Began Day One - I Can't Wrap My Head Around This

Wow! There are only 2-3 thousand of the estimated 10 thousand original stupas and temples. 

I can't imagine if the weather was clear. Now that I got that out of me, back to chronological order. 

Breakfast has good choices. 

More fried rice!  The bacon is decent too. 

Second rice portion. 

We decide to take a cab to Ananda Temple. The others places seem like walking distance from there. 

From there we start to walk to Shwe Gugyi. However I'm distracted by a golden roof so I detour us. It turns out to be a modern palace. As we walk up to discover my failure Aparna thinks she kicked a stick or something. She lifts her toes and finds out she has been stung. 

Here is the culprit. 

Finally someone who knows some English says it's ok. She's in pain but we decide to push on but not in foot. We find a horse carriage nearby and that becomes our transportation for the day. Some of the places you can walk up and others you can't. In this case we can and get a great view. 

You can see Thatbyinyu in the background which is next up. 

Nathlaung kyaung temple is the only Hindu temple left in Bagan. 

Buphaya really isn't this old as it keeps being rebuilt over the years as the river has moved. 

Our last stop is Minalaung Kyaung before heading back to the hotel. We wander back to restaurant row and pick Rain as it seems busy and with local people. 

Chicken tomato curry and vegetables with noodles. Beer as usual but we didn't notice the draft so it's bottled Mandalay beer again. 

We cool off in the pool. We contemplate going out for a sunset but it's not looking good. 

Unfortunately this is how the late afternoons are going to be. 

After seeing all the restaurants that have every kind of food, I decide I want a restaurant that only does one kind. We settle on the Italian place which is Swiss managed.  

I think Aparna picks this place as she hasn't had wine in a while.

Carbonara with home pasta. It's really good but I think they cheat and use a lot of cream to help the texture. 

Eggplant parmigiana. 

We notice they get the pizzas from across the street. It's a wood fired place that is owned by the same people. More on that later. After dinner we book a taxi for tomorrow. Another early day for sunrise. 

Food total for the day is about 43000 Kyat or about $36. We took about 13.2k step and 4.5 miles. 

Another Early Morning - Travel to Bagan, Myanmar (Burma)

We have a 7:15 am flight to Yangoon. 

The airport is a zoo. 

We need to figure out which of the six lines we should be in. We asked and jump in line to check out backpack and get our tickets. After about 30 minutes we get to the front of the line. It turns out we didn't prepay for our backpack so it will cost more. However we are told we can carry on the backpack. So much for enforcing the 7 kg carry on limit. That was a fun way to kill a half hour. Immigration and security moves surprisingly fast. We even have time for breakfast. 

Pork, egg and rice bowl

Shrimp wonton noodle soup

It's an hour and 15 minute flight and we have a two hour layover. 

Oh yeah, another tight Airbus 320.

We take off about 20 minutes late. The flight is uneventful but looking at the clock it might be tight when we land. However I forgot about the 30 minute time zone change. I guess that's working to my advantage in this case. We clear immigration and customs easily. Crap, we leave security and don't use the ATM. We figure there must be one in the domestic terminal. The domestic terminal is a short walk to the building next door. There is no wait at the Air KBZ counter. We are told our gate is 1,2 and 3. Security is a breeze and you can keep your cellphone on you. I don't know why I have to go through a metal detector. Plus there is a secondary wand screening. 

This terminal is tiny. Basically one gate.

The yellow signs are the three gates. 

But it doesn't matter as they all open up to the same bus. There is a restaurant upstairs that I didn't check out. It also means no ATM or place to buy a SIM card. Since we have time to kill we finished watching a movie on the iPad. A bus drives us out to the plane. It's a small 2-2 configuration. 

but it's quite roomy.

We even have a meal service. 

Chicken salad sandwich and cake.

I guess that's why this costs more than the Air Asia flight. When we arrive in Nyaungu (Bagan) we need to pay a 25000 kyat archeological fee per person.

There are no ATMs here. We can pay $46 USD but the bills must be in good shape. No tears or damage. After searching our cash stash we find $100 that is acceptable. 

A $5 taxi and we are at our hotel. Even the cab driver won't take old bills. Crap, we need to pay cash for our hotel too. Fortunately the hotel isn't as picky as everyone else so far. After we pay, we discover they have an ATM here. 

The room is nice but simple. 

Our "closet"

Our wifi when working. 

The room has a sign to keep your valuables with you and there is no safe.  

Pacsafe to the rescue.

We settle in and go for a walk and to find lunch. I pickup a SIM card across from the hotel and load it with 2500 kyat. It turns out data is 6 kyat per MB. My data isn't working after fiddling with it but they say it will and it set me back less than $5. I can make phone calls. Stupas everywhere - this is just in the neighborhood. 

We find a nice little local restaurant just off restaurant row.  It appears to be family run with the daughter as the server. Her English is pretty good especially considering that she has just learned it on the fly. I have pork curry and Aparna has duck with mushrooms.

Both dishes are very good. 

We take a loop around to get a lay of the land and pass at least 6 more stupas. 

We decided to wander over to the Pagoda in town as it has a small market where I can buy sandals. I end up with sandals and Aparna gets a wrap around skirt. We come out of the covered hallway entrance and it does not disappoint. 

Unlike Angkor you don't need to have your knees or shoulders covered but no spaghetti straps. You do need to remove shoes and socks before entering the holy sites. Fortunately this pagoda has marble walkways that aren't nearly as hot as the cement, brick and other tiles that cover the courtyard. 

It's hot here but at least it's not humid like Bangkok. We head back to cool off in the pool. I'm exhausted so I nap. We pick another restaurant on the row. Most of these places advertise Myanmar, Chinese, Thai, Italian and Western food. Can it really be good if they make so much? Eggplant curry and the accompaniments to my mixed BBQ. 

Ugh I forgot to take a picture of my food before I dove in. Here is the clay pot with charcoal in it. It appears to be escargot tray with the BBQ on it.  

Dinner was pretty good. What a crazy day. We used three different currencies. Baht for breakfast, USD for fees and taxi and Kyat for dinner. 

Food total for the day is approxiamately $41. 

Steps for the day are 13.5k and 4.3 miles. 

...and the World's Your Oyster

The bars are temples but the pearls ain't free. 

Our flight isn't until 11:55 am so we can sleep in. However we were both up by 5:30 am. I'm surprised I'm surviving on so little sleep. I guess that's what naps are for. We finished packing and headed down for breakfast. 

That little circle is a potato cake which is quite good. I could have eaten a few more of those. We survived this strange half step on the third floor. 

I thought for sure it would get us once. 

The Siem Reap airport isn't well signed but arrived 2.5 hours early. The counter doesn't even open until two hours before. We do some last minute shuffling of our stuff to the the weight to 10 kgs. Air Asia is a low cost carrier that charges for everything (didn't even offer water)like drinks on the plane. The pitch of the seats reflects this as well. Good thing this is an hour flight. 

Good thing I don't have long legs. 

After we arrive in Bangkok we do some more luggage shuffling and leave the wheeled carry on behind. From there we find the bus which is only about a $1 each that drops us walking distance to our hotel. We get outside and the heat and humidity are brutal. I'm a sweaty mess just sitting 10 minutes for the bus. We get to Victory Mounument in about an hour which is 20 minutes longer than it should be but we were in rush hour traffic.

On the street they are handing out lotion/sunblock.

Surprisingly I didn't get burnt in Cambodia. 

Our walk was about 20 minutes. It would have been faster except the weather and our tired feet slowed us down. 

Our hotel was a delight at $50. 

IKEA has nothing on this bed. It's a desk, bed AND sofa all in one. Makes for efficient use of the small space. 

At this point we were pretty hungry. I ate a Clif bar and Aparna ate a guava since breakfast. I found a boiled chicken and rice place but the hotel desk guy said this is more of a late night drinking food thing. So we decided to eat Thai food nearby. 

We tried a rice cake with minced pork and peanut sauce. 

A little too much coconut for my taste, Aparna really liked this. For dinner we had a seafood dish and a wide noodle dish. 

Hey is that a green bean in there?  That's my favorite vegetable. 

Nope. That's a chili pepper. It's not that... holy crap that's hot. Where is my beer?  I'll be picking out the rest of those. The noodle dish was the right amount of heat when only eating an occasional pepper. The seafood dish was really hot and that was skipping all the peppers. I hope I don't pay for this in the morning. Maybe not a wise culinary choice before an early flight. 

Our flight is at 7:15 am tomorrow so we need to leave by 4:30 am. Since we have fast internet. 

It's not even 7 yet. I'll blog some more and we'll find our hotel for Bangkok on the way back. We book to the hotel and zzzz. I was out by 8. 

Food total for the day is about $21. I need to do the exact conversion but this is a good ballpark figure. 

Another day under 10k steps at 7.8k and 2.8 miles. My feet are getting a little happier. 

Down Day in Siem Reap

We decide we need a down day. We sleep in until 5:30 am.  Have a lazy morning before heading down for breakfast. I feel a little guilty eating western breakfast but I did Cambodian breakfast two days already. 

The papaya has been really good. The pineapples here are small but tasty. The butter here is from France. 

Again Aparna wonders why no local butter. After breakfast we went out for a long stroll along the river.

We go by the Art Market. There are a lot of named markets here. We hear some music and duck down a side street and see some celebration going on. I don't think this scaffolding would fly in the states.

We go by the temple in town.

We wander back to Pub Street for lunch and to finally get our $.50 beers, except the other half picks a place that only has $.50 beers during happy hour. We also get some fresh rolls. 

Our two beers set us back $2.50. Man that was five beers!  We find a lunch spot with $.50 beers and enjoy some fried rice and pork ribs.

With 4 beers this sets us back $12.00. 

We head back to the hotel for our free massages. We change into robes and two short women appear. Cold Cucumbers on the face, foot massage... This is nice. I can't see but I can feel her foot on the back of my thigh and pulling on my foot. I can hear snoring next to me - he he he. After both legs I roll over. Now it gets rough but it feels good afterwards. For such a small person, she has really strong hands. After 50 minutes or so we are done. Not knowing we tip a $1 each. Turns out they charge $6 for the massage. 

We look up at the sky, but again are not optimistic about a sunset, so we packed up before dinner. We ask the front desk about Hungry Bear but they don't know. They look it up on the computer and tell us it's in the Night Market. Hmm...  We head out and walk the Night Market. We ask a tuk tuk driver about Hungry Bear and he says its in the market. We check again and no luck. Either it's gone or a secret dining spot. 

We decide to head to Pub Street. At least there are cheap beers there. Aparna chooses a Texmex pizza place with a wood fire pizza oven. Hmm... And the beers aren't even $.50 here. We can see the pizza oven and it's wood fired. We order a mushroom pizza and it's not half bad. 

Food total for the day is $34. 

Steps for the day are a relaxing 14k and only 4.7 miles.