Andrea Hearts Traveling

Richard and I left Tehran early in the morning and took a bus to Kashan where we wanted to spend the night but then our host from couch surfing couldn’t host us anymore so we ended up just passing through.

As we arrived in Kashan our bus driver dropped us off at a spot where they were a lot of taxi drivers waiting for tourists. On my way I had done some research and I knew some places we wanted to visit and how much it would cost to get there. The first ten minutes of our arrival was pretty much dealing with taxi drivers to get a good deal to take us to a village called Abyaneh. I had read that from kashan you can get a shared taxi round trip for $10 each so we negotiated a taxi driver for $25 for both of us and to drop us off in Natanz where we could get a public bus to Isfahan.

Iran… one of the countries that everybody think is dangerous and not safe to travel to and even less so on your own… being a female!!!!!!

I knew that Iran being a muslim country had many rules such as covering your head all the time (using a hijab) but even with all the rules, that to me seem a little crazy, I was beyond excited for this unexpected trip to a country I thought I would never visit. After 8 hours or so on the airplane we got ready for landing and the voice on the speaker told us that all women had to cover their head... so Iran here I come! As we got off the plane officials were waiting by the door making sure that all women were covered and they actually stopped those that were not wearing a hijab properly.

So here I am back in Kuala Lumpur!

KL has been my home base for the last 3 months since roundtrip Air Asia flights are cheaper from here.

I can’t believe it’s already been 6 months; I have been having so much fun that I highly doubt that I’ll be on the road for only a year! So many places to see and so many experiences to have!

In the last 3 months I have been to Hong Kong, the Philippines, Singapore, Malaysia, Sri Lanka and Myanmar! I can hardly believe that I have visited 51 countries around the world! (It has taken me 32 years though!)

I had been wanting to go to the Golden Rock but it sounded complicated and it was a little out of the way coming from Inle. While I was in Hpa-An my friend Mel said she stayed in one of the hotels on the top and saw sunset and sunrise. Claire also wanted to go so I asked her if she would be willing to share an expensive room with me at the top and she agreed. The hotels were about $100 per room per night which is WWAAAAAYYYY too expensive for anybody on a backpacker budget.

After a 14 1/2 hour bus ride I finally arrived in Hpa-an (pronounced Pa-an) I get seriously car sick so I am blessed with my body Shutting down on busses so I slept like a baby for 14 hours!

I stayed at Soe Brothers and it seemed like all the tourists stayed there so it was really easy to meet people and book their tours.

After 5 hours of walking down the hill we finally arrived in Inle lake and enjoyed a nice lunch and said goodbye to Pyu, who put us on a boat to Nyang Shwe, the main touristy town in Inle lake.

The only reason people go to Kalaw is to do a 2 or 3 day hike all the way to Inle lake and although I am not a big fan of hikes people had recommended it so I decided to do it.

In order to get to Kalaw we had to take a bus from Mandalay. I first asked the hotel for bus tickets and they said it was a 9 hour ride so we picked a night bus. Later on Zarina told us that the van takes only 5 hours and after inquiring at the hotel it turned out the lady at the front desk knew nothing and in fact the bus was a 5 hour ride, meaning that instead of arriving really early in the morning we would get to Kalaw at 2am. So annoying!

I slept the whole way and once we got to Kalaw at 2am we got out of the bus and it was freezing! Kam and I started walking towards the hotel we booked for the night only to arrive and be told we had no reservation! I was fuming! I had talked to the guy, agreed on a price, and he knew we would be there for only 6 hours and now we had no place to sleep. I kept on insisting and finally the guy handed us a key for a triple room.

Our friend Joke had arrived the day before to Kalaw and she had set up the hike with one of the hiking companies in town. At 9am we were at the meeting point and joined Joke, Zarina, Jayden and the other 6 strangers in our group.

Myanmar had been such an expensive country that the 39,000 kyats charged for the hike (all inclusive) for three days felt as if we were saving money… A lot of money!

We had booked a bus from Bagan to Mandalay from Ostello Bello and they promised a pick up at 9pm but by 9:30pm no one had come for us. Long story short they forgot about us and Ostello Bello paid a taxi to take us to the bus stop. The taxi driver thought he was very funny and started teasing us and saying that the bus had left already; thankfully when we arrived it was there waiting for us.

I don’t know if I have mentioned it before but busses in Myanmar are the best! The VIP busses come with a blanket, a toothbrush, toothpaste, water, soft drink/energy drink, and snacks! They are also very spacious and they recline like I’ve never seen before!

After a couple of hours in the bus we arrived in Mandalay at 2-3am and we had to deal with taxi drivers. Luckily, 4 other tourists were dropped off there too and we were able to negotiate a fair price and split the cab with 2 other people.

Oh Bagan!

I can say that Bagan has been one of the highlights of my trip!

The place is not only beautiful but there is something magical (and fun) about riding e-bikes (or e-bikeys as the kids outside the hostels call them) on dirt roads and see temples come out left and right.

No pictures or words can describe the beauty of Bagan!

After the first sunrise Kam and I decided to go back for some breakfast and then start exploring Bagan.

Just like I did 3 sunrises I did 3 sunsets!

The first day Kam and I decided to go on the free sunset from my hostel, Ostello Bello.

It was at least 15 e-bikes following one guide, at one point a cow crossed the road and we (me and some others) had to wait while the guide and 12 bikes kept on going. Kam turned right thinking that that's where people went but I saw them go straight and had to wait for her to turn around and come back to the main road. By then my e-bike was acting up the battery indicator kept going up and down and the bike wouldn't go fast. Needless to say we lost the group and were on our own. Being lost didn't mean we gave up, I quickly looked at my map and we drove to a spot. Unfortunately, because of earthquakes that one temple was closed and we couldn't go up so we walked around really fast, and got back on our e-bikes and went to look for another temple to climb and enjoy the sunset.

Bagan... the place that absolutely everybody visits when coming to Myanmar!

I arrived in Bagan at 5am from Yangon and half asleep got off the night bus. It was pitched dark and I knew I had to get a taxi to the hotel and I also knew it would be a struggle to get one at a fair price given it was 5am.

I grabbed my backpack and stopped to look at what was going on, people were already pulled aside by taxi drivers and deals were in the making. I went straight to a girl who was alone and already talking to a cab driver and asked to share, then I saw a couple from my bus and asked to joined us and work together on getting a taxi. The funny thing about the taxi struggle is that there was a banner that read TAXI 7,000kyats but guess what?!?! These cheeky drivers started telling us that it was 7,000 kyats per person... are you kidding me?!? For a 10km ride? It was crazy to pay $5.20 PER PERSON, a total of $21 for a less than 10 minute drive in Myanmar!!

Welcome to Yangon!!!!!!

(I'm singing it to the tune of "Welcome to New York" by Taylor Swift)

It's been five months since I started my trip and in a way I didn't really think much about what was going to happen after Sri Lanka since all my excitement focused on that one country.

Now SL is part of the past and although I loved it, the last couple of days there stressed me out and once I was dropped off at the airport I was glad to be leaving.

After SL I spent two days back in KL doing absolutely nothing (other than laundry and repairing my cracked iPhone screen) and then took a plane to Yangon, Myanmar (previously Burma.)

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