the skin and cupped the fruit in her hands and smelled it with a few deep breaths. She seemed so happy like she hadn’t smelt mandarin for years but she loved them. She bit through the skin and peeled it constantly sniffing the skin. While she was eating it she looked almost as if she was about to burst into tears.

Such a small thing and this lady obviously can’t afford to buy one for herself. For the price of the mandarin (AU$0.10) I guess she could have a meal of rice and maybe a little bland soup for the day but a mandarin will never fill her up so I guess that’s the choice she would have to make.

How lucky are we, really?

Myanmar Stories part 5 (Road works)

5/1/06

How do you make a new road or widen an old one?

A: Get trucks graders compactors and make a smooth compact base, spray with tar from a special truck and top with asphalt with another special truck. Roll with a steam roller and you’re done.

B: Get a group of Women, piles of rocks ranging from big to gravel. Place rocks by hand (no gloves). Makes sure they are level by moving the rocks around one by one. Spread out smaller rocks by hand (still no gloves). Make sure they are level. Heat a drum of tar over a wood fire and pour tar over the rocks with a bucket now spread out gravel over the hot tar (seriously there is no need for gloves get over it). Oh and don’t pay these Women just give them the food they need and give them a tiny bamboo hut with no floor on the road side to live in while they work. In case you were wondering these Women are not criminals.

The answer of course in 2005/06 in any country with any moral fiber the answer has to be (A), not in Myanmar, oh no, answer (B) is much more practical.

Myanmar Stories part 4 (Monkey Children, Fish and Busses)

5/1/06

Happy new year. Wow a week has just rushed by. We are now in Nyaungshwe which is a touristy town on the northern end of Inle Lake. So far it seems like nice town, pretty clean (I guess that’s the tourists influence) The only dirty part so far is unfortunately around an old stupa complex ruin with children playing in a tree doing their best probocis monkey impression leaping arms and legs spread from one branch to another. Today is for relaxing and tomorrow is for the boat trip.

Before I forget, I have to mention the Shan fish dinner we had last night. It pays to ask the waiter what the best dish is. We were recommended the hot steamed fish. He said it was steamed over a fire, we thought he meant in the kitchen. We had vegetables and stuffed tofu (very nice) first and then the waiter brought out a wooden board with an oval pot filled with hot coals and resting on top was a dish filled with a whole fish covered in ginger, garlic, and other fragrant vegetables in a simmering stock. The fish was a bottom dwelling type but didn’t taste muddy at all. The meat slid off the bones it was just magic.



Now back to my last entry. We left excitement filled Kinpun for Mawlamyang (moulmien), a quiet river/seaside town which was pretty clean and it didn’t smell bad. We stayed in a Chinese guest house in a nice old building on the riverfront. We didn’t really do much except wander around the temples on the hill and through the back streets of town, where we met millions of smiling children all, wanting their picture taken, who proceeded to follow us around for a short while. The kids always make a town so much better than it otherwise would be. While hanging around on the terrace of the guest house we had a couple of long conversations with a Finnish man who has been traveling in South East Asia for about 20 years in short trips every year. He (we are so bad at not exchanging names with people) is a retired teacher who travels and is making a 1 Ha formal garden. What a life hey.

Typical transort for cargo and people Mawlamyaing (photo by Katie)


A Tobbaco Free School Mawlamyaing


Sunset Mawlamyaing


From Mawlamyaing we took the overnight bus to Bago and arrived at 3:30am. Luckily we got a room in a hotel straight away so we got a little sleep. We woke, booked tickets to Inle Lake for that afternoon and went for a walk around town. All we found was rubbish and beggars. We took refuge in a tea shop where we took pictures of the little tea shop princess in her formal Chinese dress while she strutted around and told the men what to do. She was all of 5 years old.

We got our 2pm bus at about 3 pm and found that we were on an ok bus for a premium bus price. We appeared to be making good time until we hit the mountains some time in the early hours. These roads are not made for busses let alone busses with worn out suspension. We rocked and occasionally crunched our way and arrived at 7:30 which was on time if you factored in the initial delay. The early morning ride in the mountain was bitterly cold. There was even frost on the ground. I managed to fashon my sarong into a warm hat and wear a t-shirt on the outside of my shirt to keep warm.

Myanmar Stories part 3 (Rocks and Fire)

30/12/05

Oh my god we set fire to the bathroom.

Yesterday we had a nice bus trip from Yangon to Kinpun (the base camp town for the ‘Golden Rock’ near Kyaiktiyo). I had a long conversation with a pharmacist called Way-Han. At lunch he bought Katie and I coffe and refused my offer to pay. You know you have met someone genuine in a poor country when they buy you something. Way-Han and his wife Choo Choo Win were married in October and were visiting the ‘Golden Rock’ as a bit of a honeymoon I gather. He studied for 5 years to be a pharmacist learning chemistry, physics, maths, botany, and English to name a few.

When we arrived we checked into the Sea Sar guest house and were told that it was the Kayin new year and there was to be a big party in the village that night. We settled in and postponed our rock trip to sunrise.

The party was happening. Many games stalls where, mostly men, were betting on simple games which involved animal pictures or numbers. There was a huge stage with energetic children dancing, mostly in time, in a very coordinated way. There were some food stalls but not as many as I might have hoped for and many tea shops/bars around one side. There was a smaller stage that was obviously about to come alive as there was a sprawl of mats and the people to accompany them. We waited for a while then a primary school headmaster from Yangon introduced himself in a very formal primary school English sort of way. “I would like to introduce myself. I am (sorry I forgot his name), I am a primary school headmaster from Yangon. I am pleased to meet you.” He told us that there was to be a kick boxing match on stage. Katie and I went to get some coffee while we waited for the fight. Mr Headmaster appeared to help us get our coffee (we were doing fine without him though). After our coffee and beggars we ventured back to the stage. We waited patiently for about half an hour before a lady shone her torch at us and waved us towards her. It turned out that she spoke no English but that didn’t bother her, she had a yellow trucker cap, a towel as a shawl some kids running around and two new western friends. She was very smiley and we got by on hand signals. It turned out that it was not a boxing match at all, it was some kind of local musical stage show with a king and a queen. We watched for about an hour and that was enough. The whole experience was quite surreal. Unfortunately to escape the performance I trod on a couple of small sleeping children.

After about 5 hours sleep we were up and ready for a 5:30 breakfast and a 6 am bus/truck ride to the Rock. We were there at 6 so were 5 million other devoted pilgrims. Needless to say we didn’t make it on. Given I am bigger than most people here I probably could have forced my way on but that is really not my style. We waited about an hour for the next lot of trucks to arrive. The site was unreal. Before the trucks got to the platforms people swarmed onto the still moving trucks elbows out in a kind of desperation to get on. One of the sides of a truck gave way and sent the people back to the ground. Now I know why people die in crowd surges at big events and pilgrimages. A westerner and has guide approached us and asked if we wanted to share the cab of a truck with them for an exorbitant fee, so given the situation we accepted the offer. After about 45mins of leg numbing half cab action the truck still hadn’t moved, so everyone changed trucks and we were off.

After the rush.


Picture the steepest road you have ever driven on now make it steeper and pu hairpin turns on it and make it only one lane for two way traffic and oh, make it bumpy and go for 9 miles, you have our road. We made it so did our 40 friends in the back.

After 45 minutes of mountain trucking we walked for about an hour to reach the top. There were heaps of little cafes jutting out into nothingness along the steeper road.

We wandered around and took some pictures of the Gold Boulder. I got some gold leaf and stuck it on the rock (that is the done thing for men), we had a snack and then walked back down. The road was way steeper than the truck road but somehow trucks full of people where going up and down this section too. On the way back down to town we got a ride in the back of a Mitsubishi Canter. 4 sumos might be ‘not so squeezy’, 7 people in the single cab and 32 in the tray… Pretty bloody squeezy if you ask me.

During the decent.


When we came back we had lunch and went back to our room for a shower. There was no power so I put 3 candles on the shelf in the bathroom. After showering we left the candles burning and forgot about them. I don’t know about you but putting candles on a plastic shelf and letting them burn down doesn’t sound like a good idea. It’s not. While we were laying on the bed we heard the souns of breaking glass and looked up to see flames in the bathroom. I rushed in and turned on the shower and splashed water on the fire to put it out. When it was out I realized I had rushed into the bathroom, bare foot after hearing glass break, Thank god I didn’t tread on any. My brain must have been squeezed out of my head on the truck. I took a picture and then went to tell management what had happedned. They asked for Ks4000 = AU$6.00 and that was it. They even came in and cleaned up the mess for us. How nice are these people.

The damage.


Katie and I have both got new friends mine is a little girl with a nice smile and Katie’s is a cat.

Nila and the Cat

Stories From Myanmar part 2 (The Toilet)

29/12/05

After a nice breakfast of toast, butter, jam, eggs, cake, 2 glasses of orange drink and 2 teas we set off on our second foot tour of Yangon. We walked down the street and stopped at the railway line to watch a train crawl along at walking pace. After waving to the solders in the end carriages we continued on our way. It was not long and I was thinking about needing the toilet. We found the first pagoda we were looking for and I figured that there must be a toilet nearby. After some scouting around, I found a neat looking café so I inquired about the toilet. The boy seemed to understand, somewhat, and he led me through the kitchen (this is the normal way to the toilet in a lot of Asian countries) the kitchen was a very dark room with a dirt floor and several charcoal burners supporting large woks filled with oil only a foot off the ground. After the kitchen was a small area full of rubbish and muddy muck. I looked around for a door to the toilet, there wasn’t one to be found. I turned around and the boy pointed to the mucky corner. It smelled bad but only a bit like a toilet , I pointed at my fly and then at the corner and the boy nodded and left me there. I thought even if this is not the toilet it can’t get much worse so I did my business and left being very careful to wipe my feet on anything I could before I returned through the kitchen. Maybe it is not the usual practice to use the toilet in a café and so they didn’t feel the need to build one but please… Using a pile of muck and rubbish right next to the kitchen that’s just wrong.

Stories From Myanmar part 1

Since we didn't have the right to free speech while we were in Myanmar I wrote everything down in my journal. I will now make a carbon copy for you to read so it will all be in present tense even though it should be in past tense.

27/12/05

Well it has been a while. There is a small child, maybe 4, being a duck out the front of the guest house.

I guess this is the next leg then. We are in Yangon (Rangoon), Myanmar (Burma).

Going back a bit; We spent 3 nights in Kuching (Sarawak, Malaysian Borneo) after a pleasant non eventful trip from Miri (stinky fish market) to sibu (nice town, big market, Chinese Temple, Man yelling in the middle of the night.) Then by express boat down the river, across the bay and up another river to Kuching. Kuching is a big bright well touristed city. After a little problem of no water and a rude lady boy at reception we changed hotels to across the road. Kuching was nice except that the orchid garden was closed and we saw kids sniffing glue. We did some souvenir shopping/window shopping and had a nice meal in a fancy restaurant (my meal was missing the beef though, p’oh). After Kuching we flew to KL.

Katie and I are tired so I think we will go to bed now. I think the Duck has done the same.

Out of the black hole

Hi all,

We are back into comunications territory after 3 weeks in the communication black hole known as Myanmar. We are in Bangkok, we few in yesturday and I unfortunatly got a 12 hour tummy bug with a mild fever so I was up half the night but I feel ok now thanks for asking. When I have the strength I will start the epic process of copying my journal entries into this blog. I will give you a couple of taster pics now and the rest later as they fit in with the stories.

This is a typical public bus (it looks like its going faster than it is)


Sunrise from the deck of the Mandaly-> Bagan ferry on the Irrawaddy (not the official spelling) River.


I hope you enjoy these. Please write a comment so I know who loves me and who doesn't

Dylan

Myanmar (Burma)

Hi, I can't write much,

In Myanmar, we are safe and well, computers seem to be tracked here so must be careful with content of email etc. anyway will write full details later when not being tracked.

Love Dylan