Avoiding Accidents, Heatstroke and Everyone Else in Bagan
“Not like that!!”
I yelled again, drawing a raised eyebrow from the elderly couple walking past. “Lauren! Slow down!”
Seconds earlier she’d been alongside me, the pair of us standing awkwardly astride the least-comfortable electric bicycles in the world discussing how they worked. Now, she was hurtling along the rutted dirt alongside a busy road, bouncing out of control towards a cluster of nearby trees. I’d envisaged spending our time in Bagan cruising along deserted trails, finding out-of-the-way spots to explore empty temples for a few days. Now a trip to the nearest hospital seemed more likely. I had a feeling the architects of this ancient kingdom hadn’t been big on wheelchair access.
Screeching to a halt in a cloud of dust and tears, a dejected figure slumped forward over the rickety basket. “See? I told you I didn’t know how to ride a bike properly!”
In that moment, it was hard to argue. Were we destined to walk or take taxis everywhere, I wondered? Or even worse, be confined to one of the enormous tour buses that rumbled past every few minutes?
I seriously hoped not… but what other options were there?
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Listening to John
And so this is Christmas
And what have we done?
Another year over
A new one just begun
I’ve always loved John Lennon’s anti-war ode to the holiday season. It’s a sign Christmas is coming, with all that entails, and the lyrics get me thinking about what’s happened in the last twelve months and what lies ahead.
This year is no different. After successfully avoiding winter seemingly forever, being hit by freezing temperatures when I touched down in London was a shock to both body and mind. There’s been a surprising amount of blue sky and sunshine, but most of my days are still spent inside, wine glass in hand, coaxing another couple of degrees out of the central heating. It’s hardly the tale of a tortured artist, but I’m still finding the combination of alcohol and cold weather an excellent muse. Introspection isn’t in short supply.
It’s been coming for a while, but here at the start of 2015, I find myself at a bit of a crossroads. Here’s why.
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Finally Making it to Myanmar
It took far longer than it should.
I’ve been talking about going to Myanmar for years. I remember listening to Tony Wheeler of Lonely Planet fame talk about the country at a travel writing expo in 2010, explaining in typically blunt terms why independent travellers should visit the country regardless of politics and conventional wisdom. By the end of his speech I knew I’d go there, but a procession of excuses and changed plans meant it was over four years until I finally did. In that time, the Myanmar of Wheeler’s experience changed almost beyond recognition.
The bulky generators on the streets of Yangon remain largely silent, power now a semi-reliable commodity in the country’s biggest city. In a nation largely cut off from the outside world for decades, Internet access — while still cripplingly slow most of the time — is readily available in the tourist hotspots. Locals openly talk about life under military rule in a way I doubt they would have in the past. Tour buses and a steady stream of backpackers now fill streets that were largely devoid of foreigners. The trains are as slow and bumpy as ever, but VIP buses ply the route between Yangon, Bagan, Mandalay and Inle Lake on upgraded roads with a surprising degree of comfort. Hotel prices have escalated rapidly, traveller lore suggesting they now provide some of the worst accommodation value in the region.
As a result, Lauren and I didn’t quite know what to expect from our time in the country, and decided to opt for a short, two-week visit to get a sense of what was on offer. If we didn’t like it, if it just wasn’t for us, we didn’t have to spend long there. In, out, tick, done.
Not so much.
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A Budget Traveller’s Guide to Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka. Empty beaches and crowded cities. Terraced tea plantations and wild jungles. Elephants and leopards, whales and monkeys, friendly people and incredible food. Ignored by travellers during two decades of civil conflict, tourism is only now starting to reappear on this teardrop-shaped island off the bottom of India.
While package tours are popular,they’re far from the only way to see the best of what the country has to offer. I spent three weeks travelling independently around the southern and central parts of the island by bus, train and tuk-tuk, and the experience put Sri Lanka firmly near the top of my list of favourite destinations.
If you’re considering budget travel in Sri Lanka, here’s what you need to know.
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Is It Time to Stop?
It’s a natural tendency to want to know what happens next. That’s why people read horoscopes, mindlessly scroll through Facebook for hours and binge watch every episode of Friends during one inglorious rainy weekend.
Apparently, though, it’s not just Ross and Rachel’s future that interests people. In the last few months, I’ve found myself being asked a single question much more often than before.
“Are you ever going to stop travelling?”
While six, twelve or even 24 months of wandering is somewhat acceptable, people seem to find more than that a bit strange. As my three year travel anniversary draws nearer, friends, family, taxi drivers, random strangers on the Internet have all started asking if this trip is going to end one day.
Aren’t I sick of it yet? Isn’t Lauren? Don’t we want a house? Normal jobs? Kids? 2.4 puppies and a white picket SUV?
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Belize, I Like You, But…
After a quick side trip to Tikal, we returned to Belize and headed for the coast. What it lacked in jungles and ruins, it seemed to more make up for in beaches, and that was just fine by me. Plus, with distances being so short, we figured it was relatively easy to get from one place to another without taking all day to do so.
Apparently, we figured wrong. The 200km trip from San Ignacio to Placencia ended up taking over nine hours, involving three buses, a long and miserable wait and a kind-hearted water taxi driver who saved the day.
I’ll admit that wasn’t quite how I’d imagined things would go when I’d woken up that morning… but on the upside, there were fewer dead bodies this time around.
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A Side Trip to Tikal
We’d only spent a few days in Belize, not nearly enough to get a feel for the place, and already we were leaving. It wasn’t a problem – we’d be back again in 48 hours – but it felt strange to be swapping currencies and languages yet again. We were off to Tikal.
Arguably the most famous of the Mayan ruins, Tikal sits around 100km into the northern part of Guatemala. There are stupidly-priced day trips that leave from various points in Belize, but (a) they require spending all day on a bus for a few hours in the park, missing sunrise and all the good bits and (b) did I mention they were stupidly priced?
So we opted for a more interesting plan.
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Getting Hot and Sweaty in San Ignacio
After the bloody introduction we’d had to Belize, I figured our time in this small Central American country could only improve. We’d marked out a vague itinerary for our two weeks, allowing plenty of time to not do very much – to ward off exhaustion, we’d finally learned to reign in the ambition when it came to exploring somewhere new in a hurry.
Sticker shock had made itself known even before we arrived, however – a quick glance at accommodation prices told us that Belize wasn’t going to be cheap. A decent double room, often without air-conditioning, typically ran upwards of $40/night — without even the benefit of breakfast to take a little of the sting out of it.
Food, too, was expensive – maybe we’d just been spoiled by six months in Mexico, but cheap and delicious street eats seemed in short supply. Public transport, however? That, at least, was a bargain – the rickety old Bluebird buses bounced and rocked their way all over the country for a couple of bucks.
After half a day on one such bus from Belize City, we arrived in San Ignacio sleepy, grimy and with stomachs complaining loudly. A jerk chicken restaurant near the bus stop dealt with the intestinal cacophony, and when we finally tracked down our hotel, a shower removed most of the travel stink as well. Sleep, however, was going to have to wait. We had rocks to look at.
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