In Bangkok we stayed in a cheapish but decent and sympathetically named Home hug hostel, some 20 min walk away from the BTS station Chitlom. Aku and Taika stayed somewhat nearby in a super nice hotel. Together we enjoyed Bangkok’s awesome food selection and of course a few drinks. Aku also came with us to check out a local climbing gym called Urban Playground and afterwards we took part in the Loi Krathong light festival.
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| Urban Playground |
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| Loi Krathong |
The
climbing gym wasn’t half bad but gosh it’s sweaty business to try and
climb in these temps without aircon! We did some few hour session of
bouldering before heading out to dinner and the Loi Krathong. Loi
Krathong is a festival about light and the thing is to set the most
beautifully decorated tiny baskets or ‘boats’ with 3 burning incense and
a candle floating down a river. Taika got us one and we went to
Asiatique, theme/shopping mall type of a park, next to the river to send
ours. About a thousand others had the same idea but I think we were a
bit late, most had already sent their floating decorations. Still, it
was a nice sight, these burning candles floating in the darkness on a
black river. I tried not to think of the ecological disaster caused by
all that trash.
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| Aku training |
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| And me training |
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| Loi Krathong was visible all around the city |
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| Decorations for sale |
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| Taika bought the prettiest one |
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| Boat ride to Asiatique |
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| Getting ready |
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| Aku sending the boat on its way |
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| It was not an easy task, the basket to lower the decorations down was not quite suitable for the job |
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| Never heard of Swensens but they make pretty good ice cream. |
We
came home late and started packing for our flight to Mandalay, Burma
the next day. I was googling around since I had a bad feeling that we’d
forgotten something. And indeed we had. The whole visa business wasn’t
at all as easy as we for some reason had thought. I had read from the
mighty internet before that to cross a land border without a visa is not
allowed but it was now okay to arrive to the airports of Yangon and
Mandalay and I remembered reading about a visa on arrival. Well that was
not the case: instead of a visa on arrival one can now have an eVisa
with which one can go to the airports but not cross land borders.
Except: also this is now available for eVisa, since September 1st.
I
had been meaning to check to make sure before but kept forgetting and
since Chris was also convinced about voa, I just didn’t. What a
moron...always always check and double check. Well. A lesson learned.
Of
course to get an eVisa it can take as long as 3 days which meant we had
no other choice than skipping our flight and to head to the Embassy to
apply for a visa. We read many blog posts about the process beforehand
in the morning to make sure we know where to go, when to go, what to
have with us and what to ask for.
And
so early morning we hopped in a taxi with our passports and copies of
them and copies of the flight tickets out of Myanmar. We were still
missing some passport pics for the visa application but we read we can
take them there. We hoped to get an express visa for the same day.
It
was a bit sad to miss the flight although financially it wasn’t a huge
blow. But to get new tickets with such a short notice would be...Then I
had a sudden stroke of genius ;) How about we take a night train to
Chiang Mai and cross the border to Shan State? We were anyhow planning
to visit this more remote and a bit more off ‘the tourist track’ area
and now we’d have the right kind of visas too! (By then we didn’t yet
know that eVisa is ok for land crossing too). I had never been to Chiang
Mai and was happy go and see it too...And so suddenly we had a great
new plan!!! Winging it with style ;)
We
were at the Embassy at a pretty good time, about 30 min before opening
and had the queue number 23. Right after us many many people arrived and
some of them were actually still there in the afternoon when we picked
up our express visas! To get one was no problem, the cost was 1 500 baht
(~40 euros) when the eVisa would’ve been about the same, 50 USD I
think.
But
while leaving our application, the lady behind the counter noticed that
our Thai immigration stamp was faulty! It said, correctly, that we had
arrived on the 7th of November but then it said that we’d have to exit
by the 6th of November - someone hadn’t changed the month for the last
departure date in the stamp. Good grief. After being denied entrance to
El Salvador and running around Central American borders because of
missing stamps some years earlier I wanted to sort this out before the
border crossing of Burma.
We
made our way to the train station, bought tickets for an overnight
train to Chiang Mai leaving at 18.10 and tried calling the immigration
office but with no luck. A travel agent told us that our best bet is to
just go there in person. And that’s what we did after collecting our
passports and brand new visas as well our luggage.
The
immigration office was in a huge government complex somewhere near Don
Mueng airport. We rushed in just in time, 10 min before closing, and
handed our passports to a perplexed officer. She looked at the stamps
and started laughing! Chuckling, she showed them around to her
colleagues before taking out a pen and a stamp and correcting the dates.
Awesome! We were ready to head out of Bangkok. But hey, another lesson
learned: check out those stamps on arrival!
Excited
about our new plan we hopped in the luxurious night train and enjoyed a
good night sleep before arriving to Chiang Mai. Chiang Mai is a
smallish city in the Northern Thailand (edit. Chiang Mai is a big city with a smallish old town) and most tourists come here for
trekking, cooking classes and the cafes and backpacker scene of the old
town. Or well, I think the backpacker scene has gradually faded and been
replaced by hipster/ more package kind of tourism. Still, it’s a cute
town where one can just walk around and enjoy life.
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| Celebrating 3 monthaversary with a bon bon on the train |
We
found us a room, breakfast and a scooter to rent. With that we drove in
the crazy traffic to the bus station to buy tickets for the next day to
get to the border. It was also time to do some laundry and plan our
Burma stay a bit more. With many travel restrictions and only little up
to date information this proved quite tricky. But we had an idea and
were mentally prepared to change our plans if necessary.
In
the evening we went to the local bouldering gym, Chiang Mai Rock
Climbing Adventures, which had a small few walls but excellent problems.
Climbing felt hard but so good.
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| Fancy room with elephant towel deco :D |
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| Excellent coffee in Chiang Mai |
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| CMRCA and the skinniest guy ever. Must be a sport climber. |
Next
day we bussed all the way to Mae Sai, crossed the border to Burma with
no problems whatsoever and found ourselves in Tachileik: a strange
border town with huge markets for day-shoppers that cross the border for
that sole purpose. The town felt more Thai than Burmese, but we could
already see some Burmese characteristics. First thing was the amazing
service culture which Thailand, it feels, is losing a bit. Our fancyish
hotel’s receptionist was so courteous and helpful that I almost felt
embarrassed. He booked both the bus to Kengtung and the flight from
Kengtung to Heho for us. We didn’t want to fly but it was the only
option, it was not allowed for foreigners to pass from Kengtung to Inle
Lake by land without an expensive guide and a hired car. We’re talking
about thousands of dollars.
But
yeah, secondly, we found out that absolutely no commission was taken by
the hotel from booking these tickets! This we encountered in many parts
of the country later on and were amazed. Also many things had a fixed
price. Like plane tickets, they wouldn’t get more expensive or cheaper
by time. Crazy.
Burma,
we quickly noticed, has its quirks. Everything is, well...to put it
honestly, always a little bit shittier than in Thailand :D (except
service, obviously). Not necessarily in a bad way, mostly in a very
funny way! As an example, we found a great little cafe with excellent
coffee and something resembling western breakfast, or so we thought.
Part of the menu was in English but the staff spoke absolutely no word of it.
We ordered a mixed fruit salad since it was on the menu and when the
pieces of fresh fruits came served on leaves of lettuce and topped with
mayonnaise we couldn’t help but laugh! Mayo on a fruit salad. Jesus.
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| Burma, here we come |
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| Chris too! |
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| Nespresso hotel!? WHOT? |
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| Little monks |
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| Plus1 cafe's decoration |
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| Also part of the decoration |
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| I never remember to take pics when we still have food |
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| Chris and his buddies |
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| FIGHT! |
Before
hopping on the bus Chris had to drive around all kinds of immigration
offices with the bus company representative to make sure we had all the
necessary papers in order. No one ever asked to see them. I was tending
for our baggage in the meanwhile and wondered about the Burmese people.
They are super nice and so cute. But so strange. It’s very common to
just go around in pyjamas the whole day. And to eat bamboo worms and
crickets as a snack with some beer. And to chew on something (some leaf
perhaps?) that makes your teeth all red and then spit the red stuff
everywhere. Also in general EVERYTHING is cooked in such crazy amounts
of oil and fat that even the Indians are left second. But it’s so
interesting! Definitely a whole new culture and an adventure :D
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| Good advice |
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| Pyjama party at the bus station |
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| I opted out of the crickets and worms and bought pineapple instead |
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| Bamboo worms |
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| And other critters |
