After two nights in Bangkok, I am all set to take off to Burma!!! I booked my flight the day I arrived, got the visa the next day at a completely crowded Myanmar Embassy (you can really tell that tourism is kicking off in Burma and I hope I won't be surrounded by thousands of other travellers all the time!) and here I am: 5 am in the morning at the airport all checked in and ready for take off!!
I didn't do much planning yet, but have a feeling that travelling in Burma will be quite challenging. At least that is what I would assume reading about 18 hour bus rides to places that look pretty close at the map, interesting locations that can only be reached by plane or a 3 day boat trip not mentioning all the restricted areas and roads that foreigners are not allowed to travel. But I am 100% sure it is worth all the effort!!
Now I only hope that I won't run out of cash (remember, it is brand-new US Dollars only - no credit cards or ATMs will get you anywhere), since I found it quite challenging to estimate how much money I would need for the 3 weeks (surely, not having any plan didn't help...).
The next post will hopefully have some amazing pictures!! I AM VERY EXCITED!!!
Friday, February 3, 2012
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
First interesting facts on Burma
Wow - checking the first fast facts on Burma confirms that this is going to be a VERY interesting trip!!
I guess I will rather not get a local SIM card, but make sure to bring enough cash :)
I guess I will rather not get a local SIM card, but make sure to bring enough cash :)
Finally Burma!!!
After having to cancel the trip in 2008 due to Cyclone Nargis, I will finally have the chance to visit Burma and hopefully witness a country opening up. I always had an interest in visiting countries that will most likely not look the same anymore some 15 years from now, so I am especially looking forward to this trip!!
Look forward to seeing more amazing pictures like this:
Look forward to seeing more amazing pictures like this:
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Next trip coming up!!!
Shame on me!!! I did not even manage yet to upload all Cambodia pictures and will already go on the next journey :-))) Well, I will catch up one day, when I have loads of time...
### Coming up: Ecuador (3 weeks) and Buenos Aires (1 week)###
### Coming up: Ecuador (3 weeks) and Buenos Aires (1 week)###
Sunday, January 3, 2010
By boat to Siem Reap
As it came highly recommended by some friends, we decided to take the boat from Battambang to Siem Reap. The trip took around eight hours and was taking us across the amazing Tonle Sap lake and river system. The Tonle Sap lake is the largest freshwater lake in Southeast Asia and of crucial importance for Cambodia since its floodplain is the perfect breeding ground for fish and it thus provides 60% of Cambodian's protein intake. Tonle Sap shrinks and expands dramatically with the seasons (increasing its surface area by five times during the monsoon season) and it even changes its direction of flow two times a year. Unfortunately, the volume and strength of this reverse flow is threatened by recent dam building activities in China and Laos already resulting in a significant reduction of fish catches.
Doreen on our boat:
The boat trip enabled us to get an amazing insight into daily Cambodian river life. We passed by stilt-houses...
... floating houses...
... and houses I would rather not dare to enter :-)
Typical river scene:
A family doing their daily fishing:
The view from our boat:
The view from the deck:
Villages in the area are prepared for the seasonal flooding and all traffic takes place by boat. Just imagine how different life is - no big gardens, no walking and you will never feel obligated to go for a jog :-)
Space in the houses is very limited, but people are very creative in using every bit of space available. Below you find a few houses of a floating village:
The blue building below is a school (apparently all schools are painted in light blue) and we were just passing by when classes were over. Instead of jumping on the school bus, all school children just jumped onto a boat and took themselves home:
Another "school boat":
A "grocery boat":
Children hanging out next to the river (three decades of war did have an effect on Cambodia's population resulting in approximately 50% of the population today being younger than 20 years):
Another school:
Doreen on our boat:
The boat trip enabled us to get an amazing insight into daily Cambodian river life. We passed by stilt-houses...
... floating houses...
... and houses I would rather not dare to enter :-)
Typical river scene:
A family doing their daily fishing:
The view from our boat:
The view from the deck:
Villages in the area are prepared for the seasonal flooding and all traffic takes place by boat. Just imagine how different life is - no big gardens, no walking and you will never feel obligated to go for a jog :-)
Space in the houses is very limited, but people are very creative in using every bit of space available. Below you find a few houses of a floating village:
The blue building below is a school (apparently all schools are painted in light blue) and we were just passing by when classes were over. Instead of jumping on the school bus, all school children just jumped onto a boat and took themselves home:
Another "school boat":
A "grocery boat":
Children hanging out next to the river (three decades of war did have an effect on Cambodia's population resulting in approximately 50% of the population today being younger than 20 years):
Another school:
Saturday, December 26, 2009
Crossing into Cambodia
Yes, we did get into Cambodia and we did return safely to Germany. However, during the roughly three week trip we only went to the internet once and it was so slow that we didn't even dare to upload any pictures (what an excuse!) :-) However, late is better than never, so over the next days I hope to upload a few pictures and write a bit about our trip.
And that is how my trip started: Sunday morning 7 a.m., Tegel airport, being extremely tired and here they are: my parents!!!
As always, they were so excited about my trip that they left Leipzig at 5 am only to drive to Berlin and say me goodbye (I was very relieved to see that they did not have any suitcases with them!).
My friend, Doreen, joined me in Frankfurt and then we flew to Bangkok with a stopover in Abu Dhabi. Since we already anticipated that we would be running out of time, we only spent one day in Bangkok and then took the early morning train to the Cambodian border.
The train is for free for Thai nationals, but it was not as crowded as we expected it to be and we managed to get very comfortable seats next to a window (that would open) and a van (that worked).
We were warned about all the scams involving overcharging tourists while "helping" them to arrange a Cambodian visa, so once we got to the Aranyaprathet (Thai) - Poipet (Cambodian) border crossing we managed to avoid all these friendly helpers and got away with only a small bribe to the Cambodian border officials (seriously, we did not see any way to enter the country without paying it...).
Walking into Cambodia:
In Poipet, we arranged a ride in a shared taxi to our first destination Battambang and didn't know yet that very soon we were going to have our first typical Cambodian experience. After waiting for about an hour for more passengers wishing to head into the same direction, our driver finally came over very excitedly. Other people started squeezing into the car that would be used for four adults in Germany and in the end we were nine (!) people in that car - five adults and four (vomiting) children. It was a fun ride and everybody seemed very excited to be travelling with that two big German girls. The German girls on their part were very happy that Cambodians are only half their size :-) Sorry guys, no pictures of that ride, but there was no way we could have reached our cameras...
Battambang, although being Cambodia's second biggest city, is a tranquil town with beautiful colonial buildings.
The next day, we rented some motorbikes in order to discover the surrounding villages and of course stopped at some of the many temples (most of which were actually built only recently with donations from Khmer living in the USA and Europe).
During our first days in Cambodia, it was still so hot that we enjoyed every second we could spend on the motorbikes taking advantage of the (unfortunately not cool) breeze:
Every village in the area around Battambang specializes on producing a different product. So we visited one village specialized on producing rice paper that is used for making spring roles which is an incredibly hard (imagine being that lady below having to work over an open fire all day long when it is already 40°C without that fire) and underpaid work.
Another village specializes on producing sticky rice which is baked in bamboo on an open fire and an easy-to-transport sweet dish.
Last but not least, we visited a village that produces fish paste which is used for nearly every Cambodian meal and you should all be very happy that pictures do not capture smell :-)
Very dangerous lady using two knives at once:
We had a funny experience with these two girls: for us, they work in an horrible (dirty) environment - surrounded by fish heads, fish bones, fish scales and fish smell. However, they looked at us very shocked and could not understand how we could be so dirty - and our clothes was only dusted by the half-day motorbike trip!
After seeing (smelling!) so much fish paste, we were easily convinced to take a ride on the famous Cambodian bamboo train. The train connects several villages and consists of a bamboo-covered platform and two detached axles with wheels.
Whenever meeting traffic in the opposite direction, the train that carries less passengers has to be dismantled and let the other train pass. So we were quite happy to have these three guys on board:
Some of you might have thought, I still look all the same? No way, I finally got new hiking boots!!! Don't worry, I still have my old ones stored away carefully at home - there was no way I could have thrown them away after all that we have been through :-)
Opposing traffic carrying less passengers:
The train led us through a typical lowland Cambodian countryside - rice paddies and palm trees:
That little girl did just not want to stop playing "build-stone-piles" with me, but then our train was leaving.
Overall, the bamboo train was kind of a touristy experience (we did not meet any locals transporting their goods on the trains but only other tourists taking a ride), but given that the government plans to shut it down in three months time, it was worth trying it.
After that long day, we were ready to go back home and have a cold shower...
... drink some fresh fruit shakes...
... and get a massage (this one was given by blind people and was a rather painful experience...).
And that is how my trip started: Sunday morning 7 a.m., Tegel airport, being extremely tired and here they are: my parents!!!
As always, they were so excited about my trip that they left Leipzig at 5 am only to drive to Berlin and say me goodbye (I was very relieved to see that they did not have any suitcases with them!).
My friend, Doreen, joined me in Frankfurt and then we flew to Bangkok with a stopover in Abu Dhabi. Since we already anticipated that we would be running out of time, we only spent one day in Bangkok and then took the early morning train to the Cambodian border.
The train is for free for Thai nationals, but it was not as crowded as we expected it to be and we managed to get very comfortable seats next to a window (that would open) and a van (that worked).
We were warned about all the scams involving overcharging tourists while "helping" them to arrange a Cambodian visa, so once we got to the Aranyaprathet (Thai) - Poipet (Cambodian) border crossing we managed to avoid all these friendly helpers and got away with only a small bribe to the Cambodian border officials (seriously, we did not see any way to enter the country without paying it...).
Walking into Cambodia:
In Poipet, we arranged a ride in a shared taxi to our first destination Battambang and didn't know yet that very soon we were going to have our first typical Cambodian experience. After waiting for about an hour for more passengers wishing to head into the same direction, our driver finally came over very excitedly. Other people started squeezing into the car that would be used for four adults in Germany and in the end we were nine (!) people in that car - five adults and four (vomiting) children. It was a fun ride and everybody seemed very excited to be travelling with that two big German girls. The German girls on their part were very happy that Cambodians are only half their size :-) Sorry guys, no pictures of that ride, but there was no way we could have reached our cameras...
Battambang, although being Cambodia's second biggest city, is a tranquil town with beautiful colonial buildings.
The next day, we rented some motorbikes in order to discover the surrounding villages and of course stopped at some of the many temples (most of which were actually built only recently with donations from Khmer living in the USA and Europe).
During our first days in Cambodia, it was still so hot that we enjoyed every second we could spend on the motorbikes taking advantage of the (unfortunately not cool) breeze:
Every village in the area around Battambang specializes on producing a different product. So we visited one village specialized on producing rice paper that is used for making spring roles which is an incredibly hard (imagine being that lady below having to work over an open fire all day long when it is already 40°C without that fire) and underpaid work.
Another village specializes on producing sticky rice which is baked in bamboo on an open fire and an easy-to-transport sweet dish.
Last but not least, we visited a village that produces fish paste which is used for nearly every Cambodian meal and you should all be very happy that pictures do not capture smell :-)
Very dangerous lady using two knives at once:
We had a funny experience with these two girls: for us, they work in an horrible (dirty) environment - surrounded by fish heads, fish bones, fish scales and fish smell. However, they looked at us very shocked and could not understand how we could be so dirty - and our clothes was only dusted by the half-day motorbike trip!
After seeing (smelling!) so much fish paste, we were easily convinced to take a ride on the famous Cambodian bamboo train. The train connects several villages and consists of a bamboo-covered platform and two detached axles with wheels.
Whenever meeting traffic in the opposite direction, the train that carries less passengers has to be dismantled and let the other train pass. So we were quite happy to have these three guys on board:
Some of you might have thought, I still look all the same? No way, I finally got new hiking boots!!! Don't worry, I still have my old ones stored away carefully at home - there was no way I could have thrown them away after all that we have been through :-)
Opposing traffic carrying less passengers:
The train led us through a typical lowland Cambodian countryside - rice paddies and palm trees:
That little girl did just not want to stop playing "build-stone-piles" with me, but then our train was leaving.
Overall, the bamboo train was kind of a touristy experience (we did not meet any locals transporting their goods on the trains but only other tourists taking a ride), but given that the government plans to shut it down in three months time, it was worth trying it.
After that long day, we were ready to go back home and have a cold shower...
... drink some fresh fruit shakes...
... and get a massage (this one was given by blind people and was a rather painful experience...).
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