After leaving the beaches of Dawai, I made my way to the last stop of my journey in Myanmar, and indeed Southeast Asia. I had been backpacking for a year, I was tired of moving around more or less constantly, and was looking forward to returning home to see my family and stuff my face […]
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After a long, bumpy bus ride to Dawei and finally getting our heads down, we were rudely awoken as the sun was rising by some strange sounds. After asking around it became apparent that the sounds were coming from the local temple, marking someone’s passing from this life. We were informed, it usually lasted for several […]
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We didn’t stay in Mawlamyine. In fact, we rushed through it. We stepped off the rickety wooden boat onto the river bank, parted ways with half the group and said our farewells, then jumped in a tuk-tuk and made our way to the bus station. From there, we purchased tickets to head to the Dawei Peninsula. We […]
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After visiting caves and briefly exploring the Buddha park in Hpa-an, we booked some onward tickets for a boat to Mawlamyine. Hpa-an is the perfect place to take it easy really, other than the caves there is not so much to do, but the surrounding scenery is quite beautiful. The boat from Hpa-an to Mawlamyine was a […]
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After the Phaung Daw Oo Paya festival, I left Inle lake and by night bus, headed through winding mountain roads towards Hpa-an, leaving behind the shan state and entering the Karen / Kayin state, of which Hpa-An is the capital. The quiet town sits on the banks of the Salween river. The quiet town sits on […]
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Towards the end of my time in Inle, the Phaung Daw Oo Pagoda Festival was held. Inle Lake is considered a holy site, in fact probably the holiest in the Shan state of Myanmar. The Phaung Daw Oo Pagoda Festival (held towards the end of September until the beginning of October) usually lasts for 18 days. The […]
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There was something on my bucket list that I’d wanted to see for a while (other than the temples of Bagan) – and that was to see the fishermen on Inle Lake. I’d heard a lot of people complain and seen a lot of miserable reviews about how Inle Lake wasn’t really worth the hype, […]
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In my previous post, I told you about our little cycle trip around Inle Lake and mentioned something called the “Tofu Palace Tour”. I decided to do a separate post about it, and although it may not necessarily look like much, why it was such a good thing to do. So, the Tofu Palace Tour […]
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After Bagan, I hopped on a “luxury” bus which was in fact, a very small minibus with broken seats, an inexplicable amount of mosquitos, no air conditioning and a rather sweet local family piled onto the seats next to me. Whilst they were lovely, there were more of them than there were seats, and the […]
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Now even for a Lara Croft wannabe / temple exploring history enthusiast like myself, there are only so many crumbling pagodas you can wander around for so many days. Whilst in Bagan, after having my fill of such activities, I was looking around for something else to do. The hostel ran various excursions, but I […]
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