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Asia

Being sick on the road

  1. Applying for a Myanmar (Burma) visa in Bangkok
  2. One night in Bangkok
  3. Visiting Rural Thailand – enjoy the silence
  4. Sleeping in a monastery on a mountain top in Hpa-An, Myanmar
  5. Overview of tourist hotspots in Myanmar (Burma)
  6. Naypyitaw – The official capital of Myanmar
  7. Being sick on the road
  8. The End of an Era – I’ve Sold My Motorbike and Left Vietnam
  9. Cambodia – First Impressions
  10. Koh Ta Kiev – Where the boat leaves from
  11. The Future of Sihanoukville, Cambodia and the Surrounding Areas
  12. What Were We Thinking (and other ramblings)

note: This post is more of a journal style post rather than my usual style. If you find this kind of narrative interesting, please comment 🙂

Being sick on the road

The first part of this post was written while I’m in a dorm bed sick and have been for a couple of days, the second part on day 8. It started 8 days ago with a way too strong aircondition. Didn’t think too much of it – just the sniffles – and so I left Cat Ba island towards Haiphong with a bit of a dizzy head.

The trip went well but I felt tired in the evening and called it an early night. I was travelling with two friends, Matilde and Teun, so we split a 3 bed room which gave me some much needed quiet time.

The next morning, Matilde had to go for Ninh Binh, Teun being restless by nature just wanted to ride again and so he went to Hanoi. I wanted to go to Hanoi as well but opted for another night in Haiphong to get well and rest – this time at a much elevated price since I was alone (300k VND = 13-14USD).

The next morning, I wanted to get going – I had spent the entire day before just watching tv and eating pizza. I hadn’t left the room for 24 hours’ straight.

I got on the motorbike at 12 and made it to the Hanoi hostel at 14, driving maybe a bit too fast. Thinking back – this was probably one of the highest risk rides I’ve made to date. I was feeling quite under the weather and driving in Hanoi is no joke – you’ve got to be alert and vigilant – but I made it and checked in to the hostel. These prices were much more accommodating and with a few more days’ rest I’d be ready to roll again.

The next morning, I still wasn’t too well but still much better than the day before and therefore decided to stay another night at the same place. But, as luck would have it, they had no room for me – so I had to move – again.

I had been recommended another hostel that was only $5, including breakfast – cheapest so far. It had two downsides though, it had 14 bed dorms and it was a party hostel – free beer and music all night. I took it; I was feeling better and I felt like I was done with the cold. I grabbed a couple beers that night.

The next morning the cold was back with a vengeance and I stayed in bed all day. I tried to go out for food but after 5 mins walking in the heat I couldn’t take it anymore. I went back to the hostel and ordered their overpriced food and some tea there and went to bed again. Movies all day and then sleep.

The 6th day and I (again) felt like I’m getting better and this time I’d learned my lesson. No alcohol and just rest. All day till this devil is out of me.

7th day i felt great in the morning but I got a hellish headache around noon so I finally decided to go to a doctor – make that travel insurance worth the money. I decided to walk to the nearest hospital – which in retrospect probably wasn’t the greatest of ideas because when I got there no one spoke English. I walked around like a clueless baboon for a good 10 minutes until a doctor showed mercy on me and asked me (in very good English) what my problem was. I told him my symptoms where to he explained that this was a local surgical hospital and I would have go the French-Vietnamese hospital 5km away. I guess that would explain the stretchers of people with blood on them everywhere. A very overcrowded and bloody hospital indeed.

I took a motorcycle taxi there for about 30k VND (1½ USD) and went inside. From here it was easy – everyone spoke English and I got served quickly, bloodtest, urine test, blood-pressure test, temperature etc. they took good care of me and he concluded that I had somewhat of an inflammation that caused the headache. I got some pills and went home

The next day – the time of this writing I feel much better and the night before I was even out (drinking sprite) for a few hours for the first time since I got sick.

Conclusion

It’s been 8 days and I’ve spent most of them in a dorm room. It can be rough sometimes to get sick while travelling but it’s the name of the game and that’s something you will just have to deal with. Throughout this time, I’m glad I had a nice bed, internet, a computer and enough things to entertain me after all.

So why did I write this short piece? Because life on the road can sometimes seem very glamorous when you see those Instagram filtered Facebook pictures and only hear about all the good stuff that has happened. The younger generations (yes I’m still one of them) has started to use social media to brand themselves – it’s so much more than just sharing with your friends. It’s a whole online identity.

With this post I just seek to put a little perspective on it all. There are good times and bad times. Whether it’s sickness, depression, loneliness or something more tangible like being scammed one too many times or just hating whatever place you’re at.

Without the bad times, we can’t enjoy the good times.

HCM trail: Khe Sanh to Phong Nha on a motorbike

Introduction

I recently took the incredibly scenic route from Khe Sahn To Phong Nha along the west leg of the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Vietnam. It was done on an old $280 Yamaha Nuovo Automatic 113 CC motorbike. The 240km’s took about 7 hours in a relatively fast pace but I recommend that you do it in 9-10 (get up early to avoid driving in the dark) as you are going to want to stop and suck in the scenery or maybe just take a long lunchbreak – although doing it in 6 is doable should you want to rush it. We left at 10:15 and made it an hour before nightfall

Vietnam Coracle describes the route as:
“240km of winding road through incredible mountains, forests, and river valleys. There are no hotels, hardly any shops, and just one gas station on this entire stretch. There are very few settlements, vehicles or people. One local in Khe Sanh, bewildered at why anyone would want to go on such a road, described it as vắng người, meaning there’s ‘nobody there’.”

Update!!!: Thanks to Mark (youtube: kennedy9950) with updated information. There is expensive gas (from manual pumps) in Rinh Rinh and one hotel along the route in Duc Tuan, 132km from Khe Sahn

My crew

I rolled into Khe sanh around 4pm on a wednesday after leaving Hue the same morning. I’d been riding solo all morning and short of a dutch guy riding the other way I had not seen any foreigners. As usual it was a stunning route with kids waving and narrow bends.

I wanted to spend the night in Khe Sanh before heading into the 240km remote leg to phong nha. But where? I was looking for a group of people to join so as to not take the leg alone – what if I ran out of gas or had a flat in the middle of nowhere? so I checked the garage in all 4 hotels I could find in town to see if there were some long distance looking bikes anywhere but found none.

Even though I was slowly coming to terms with the idea that I would have to do it alone and that maybe this was allright – atleast I’d be able to stop when I wanted – I gave it one last shot and decided to grab a beer at the main road, helmet on, ready to go, just hoping someone would roll by. As luck would have have it, someone did roll by and chasing after them I ended up at my hotel for the night.

Heather was standing outside the hotel about to head out and I asked her about where she was going and what she was doing – to which she replied “beer by the river – want to come?”. I quickly checked in at the hotel and joined her. A group of 4 other Americans and a Vietnamese were sitting there with a hot pot and a crate of beer enjoying the Vietnamese riverside. Michael and Laura were on a 10-year anniversary trip, Bryan and Heather were both on long term solo travels and finally Jeff and Hao were just enjoying life together travelling around Vietnam for the time being. I had my crew.

phong nha motorbike
The crew enjoying a pizza in Phong Nha after a long day

The ride: Khe Sanh to Phong Nha

Due to some motorbike problems with Mike’s bike we didn’t head out until 10:15 that thursday morning. We stocked up on about 2 liters of gas each and food for the day, some banh mi and fruit. Since we didn’t count on passing any gas stations and our bikes were all thirsty automatics we needed alot of gas. If you are doing this on a semi or the infamous Honda Wins, then you can probably make the whole 240km without extra fuel – especially since you can get a little bit of expensive gas along the way in a small city called Rinh Rinh.

The ride was, well, spectacular. As soon as you get to the trail there is pretty much just one way to go and all you have to do is just follow the road and let the scenery wash over you. Through valleys, mountains and settlements along rivers and waterfalls. You’ll be riding down low looking up at majestic mountain sides and you’ll be riding up high above the clouds which mostly can be described as driving in heaven.

We rode all day through areas where you didn’t see a person for 30 minutes

motorbike-khesanh
Remember to take the time to stop and smell the roses or in this case – the jungle

Through tiny settlements

settlement-khe-sanh
A settlement along the way

We even briefly drove on some of the main roads of the area.

Phong Nha drive
Just imagine how it looks in real life,when it looks this good on a cellphone picture

Reaching our destination

With no extra fuel and two bikes running on fumes well below the red area on the fuel gauge we rolled into Pepperhouse Homestay and within 5 minutes we were all in the pool with a cold beer. If you have a chance, go to Pepperhouse and say hi to the hosts, Multi and Diên, from me.

pepperhouse-homestay-phong-nha
Pepperhouse Homestay

This concluded a long day of motorbiking but, man, was it worth it.

Naypyitaw – The official capital of Myanmar

  1. Applying for a Myanmar (Burma) visa in Bangkok
  2. One night in Bangkok
  3. Visiting Rural Thailand – enjoy the silence
  4. Sleeping in a monastery on a mountain top in Hpa-An, Myanmar
  5. Overview of tourist hotspots in Myanmar (Burma)
  6. Naypyitaw – The official capital of Myanmar
  7. Being sick on the road
  8. The End of an Era – I’ve Sold My Motorbike and Left Vietnam
  9. Cambodia – First Impressions
  10. Koh Ta Kiev – Where the boat leaves from
  11. The Future of Sihanoukville, Cambodia and the Surrounding Areas
  12. What Were We Thinking (and other ramblings)

Update from Tyra (26-03-2017): It was possible to rent a motorbike for 30.000 Kyats for a day at The golden Lake Hotel. When I was first here it was impossible for foreigners to rent a motorbike. The police didn’t mind foreigners driving around on the motorbike either.

Introduction and History

Naypyitaw is the official capital of Myanmar – I say official because up until 2006, Yangon (Rangoon) was the capital of Myanmar and de facto still is. In 2006 the capital was moved to a grassfield 1km west of Pyinmana. There are many speculations about why this happened but the official reason is that Yangon had become too crowded and lacked potential for growth. Another reason is that Yangon was too close to the water and was too hard to defend in case of a naval attack – a rather medieval reason if you ask me. Less official reasons speculate that it’s political (surprise).

In either case it is now a massive strictly coordinated area with designated places for everything. Hotel zones, residental zones, military zones, commercial zones and even an embassy zone. The embassy zone only has one embassy in it – the Bangladeshi. All of these zones are mostly empty and this makes for a spectacular ghost town. The hotels are huge and modern and the roads are intense.

Parliament road, for example, is a 10 laned road – in both directions – and with only a couple of cars on it, this 20-lane road is an astonishing display of how to waste money. I mean – alright, you can use it for parading around your military but that’s about it. It’s something I could see North Korea think of as a good idea.

myanmar-20-lane-road
Sitting in the middle of this mostly empty 20-lane road

What to do in Naypyitaw?

As this city is the capital they actually keep all the laws of the country and this means that foreigners can neither rent a motorbike or a car and when the roads and the city in general span over a large area with no public transportation there is only one option and that is taxi’ing it around. We were two and we paid about 55000 Kyats total for a full day (almost 12 hours) where he took us whereever we wanted. He was not a tour guide as such so we relied on the internet as a source for places to go.

Below follows a short list of what we did:

Parliament road

The behemoth of a road is a sight to behold. We asked the driver to stop so we could take some pictures and instead of pulling over to the side he just stopped in the middle of the road. Well alright then. Let’s take some pictures. The police was standing right there too and didn’t care at all that we were tossing around the road.

The highway

There is a highway going from Mandalay to Yangon going through Naypyitaw which is also scarcely used but we went there anyway and drove a couple of kilometres out and back. It’s just a highway and as such you can skip this step. Only difference is that no rules apply and we did see our driver make questionable manoeuvres like u-turns, crossings and opposite direction driving.

Lunch

We asked the driver for a place and he took us to a nearby mall. As we where coming directly from overpriced Bagan, everything seemed very cheap – priced as it should be considering the general poverty of the country. We had some good noodles and got a haircut while looking around the mall. The mall had originally produced western commodities like Nike shoes and iPhones but still we didn’t see any other white people – obviously this place mainly sees local businessmen from Yangon and in general the richer part of the country comes here.

Uppatasanti Pagoda

This pagoda is an exact copy of the Shwedagon Pagoda in Yangon except that it’s 30cm shorter so as to not outshine the original. At first this might seem like a waste of time then as you’ve most likely already seen the one in Yangon, however, this experience is significantly different. First of all, while the Pagoda in Yangon is completely swamped with people, this one is practically empty – we were the only westerners there at all. Secondly, you get to go inside! Inside it is beautiful and this alone is well worth the trip. When we were there, there were some sort of ceremony going on with around 50 locals praying – something you wouldn’t see in Yangon.

Also worth mentioning are the walls covering the inside of the Pagoda as they are covered with paintings, revealing Buddhas path to enlightenment.

The Pagoda seen from outside. Practically noone here
The Pagoda seen from outside. Practically noone here

Golf driving range

There are atleast 3 golf driving ranges which are publicly accessible and not very expensive. We spent an hour there, just shooting some golf balls. Good fun if you are into that kind of thing

The teak

The Teak, Restaurant and Spa is a high class Spa, Fitness and Restaurant. I was extremely impressed with the level of service that we got here – everything from the poolside restaurant to the full body massage. This place will make you very relaxed and spending the whole day here is not a problem.

Now, it is a little outside the normal backpackers everyday budget but if you feel like splurging for a day, this is absolutely worth the money! To put it in perspective, me and my travel companion at the time were both backpackers on a tight budget and this did not shatter our budget.

massage-naypyitaw
Inside one of the rooms where we got some very decent massage, to say the least

Water Fountain Park

Finally, the last thing we did before ending our day of sightseeing in Naypyitaw was to visit the Water Fountain Park. This cozy park is apparently where all the citizens go at night and is great for an evening stroll. The park has a quaint artificial waterfall that you can walk under as well as behind. There are lots of lights that turn on at night (ask the driver when exactly) and the whole park is definitely worth a visit.

We had a our driver walk around with us – and as the evening drew to an end we talked a bit with him and generally this was a great way to end a great day.

water-fountain-park-naypyitaw
The waterfall inside the Water Fountain Park

Conclusion

This place is geared towards domestic businessmen. There are upscale restaurants and business class hotels. You can’t rent anything as a foreigner and will have to rely on taxi’s to get around. Despite this, the place is great if you just want to have some surprisingly cheap luxury (cheaper than Bagan and Inle!) including big air-conditioned rooms and spas/massages.

Add to that, the train rides to and from Naypyitaw are taken by only locals and on top being ridiculously cheap (1,5eur for 10hour trip) there are only locals there and the train trips serve as noteworthy experiences all by themselves. We took train rides from Bagan to Naypyitaw and then from Naypyitaw to Bago.

train-myanmar
Just casually hanging out the door of a moving train. Taking a trip with these 100 year old trains is like stepping into a timemachine

It is also great if you just want to experience a truly unique place and I guarantee you, dear reader, that this place will leave you in awe.