For about a month now, an ebook reader has replaced the 3-4 books I was carrying around in my backpack in earlier times. It weighs hardly anything, doesn’t need an external light source for reading and can store more books than I can name. One of these books that recently found its way onto the device is Orwell’s “Burmese Days”. It describes in vivid details the life of a British during the occupation of Burma in the 19th century.

Aaaaaaai really don’t like bus rides. Especially not the painfully slow ones. After leaving Mandalay yesterday afternoon around 2pm, the (reasonably decent) bus crouched up the narrow and winding road towards the Shan Hills. Traffic is heavy and many times the bus has to stop to let another heavy vehicle pass a narrow turn. Two hours into the trip we stop at Pyin U Lwin for some 20 minutes. Enough to get food poisoning at the dodgy looking food outlet - there are actually a couple of takers.

Travelling around in Myanmar takes a lot of time. Except for the Yangon-Mandalay highway, all roads are in atrocious condition and hamper travel speed immensely. I’m on my way to Hsipaw and the 300km journey will take two days. That’s only partially because of the roads but also because Hsipaw-bound transport leaves Mandalay before the bus from Bagan arrives. Still, total time on buses will be about 10-12 hours. We just had a short stop in a small town, the bus station is a wee bit on the rough side.

Bagan is a dusty place - and this is just the end of the rainy season! Under the shower the water quickly turns brown and when I open the computer, I have to give it a quick wipe first. During sunset the haze does add to the spectacle though. I’ve started the day with another sunrise, don’t know the last time I got up at 5:00 twice in a row. Might be a lifetime first!

5:00 am, my alarm pulls me out of sleep with gentle melodies. Too early, no way I’m getting out of bed just to see the sun rise! Torn, I rest for another minute or two. Then my roomate’s alarm makes a noise you could hear aboard a nuclear submarine during critical reactor failure. Alright, I’m awake now! We grab our gear, put on a jumper and head across the road to hire ebikes.

Yangon’s main bus station is more a small village than a station. The individual companies have their offices along several small streets, which are all packed with buses. The air is filled with suffocating diesel fumes and still, people sit down for a drink or a bite to eat. Most of the drive up north was much quieter than the trip to Ngwe Saung. The Yangon-Mandalay highway is reasonably smooth and we used it for all but the last 2h of the 9h trip.

When travelling, I don’t really follow the news, which is somewhat of a logical consequence. I already spend a fair bit of time online with travel research and am not overly keen on spending even more reading other stuff. As a consequence, I didn’t learn about what happened in Paris until people around me started talking about it. Because I hadn’t heard of it, the thought occurred that I might be living in a bit of a bubble, disconnected from the ‘real world’.

The Tazaungdaing Festival, also known as the Festival of Lights, held on the full moon day of Tazaungmon, the eighth month of the Burmese calendar, is celebrated as a national holiday in Burma (Myanmar) and marks the end of the rainy season. It also marks the end of the Kathina season, during which monks are offered new robes and alms. So much from Wikipedia. The area I’m staying at in Yangon (Sanchaung) is a little better off, people living here work as merchants or have their own business.

On the road between Pathein and Yangon, about an hour or two to go. This pot-holed parody of a street connects the capital to a city with a population of 300,000, which gives a good idea of the country’s general transport infrastructure. 3G is fairly solid though.

Walking down the street, I come by one of the many small restaurants and a waitress in front of it says “Hello” and asks whether I’d like some food. I say “No” and hold up a recently purchased bunch of bananas. “Bananaaaaaaa!” she shouts and bends over laughing. People here are really friendly. And genuine as well, which is a little surprise, considering this place basically lives of tourism. Similar places in Thailand (Koh Tao comes to mind) have long been spoilt by generations of drunken western youngsters, who do their best to disrespect local culture and people.