We have just spent the last week in a civilised heaven...Bangkok. It's amazing how much your opinions and perceptions change after 7 months of travelling; what we may have previously deemed to be a hot, polluted, noisy, crowded city has become a blissful escape filled with all the trappings of a western life. We have, quite unashamedly, spent most of our time here in some of the many vast, multi-level shopping malls which we revere for their super clean environment, variety of (cheap) restaurants, choice and availability of goods and provision of incredibly fast internet cafes. Because we had previously visited Bangkok in 2004 and seen many of it's sights, our stay this time was dedicated to 'R&R' (rest and relaxation), for a whole week we have not been tourists, but visitors on a city shopping break....shoppers, that is, on a severely limited budget and very little room in our bags for anything extra...still it was nice to window shop!
The contrast to our 'usual' shopping experience in India has been immense. We have been able to restock our toiletries, medical kit and other necessities with ease; instead of enduring the usual process of entering a small wooden shack or garage-like structure, questioning the owner in very broken english as to what merchandise he has, brushing dust and ants off products to try to determine just how far past the sell-by date they might be, then haggling with the shopkeeper in an attempt to reduce the x4 markup he has placed on everything.
Bangkok has also provided another luxury...cinema!!! There are usually 3 or 4 english-speaking films on each week, which are shown in comfortable modern movie theatres. The tickets are as much as a tenth of the price of watching a movie in London and the seats are more comfortable than most of the beds we have slept in on our whole trip. The Thai national anthem is played before the start of each movie and everyone in the theatre patriotically stands for the duration of the tune. The first time it was played we were very confused as to why everyone suddenly stood up for what appeared to be another advert, but after 4 trips to the movies we know exactly when to stand and happily hum along with the anthem as pictures of Thailand and the King scroll down the screen.
Our time in Bangkok hasn't been completely devoted to leisure and 'luxury', we also applied for our Myanmar (Burma) and Laos visas. The Mayanmar visa involved a very boring 6 hour wait, most of this was spent in a semi air-conditioned room sitting in bright orange plastic chairs watching latecomers pleading in vain to be allocated a queue ticket number and being told to come back the next day. Our Laos visa was one of the easiest we have ever had to get - a mere 1 hour wait with the visa being issued within 15 minutes of application....after such an impressive service it's such a shame they spelt Nikki's name wrong and we had to hang around to discuss the implications with the visa officer...fingers crossed it will still work as promised. We also spent a day running around the city visiting Thai and United Airlines sorting out our RTW tickets that will eventually take us back to Eric's home in LA in late June.
Tomorrow we will be flying into Myanmar, where we hope to spend the next month exploring the countryside and temples, and experiencing the Burmese way of life. Unfortunately Myanmar is ruled by an oppressive totaliterian military regieme which continues to be criticised for its treatment of its citizens and repeated infringements and denials of basic human rights. One implication of this for us is that internet access is severely restricted and rumoured to cost over USD1 for 10 minutes of extremely slow connection. It is highly unlikely that we will be able to access our email or update this blog. Obviously this is a minor inconvenience compared to the repression suffered by the Myanmar people. During our stay we will endevour to only use the services offered by private individuals and not those run by government agencies. We hope that our tourism will support the local people and not the "abominable military junta".
We will be flying into Rangoon (Yangon), the capital of Mynamar; from there we will spend 4 weeks circling north to Mandalay and back down again.