We’ve now been in Ubud for 2 full weeks, so it’s time to write down my impressions so far.

We rented an amazing house 4km northwest of Ubud for a full month, complete with 3 dogs and a cat. Our goal was to settle in, get to know the area, and relax. We picked Ubud since there was a ton of things to do in the area, lots of nice looking houses available on AirBNB, and lots of AirBNB ‘Experiences’ that looked interesting.

I was worried that Ubud had gotten too touristy, and it turns out that those concerns were valid. I might have a different view of Bali if we had spent a month on some other part of the island. Everyone says the south part of the island is far more touristy yet. I’m sure there are plenty of places in Bali still not overrun by tourists, but the Ubud area very much is.

There is a lot to love about the Ubud area. This includes:

• It’s incredibly beautiful! Jungles, mountains, rice paddies, beaches, all picture postcard perfect.
• It’s got a really interesting and unusual culture. It’s a unique combination of Hindu and animist traditions, and there is some sort of ceremony with people all dressed formally around every corner. We were lucky enough to be in town for a huge cremation ceremony for the queen.
• Food is good and cheap. Its pretty easy to find a tasty local meal for around $3. Our favorite so far was Warung Mayan Teges.
• The art culture here is exceptional. Great painting, wood carving, stonework, batik, and more. Both traditional and modern. Really interesting furniture too, such as Object Design. See the photo link below for some examples.
• Good yoga centers (I got a 20 class pass at Radiantly Alive Yoga, which has a wide range of classes).

But there are also a lot of negatives too. These include:

• Horrible traffic on roads that are far too narrow
• Way too many tourists, and way too many shops and restaurants that only cater to tourists.
• Hard to get around without a motorbike. Taxis are expensive, and require bargaining to not get completely ripped off.
• Too much woo-woo.

We’ve done a number of classes, including cooking, batik, wood carving, fishing, meditation retreat, and lots of yoga. We also visited the Green School, and were very jealous of the kids who got to go to such an interesting school.

We also spent 2 nights at Good Karma Bungalows in Amed. These were the nicest and cheapest beach bungalows of our entire trip. The snorkeling was OK, but not as good as we hoped.

Do I recommend going to Bali? It depends on what you are looking for. It was a perfect way to end our 7 month trip, but I don’t think I’d include it for more than a few days if I was on a 3-4 week trip. If you do come to Ubud, stay north of the main town, and rent a motorbike. The best road to stay on is probably Jalan Tirta Tawar, as that way if you do come to town you can avoid the particularly congested area near the palace.

The best part of our Bali experience was staying in a beautiful ‘open living’ style house, with jungle on one side, and rice paddies on the other. “Open Living” basically means no windows. The temperature in Ubud ranges between 70 and upper 80s, and mosquitoes are not too bad, so you can get by with no windows or screens, which is really nice. Every night we’d fall asleep to a cacophony of frogs, geckos, and Gamelon from the nearby temple. It was really nice to be in a “home” instead of a generic hotel room with no personality. Even tho we stayed in several AirBNB apartments on this trip, this was the first place that the owner actually lived in it most of the year. (She stays with her boyfriend when the place is rented). There was a well stocked kitchen, great art, super comfortable bed, and 3 dogs and a cat.

Bali is very different from the rest of Indonesia. People still speak Balinese at home, but schools are all taught in Indonesian. Even tho most Balinese are not Muslin, unlike the majority of Indonesia, alcohol is still somewhat hard to get, and imported liquor is insanely expensive. For example, a 1L bottle of Kettle One vodka was $75 in the supermarket. Local beer and Arak (distilled coconut palm sap) is fairly cheap, tho still pricey compared with places like Cambodia or Myanmar.

Bali is trying hard to retain it’s unique culture, despite the throngs of tourists. Overall it seems to be working. People still seem to be very attached to their customs. Foreigners are not allowed to own land, so a 10yr lease is used instead, and a resident must hire a certain number of locals.

Ubud photos are available here. Photos of interesting arts and crafts in Bali are here. Photos of our trip to Amed are here.

Our last stop in Myanmar was Yangon, and we were only there 2 nights due to horrible air pollution, and the fact that our visa was about to expire.

Of course we went to the famous Shwedagon Pagoda, which is almost 100m tall, and covered an estimated $3billion USD(!!!) worth of with gold, diamonds, rubies, and other precious stones. It was quite impressive indeed.

We also did a guided tour on the Yangon circular line train that included a stop at a huge vegetable/fruit market. You’ll find several photos of that in the link below.

My first impression of Yangon was that reminded me more of a large, dense, western city compared to anywhere else in Southeast Asia. It was the first city we went to where I saw large numbers of pedestrians and buses. The reason for this is that motorbikes are banned in the city limits. In all other cities we’ve visited on this trip, everyone just rides a motorbike to get around, even if they are only going a couple blocks. Motorbikes have been banned in Yangon since 2003, and no one seems quite sure why the ban started, but this article describes the popular theories.

Photos from Yangon are here.

We took the train from Pyin Oo Lin to Hsipaw (the H is silent), partly so we could go over the famous bridge built in 1899 by an American company. It was the largest railroad trestle in the world at the time. We went across it VERY slowly.

But the main reason I went to Hsipaw was to do a 3 day trek. I did a fantastic jungle trek with Mr Bike’s trekking company. There were 12 people the 1st day, where we hiked 15km up to the top of a mountain and stayed in tree houses. On day 2, 5 of us went on to stay in bungalows by the river, hiking another 17km, and the other 7 folks hiked back. I felt good during the trek, but my legs were quite sore afterwards for 3 days. Its been a long time since I did 2 long back to back hikes like that.

It was very cold on night 2, but there were more than enough blankets to stay warm. The final day was a tubing on a beautiful river. Unfortunately the Chinese are building a new dam on the river, so who knows how nice it will be in the future. I was told 90% of the electricity would go to China, and 10% to Myanmar.

I met a lot of really interesting folks on the trek. There were folks from England, New Zealand, Israel, Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands, and Denmark in the group. Most were in their 20s, a couple folks in their 30s, and a Danish guy who is a bit older than I, and had also travelled around SE Asia in the late 80s just after I was here.

For some unexplained reason, almost every business in Hsipaw that caters to tourists seems to be named Mr this or Mrs that. My trekking company was “Mr Bike”, and my guide was “Mr Forest” (he worked for the Myanmar forest service for 30 years). Other businesses in town included: Mrs Popcorn, Mr Shake, Mr Wok restaurant, Mr Charles Hotel, Mr Book Bookshop, etc.

Christine and I also walked over to Hsipaw Palace, featured in the book I just finished reading: “Twilight in Burma”. We met the nephew of the prince featured in the book. He was surprisingly positive about the future considering what his family went thru. The book was banned until 2015, but now it seems it’s quite popular in this part of Myanmar. An Austrian company made a movie from the book in 2015, but the movie is banned “because they are worried it might lead to a return to fighting between the Shan state people and the Burmese army”.

Photos of the train ride to Hsipaw and the town of Hsipaw are here, and the trek photos are here.

Myanmar or Burma?

Several people are confused by the terms “Burma” vs “Myanmar”. I asked about this, and got this explanation: Myanmar is composed of many ethnic groups and many languages. The largest ethnic group are called “Burmese”, and the official language is “Burmese”. Myanmar is the name of the country that includes everyone. Internally the name Myanmar came about in 1962, but the rest of the world did not really start using it until the 1990s.

Food in Myanmar

Now that we’ve been here a couple weeks, I wanted to write up a summary of food in Myanmar. There is fantastic Indian food, pretty good Chinese food, and a variety of Myanmar food. Common is a Burmese Curry restaurant: You pick 1 of 4 types of curry: Chicken, Pork, Beef, or Fish for around $2.50. Then you get 6-9 side dishes “for free”. These include: soup, tea leaf salad, rice, pickles, chili sauce, 1-3 cooked vegetable side dishes, raw veggies, and fresh fruit for dessert. Green tea is free at all restaurants in Myanmar, and the standard price for a large bottle of beer is $1.50. See the photo below of a typical meal.

Train Bridge

Tree house that I stayed in on the trek

Burmese Curry meal

Unfortunately we both seem to have got some sort of food poisoning in Mandalay, and were pretty sick by the time we got to Inle lake, so the first few days were spent mostly in bed. Thank goodness for Cipro, which our doctor recommended bring along, but in fact is very easy to get here. After taking Cipro for 3 days we were feeling good again.

Inle is very picturesque, the villages around the lake that are all built on the water are really interesting, and the market the rotates between 5 lakeside villages is really good. You can hire a boat for a full day to take you around the lake for about $15.

Unfortunately February is the month they burn the fields after harvest (mostly sugar cane and corn), so the air is thick with smoke, which you’ll see in many of the photos. We were told that December and January is the best time to visit.

Photos from Inle Lake are here.

Then on to Pindaya, a small town about 1.5 hours away, and famous for its Buddha Cave, which was very interesting, but the spider was pretty silly. Check out the photos.

We stayed in a nice hotel that was completely empty the first night besides us. The hotel staff was super helpful and friendly, and they even had free mountain bikes and free laundry service. Hotels in Myanmar are a bit nicer than other places in SE Asia. Small guest houses are less common, and medium size hotels (20-30 rooms) are the norm. They are a step up from similarly priced (around $25/night) places in Thailand or Cambodia: e.g.: each bed has 2-3 pillows, and there is central hot water rather than tiny on-demand units. However the wifi is pretty awful in Myanmar compared to most other places in SE Asia.

I also went to the nearby town of Kalaw for a 1 day bicycle trek (31 miles, 4100ft of hill climbing), which was good to help me get back in shape after being sick. Kalaw also has a pretty cool Buddha cave, but not as good as Pindaya.

Photos from Pindaya are here and Kalaw here.

We finally made it to Myanmar. Minnesota may have 10,000 lakes, but Myanmar must have well over 100,000 pagodas. We started our month in Myanmar with 3 days in Mandalay. The weather in February is perfect. High 80, low 60, and low humidity. It feels really nice to not be sweaty for a change.

After reading that Myanmar was selected as a top travel destination in 2016, I expected way more tourists, especially since we are here what is supposed to be the high season. But we hear that tourism is down about 50% this year, mostly due to bad press over the Rohingya troubles.

I first visited Myanmar in May, 1987, back when it was still called Burma. It was, by far, the most broken country I had never seen. There was basically no manufacturing, and no imported goods. Tourists could only visit 4 cities then on a 1 week visa. There were almost no cars, only bicycles and some really sad buses. I was very curious to see how things have changed. And it has changed a lot!

There are many new roads, new airports, new hotels/restaurants, and you can now buy most everything. There are some peculiarities tho, such as they drive on right, using mostly cars with steering wheel on the right too. In Mandalay there are surprisingly few taxis, so its a bit tricky getting around town. You pretty much need to just hire a driver for the day (only about $35 for a full day).

We did an excellent street food tour (which might have made us sick), and went to most of the major pagodas in the area. My favorite Burmese food so far is Mohinga, a fish-based noodle soup. Overall I like the food, but it can often be too greasy and/or salty. The combination of smoke, haze and pollution made visibility bad, but the sites were still impressive. A surprising number of the temples are quite new, or recently rebuilt.

I went on a Burmese history kick, and read a bunch of historical fiction to try to better understand this country, whose history is both fascinating and fucked up. I particularly enjoyed “Twilight over Burma”, “The Glass Palace”, and “The Trouser People”. I also watched several episodes of the show ‘101 East‘ that focused on Myanmar.

We stayed in the house of a young couple who both got scholarships to universities in Virginia, and returned to Myanmar to work in Dad’s businesses (a water bottling company and a noodle restaurant). They were very interesting to chat with about Myanmar’s history and politics.

Mandalay photos are here.

Our final week in Cambodia was spent on Koh Rong, a 3 hr boat ride from Sihanoukville. We stayed in a small bungalow on the far side of the island at Lonely Beach, a very quiet beach resort with 40-50 guests and no electricity (solar LED lights only).

Lonely Beach Resort was a really interesting place to stay. One of the owners, Danny from Strasbourg, has lived in SE Asia for over 20 years, and first travelled around SE Asia in the late 80s, same as me. We both lamented how it was better then (in some ways). The other interesting thing was they had around 8 ‘workaway‘ volunteers working there, helping with the restaurant, bar, and garden. They were all in their 20’s, and really fun/interesting to talk to. There was also a English couple who spent 5 years in a VW Van traveling around Central and South America. They had lots of really great stories that made me want to spend some time in South America.

We did quite a bit of snorkeling, which was not as good as places like Hawaii or Belize, but still pretty good. Besides the usual coral reef creatures, we got to see giant clams (6-15 inches) and giant sea worms called “Bobbit worms” that were 2-3 ft long and about 1/2 inch around!

Besides snorkeling, we mostly laid around and read. One day we walked about 1 hr across the island to a small fishing village and did a cooking class with Mr Hun, which we recommend if you find yourself at Lonely Beach.

On our way on to Myanmar we spent a night at Sihanoukville, an odd town with a odd history. Currently there is lots of construction, lots of Chinese casinos, and lots of expats. It seems to be changing very fast, and locals seem concerned.

A small collection of photos are here.