long trip

Kandawgyi Lake (or Great Royal Lake) is an artificial lake in the center of Yangon. It’s a pleasant place where locals start their day exercising (it opens at 5am and it’s free for all until 7am). I went there twice during my stay in Yangoon. The lake is famous for the replica of the Pyigyimon Royal Barge (Karaweik). The barge is made of concrete and was build in 1972. Karaweik or Karaweik Hall is a palace on the eastern shore of Kandawgyi Lake, and is now a restaurant. The restaurant is a tourist attraction because there is a traditional puppet theater show every night. The entrance of the restaurant is really impressive at night with all the lights, I wish we had come a little earlier to have a blue sky rather than the black sky, but we were...

In my previous post, I told you that the number of tourists coming to Myanmar is increasing at a rapid rate. In some area, like the Shwedagon Pagoda or in Bagan, it was very obvious. In other area, like the Sule Pagoda it was not that obvious as we only saw a few tourists. However I believe this will change quickly. The Sule Pagoda was next to our hotel in Yangoon, our trip was only starting at 8am, so we woke up 1.5 hours before sunrise and went to take pictures of the Pagoda. Tuan, who had been there a couple mornings earlier, gave us a good tip on where to find a great view of the place. According to the legend, the Sule Pagoda was build before the Shwedagon Pagoda and is over 2500 years old. It’s not as big, nor as holy as the Shwedagon Pagoda but where...

In January, I traveled to Myanmar (also known as Burma) for a 12-day trip. Myanmar is a controversial country and while travel is extremely safe and pleasant, the country’s image still suffers from bad reputation. But Burma is the crown jewel of Southeast Asia. It’s the second largest country by landmass in Southeast Asia and one of the least visited. In 2013, a little over 2 millions tourists went to Myanmar, compared to 26 millions that went to Thailand. The Myanmar government is trying to encourage tourism and the number of tourists is increasing drastically. The year before, in 2012, only one million tourists went to Myanmar. Knowing this, I was very interested in visiting Myanmar sooner rather than later. The trip was organized by Insider...

After more than two weeks on the island of Java, we crossed the Bali strait (1.5 miles) from Ketapang to Gilimanuk. I had 3 days left before my departure to San Francisco. Bali is a mystical destination for many but after 2 weeks in rural Java, it felt busy, touristy and more expensive. Suddenly restaurants were more expensive and offer pizza and pasta on their menu. Hotels were defintetly nicer and I’m not going to complain about it. It’s interesting to note that while the people of Java are in majority Muslims, the people of Bali are Hindus. Galungan marks the beginning of the most important recurring religious ceremonies. The spirits of deceased relatives who have died and been cremated return to visit their former homes, and the current...

Aurora borealis or Northern lights (for us in the northern hemisphere) is caused by the collision of energetic charged particles with atoms in the high altitude atmosphere. When the particles collide with the gases in the ionosphere they start to glow. The northern lights can range from a simple green faint flow over the horizon to a bright “curtain” of lights dancing above you (and bright enough to cast a shadow like full moon). I did not realize until recently that this is a bucket list item for many people, so in this post I’m going to share my experience chasing aurora. First to see the aurora, you need to have a clear, dark night. It implies being far away from civilization to avoid any light pollution. The dark night is a bit tricky since...