I feel kinda bad ... so much to know about where I'm going, not enough time.

I found a couple of useful links ... I think the movie "The Lady" is no longer in the theaters here, and I missed it. God Bless You Tube ..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CadFjrxnwTc

Another is about the elections that the NLD didn't participate in, during 2010, since the military junta basically created a pre-determined result.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W0VlzHiYHis&feature=related

I'll try and watch/find some other good stuff, now that my final marks are pretty much done.

:o)

And then there's the people ... I found a great travel blog site for Myanmar. This photographer really knows what he is doing  and has been around the block more than a few times.... so here is his link, and I'll save my breath.

http://phototravelasia.blogspot.ca/2012/01/myanmarminimalist-part-3.html

Not too long ago, WAY back when I was using Firefox as a web browser, I had a very stupid problem ... each time I would go to Google Images, my computer would immediately crash. Over, and over, and over again for months on end.  It was very frustrating, since if I would go to BING images, it seemed like the images would never be as good, or relevent if I typed in a certain person, place or thing.

Luckily, moving to Google Chrome has made things normal again, so it's really cool to be able to type up where I'll be eventually going, and get quietly excited. The trick is I don't get excited very easily anymore. Maybe I'm old ... maybe I'm old and spoiled, but then again, sometimes you make your own luck if you save enough dough to wander around this strange sphere of ours. The point is, looking at images of Myanmar is really getting me excited. It just seems like a different place, a different world, full of exotic, isolated temples alongside hills and plains, with landscapes that look so far removed from the rest of the world. As my dear friend Neil Finn would say, a Private Universe unto itself. Perhaps some pictures of the temples of Bagan will explain how other-worldly this place will be. Knowing my luck, it will rain or be so cloudy, the sunrise and sunsets will be forgettable.  Or maybe not .... I understand the hot air-ballooning over the area of Bagan is to die for ... for a price. Maybe these pictures will help me save a large sum of money, as I pretend I went up in the sky for a few hundred dollars ....

These colours just don't look real ... instead it looks like an exotic dream, some mythical place only your imagination could conjure up.  I hope when I get there, these pictures won't get me all disappointed and feeling all let down. Kinda like postcard pictures ..... or ads for Big Macs, if you know what I mean.  :o) 

I found a photographer's web galleries of ordinary people while she traveled around Myanmar. Simply put, they are amazing. I will post them here, as the pictures say it all by Christina Feldt:

(slightly jealous, but then again I guess I'll have a few of my own if all goes right)...

http://www.christinafeldt.com/galleries/?album=1&gallery=43

From the last two trips in 2008 and 2010 ... looking back and looking forward to what's ahead. One thing is for certain ... it will be hot and thai-ering.

Bangkok ... when there's no civil unrest, red shirts or violence, it's actually kinda fun. But only in small doses of two or three days maximum. When there's 8 million people, or 14 million in the greater urban sprawl ... it's nice to get out and unwind. Erewan Falls just west is a good example. A free water massage on the shoulders is a very welcome escape from insanity ... cool water in the heat and humidity reminds you there is indeed a heaven on earth, and certainly no funny business.

So every year, around oh .... October or maybe Christmas, the inevitable question comes up. Where are you going to go next?  Urrghhhh !!  This stupid merry-go-round yet again .... the standard answer starts with "I don't know, thinking of a few places, but I don't know yet", over and over and over. But the question is always sincere and I try to say something useful.  Not completely sure how this year's options came to be. Suddenly, my brain told me that this year's options were narrowed down to Europe and Uganda (to go see the mountain gorillas, in Uganda, not in the Alps :o)) or back to Asia to check out the now "hip" (do people still say "hip"???) and reemerging Myanmar. "See it before it all changes !!!"  is the mantra ... so the follower in me obeys. If  Aung San Suu Kyi says it's ok now, I suppose that's good enough for me?!  I remember Bryan Adams in 1992-93 touring around and playing gigs in SE Asia, and marveling over Vietnam and the surrounding countries. He commented on how wonderful it was to see places where there were no Coca-Cola signs, nor McDonalds or KFC.  He was in a different world ... and was savouring the difference. 23 years later, Myanmar might be the last of the last. Antarctica doesn't count :o)

So, without really realizing it, the rest of the body agrees with my brain... I guess we are off to the heat and the humidity of Asia once again ... brillant! Whose idea was this again??

Off to Hong Kong on July 2nd, a few hours in the airport before flying further down to Bangkok, and I'll hang around and be thai-erd for almost a week before hopping over to Yangon (Rangoon in the old days). Once I get to Bangkok, I'll be there for a day max, and get out of the big mess. Where exactly ?? ... I have a few options. I'll wait to see what the weather is like ... Ko Chang in the Gulf of Thailand ? Koh Tao or Koh Pha  Ngan further south? So many places ... so little time.

Truth be told, I'd rather be in Myanmar longer, but the beachy/resort areas are rumoured to be all closed in July and August (that monsoon thing), so I'll have to fight it out in the Land Of Smiles. But I'll be ok, trust me. Mango shakes, tuk-tuks at every turn, the air conditioned 7-11's in every main part of any town, and a whole bunch of other things I won't get into ... that's what I'll face instead. It won't have changed much in two years ... or will it?? At least the rapid transit rail link to the airport is finally done, it took a while I understand ... the last of Noah's Ark animals finally got off the boat.

So, I'll hit Yangon on July 10th, and be there til July 29th ... 20 days should be good. The map of the G Adventures tour is posted here, and you can see the loop before we return back to Yangon. Then, after a few extra days doing who knows what, I'll fly over to Kuala Lumpur, another familiar place from 2010. After an overnight in KL, I'll hop over to another place that will illicit a "Where is that?" look .... Kuching, Malaysia -- on the rather large island of Borneo. A map of Borneo is here too, also from the G Adventures website. It's the land of the jungle ... and the man of the jungle ... the one and only Orangutan.  Sadly though, the rainforest is being cut down in favour of palm seed farms, so his habitat is greatly getting shrunk around him. There was an amazing edition of National Geographic a few years back on the island of Borneo, so that article alone lured me into the idea of going (hey, who doesn't love colourful maps and pictures???). Once again, I better see the jungle and the place before it changes too much ... man this world sucks sometimes.

I was thinking of Borneo a couple of years ago before deciding on the Philippines. I'm glad I left it for later .... for this will be a perfect contrast to Myanmar ... still very exotic, off the beaten backpacker track a tiny bit, but yet a few glimpes of the modern world very much on the island. I hope to squeeze in a day in Brunei as well, but I doubt it ... it might be too tight before heading home through HK on Aug. 23rd. If only I had another week ... but it is not to be .... we will try to make 52 days do.  If anyone has any experience packing for 50 days of heat and humidity, and then two days hiking up a mountain in almost 0 C temperatures, let me know.

Whose idea was this again ??

Ok, ... so I'm starting out ... 12:00 am June 5th, and we have 9 days left of classes .... then almost freedom. But not quite. July 2nd I get my life back, and if I'm really, really ambitious, I just MIGHT blog my vacation. That's assuming quite a lot. Do I have something interesting to say? Probably not. If I do, will anyone actually care?? Probably not as well ... I can at least pretend.  So, this first post is to see if I'm doing this whole thing the right away, or if I'm a failure before I've started. Oh boy life is really looking up.