Thursday, January 21, 2010
Big News!!
Well, we finally finalized the rest of our trip plans! We'll spend the next few months in Indonesia, Singapore, and Malaysia as planned. Then on April 11 we are flying to Abu Dhabi, UAE. We'll travel there and to Oman, then fly from Dubai to Amman, Jordan. From there we'll travel Jordan, Israel, and Egypt, then fly to New York from Cairo on June 16! A big change in the itinerary but we're really excited about it, and all of our tickets are booked so it's a done deal! This will make the trip about 9 months which I think will be a good length for both of us. Right now we're on the beach in Koh Lanta, Thailand, and have spent the last couple of days snorkeling, so not too shabby! Thanks for everyone's compliments on the blog and pictures, glad everyone is enjoying them!
Sunday, January 17, 2010
Picture Update
As I mentioned in the post yesterday, I've put together an easier-to-view version of all our Myanmar pics. I put up about 150 (down from 600) pictures in an album on Facebook; they should be easier to view, faster to load, and you don't need a Facebook account to see them. Just use the link below- thanks!
Click here for pics
Click here for pics
Saturday, January 16, 2010
annnd... we're back!
Hello everyone! It's been quite awhile since we last updated. My apologies for the delay, we've heard reports of lots of people asking where we've been. We appreciate that! The reason for no blog updates is that we've been in Myanmar, and the government of that country does an exceedingly good job of blocking foreign websites/influences within their borders. Our blog was blocked, as were all blogs, so we simply couldn't do anything. E-mail access was sporadic... gmail worked in quite a few places, but hotmail rarely worked at all and only by accessing via a certain roundabout web address. Anyway, despite that, Myanmar was truly amazing- one of those places that is very unlike anywhere else. There are an infinite number of little oddities that can only arrise in a country blocked and sanctioned by the entire international world.
Our adventure started right as we arrived, when we realized that their money system is seriously screwed up. Hotels take US Dollars and US dollars only. Restaurants and most (but not all) other services only take Kyat (local currency, pronounced chee-it). There are no ATM's in the entire country, and banks can't give money out of US banks because they are sanctioned by us (I had no access to my Chase or Bank of America accounts online, either). We knew those facts in advance and brought a lot of US$, but changing money was a pain. The main reason? The bills must be perfect. Any American money most be absolutly flawless or no one will take it at all, even currency traders in the banks. A scratch, a pinprick, dirt, even a barely noticable crease and they will be turned down flat, and they scrutinize every single bill you have. All banks are government owned, so we assume this is a government rule. To spend the US$, they would have to change or filter it in a relatively friendly country like China, who is probably very aware of counterfeit money. It's quite amazing to pay for something with a near perfect $100 bill (over a months wages for most Myanmar citizens, easy) and have it turned down. What makes it even more ridiculous is that Kyat is hands down the most worn down, nasty currency I've ever seen. Bills are ragged, torn, covered in tape, and often not worth the paper their printed on.
Another of the more constant menaces in the entire country was the lack of consistent power. If one sound will stay in my memory from the trip, it will be the omnipresent sound of diesel generators. Yangon (the capital) is a city of over 5 million people, and yet power is sporadic at best, probably adding up to around 5 hours a day. Standing on the roof of a huge city and looking out over a pitch black city is an eerie site, perfectly illustrating the incompetance and idiocy of the Burmese military government. Truly sad.
From the perspective of the government, the entire country is merely a company: a means of profit. The government was directly involved in all production. I'm not talking about subtle guidance of vital industries, but directly creating goods in an attempt to drive the compeition out of business. Water, beer, jelly, transportation, hotels... virtually any industry or sector of the econmy is dominated by the government, and taxes on private enterprise are so high as to make most competition fold immediatly. We talked (very privately) with many people who mentioned this to us, including an artist on the street who was trying to sell paintings without having bought a ridiculously expensive liscense (he said they would take his motorbike and paintings if he were caught, which is nearly all of his worldly posessions). The taxes on hotels are so high that only a few can afford to be open, as they have to stay at near full capacity to make any money. This made finding a not fully booked hotel a pain, despite the fact that there were virtually no tourists.
All this makes Myanmar and the Burmese government sound terrible. Well, the government is terrible, but the country itself was amazing. The people were probably the nicest group of folks we've ever met. The scenery was absolutly fantastic; the 4000+ temples of Bagan may be one of the most impressive sights I've ever seen. In fact, Michelle and I both agree that it was far more impressive than the already magnificent Angkor Wat we saw a couple months ago. We visited Inle Lake, a beautiful body of water hemmed in by mountains, where the locals live on stilted houses over the water, miles from any shore. They make their living fishing, and occasionally selling goods to any tourists that manage to make it all the way out there. We bought some cool stuff! All over the country we had many in depth conversations and interesting experiences with the locals, including monks that gave us personal tours with no interest in money and lunch provided by monestaries and meditation centers simple because we came by. Even the powerless, dirty cities of Mandalay and Yangon were great because of how different they are from any other city we've ever seen (or are likely to anytime soon).
I can't really describe how pretty some of these places are, and I can't describe the atmosphere the whole country had. Because of that, I won't say any more, I just hope my pictures can do a slightly better job of showing how great of a country Myanmar is (and can be). We took and kept 600 shots, which I split up between 2 folders that you'll see to the right. I'm in the process of uploading them right now. I know most people have neither the time nor the interest to sort through 600 pics, so in the next day or so I'm going to take a much smaller selection of my best pictures and put them up seperately and in an easier to see way. I'll post again with the link to that when it's ready! In the mean time, if anyone wants to know anything about the country, our trip there, or anything at all,. feel free to comment on this! We'll respond, I promise.
We're in Bangkok right now, and tomorrow we are heading south to the famed beaches of the area for snorkeling, lazing around, and rock climbing over some crystal clear waters. Not bad for January, not bad at all.
Our adventure started right as we arrived, when we realized that their money system is seriously screwed up. Hotels take US Dollars and US dollars only. Restaurants and most (but not all) other services only take Kyat (local currency, pronounced chee-it). There are no ATM's in the entire country, and banks can't give money out of US banks because they are sanctioned by us (I had no access to my Chase or Bank of America accounts online, either). We knew those facts in advance and brought a lot of US$, but changing money was a pain. The main reason? The bills must be perfect. Any American money most be absolutly flawless or no one will take it at all, even currency traders in the banks. A scratch, a pinprick, dirt, even a barely noticable crease and they will be turned down flat, and they scrutinize every single bill you have. All banks are government owned, so we assume this is a government rule. To spend the US$, they would have to change or filter it in a relatively friendly country like China, who is probably very aware of counterfeit money. It's quite amazing to pay for something with a near perfect $100 bill (over a months wages for most Myanmar citizens, easy) and have it turned down. What makes it even more ridiculous is that Kyat is hands down the most worn down, nasty currency I've ever seen. Bills are ragged, torn, covered in tape, and often not worth the paper their printed on.
Another of the more constant menaces in the entire country was the lack of consistent power. If one sound will stay in my memory from the trip, it will be the omnipresent sound of diesel generators. Yangon (the capital) is a city of over 5 million people, and yet power is sporadic at best, probably adding up to around 5 hours a day. Standing on the roof of a huge city and looking out over a pitch black city is an eerie site, perfectly illustrating the incompetance and idiocy of the Burmese military government. Truly sad.
From the perspective of the government, the entire country is merely a company: a means of profit. The government was directly involved in all production. I'm not talking about subtle guidance of vital industries, but directly creating goods in an attempt to drive the compeition out of business. Water, beer, jelly, transportation, hotels... virtually any industry or sector of the econmy is dominated by the government, and taxes on private enterprise are so high as to make most competition fold immediatly. We talked (very privately) with many people who mentioned this to us, including an artist on the street who was trying to sell paintings without having bought a ridiculously expensive liscense (he said they would take his motorbike and paintings if he were caught, which is nearly all of his worldly posessions). The taxes on hotels are so high that only a few can afford to be open, as they have to stay at near full capacity to make any money. This made finding a not fully booked hotel a pain, despite the fact that there were virtually no tourists.
All this makes Myanmar and the Burmese government sound terrible. Well, the government is terrible, but the country itself was amazing. The people were probably the nicest group of folks we've ever met. The scenery was absolutly fantastic; the 4000+ temples of Bagan may be one of the most impressive sights I've ever seen. In fact, Michelle and I both agree that it was far more impressive than the already magnificent Angkor Wat we saw a couple months ago. We visited Inle Lake, a beautiful body of water hemmed in by mountains, where the locals live on stilted houses over the water, miles from any shore. They make their living fishing, and occasionally selling goods to any tourists that manage to make it all the way out there. We bought some cool stuff! All over the country we had many in depth conversations and interesting experiences with the locals, including monks that gave us personal tours with no interest in money and lunch provided by monestaries and meditation centers simple because we came by. Even the powerless, dirty cities of Mandalay and Yangon were great because of how different they are from any other city we've ever seen (or are likely to anytime soon).
I can't really describe how pretty some of these places are, and I can't describe the atmosphere the whole country had. Because of that, I won't say any more, I just hope my pictures can do a slightly better job of showing how great of a country Myanmar is (and can be). We took and kept 600 shots, which I split up between 2 folders that you'll see to the right. I'm in the process of uploading them right now. I know most people have neither the time nor the interest to sort through 600 pics, so in the next day or so I'm going to take a much smaller selection of my best pictures and put them up seperately and in an easier to see way. I'll post again with the link to that when it's ready! In the mean time, if anyone wants to know anything about the country, our trip there, or anything at all,. feel free to comment on this! We'll respond, I promise.
We're in Bangkok right now, and tomorrow we are heading south to the famed beaches of the area for snorkeling, lazing around, and rock climbing over some crystal clear waters. Not bad for January, not bad at all.
Sunday, December 20, 2009
Up and Away
Wow, feels like it's been a really long time since I updated this thing! Since the last post, we haven't really moved much... we've simply been exploring Bangkok... and we love it! We both agree that it's one of the coolest cities we've been too, and neither of us would have a problem living here if we needed to for one reason or another. It' s huge... we didn't even realize how huge until we got here. For comparison, New York City comes in at about 8.3 million people right now.... Bangkok comes in at 8.1, so they're very similar. We've covered quite a bit of ground here, using taxis, tuk-tuks, buses, minivans, and the famous Skytrain (think the subways of London, but above ground).
Probably the most eventful thing we've done lately is Christmas shopping. Shopping in Bangkok is a thing to experience. We started by going to "The Mother of All Markets". It's a market that's only open 2 days a week, and it's 15,000 stalls of everything you can imagine. Over 200k people visit it per day, and you can absolutely get lost walking around it. They sell everything from food to clothes to antiques to electronics (real, stolen, and fake). We got most of our shopping done there, for budget reasons. After that, we headed to the Siam Square, which is the most impressive mall complex I've ever seen. It's divided into 3 separates malls, each between 5-8 floors with bridges crossing in between over the streets. Ice Skating, a massive aquarium and restaurants are everywhere, and Lamborghini, Porche, Bentley, Audi, Lotus, and Maserati all have showrooms filled with ultra-expensive cars. Anyway, cool stuff.
In 2 days we are heading to Myanmar! We don't really know what it will be like, and are very anxious to find out. We've read that cell phone access doesn't exist, and that internet access can be hard to come by. What's more, being in that it's an oppressive military government, internet access is extremely monitored. Some basic websites such as Hotmail are often blocked, so if we don't update anything for awhile don't be surprised!
Oh, and we haven't seen a drop of rain since Nov. 16th. The dry season here is DRY.
Since we are back in Thailand make sure you check the Thailand link on the right side for new pictures, all of the ones we took in Bangkok are posted!
That's probably about all for now. Merry Christmas!
Probably the most eventful thing we've done lately is Christmas shopping. Shopping in Bangkok is a thing to experience. We started by going to "The Mother of All Markets". It's a market that's only open 2 days a week, and it's 15,000 stalls of everything you can imagine. Over 200k people visit it per day, and you can absolutely get lost walking around it. They sell everything from food to clothes to antiques to electronics (real, stolen, and fake). We got most of our shopping done there, for budget reasons. After that, we headed to the Siam Square, which is the most impressive mall complex I've ever seen. It's divided into 3 separates malls, each between 5-8 floors with bridges crossing in between over the streets. Ice Skating, a massive aquarium and restaurants are everywhere, and Lamborghini, Porche, Bentley, Audi, Lotus, and Maserati all have showrooms filled with ultra-expensive cars. Anyway, cool stuff.
In 2 days we are heading to Myanmar! We don't really know what it will be like, and are very anxious to find out. We've read that cell phone access doesn't exist, and that internet access can be hard to come by. What's more, being in that it's an oppressive military government, internet access is extremely monitored. Some basic websites such as Hotmail are often blocked, so if we don't update anything for awhile don't be surprised!
Oh, and we haven't seen a drop of rain since Nov. 16th. The dry season here is DRY.
Since we are back in Thailand make sure you check the Thailand link on the right side for new pictures, all of the ones we took in Bangkok are posted!
That's probably about all for now. Merry Christmas!
Saturday, December 12, 2009
Finishing up Cambodia
Saturday, December 5, 2009
Rabid Monkeys and Salesmanship
Well we're pretty much killing time now. We were originally supposed to leave Phnom Penh a week ago, but then found out that getting a Burmese visa takes 7 days and that'd we'd get it on Friday the 4th (yesterday. However, as Michelle noted in the last message, I got bit by a monkey, which has made things more complicated. I e-mailed a western doctor in town asking if there was any risk from the monkey I 'met', and also did a lot of searching for information on the rabies threat specifically within Phnom Penh. I learned that rabies kills more people here than Dengue Fever and Malaria combined, and the doctor responded immediately telling me to come in ASAP. I visited him on Thursday and started the 5 shot vaccination plan. You have to get the shots on certain days, and Phnom Penh is the only city in the whole country you can do it, so we're going to have to stay here a bit longer to get the first 2, go to the beach for a few days, and then head to Bangkok where we can get the rest right before we fly to Myanmar. I'm fine though, insurance covers most of the vaccination (after you're bitten, they won't cover anything preventative), and we're both glad I'm not taking the risk by skipping the vaccination.
We've tried to illustrate in some of our previous blog posts how aggressive and numerous the salesman are around here. Be it for food, taxi rides, books, or anything else, we seem to be under constant assault (as westerners) from these good people who are trying to scrape out a living. In an effort to give a better picture of just how many of these people there are, yesterday I counted how many offers we got. This came about partly of boredom, but I thought it could be interesting too. The offers I decided to count are ONLY for transportation services such as taxis, motorbike rides, and tuk-tuks (a kind of 2 wheeled carriage hooked to the back of a motorbike). When walking the city these drivers will ask if you want a ride, and if you say no they'll often start shouting out the names of tourist destinations, presumably hoping to hit one that interests you. Anyway, the grand total for yesterday was 103. In about 4.5 hours of walking, we got offered a ride 103 times, not including duplicate offers from the same people. This also doesn't include the infinite number of offers for drinks, books, restaurants, pot (very common for me), cocaine (rare), opium (even more rare) or just general begging on the streets. [Note: we don't any drugs, period]. We've known we get asked a lot, but eventually you just learn to ignore it and you start to forget how often it really is.
Assuming everything goes smoothly, our next post should be from the beach!
We've tried to illustrate in some of our previous blog posts how aggressive and numerous the salesman are around here. Be it for food, taxi rides, books, or anything else, we seem to be under constant assault (as westerners) from these good people who are trying to scrape out a living. In an effort to give a better picture of just how many of these people there are, yesterday I counted how many offers we got. This came about partly of boredom, but I thought it could be interesting too. The offers I decided to count are ONLY for transportation services such as taxis, motorbike rides, and tuk-tuks (a kind of 2 wheeled carriage hooked to the back of a motorbike). When walking the city these drivers will ask if you want a ride, and if you say no they'll often start shouting out the names of tourist destinations, presumably hoping to hit one that interests you. Anyway, the grand total for yesterday was 103. In about 4.5 hours of walking, we got offered a ride 103 times, not including duplicate offers from the same people. This also doesn't include the infinite number of offers for drinks, books, restaurants, pot (very common for me), cocaine (rare), opium (even more rare) or just general begging on the streets. [Note: we don't any drugs, period]. We've known we get asked a lot, but eventually you just learn to ignore it and you start to forget how often it really is.
Assuming everything goes smoothly, our next post should be from the beach!
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Still in Phnom Penh....
...but heading to the beach on Saturday! We've been hanging out waiting for our Burma visas, which should be ready on Friday. I'm totally recovered from Dengue, but Jason got bit by a monkey in the city so we're keeping an eye on that. It doesn't appear to have broken the skin, but we're still aware of the risks it could pose. We were visiting a Wat in the middle of the city that was surrounded by trees, and there were a bunch of monkeys all over! It was pretty crazy to be so close to them, they didn't seem too bothered by the people around. Jason was sitting taking some pictures and a very small one walked right up to him and bit his arm.
Today we visited the Killing Fields, which is one of the mass grave sites that the Khmer Rouge murdered and buried people. After being imprisoned at Tuol Sleng which we visited last week, truckloads of prisoners were taken out to this area about 15 km outside of the city. The centerpiece is a large memorial stupa, which is filled with skulls, clothing, and other bone fragments of victims that were found at the site. We could go inside of it and the skulls are actually out in the open, not behind glass. It got to me a bit being so close to over 5,000 human skulls. Outside of the stupa are markers indicating where mass graves were discovered. The largest had 450 bodies, another had 166 headless bodies, and another was 100 bodies of women and children. There are countless small pits in the ground that were smaller graves. Over 8,000 people were killed and buried at Choeung Ek, which is the site we visited, and the largest of the Killing Fields. When walking around the area there are still remnants of clothing sticking out of the ground, as well as bone fragments scattered in different places. A sign marked a tree that was used by executioners to beat children and babies against, and a pile of bone fragments laid beside it. The whole experience was really overwhelming, and I'm glad we didn't go on the same day we went to Tuol Sleng. It's just so hard to understand how something like this could happen, and has happened many times before, and continues to happen today. I always wonder about the Cambodians I see that are old enough to have been alive during the Khmer Rouge regime--did they work under the Khmer Rouge, were they forced into labor or tortured by them, were there families killed by them? Jason said it would make an interesting book to go into the city and talk to people about their experience and role during that time.
On a lighter note, on our ride back to the city from the Killing Fields we drove past a motorbike that had a whole pig sliced open draped across the back of it. It was so disgusting; its hooves were dragging the ground, and its insides were totally exposed. It looked like it was probably alive this morning! We got a picture of it so hopefully it will get posted soon.
Today we visited the Killing Fields, which is one of the mass grave sites that the Khmer Rouge murdered and buried people. After being imprisoned at Tuol Sleng which we visited last week, truckloads of prisoners were taken out to this area about 15 km outside of the city. The centerpiece is a large memorial stupa, which is filled with skulls, clothing, and other bone fragments of victims that were found at the site. We could go inside of it and the skulls are actually out in the open, not behind glass. It got to me a bit being so close to over 5,000 human skulls. Outside of the stupa are markers indicating where mass graves were discovered. The largest had 450 bodies, another had 166 headless bodies, and another was 100 bodies of women and children. There are countless small pits in the ground that were smaller graves. Over 8,000 people were killed and buried at Choeung Ek, which is the site we visited, and the largest of the Killing Fields. When walking around the area there are still remnants of clothing sticking out of the ground, as well as bone fragments scattered in different places. A sign marked a tree that was used by executioners to beat children and babies against, and a pile of bone fragments laid beside it. The whole experience was really overwhelming, and I'm glad we didn't go on the same day we went to Tuol Sleng. It's just so hard to understand how something like this could happen, and has happened many times before, and continues to happen today. I always wonder about the Cambodians I see that are old enough to have been alive during the Khmer Rouge regime--did they work under the Khmer Rouge, were they forced into labor or tortured by them, were there families killed by them? Jason said it would make an interesting book to go into the city and talk to people about their experience and role during that time.
On a lighter note, on our ride back to the city from the Killing Fields we drove past a motorbike that had a whole pig sliced open draped across the back of it. It was so disgusting; its hooves were dragging the ground, and its insides were totally exposed. It looked like it was probably alive this morning! We got a picture of it so hopefully it will get posted soon.
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