We had a lot of GoPro footage from Thingyan, Myanmar’s new-year water festival that Lisa wrote about previously. I finally found some time to edit it and spliced in some clips from our other travels throughout Myanmar — sunrise in Bagan, cruising around Bagan on electric bikes, the train to Hsipaw, and our Inle Lake trek.
Tag Archives: myanmar
lisa 3.0
There is an endless variety of travelers wandering about the world. There’s those backpackers who buy hideous elephant pants and wear them everywhere, perhaps not noticing that the only other people wearing them are other tourists. There’s the oblivious, obnoxious, loud-mouthed over-tanned American who considers herself a gift to the world. There’s holiday travelers on the road for just a week or two and splurging in five-star resorts we only dream of. There’s gap year kids whose primary concern is getting drunk. There’s the massive Chinese tour groups that every other traveler hates because of how loud and inconsiderate they are. There’s the retirees who spend half their year on the road and the other half (or less!) at home. There’s those who make a distinction between a tourist and a traveler and pick a side (guess which). If I had to describe Matt and I, we are part of the band of ultimate players roaming around — low profile until we congregate at tournaments and go nuts.
myanmar water festival!
The end of our trip through Myanmar happened to coincide with their lunar new year which meant we would be around to see the beginning of Thingyan, or the Water Festival. By far, this has been my favorite local celebration that we’ve come across, and it might be one of my favorite experiences of the whole trip!
What’s a water festival? As best I can tell, it’s a giant water fight that the whole country participates in. This is the hottest part of the year, and the 4-day festival is a way for everyone to celebrate the new year and cool down before the monsoon season starts in May. Traditionally, splashing water is seen as a blessing for the new year or a washing away of sins from the previous year, but it didn’t exactly seem like people had that in mind as they rowdily soaked each other!
photos updated
I’ve been bad about keeping the blog photos up to date, so if you aren’t seeing them on Facebook, you can now view photos from the last several months of our trip.
Also, we probably won’t write a post about, so if you want to read about our trek from Hsipaw to Pankam, you can do so on the blog run by a couple of our trekking companions!
Finally, after five months in Southeast Asia, we are leaving Myanmar tomorrow and headed to Nepal via Kuala Lumpur. On the itinerary is a ten-day monastery stay in Kathmandu and trekking the Annapurna Circuit! We may be off-the-grid for large chunks of this time.
Mr. Shake Challenge: world champions!
Sure, I invented this food eating contest, but that’s pretty much the only way I’m going to become the winner of one.
Mg peeks out of the train as we cross the Gokteik Viaduct. She has no idea that in less than a week she will be co-champion of the Mr. Shake Challenge.
favorite drinks
I love sweet drinks and, fortunately, Lisa is usually quite excited about them as well. It has become something of a routine for us to find our favorite drinks in each country and then partake in them endlessly. In the states, I usually accomplished this with unlimited coca cola during at least one meal a day. When I travel, it is rare for me to buy soda as I prefer it from a fountain, loaded with ice and free-refills, something you just don’t find often outside of North America.
Here is a recap of some of the better drinks I’ve run across. Unfortunately, I don’t have photos of all of them, as I was usually too excited to just start drinking.
myanmar – first impressions
When we set out on this adventure back in November, visiting Myanmar had never crossed my mind. I am embarrassed to say that I didn’t even know how close we would be to it — it borders both Thailand and Laos — and I barely knew that it used to be called Burma. But as we began meeting other travelers, the most common advice we got was that we absolutely had to go visit Myanmar because it was just opening to tourism, it is one of the last places you could go to “get off the beaten track,” and that the people are incredible and not yet tainted or jaded by mass tourism.
Well, we’ve made it! We arrived in Yangon (formerly Rangoon) on March 22nd, and we will be here for 25 days before heading to Nepal. So far, we’ve visited Yangon, Bagan, Mandalay, and are currently in Pyin Oo Lwin. We’re only a week into the country, but these are some quick thoughts on what we’ve found so far.