Backpacks in Southern Vietnam
Cai Rong floating market at sunrise.
Traveling from Cambodia to Vietnam by bus is like going from Three Oaks, Michigan directly to Times Square without everything between. The minibus is packed with a mix of foreigners with their legs crammed against the seats in front of them and locals. We pick up and drop off several people along the way as the bus swims through a sea of motorbikes like a shark through a school of minnows, honking the whole way.
Bustle and Dirt and Devout Buddhists by Way of a Bumpy Train Ride
We waltzed right into this empty monastery full of golden Buddha statues.
My hotel in Mawlamyine arranges for my overnight bus to Yangon (Rangoon). It’s as easy as a phone call and a motorbike ride to the bus station: which is really just a dirt lot with some buses parked in front of a shop. While I wait I’m asked for my ticket several times and am eventually led to a seat in the front of a full bus. It is new, and a screen in the front is showing music videos. I situate myself with my neck pillow and blanket. Even though the bus is nice and the price seems fairly reasonable considering, I will eventually learn in Myanmar that foreigners get charged significantly more. Like hotels, the government requires companies catering to tourists to have a permit, and to charge them more than locals.
Friends on a Friendship Bridge Roadtripping To a Place Called Mawlamyine
A pagoda in the hills overlooking Mawlamyine and the Thanwlin River.
The driver is pussyfooting over the bumps in the road, I’ve just found a way to sit so my foot doesn’t go numb, and there is a guy seated in the middle of the two of us contorted in some way that I’m not able to comprehend. I’m trying to cut the guy some slack, crawling down this shitty road, the car packed full of things probably coming from the Thai border, and no lights except from cars. I’ve been traveling all day, and I’m ready to be at my hotel in Mawlamyine (colonial spelling: Moulmein).
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Mud, Tea, and Selfies
Almost to the top of Gunang (Mount) Brinchang. This is the best view I got. It’s not so bad.
The temperature in KL is already miserable by the time we leave at 8 in the morning. As we ascend through the lush hills, the outside temperature starts to resemble the air-conditioned tundra that is common in these types of buses. The mountains are covered in greenery and fog. When we step off the bus in Tanah Rata, it is refreshingly un-miserable.
Highways, Monkeys, Beer Towers
Jalan Alor, an entire street of food stalls. At times, it feels like Mulberry Street in New York City. Hosts wielding menus try to draw you into their restaurant, which looks identical to the three next to it.
Just as I’m finishing up my meal on Jalan Alor, a street lined with restaurants – tables and chairs set up in the street – I feel a few drops, and then I see umbrellas being set up around the tables. I finish my beer, pay, and start walking. Within five minutes, it’s pouring. It’s that kind of downpour that you knew would come, that you even hoped would come, when it’s still hot and humid when the sun goes down.
