Finally I’m back online!

I was off the grid for days, due to a combination of things! Wi-fi out here in Myanmar is either non-existent, or exists but doesn’t work very well. The dated telephonic infrastructure of the country is clearly bursting trying to cope with the sudden influx of tourists and high-end dual-sim Chinese smartphones… which are actually awesome.

The biggest delay has come from me losing my laptop charger, and therefore carrying around a brick for the past week. So, now I’ll explain what I’ve been up to and try to catch up, backdating posts so they make sense.

On Tuesday I took an early bus from Bago to Taungoo, taking 5 hours to get there via the old state highway. It’s bustling with traffic from busses to freight lorries to mopeds with goats on the back, yet wouldn’t really earn more than “single-track road” status in Europe. Illustration:

I was dumped in the city of “Taungoo” in the afternoon, hopped onto the back of a suicide  and promptly booked my onward travel to Kalaw, anxious to get trekking the next day. I had a few hours to kill so I took a wander into town (goo).

I found the pagoda interesting; run down but clearly in the process of renovation. It’s very similar to other major city pagodas.

I was directed towards a palace garden by a helpful caretaker – he said “very good very good” a lot of times. So, I had high expectations, which weren’t entirely met… I’d probably give it no more than one “very good”.

I didn’t have long before my bus, but I did still figure I had time for a game of football with the local kids!

Food in Taungoo was a quick and practical affair, at a Chinese-style restaurant which treated my like royalty. I practically had my own room (outside, under a beautiful palm pergola) and was fed a huge quantity of questionable, cold food. As I ate, I was thinking “this will definitely make me feel ill”. Tune in to tomorrow’s post to see how THAT went down. Disclaimer – it’s not pretty.

Overall Taungoo was strange, I seemed to attract a lot of attention and didn’t see any other tourists during my time there. It even went so far that the staff in the shop I went to buy phone credit from thought I was selfie-worthy:

Whilst that may be refreshing in some places, actually it just made me feel like I was standing around in the wrong place.

After watching Myanmar beat Singapore 5-1 at the bus stop TV I jumped onto the night bus and headed on further North to the mountain town of Kalaw.