MORE PICTURES HAVE BEEN POSTED TO FLICKR.COM. More to come soonish.

April 18. Ko Pha Ngan-> Singapore. Spent our last day on the second best island beach Haad Rin. Watched the sun set from the Amsterdam Bar. Returned the motor bike without a hitch. Said good bye to our new friends and hopped on the night boat.

April 12-17. Moved to a beach front bungalow. Frequented the little markets for meals. Bought a knife for easy mango and pineapple extraction. Eat wild mango's thanks to Ruth and Johnathan our Swiss friends. Practiced how to dance with fire. No fire yet. Checked out an island accessible from a sand bar. Had a jungle house BBQ. Got shaked down by the police. Had a great all you can eat Thai dinner.

April 11. Beach bum. Island bike cruise. Waterfall hike. Boon Bar.

April 10. Ko Pha Ngan. Got on a ferry to the island. Ran into an Alaskan guy I met in Siem Reap. Made friends with a Swiss couple. On arrival we rented a motor bike for the week. Almost a necessity on the island unless you want to pay for expensive taxis. Headed to Haad Rin home of the famous Full Moon Party. Which we missed by a few hours. found a place to stay and realized the extent of my sun burn from the ferry ride. Went to a bar with the Swiss couple. Hidden yet on the beach and BYOB! Caught word about the problem in Bangkok. Would have been fun to take pictures.

April 9. Bangkok -> Ko Pha Ngan. Left the cities for the beaches. A few hours into the trip one of the people who work for the bus got caught stealing money from a ladies bag. We remained calm knowing all our valuables were on our person. After arriving at the transfer point the thief took off running. When other people started to realize they too lost money the bus driver claimed that he didn't know the guy and wouldn't call the police. Apparently they were all in on it. Some bystanders went looking for the guy and found him hiding. They took him down and pinned him until the police showed up. In the end everyone got their money back. To much excitement after an all night bus ride.

Some from Myanmar posted more to come.

April 8. Awoke at 3:30 out of habit not necessity... Took a uneventful flight to Bangkok. Helped a Buddhist Nun smuggle extra carry on luggage. Share a taxi with her to the city and eat lunch at the monastery with her. Fun, life loving lady. Bought bus tickets to the full moon party on Koh Phangan. Also, we bought a plane tickets to Paris for May 31.

April 7. Back to Yangon for flight preparation and mental un-mindfulness. Have to admit I have a different mental state. Reconnected with Melodie whom I talked to little for the last 10 days.

Still no working Internet connections in Yangon.

March 28 - April 6. Vipassana Meditation.

The typical day of Chanmyay meditation:
3:30am - wash up with mindfulness
4:00 - start with walking meditation then sitting and more walking
5:30 - Breakfast. Eat slowly with mindfulness. I eat alone and have more food then the local lay mediators.
6:30 - Clean room with mindfulness. I also room alone, locals stay 6 per place.
8:00 - Walking, sitting and standing meditations. Breathing (rising, falling).
9:30 - Interview with mentor monk. Talk about experience and improvements.
10:30 - Lunch/Dinner. Eat with mindfulness. Good food.
11:30 - Laying meditation. Sometimes I fell asleep but your not supposed to.
12:30 - Walking, sitting, walking, sitting, walking. Working on sitting for longer and longer time with better concentration.
6:00 - Lessons. Taped lectures from the 90's.
9:00 - Laying meditation or sleep.


Final impressions: I'd recommend to anyone interested in meditation to give it a try. Push your self. Patience, persistence and practice. I'd liken it to running long distance. In 10 days I got the idea but have the understanding that much more time is needed to reach deep concentration. When I do another retreat I'll be more mentally prepared.

March 27. Yangon. Little sleep for the second night in so many days. Headed to the Abbot of Chanmyay Yeiktha in Hmawbi. On the way I had another impulse buy. Picked up a bright red Denver Nuggets sweat band. Righteous. Took local buses for 3 hours to get to the meditation center. Much longer than expected. Met with the "Vice President monk" who gave us approval to start the next day. We headed back to the guest house on another 3 hour adventure.

Made an effect to use the Internet and found that it had been down for several days. The story goes that an under water cable broke so the whole country has slow or no Internet.

March 26 - Mandalay. Arrived in the am at the train station in Mandalay. It was a sleepless night of rocking back and forth. Myanmar has the same track system that the British installed during the colonial days. Nothing has been done to improve it, only maintaining.

From the station we bought bus tickets to Yangon so we wouldn't have to waste a night in Mandalay. We walked from there to a market in search of conservative traditional dress to wear for meditation. I found a plaid longyi (sarong/man skirt). And vintage ugly 70's button down shirt. Also had an impulse buy. I'm the proud owner of a woven ball now. Used similar to a hacky sack.

All night bus ride to Yangon. Loud music and rough roads.

March 25 - Katha -> Mandalay - Left early for bus station to get a ticket to Nobia. From Nobia a night train to Mandalay.

Waiting for the bus departure time we walked back to our friends the old tire shoe makers. Since the Burmese don't have size 12 feet I couldn't get a pair of the sandals that fascinate me so much. In hopes of getting a custom made pair talked to some bored looking craftsmen. Once they understood what I was wanting they jumped at the challenge. Soon I had two guys working on tracing my sandals and crafting the parts. The rest of the street soon arrived with chairs and offers of food. Pretty soon I was entertaining the local kids with a slide show from the screen on back of my camera. Melodie made friends with a young girl who gave her a pin and wanted their picture taken together. It also turned out to be an opportunity to photograph the shoe making process. It took about 30 minutes to make the shoes and they only wanted $1.50 USD. 1500 kyat. I paid $3 and felt cheap for not giving them more. However, the man was shocked that i gave them more then they asked and insisted we take some snack es with us.

Found out why it is recommended to take the train over the bus. The roads are worse then any I've seen. Chunks of pavement only create obstacles on what is effectively a dirt road. Bridges flex with the weight of the bus, creaking and moaning.

Once at the train station we ran into trouble. The station manager would only except dollars. The ride cost $14 total and all our singles didn't meet the crisp bill standerds. All our fives didn't meet his standard either. No change is available in dollars or in Kayt. Over paying ended up being the only option and both of us had reach our limit of patience with the manager. The other troubling reality was that the money goes directly to the government. Going back to Katha to get a bus would have ended up costing more then $20 and take a longer time. NOTE TO SELF: bring crisp change with you next time!

After the train headache we found a beer at sat down to mellow out. Before we could finish our cold drinks a google of kids gather to stare at us. When they would give up we gave in. Melodie started making them games out of paper and drawing. I started folding the scrapes into paper air planes. We spoke broken English with them and cause a few jealous fights over paper toy greed. As usual they enjoyed flipping through the pictures of our Lonely Planet paper weight/door stop.

Also have to give a shout out to the local guitar players. One heck of a jam!

Decided I'm going to miss Katha and really wish I had more days here. I feel like I just started to connect with the people. So little time before our visas run out and 10 days minimum for meditation still fast approaching.

March 24 - Katha - Rented Bicycles for the day in hopes of getting into the country side. We figure the town is small enough to see in its entirety in one day. The bikes are typical of Asia. Falling apart and single gear. As soon as town disappear the mountains came into view through the farm smoke. In no way would we make it with our bikes up the hills. We turned back and stopped at a local sandal makers shop. Several families on one street have set up a cottage industry taking old truck tires and cutting them up into sandals. Only 25 cents for a pair!

Noticed all the horse drawn carriages still in use. Got invited to a Buddhist temple for a ceremony. Met up with the guy who rented us bikes. He seemed friendly enough. Got to talking and sound out he is retired military. Said he was a "judge, jury and lawyer". Only foreigners in town at the time. Everyone seems to know we are around.

March 23 - Ayeyarwady River -> Katha - Should arrive today. When we bought tickets they said 24 hours on the boat one night. Now we are do to arrive tonight just before dusk. Melodie played with the kids on the boat. It seems people are starting to warm up to us. Still they stare. Even if you stare back. Boat broke down one town from Katha. Took a few hours to worked out the problem. Happily on land we looked for a guest house and realised the local police have rigged the pricing for foreigners at 10$ a night. We checked in at the best looking one and explored the small town. Chinese and Nepalese influenced.

March 22. Ayeyarwady River - Around noon another passenger ferry was able to pull us out of the sand bar. Passed the hours reading and practicing basic French words. Getting the feeling we came unprepared. Had to eat the food served on the boat. Got to see it an hour later in much the same state. No more boat food for me. Melodie has an iron stomach and came out fine. The boat almost got stuck again just after dark. And... Another long night of bugs.

Talked a little with the guy next to us. Proud to be in the military. He also felt he should have far more space then the two of us. So our three spaces turned into two.

March 21 - Mandalay -> Ayeyarwady river - Ferry left at 5:30am Katha bound. Melodie and I are the only foreigners on board. Our "seats" are three numbered rectangles painted on the deck. About shoulder width and 6 feet. Totally unprepared for the journey ahead we pushed off into the shallow waters headed up river. The ferry is full of goods and people. The bottom deck is goods, bathrooms and cooking staff. The bathrooms got foul in a matter of minutes after departure. The second decks were cabins and our sleeping/siting space. Then the top deck.

It felt like everyone on the boat was watching us. Really they stared at us. No one talked to us at first and it was a bit uncomfortable.

Just after dark the bugs started to swarm the florescent lights. Millions and millions of them. Not to mention the mosquitoes. Attempting to gain protection until past sunrise.

March 20 - Mandalay - Got up early to rent bikes and explore the city and around. Immediately got sick after renting bikes and spent a few hours cleaning out my system. If I recall this is the 5th time. Gave me time to make French lesson flash cards out of business cards purchased at the market. After enough Imodium A-D to plug up a horse we left on our bikes. First we headed to the ferry station and bought slow boat tickets to Katha. Then took the highway headed for the longest and oldest teak bridge in the world. After going to far we found the bridge just in time for the nice light of the impending evening. The 18th century bridge is a little scary to walk on. It collapsed this time last year and one can see why. Really worth the bike ride and in my opinion the best attraction in Mandalay. After riding home in the dark we got some tasty chapati.

March 19 - Mandalay - Shared a taxi with some Norwegians "Vikings" from the bus ride. Found a hotel with a included roof top breakfast and indulged. Walked to the river to find the ferry station with no luck. Had a nice walk and enjoyed the river side and shipping industrial area. Took some tea and dinner at one of the many infamous tea shops. Back when the Burmese tried to push the dictatorship out in favor of a democracy tea shops were a gathering place for democratic political minds. Walked a poorly light night market.

Same as Yangon power goes on and off every couple hours. Traffic is just as heavy. Tourists are almost non existent.

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March 18 - Yangon -> Mandalay - Spent the morning exploring and getting packed for a 4pm bus to Mandalay. Realised at 3:30 that we had gained a half hour of time from Bangkok. Funny to not have noticed until today. Probably best to be waking up earlier anyways.

March 17 - Visited the Shwedagon Pagoda. The Pagoda looks much more impressive from far away. Four massive escalators and elevators take you to the top. Waiting at the entrance was a "Monk" demanding a donation of 2000 kyat(2$). I use quotes because a real practicing Buddhist monk would never demand money. Lots of robed young punks in Yangon. I get the feeling some monasteries are run like troubled youth centers. Images of monks listening to Ipods, eating after noon, smoking and chewing tobacco would be a good project. All activities that are theoretically not for monks.

Had a tasty lunch with some very generous locals before attempting to navigate the local bus system. System probably is the wrong word. We navigated the local bus situation. Our lunch hosts drew and wrote out detailed bus directions. They even ran after us to correct them.

There are three types of buses. The long distance travel type that run mostly over night for foreigners.

Local buses that run loosely defined routes, typically N<->S, E<->W and are numbered. They have the standard crazy driver with a traffic spotter/fare collector.

Last are the pickup trucks that go by many names. You sit in the back with what looks like large propane tanks. There is no logic to where they go. Other than where the driver or spotter thinks they can find customers. However they get there fast and recklessly.

Proving no disillusionment towards Burmese monks we headed to a Vipassana meditation center in the after noon. Our hope was to set up 10 days of meditation towards the end of the 28 day visa. At the Yangon center we spoke to Sujunta who in good English entertained us for at least an hour. He was very welcoming and excited about teaching the ways of Buddhism to lay people. Unfortunately the up coming Water Festival was going to restrict any foreigner instruction due to preparations. Instead we got information about the Hmawbi center that is 30 miles away. More shaded and less noisy. After parting ways with Sujunta we trekked the buses back to the Mother Land Inn 2.