Contrary to popular belief, it is possible to access the internet in Myanmar, from a few select places, on dial up.
So far we’ve done a whistle stop tour – one night in Yangon, an 18 hour bus trip to Mandalay for a night, then an 8hr boat trip to spend one day in Bagan. There’s some method in our madness though, as the whole of the area around Mandalay was yes…you guessed it, flooded out. The Bagan buses were sold out for the day we wanted to travel, so against the advice of the travel agent, we grabbed the only bus to Mandalay. As we survived the ‘interesting’ road stop cafes, we arrived on the outskirts driving through the floods -flooded plains as far as the eye could see. We’re still not sure how the bus made it through. Anyway, we saw the Moustache Brothers show, then got the bus the next morning to Bagan. We saw one temple too many here and are getting up at 4am to try and hot foot (well, bus) to Inlay Lake to have a few days chilling out there.
It’s a great place here, but not quite sure in what way. It’s like stepping back in time, with ancient 1950’s buses overloaded with people and goods, horse and carts dashing around (and not just for the tourists), people mending watches at their roadside stalls, and most of the population travelling around on bikes. There’s definitely some poverty though which has been quite sad at times coming on on the western gravy train.
Anyway, more soon. Get here while you can though – it’s definitely an experience!