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Into Myanmar: a warm welcome and a New Year at the beach

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December 2016 / January 2017

Although we wanted to reach the West Coast of Myanmar rather sooner than later we still chose to cycle at least a little bit before taking buses. Cycling just lets you see very different sides of places and get a good feeling for them.

And as soon as we had reached Kawkareik we didn’t regret that one bit. When we were settling into our guest house SuSu found us and gave us a perfect Welcome to Myanmar. SuSu is one of the few members on Warmshowers, the cyclist’s hospitality platform, in Myanmar. The government still doesn’t allow locals to host foreigners though, so we met up, talked over dinner and went to see a big festival for the Karen New Year.

The next morning SuSu invited us for breakfast and told us more about her ideas for the small town she lives in. She wants to educate people about the increasing trash problem, starting with talking about plastic bags.

She is an amazing person and we are so grateful for that perfect introduction to Myanmar.

Not so early the next morning we got on on our bicycles and pedaled towards Hpa An. We took a small road that started out with perfect asphalt and led over rolling hills ever closer to our destination.

On this first full day of cycling we found out that getting water wouldn’t ever be a problem. In more or less regular intervals you can find clay water pots by the side of the road. They get refilled by locals from nearby wells etc. and are an amazing thing for the passing traveler. The water in the pots even stays relatively cold as the clay cools it down.

The road eventually deteriorated into a dirt track of the rather bad kind which I’m still don’t enjoy riding fully loaded. Oh well, at least there was almost no traffic…

When we got to the outskirts of Hpa An we made a rather spontaneous decision of asking for buses to Yangon, found one and took it immediately. Sweaty and dirty we settled into the overnight bus, together with a few other people and lots of wares. Comfortable? Not so much.

When we arrived in Yangon in the middle of the night we – again spontaneously – decided on a night ride to the other side of the city and took another bus to Panthein.

On the breakfast break we had some 3 in 1 coffee and watched locals plant rice in the warm morning light.

Once in Panthein we cycled around for a bit and found one of the nicest accommodations. Simple and affordable, quiet and with this view:

All we were looking for! Panthein also ticked a lot of other boxes. We really liked the lively but relaxed small town and decided to spend a day of rest after our not so relaxed night spent in buses.

Lots of walking around town, a few errands and a bit of doing nothing did wonders for us after the constant moving of the last weeks.

The small night market was a particular enjoyable experience for us: Lots of delicious food to try and many curious locals wanting to talk to us. We met one vendor who told us about the difficulties of earning money here and his work on big freight ships. Not easy on his family but at least a possibility for work in his eyes.

And then the day was here, the 31st of December and the day were we would celebrate New Year’s together with my sister and her husband! We had planned on cycling the last 50k towards Ngwe Saung Beach in a leisurely manner and then relax for a few days together.

Well, as always, you shouldn’t plan too much… The first 20k were really nice, flat enough and we made distance fast.

But then the hills started. Oh well, some hills you might think. Shouldn’t be that hard, right? Well it was the kind of hills that rise up so steep that you almost want to push but somehow you make it standing up in your saddle. To be followed by an equally steep downhill. And then up again. And… You get the picture.

The scenery around us was stunningly beautiful but I reached my limit quite soon. My mental limit actually. Yes it was exhausting but that’s nothing new. But I just wanted to be done with cycling for the day. I wanted to get to the beach already, to be done with the stress of having to be somewhere in time. And most of all to hug my sister and celebrate a New Year together.

Of course we eventually did get there. Not without a little freakout from my side but what can you do.

The sun set was all the more beautiful and the fireworks at the beach really nice as well.

The next week we spent relaxing at the beach. Between the fancy honeymoon resort and our more humble tent, the nice food, the language lessons at our guest house…

… the walks / cycles along the beach and foremost time with Vroni and Alex we couldn’t have had a better start to the New Year. Thanks you two and may this one be a good one!

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On off road touring, planting trees and community based tourism in southern Thailand

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April 2016

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After a few days of rest in Suratthani it was a bit hard to get going again – the rattan bungalows were just too comfortable. But once on the road we kept enjoying cycling in Thailand. I know I’m repeating myself but look at those roads and all the beautiful nature / rubber plantations around.

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We planned on cycling until Ranong and then staying a few days on Koh Payam. After that we wanted to do a visa run to Myanmar to extend our stay in Thailand.

With the help of GoogleMaps we cycled a two day stretch to our couchsurfing host Weena, some 40k before Ranong. While it had still been quite enjoyable temperature wise in the South around Songkhla it started to get really hot during the day.

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So ice cream and pitchers of iced coffee helped :). A lot.

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On our way we asked to stay in a temple for the night as there was no accommodation around. We were invited to sleep on a wooden platform and to join the evening meditation. I enjoyed learning a little about meditation and how it works to train the mind. Not an easy thing to do after cycling all day.

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The next morning we got up relatively early and set off to do some off road mountain biking. Well actually that wasn’t exactly what I wanted to do at that point but you can’t always completely avoid that. So we pushed a little bit…

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…and found some really rutted and washed out roads to get our mountain biking skills to the next level.

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As I said in the last post my tolerance level for challenges like that is a lot higher now but at some point it still gets plain exhausting. So we took a break, ate all the sugary things we carried and when there was nothing left to do we kept on riding. Eventually it got better (as it always does) and I’ve never quite been so happy about the sweet tarmac road.

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Back on the highway one of the screws from Torsten’s rack broke again and this time it was stuck in a way that we couldn’t fix it ourselves. Conveniently this happened right next to a coffee and motorcycle repair shop. So, first things first, a big coffee and then the mechanic welded some piece to the screw to unscrew it. Worked like a charm! In the end he didn’t even accept any payment (neither money nor coffee/food, we really tried!) – how kind!

After some more cycling we came closer to Weena’s place. We had a description and thought it would be easy to find. Unfortunately we asked a lot of people and got confusing directions. We never heard a “no, I don’t know where it is” but people sent us in different directions instead. It took us a while to understand that saying “no” or “I don’t know” is not frequently done here. In the end we cycled up and down a lot more hills and kept on cycling even when it got dark. We kept asking people because there was really nothing else we could do. And after a long time it finally worked! Someone actually knew Weena and brought us to her house.

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As exhausting as the day was I still did not totally melt down as I undoubtedly would have at the beginning of our tour. I did start crying of exhaustion at some point but that was more physical than mental. My trust that all the challenges that we encounter will pass at some point is getting bigger.

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Weena’s house is an absolutely beautiful place. Out in nature, surrounded by all shades of green, no internet and no phone. We had planned on staying for one night but Weena invited us to relax for a day and that seemed like the right thing to do after the day before.

Weena invites couchsurfers to her home to learn from them and with them including all of her family. So we spoke English, tried to learn a little more Thai and as per request cooked some pancakes on our stove. Weena also made beautiful dishes with ingredients from her garden and fish pond and told us about their initiatives in tree planting. From what I understood they are trying to get the government to help farmers plant trees for wood. That would benefit the farmers financially but also the communities around with better air quality. Very interesting to see local initiatives like that!

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A stroll around the property revealed some fruit plants and tiny trees growing. Oh and we saw a lot of betel nuts drying by the side of the road!

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For the next day Weena and her husband were planning to go to an nearby island to check up on their community tourism project. They are building a school for locals to teach interested people how to use traditional longboats. It is mostly supposed to be for local tourists and later maybe also for international ones. The project is aiming at helping with income as fishing is not providing enough for the families. Once again we could not refuse an invitation to stay one more day as this sounded way too interesting to pass.

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So we joined Weena and her husband on a boat ride…

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…towards one of the many small islands on the west coast of southern Thailand.

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We had time to wander around the island, have lunch and just hang out for a while.

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Construction for the boating school was in progress:

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It was amazing to see Weena and her husband work and get some insight into problems which local communities are facing.

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On our way back Torsten got to try himself at steering a boat which was not as easy as it looks :): p1180230

Thank you so so much Weena and family for letting us stay with you and including us into your projects!! Learning about local initiatives and ideas is a great way of learning about communities and their challenges. Thank you!

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Resting and adjusting in Ubud

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In order to take it slow we’ve given ourselves some time to fully get here and adjust. So we sleep long on the first day and only venture out to have the complimentary breakfast. It is delicious but oh so tiny! I am tempted to ask for more but they are already cleaning up. Oh well, at least we’re not cycling today.

We eat some cookies and nuts in our room and hang out, read and chill. Finally at 2pm hunger gets us out of the room again and we’re on a mission to find food. At the moment I miss having fully stocked food panniers and things like bread and spreads ready to eat. But of course we find delicious food and all is good again.

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After that we wander around and take it all in. There is a lot to see.

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Statues of elephants and quirky persons.

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A lot of green surrounds us, there are coconut palms, water is flowing through canals and sometimes there are rice fields in the middle of the city. We see a lot of food stalls and I wish I would understand what they are selling. Learning the language and most importantly all the food words seems to be a priority for the next days.

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The next days are quiet ones. We didn’t really have any fixed plans on when to move on but for now we’re really enjoying just being in one place for a bit. For the first time in months we have a room to ourselves and just that. No one around that we know which gives us plenty of opportunity to process all that has happened in the last months. For me that means that I’m catching up on some blogging which feels really good.

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Torsten manages to get some work done and in between we go out to explore a little bit and mostly to find food. Each time we learn a few more words and understand a little more of what vendors are selling. We find the perfect Nasi Goreng (Fried Rice) and Mie Goreng (Fried Noodles).

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On the third day we move to a cheaper room which is on the edge of the city and just in front of a rice field. It is amazingly quiet and so relaxing. The owners are very friendly on top of that and provide a free flow of coffee and tea – nice!

To stay connected we buy sim cards which is an easy affair and works instantly. Getting a rabies vaccination is a bit more complicated on the other hand. Our budget in mind we didn’t feel compelled to do that in Australia and thought it might be easy enough to take care of that here. Well, not really. We call several clinics and none of them have the vaccine or do expect it any time soon. In the end there is one expensive clinic which is still reluctant to provide us with the vaccine as they usually only give it to people who have been bitten by dogs.

So we decide to skip it for now. Rabies is still an occurrence in many of the countries we are travelling to in the next months if not years. But as it is unlikely that we are cycling through very remote places from where we can’t hitch a ride to a hospital or even catch a flight to somewhere in a timely manner we’ll deal with it when we have to. We might still get the vaccination for peace of mind at a later point though.

In the meantime we rest, blog, work, read some more. Actually it feels really nice to slow down and just take it all in. For both of us.

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Rest days and rain

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Today is all about rest. Yesterday was too exhausting and I need a day or two off the bike. So our goal for today is to cycle to the camp site that we wanted to be at yesterday and do nothing for the remainder of the day. Of course my tyre is flat, so after patching up some tubes and getting more food, we’re on our way at the not so early hour of 11am. But I don’t mind at all, we only have to cycle 13k today. And so we do. It’s wonderfully flat and we arrive at Bush Chooks Travellers Village in no time. And from now on all is good. Chris, the owner welcomes us with the warmest smile and lots of laughs and I feel immediately at home and very comfortable.

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Tent Area with pool

We set up our tent and I just love the setting of the camp site. It’s indeed a little village with a grassy area for tents and caravans in the middle and some cabins around. And last but not least there is a perfectly stocked camp kitchen which is an awesome change to our camp stove! I think we need about 5 minutes to decide to stay for two nights ;).

p1110703And then Chris and his wife make us the best present ever: They upgrade us from our tent site to a cabin! With our own attached bathroom!

Best relaxing stay at Bush Chooks Travellers Village with Free Upgrade from Tent to a comfortable bed with...
Best relaxing stay at Bush Chooks Travellers Village with free Upgrade from Tent to a comfortable bed with…
... our own bathroom!!!
… our own bathroom!!!

Seriously, at this point of our trip this feels like heaven. And so we spend the next days with doing a lot of nothing, eating and some blogging, working and more eating. This is all we need right now! Thank you so so much, Chris!

The next two days are easy because there are almost no hills. We cycle about a 100k to Gladstone where we learn about Trivia Games to stay awake on the road:

p1110707I didn’t really have problems with staying awake on the bicycle so far but you never know :). Apart from that we cycle on the highway and there is not much happening except for… rain! It hasn’t really been raining since we started in Sydney so this is quite new and actually very refreshing. It’s a light and warm but very dense rain so over the course of the day we get drenched a few times and then completely dry again and so on. But I’m really grateful for a break of the sun!

In Gladstone we meet our host Stephen who has a big house and hosts lots of couchsurfers. We enjoy talking with him, eating together and trying some of his home made alcohol ;). The only shame is that we didn’t get to enjoy his very own outdoor movie theater which is seriously very cool and I so want to have one when I live in one place some time in the future! Thanks for sharing your home with us Stephen!

Cycling out of Gladstone we have a strange encounter: While we stop on the shoulder of a not too busy road to take a picture, a man in a car stops on the road behind us. We continue taking pictures and he continues to wait. We consider that a little strange and move our bikes on to the grass thinking that he might be bothered by us taking pictures on the shoulder. He drives past us and stops a few meters down the road. He gets out of the car and then the following dialogue occurs:

He: “Do you know that I can’t overtake you when you are an the shoulder like that as there is a line in the middle of the road that I’m not allowed to cross and I have to give you a meter space?”

I say: “I’m sorry but that is not true as we just looked that up on the Queensland Government Page. You are allowed to cross single and even double lines on the road to give cyclists the necessary space of a meter.”

He: “No, that’s not right. You’re wrong.”

Me: “We really just looked that up on the Government Homepage.”

He: “No, that’s not…

You get the gist. While the conversation went on like that for a little while, Torsten looked it up again and showed it to him.

He: “Oh really, oh I didn’t know that. Well then I guess we all learned something today.”

Eerm, sure.

p1110716For the rest of the day the road and the weather looks approximately like in the picture above. I still enjoy the occasional rain but am also grateful for a petrol station with some shelter to eat and have coffee. And we are blessed with a tailwind that blows us right into Rockhampton. Here we are going to stop for a few days again as the Yeppoon Village Festival is not too far away but more on that next time!