Happy New Year!

Arrive back into Yangon on the eve of Chinese New Year, and once we've checked back into the hotel, hop into a taxi and ride the traffic-clogged streets downtown to Chinatown, where things are warming up nicely - Hong Kong on speed transplanted right into the middle of the Burmese capital. Squeeze ourselves onto a table at a street-front restaurant and do our best to make sense of an ordering system whereby all the eateries and their staff seem to blend into one big blur. Get and eat (most of) the food we (think we) ordered, all helpfully washed down with free-flowing mugs of beer.
Next day - our last - back to the centre of downtown to explore a couple of seemingly endless markets and tour the last relics of Old Empire (Britannia waved the rules here for around a hundred years from the mid-19th century until just after the end of the Second World war. Not many of the old colonial buildings still survive, and many of those that do are not in great shape, though plans are afloat for some restoration.
Not much to see, either,  of the house on Lake Inya where Aung San Suu Kyi (referred to throughout our stay here as "our Lady") was held under house arrest until her release in 2010. A slow-crawl taxi ride to the north of the city drops us off outside an austere sheet metal fence and military barrier, and that is as far as the visitor can go or see. A walk around the lake itself similarly reveals little of interest; clearly not a location intended to become any sort of tourist hot-spot...
A second lake (Kan Daw Gyi) closer to our hotel proves a slightly more pleasant spot to spend time, featuring botanic gardens and a couple of somewhat cavernous restaurant / bars. But its still a bit of a missed opportunity in terms of unmet potential; almost as though civic planners over here see things only as they are, not as they could be.
As we end the day its really, really hot. But not for much for longer!

On the beach

Nyaung Shwe  is the kind of place that grows on you, particularly when you realise there's a winery you can visit just up the road from the town. Red Mountain winery is one of very few in Myanmar (its kind of mind-boggling there's any at all) and its produces a total of four wines; two white and two red. And they're not half bad, to be honest - we partake of the sampling option - a little dribble of each of the possibilities accompanied by a bit of cheese for ballast - then eat at the winery restaurant; lovely views across the mountains and down onto the town below, very peaceful and quiet, all washed down with a further glass of the white wine we particularly enjoyed. But all this not-badness comes at a cost - limited economies of scale (this isn't a vast operation, even by UK wine production standards) - meaning that a half bottle of even the cheapest wine costs a fiver, while the most expensive red tops out at nearly £15 a bottle. OK, not huge sums to us, but in a country where the average professional wage is probably still only a couple of hundred dollars a month (and where home-produced 'whisky' can be bought for less that two quid a bottle), you can be sure Myanmar wine doesn't feature on too many family dinner tables.
Anyway, we travel on., waving goodbye to our cheerfully dysfunctional hotel experience (chaos not helped by the very limited English spoken by the staff and our even more limited  Burmese - two words, since you're asking - Min-gla-bar - hello/how y'doing and Jez-su-bar thank you )- and take a flight from Heho airport to Thandwe, nearest point for Ngapali (named after Napoli and pronounced pretty much the same), our last port of call before returning to Yangon for our flight home. Ngapali lies on the south western coast of Myanmar, and, as befitting somewhere on the coast, it has a beach. In fact, its fair to say it's all beach - mile upon mile of it, peppered with fishing communities and the odd swanky beachfront resort such as the one we are destined for. It is here that we encounter our first and so far only visible sign of security - as in, men in uniforms prowling around looking stern-faced and purposeful - which feels somewhat at odds in a country where we have at no time felt anything other than 100% safe. A reflection, perhaps, of the vast -and some might say discomfiting - gulf in wealth between the rich, mostly western clientele at our (yes, OK, rather lovely) hotel and our neighbours just along the road.
So we could fill the remainder of this post waxing lyrical about the warm waters of the Bay of Bengal; the endless empty stretches of light golden sands and the deep amber-hued sunsets viewed from our beachfront balcony, but that begins to sound like rubbing it in (particularly in bleak mid-January), and anyway, at the end of the day, its only a blooming beach*. So instead, a few random jottings about other stuff we've encountered here and haven't commented on yet:

Dogs - One of the first things we noticed on arrival in the country is how many wild dogs there are. This, we immediately concluded, was Not a Good Thing - thinking of the wild dogs of, say, Sarajevo in Bosnia or Kyrenia, Northern Cyprus; who prowl the streets in menacing, growling packs. But the pooches here seem to have swallowed the Buddhist ethos whole: totally chilled, they amble about looking contented and (fairly) well-nourished, or else lie peacefully by the side of the road, or in the middle of it, pending whatever Karma awaits them - which is usually good, since the drivers and riders of Myanmar usually take care to avoid their canine brothers, rather than mercilessly mowing them down as in parts of central and southern America (and places closer to home, too)
These peaceful mutts also seem to have excellent toilet habits - as evidenced by the almost total absence of tell-tale poop anywhere on the ground. Go figure...

Driving As aforementioned, not anywhere near as cut-throat as one might expect; in fact would go as far as to say the roads here seem pretty safe. But here's the thing - the rule of the road here is to drive (mostly) on the right - as in mainland europe - yet all of the cars and trucks we saw were right hand drive - ie, as in the UK. Go figure #2.

Odd things Like the posters we saw around Mandalay advertising something by the name of "Iron Cross". To our eyes the rather queasy symbolism of the branding is further underlined by a logo mounted in Gothic script featuring an eagle's head insignia plucked straight from the annals of the Third Reich, but it turns out "Iron Cross" is a band - apparently the most popular rock group in Myanmar. Sure they'd find a following among certain 'populist' politicians closer to home too..
(On a similar culture cross-wired theme, we saw at least one taxi bedecked with swastika-like symbols stuck like kill-totems to the front offside wing. When we later quizzed our guide about this we were assured it was done purely 'for the beauty'. Hmmm...
By the way, Kipling never went to Mandalay, just like Darwin was never in Darwin. Seems we just keep on falling for it...

Food/ drink  As hopefully clearly signalled, all good - really good, in fact; a fusion of Thai, Chinese and Indian flavours without being quite like any of the above. Oddly, the hardest place to get a good meal is in the cities - Yangon and Mandalay, not because good places to eat (they almost certainly do) but because so few are geared in any way to the tourist market. Most venues don't exactly throw out the welcome, and, in terms of finding the good ones, its mostly down to pot luck. The other places we stayed - Bagan, Lake Inle and here in Ngapali - have a recognised if still developing tourist trade, so its relatively easy to find a choice of places to eat.
One particular favourite dish of ours was Tea leaf salad, which sounds disgusting but is actually delicious - a blend of fresh tea leaves with ingredients such as garlic, tomato and  - crucially, to my mind - crushed peanuts to give a pleasing, crunchy texture. Speaking of tea - green tea: can't abide it at home, can't get enough of it out here. What's that about??

*I have been asked by my companion to point out that my earlier ill-considered, satirical comment 'its only a blooming beach' in no way does justice to this staggeringly beautiful piece of paradise that we feel humbled and privileged to be able to spend time in. I apologize, wholly and unreservedly, for this wretched slur, and any confusion that may have been caused.

Water water everywhere...

On the day that happens to be my Unfortunate Landmark Birthday we fly from the small domestic airport at  Bagan north and east to Heho, nearest airport for Inle Lake. Before we get on to that, a word about those domestic flights, and indeed more generally about the way things work around here. The traveller may well arrive in Myanmar expecting things to be a bit - well - dysfunctional. After all, its a materially poor country, relatively new on the block when it comes to this tourism lark. But in this respect our expectations have been utterly confounded. The domestic airlines, for example, run a service that would put our own to shame - punctual and efficient right down to little touches like giving passengers a colour coded sticker to make sure they get on the right plane. The (mostly very short) flights are on clean, well-crewed aircraft and even on the shortest flight they manage to serve everyone a snack and a drink between take off and a smooth landing. Put that in your pipe, Easyjet.
Anyway, Lake Inle, and the Golden Lake Cottages accommodation, To get there involves an hours taxi from the airport to the lake side jetty, then a powered narrow-boat across the lake (disarmingly fast, and once you get over the initial shock, quite a buzz) to the hotel, which can only be accessed this way. With our own cabin on stilts sitting overlooking the lake, it's a fittingly special place to spend a - um - special birthday.
The day that follows is pretty good too - met at the hotel by the latest in a series of friendly guides, and shown to our waiting boat where we pad ourselves and our luggage before setting off on our tour; cruising the waters of the lake in the course of calling by some of the local communities including a market seemingly selling everything; a cheroot-making workshop, and a weaving factory, all topped off with lunch at Grandma's kitchen; a floating noodle-shack; proper noodles, proper grandma.
The day ends with a drop off back on the mainland, and from the quayside a motorbike rickshaw takes us on to our hotel in downtown Nguang Shwe - a functional sort of place which feels a bit of a come-down after the splendours of our little island property. The town itself is similarly initially a bit of a come-down, but over the course of a couple of low-key days, gradually reveals a few charms...

Bagan by bike, kind of

(This post somewhat delayed by internet connection problems!)
Our visit to Mandalay concludes with a tour of the local sights and sites, including (along with the shrines et al) workshops of various kinds - gold, weaving, wood-carving, a visit to a nunnery and a sunset photo-op from the famous Ubein Bridge; notable for featuring on the cover of Amitav Ghosh's 2001 Novel "The Glass Palace", as well as for being - to our western eye at least - bloody dangerous to walk upon.
Then, after two short city stays we are on the road again, literally so this time, taking the bus from Mandalay northwards towards Bagan. This turns out to be a somewhat longer journey than originally billed, six and a half hours on a so-so coach with just one short comfort break around the four-hour mark. In flight entertainment comes in the shape of a TV mounted on the fore-deck, which kicked off with a solid half hour of Buddhist chanting, followed by a stream of shit (possibly) Korean music videos (wherein a series of Poor Little Rich boys slouch around being generally misunderstood by their accessory girlfriends) and then, pour le dessert a home-brewed comedy compilation for which imagine Carry on Camping without the sophistication. The point of this purgatory, of course, is to experience a bit of local life as it is lived whilst the countryside rolls by. That notwithstanding, rarely have a good book, a stout pair of headphones and a short-term subscription to Spotify seemed such a sound investment. Looking forward to that next domestic flight already.
Bagan district (which encompasses Old and New Bagan, and Nyaung-U, where we are staying) is basically one vast historical site, boasting more ancient and not-so-ancient stupas and pagodas than anywhere else in Myanmar. It's been compared to Angkor Wat in Cambodia, and we can see why, both in terms of the number of sites to see and visit, and the expanse it covers. Safe to say, if one is not into Buddhist architectural history, better by far to look away now. If not, there are dozens if not hundreds of sites to explore - some dating back as far as the 11th century
On arrival we are met by our guide for the first half day, who sorts us out with mountain bikes to explore on. Our first, accompanied, half day teaches us a few fundamentals in this regard: (1) the mountain bikes are fun and easy to handle over the sandy tracks that criss-cross the individual temple sites (2) but to get to and between those sites one must ride along fairly busy main roads - not so much fun, and (3) It's bloody hot.
So - although we have the mountain bikes at our disposal for all of the next day, we decide to dig deep and fork out the additional 8000 Kyat (pron 'chat') - about a fiver - to hire a  chinese-built electric scooter for the day. As the proud temporary owners of these machine we are able to cruise the boulevards at a stately 15kph (rather less on anything approaching an incline), so hardly rapid, but quicker and easier than pedal-power and actually kind of fun too.

Rangon, Yangoon, Mandalay

After five days in the UAE its time for us to get stuck into the holiday side of the trip proper with the flight from Dubai to Myanmar. Not without its excitements, as it turned out, since ground delays at Dubai meant our flight was over an hour late both taking off and landing into Bangkok, our transit point for onward flight to Yangon. By the time we land, the connection looks impossibly tight (barely 30 minutes) but happily the onward flight is similarly delayed, so we  - and the dozen or so other late arrivals - get on the plane no problem.
But not our bags. As we stand bleary eyed in the baggage reclaim at Yangon airport some sixteen hours after crawling out of bed at 0430, it soon becomes apparent that our luggage has decided to extend its stay in the Thai capital. Well, at least we have the basics - er, us - and the helpful baggage reclaim lady and the even more helpful Sandha, our local tour guide, get right on the case to get us and our bags re-united, which finally happens late afternoon the next day.
Now, first off - some background. Myanmar is the modern name of what - in old colonial times and after - was once Burma. The name was changed by the ruling generals during the time it was largely a closed country to Myanmar, so that was bad, but then people got to thinking that Myanmar was actually the ancient name for their country and put them in touch with their roots, so that was good, and now it's Myanmar with pride, although the people and language are still seemingly referred to as Burmese. Similarly with Yangon, once Rangoon, although Mandalay seems to have been left alone as Mandalay, which doubtless would have pleased Mr Kipling. Clear?
Little chance to make much of Myanmar or Yangon on arrival that night, but when we arise next morning it is revealed in its full, colourful, rumbustious glory. In almost every way, Myanmar is everything the gulf states are not - and vice versa. So where there was hi-rise swank, now is low-build urban sprawl; where life once was pots of money is now largely just the daily scrabble for any of it. And where the streets were empty of all but cars, now is still cars (plus thousands of mostly chinese-built step-thru scooters, often vastly over-burdened with cargo human and/ or other), but also people - swarms of them everywhere. Overload for the senses, mostly in a good way, tho to be truthful, walking in downtown Yangon or Mandalay can be tiring. Main problem is sheer volume of traffic to be safely negotiated: whilst the standard of driving here is nothing like the beserker death-cab chaos one might encounter in - say - India, the lack of navigable pavements plus some fairly vague rules of the road make city navigation something of a chore.
In Yangon we meet the first of our tour guides, the charming Sandha, who takes us on a morning orientation of Yangon (so much easier than trying it alone) as well as around some of the main sites. Sian is very fond of her Buddhas and Pagodas, and, be assured, there is no shortage of them here. In the afternoon we bid farewell to Sandha and took the ferry across the river to the (even) poorer Dalla, where a bicycle rickshaw driver gave himself a coronary pedalling two brits around the sights, including a stop at a very rudimentary orphanage (see photo). That's how people here have to live.
Culture and food-wise Myanmar could crudely be described as a collision between Thailand, China and India (though that probably does none of the parties justice). In terms of development most of what you see is way behind its south-east asian peers (see - years of military rule, above). Mobile phones (ours) don't seem to work at all, though you do see plenty of national-only providers. Microchip technology aside, ambling around it could still be the nineties or even earlier. But all that is starting to change. Myanmar will catch up, and you get the sense it may not take very long.

Going Gulf

OK, so here's the deal - a two-week trip around Myanmar (aka Burma -somewhere we've never been before) wrapped around my unfortunate-milestone birthday, prefaced with a few days stopover in the Gulf, where we've never been either, and where Sian is due to speak at a conference. So far, Abu Dhabi, via a brief overnight stopover in Dubai. Then Sunday fly on to Yangon (Rangoon as once was) via Bangkok before on to Mandalay, and a few more places after that. So the blog could more accurately have been titled On the Road to Ngapali Beach - or (back) to Yangon Airport. But where would be the fun in that?
So, anyway - what to say about where we are, and where we've been? So far, a fairly disorientating experience, hard to locate in the culture / identity sense, with most people living and working here having originally come from somewhere else. Neither Dubai nor AD existed in anything like their current form until relatively recently, in the case of Abu Dhabi having been grown out of the desert just in the last few decades following the discovery of oil in 1958. So, what you get are big urban sprawls, not that much green space, lots and lots of skyscrapers, with plenty of evidence around of money by the bucket. Not surprisingly the car is king here, which in more ways than one explains why you see so few folk out and about on the streets - they're all in their cars, both avoiding and helping to create the air pollution that hangs as a haze over what seems like the whole region, growing thicker as the day progresses.
There is, to be honest, not that much to do or see beyond the hi-rise and the odd rather sumptuous Mosque, unless browsing designer tat in high-end retail Malls is your scene (and it really isn't ours). But there is the odd little curve-ball treat - for instance in Dubai, where as well as by the motor car the city is (well) served by a metro system that runs most of its length. The trains are clean, efficient and totally driver-less (crikey don't tell Southern Rail) - meaning that you can stand or sit right in the very front of the train, getting a bird (or driver) eye view of the track and approaching vista as the train speeds ahead. OK, so its infantile, but for most of us little boys who grew up yearning to be train drivers, this is probably as good as it gets.
Better say something about the hotel we're staying in (but thankfully not paying for -well, not the room, at least) in Abu Dhabi. Blimey. It's opulent - as in, 'if you need to ask the price don't step into the lobby' opulent - the view from our (33rd floor) bathroom alone sufficient to make your jaw drop. The Other Half are right here, and living it up in luxury with a capital L. The Jumeirah at Etihad Towers - one of the considerable number of five-star establishments across the city - offers anything you could ever possibly want - gourmet restaurants, bars, gym, spa, pools, beach plus a whole load of other stuff I  haven't even thought of - oh, and a branch of Waitrose, though I'll be blowed if I could find the wines and spirits department.... The hotel is also so technologically advanced it took us nearly half the first night to work out to how to close the curtains, whilst the TV and the opening of the fridge remain largely things of mystery. I would say I could get used to staying somewhere like this, but the sad truth is, I probably couldn't, and wouldn't.