Kyaikityo Pagoda

Today I woke up fresh and feeling relatively normal.... LOL I had forgotten how hard the beds are in Asia, it's like sleeping on a bloody blank of wood, however even that didn't put a damper on last nights sleep as I passed out as soon as I hit my pillow.

Today the weather is, drum roll please - HOT. Just for something different. We left Yangon early this morning and headed for Bago then onto Kyaikityo.

We visited an amazing Monastery in Bago that houses over 500 monks. Our wonderful guide timed our arrival so we could watch the procession of monks heading for lunch, which for them is 11am. I have never seen so many monks in one place..... More came, then more, then more, it was astounding.

After leaving the Monastery we continued to travel onto the Golden Rock Pagoda. Like most religious sites I have ever visited they usually sit atop mountains and include millions of stairs. From what I understood of this particular site there was a road which took you most of the way. However it was never mentioned that you needed to travel that stretch in a truck, in the heat, with 60 other pilgrims. Imagine our surprise!

It was hilarious. We were whisked out from our mini van, climbed some rickety stairs to reach the back of the truck and squished onto a seat that wasn't built for fat white people. Everyone was yelling in Burmese and we just sat there looking completely perplexed wondering what would happen first. It was a debate on whether we would die of heat stroke or our legs, which were going numb, may fall off due to lack of circulation. Eventually we realised that they were yelling at us as it was a requirement that there was six people on each row of seating. As if. Clearly we are slightly different from most locals given that they weigh around 2kgs each, are about 10cm wide and 5" tall. Yelling continued and we agreed to pay for the extra seats. Eventually our truck started, then stopped, then started again. It was at this point we learnt that it would only take approximately 1 hour to reach the top.

Us packed into the truck trying to depart.

At least the fare of $2.50 included life insurance, ha ha ha 

On our way, finally........

Going up!

Arrived - yay for us....

Dinner maybe?

A young child being carried up the mountain.

The Golden Rock - Legend states that this precarious position of the boulder is held though centuries by virtue of the power of the Hair relic of Gautama Buddha enshrined in the pagoda.

The boys were able to walk out to the rock and touch it, us lesser of the species had to watch and wave.

Latest Burmese fashion trend.

Sherpa Burmese style. We left all our bags down the bottom and just carried a small pack back with us.

Very hi-tech viewing apparatus.

View of the Golden Rock at night.

Myanmar

One tends to forget when they are over 40 that flying to another country, walking around in the heat for 17 hours, having 4 hours sleep then flying to another country makes one a wee bit tired! We arrived in Yangon at 8.30am this morning and hit the ground running again.

Thankfully the person I booked all our accommodation and guides through was waiting for us at the airport, phew.... The sign even read 'Heidi Maree Clark', just in case there was another strange white person that had a similar name. In fact there was only 1 other 'white' foreigner on our flight. The strangest thing happened before we left KL. A young girl approached us and advised us that they probably wouldn't allow us to enter Myanmar as they are not letting foreign tourists in today? We however must have been the exception........ hmmmmmmm We also meet up with another couple of friends who flew in yesterday from Melbourne, Damien and Lucy. They have now joined our merry gang.

I haven't a clue what we looked at today. There were lots of bright shiny things, colourful food and the craziness of an Asian city. Hopefully after a good nights sleep I will be coherent tomorrow. I did manage to stand on my sunglasses, bummer, however the lovely door men at our very strange hotel found some glue and did a pretty descent repair job for me - yay.

 

Malaysia, truly Asia

Hello Kuala Lumpur

Okey Dokey family and friends are you ready for the latest instalment of the ‘Clarks Crazy Adventures’? I wasn’t going to do a blog for this trip, however I have succumbed to peer pressure and will endeavour to keep you all abreast of our latest fauxpas while travelling through another part of South East Asia. Also I can’t figure out how to change the heading of the tab on my blog – so it’s “where next” LOL.

We flew to Kuala Lumpur on Tuesday……. Although it’s only a 9 hour flight it seems like 29 hours. I’m sure the Wright brothers back in 1903 never pictured myself sitting at 30 thousand feet eating Pringles from a tiny can like some demented forest animal while reading the in-flight magazine. Oh, I forgot to mention for those of you have haven’t had the pleasure of reading my ramblings before - I can’t spell, I’m politically incorrect and I love swear words, although Ian constantly keeps asking me to refrain from bad language, so I am trying. We ditched the kids this time and instead dragged an old friend along, Steve. He has been slightly hesitant about almost everything I’ve mentioned, but really what could go wrong………… J

I have flown through KL six times so on this journey we decided to venture out of the airport and explore the local surrounds. We only had one day to explore so I kinda went overboard trying to incorporate everything we wanted to see and do. This resulted in us leaving the hotel at 7am and not returning to 11.40pm, opps… 17 hour days aren’t that hard unless it’s a ga-zillion degrees with 94% humidity!

Our first stop was Batu Caves. A Hindu shrine located up a million stairs in a big arse cave.  From there we navigated the streets of down town KL. Museums and gallery’s bore me, however the KL City Gallery was a highlight due to the wonderful air conditioning, comfy seats and very cold drinks. In fact when a lovely Malaysian girl bought over our drinks which included a huge glass of ice and an icy cold can of Dt Coke I could have kissed her.

 Notice all the stairs in the back ground.... Why are all religious sites 'up-hill'?

    Good to know - there is no exercising whilst ascending these stairs...... ha ha ha 

From there we continued on our journey exploring the surface of the sun, sorry, I meant KL. We eventually arrived at the Petronas Twin Towers where we caught the lift to the 86^th floor. From the viewing platform 360 degree views of KL and the surrounding country can be seen. Except when a big Asian thunder storm arrives right on Q and millions of litres of water suddenly pour from the heavens. Luckily the posters adorning the walls showed us what the view normally looks like! Much to the amusement of Ian and Steve I became some-what of a celebrity while at the towers as a group of Indian men all wanted their photo taken with me. At first I thought they were asking me to take a photo of them until one of them put his arms around my waist and politely asked me to smile! One by one they lined up and asked for various poses…. So if you have any Indian friends look out for my amazingly stylish photos on social media, I’ll be the one that looks like a blond amazon woman!

Mederka Square

 

 Central Market

Petaling Street

Petronas Twin Towers

View on a sunny afternoon......

Our view.....

 Although the weather did start to clear as we were leaving......

After leaving the Petronas Towers we meet up with a local lady called Farah. She guided us through the streets of KL for the next 4 hours where we were able to try a myriad of local street food……

    OMG - this thing was amazing. Roti covered with butter, condensed milk, sugar and salt!