Job Search from Hell

After months of hearing stories from other travellers who had done the working holiday visa thing in Australia I came here with the misguided expectation that finding a job would be a breeze. Instead there were hordes of people staying in hostels where the common topic of conversation was how abysmal the job search was, I had other Canadian friends who left Melbourne after a month to try farming since there were no jobs to be found in Melbourne and I persevered through 3 crippling months of endless job hunting and increasingly sketchier job offers.

Wasting time on Hosier Lane

There was the occasional sketchy job I had found online but a lot of these winners came from posting my own ad on Gumtree (as safe as Craigslist...) searching for work. Unfortunately I was unable to apply for a lot of jobs because of the following reasons:

1.    I am not a permanent resident. Backpackers will often quit after two weeks due to this, have given us a shit name, so now a lot of places refuse to hire backpackers.

2.    Many bars/restaurants here seem to want you to have 3-5 years of experience in the field and since they’re crazy for coffee, they want 5-7 years of barista experience.

3.    I did not have access to a car – then again I don’t even have a full drivers license back in Canada!

4.    I cannot speak mandarin….a surprising amount of jobs on Gumtree required Mandarin.

The following are jobs that I was offered in my fun time of job hunting:

Weird Job #1 – Foot fetish

Almost immediately after placing my want ad on Gumtree I started receiving text messages from one guy who made sure to reassure me that he was 24 (because that makes it less creepy) and offered to pay me to massage and lick my feet. I may have been down for a paid foot massage but the foot licking, especially by a stranger, wasn’t for me. Thank god this was early in my job search, had it been much later I may have considered it instead of sending an immediate “hell no!”

Weird Job #2 – Nude model

I received another text fairly early on from another man who made sure to reassure me he was a lawyer (do people think being 24 or being lawyers make them less creepy when making weird proposals to girls online??) and then proceeded to say he’s an amateur photographer and needs some more nude shots and would pay me to model. I may be gullible but not enough to justify going to some old dudes house and stripping down for him.

Weird Job #3 – Softcore porn?

A friend of mine saw an ad in a laundromat looking for women to pose nude, he made it sound like it was for an art class or something and they paid $250 so I contacted the number and even went in for a meeting with them. Turns out it was a very very different thing. I will admit this much, their offices in Brunswick were very professional, the two ladies I spoke with were exceptionally businesslike, but none of that made me inclined to take the “job”. Essentially they run a  website where girls focus a video camera on just their faces, proceed to masturbate till they reach an orgasm so the camera sees their reaction, then give a nude interview in the same clip after. NOPE. Hilarious part is I mentioned the website to a friend and they actually recognized it, damnit I could've been famous.

Weird Job #4 – Waitress for a psycho

I got a trial for a waitressing gig at a pizzeria in Melbourne Central and decided to ignore the warning signs from the initial contact and meeting with the owner that he may be a psychopath. Well I started my trial, was given no direction or even explanation of the layout of the place or menu, then I was berated for taking a second to say whether the customer ordered the schnitzel or schnitzel burger. I was asked to leave my trial early and felt overwhelming relief that unemployment was better than working in that toxic environment.

Weird Job #5 – Brothel

While searching online I found a reception job for Gotham City. In my naivety I assumed it was some nerdy place like a boardgame shop. After doing a bit of research I discovered it was a brothel and did more research to find out that brothels are legal in the state of Victoria. As long as I wasn’t having to take customers or strip I was fully on board with working at the place, so I applied and almost instantly got a call that they’d love to interview me and I was perfect for the role…until they realized I wasn’t a permanent resident. My dreams of working in a brothel were sadly flushed down the drain.

Weird Job #6 – Kidnappee/Future Ditch Occupant

I got a text from a potential employer who asked if I could come in for an interview that day. I tried to get details about the job and it was like pulling teeth trying to figure out was the job was, finally he said Customer Service rep. Then after asking a dozen more times what the business was, he admitted it was an auto shop of some sort. The fact that the person wanted me to come in asap for an interview on a Sunday night should’ve been enough red flags but I still kept trying to get more details from the person and to find out where the address of the business was. I sent more follow up questions where I tried to get more details in hopes of finding out if I was going to be murdered or employed and finally I got one last message from the creep ignoring every single one of my questions and simply saying “Okay, meet me at Dandenong station, get in my car, and I’ll drive us to the place”

Well not only in the station nearly an hour away, but it is apparently one of the sketchiest places in Melbourne so getting into some random internet guys car around 9pm on a Sunday without any details is usually not a good choice.

I replied “No need to pick me up and inconvenience yourself, just tell me the name and address of the business and I’ll meet for the interview there”….and I never heard from the creeper again. Somewhere out there is a ditch with my name on it.

Weird Job #7 – Slave Labour worker

I got an interview for a job in a café near my apartment so I was ecstatic when I was offered the position. Until I found out the pay. Minimum wage in Australia is $17.30, which is considered low here but it much better than minimum wage back home of $11.25. Well they were paying $11 an hour, and would not be giving enough hours to even make my rent, but would eat up all my potential interview hours so I couldn’t find anything better.

Weird Job #8 – Topless waitress

I received a call from someone asking if I was still looking for a job and when I replied yes, they asked me a few more follow up questions (what kind of experience do you have, have you ever served, what uniform size would you need), then the questions turned weird…

Caller: “Okay, next question, how large are you in the chest?”

Me: “Well I’m …wait what?”

Caller: “How large are you in the chest?”

Me: “Excuse me but what kind of job is this??”

Caller: “Topless waitressing. Now, how large are you in the chest”

Me: “I’m sorry but I would not be interested in the position.”

Caller: “FINE, you can wear a bikini. NOW, how large are you in the chest?”

CLICK

Wonderful Job #1 – Almonds

After the longest and most financially crippling job search of my life, Hays Recruitment finally was able to find me a temp position at a company where my role was preparing shipping documentation for sending Almonds to India. A part of me was mildly disappointed that I’d failed at finding a backpacker style job and was yet again at a desk but after all of those messed up jobs I was more than happy to resume my rightful place staring at a computer screen. Plus I am swimming in free almonds!

Exploring Melbourne

Since arriving in Melbourne of the best things has been my friend Sanna. The poor girl got stuck with me as a couchsurfer/mooch ‘just until my sister and I got an apartment’ and then I ended up becoming an actual roommate. Together we’ve been partners in crime while sightseeing, burning on beaches and exploring the Melbourne nightlife. Also she has my eternal love because the day I arrived in Australia she asked me, ‘what food have you been craving?”. Being cheese deprived I replied nachos and she greeted me with nachos and goon.

 

Beaches

A point of pride for me was that after 8 months in Asia I never got a sunburn, well two days into Australia Sanna and I decided to hit up the beach and I came away with the angriest red tanlines you have ever seen. I also saw my first Australian beach and while it was pretty great, the water was surprisingly cold. That was my first inkling that Australia may not be the land of perpetual sunshine and warmth I thought it was, Melbourne especially. Since getting here I’ve also had a beach day with Sanna and some Aussie buddies were we visited the famous Brighton beach where we took the standard tourist photos in front of the brightly coloured beach huts and I finally braved the cool waters. It also took me a while to find a job so in my ample free time I spent a fair bit of time on St. Kilda beach which was conveniently located a 20 minute walk from my apartment! Australians keep ripping into poor St Kilda beach but clearly they’ve never seen Ottawa beaches. There were chill reading/tanning days on the beach, swimming days, drinking days with friends, and sometimes playing water volleyball with friends. Basically I spent a ton of time on St Kilda beach and the only time I didn’t enjoy myself was when some weird foot fetish guy interrupted my reading to ask me questions about my feet and if he could touch them. Left pretty quickly that day!

General Sightseeing

I’d spent a ton of time wandering the cbd (downtown) in Melbourne but it was actually a while till I got around to some sightseeing, until one day Sanna suggested we be tourists. That day we checked out the ACMI museum, and I quickly remembered I don’t like museums, we wandering done Hosier Lane looking at the cool street art that is all over the city, we went through the giant and beautiful Botanic Gardens and we even hiked up the stairs at the Shrine of Remembrance and were greet with a pretty spectacular view of the city.

Shrine of Remembrance

Australia Day

I arrived at just the right time since it meant I was able to witness Australia Day, which is very similar to Canada Day. Everyone dresses up in flag colours or silly outfits, then gets overly drunk. Throw some poutine in the mix and it’s Canada Day with an accent. Sadly there was no poutine in the mix but after starting with some 10am goon Sanna and I joined some Aussie buddies where we celebrated at their place till joining the block party at the Secret Beer Garden.

Melbourne Bars

Melbourne is a super hipster place with things like deconstructed coffee and secret bars and while I’m not hipster enough to appreciate the coffee the same way (Tim Hortons is my version of ‘good coffee’), I’ve done my best to check out some of the bar scene. I’ve so far avoided the infamous Revolvers bar that opens Friday evenings and doesn’t close till late Sunday but the places I have been have had great drinks and/or atmosphere. Our favourite bar hands down is Sister Bella, partly because it has a fantastic atmosphere, partly because you have to go down several narrow creepy dark alleys to get there and especially because they have $10 jugs. Living on Chapel street has also been excellent since it’s the ‘bar street’ and if you time it right you can go happy hour hopping from 2pm-8pm. There also numerous rooftops bars that provide wicked views of the city, The Croft Institute where you drink from plastic syringes, and a nearby bar, Jungle Boy would already be winning at life because it serves poutine but to make things even better, it’s a hidden tiki bar behind the pantry door of a small sub shop.

AFL Games

You’ve never seen people so hardcore about a sport that is played almost nowhere else in the world but Melbournians love their Australian Football and I have to admit, its pretty entertaining. I’ve seen 4+ games live so far and here are the rules I’ve figured out:

1.   Players can use other players as ladders

2.   The guys wear really, really short shorts but its okay because they are jacked

3.   The field is a circle

4.   The ball looks funny and should be thrown between the middle posts, though the side posts work too

5.   Drink beer and then you can pretend to know the rest of the rules

Sums it up right? GO TIGERS GO!

Reverse Culture Shock in Australia

I arrived in Melbourne on a day that was easily 5 million degrees celcius, which made wandering the city with my backpack a lovely adventure. I spent my first day walking through the CBD and a bit of Brunswick where I met up with my friend Juliano who was also from Ottawa and had arrived there just shortly before me.  Apparently Ottawa people flock to Melbourne because my sister’s best friend Sanna who she’d grown up with was also living in Melbourne and luckily for me I’d be staying with her until my sister arrived a few weeks later and we’d find an apartment together. I’d known Sanna for years but it wasn’t until this Australia visit that we became close and even became roommates/Jamba Rime (sorry inside jokes) time buddies. Melbourne has been ranked as the number one most liveable city in the world and I can absolutely see why. Though I’ll also quickly point out 3 of the top 5 are Canadian cities, sorry Ottawa, you did not come close to making that list though. The city was vibrant, beautiful, cafes and parks everywhere, the fantastic Aussie accent being spoken all around me, and a great feel to it. Bizarrely it was actually pretty close to  a Canadian city. Had I come straight from Canada it would have just seemed like a mild transition, however after 8 months of Asia, I was feeling very displaced returning to a westernized country. I found out later there is actually such thing as reverse culture shock. 

The following are things I found weird, or even culture shock-like when I arrived:

Sadly no more signs like this!

• The streets, even downtown, seemed impossibly quiet after Asia where I’m pretty sure driving lessons go “Okay first put the key in and turn the car/bike on, okay now lay on the horn and don’t ever stop honking until you’re safely in park”
• The prices here are insane, especially coming from Asia. My first shock was as I was leaving the airport the cheapest mode of transportation was the $18 one way airport transport bus
• Cheese and wine, items that were impossible to find in Asia, were now everywhere
• Toilets were no longer a hole in the ground and had toilet paper instead of the infamous bum gun
• I didn’t have to carry TP around (and it no longest goes in a gross wastebasket!)
• I could now ask for directions in English without using my awful sign language skills that would have me kicked out of a game of charades in a heartbeat
•  People use cutlery to eat-Okay to be completely honest I missed eating with my hands
• No more night markets and delicious street food (months later and I'm still in withdrawal)
• Street names were absolutely ridiculous sounding (i.e. One was named Mudjimba bli bli) and even more so, the locations. Brunswick St is in Fitzroy neighbourhood, not Brunswick. Fitzroy street is in St Kilda not Fitzroy.  St Kilda St is in Brighton, and there are 6 Brighton streets across Melbourne. Ridiculous.
• Beer was different here too. Every pub seemed to have an intense love affair with IPAs, Fosters beer doesn’t seem to exist (I’m fine with that) and most offensively was the pot of beer. A pint was not always guaranteed, a schooner was a smaller beer but the pot of beer….it was the equivalent of a double shot of beer. How in a country of drinkers can people see it as an acceptable measurement of beer?
• The aussie dress code; girls dress normally but guys wear singlets (giant tank tops with huge armholes down to their belly buttons) and super short shorts. I’d occasionally be on a train and notice that the guys on either side of me had shorter shorts than mine.
• Aussie slang often seems like a completely different language (*see below for an example of how insane it is)
• Another thing that is shocking is that a word used by friends and even in the office place is cunt. Actually I've now heard the boss at work say multiple times "aw ya fuckin cunt" to various coworkers.
• Australia hasn't figured out time zones yet. Adelaide SA, Melbourne VIC, and Brisbane QLD are geographically all in the same time zone however Adelaide is inexplicably 30 minutes off of Melbourne, and Brisbane doesn't observe daylight savings so they are often 0-1 hour off from Melbourne and 0.5-1.5 hours off from Adelaide.
• Driving in Australia may not have the death defying quality of Asian roads but it does have the inexplicable hook turns. At these bizarre intersections you have to quickly go left in the leftmost lane and block all left lane traffic in order to turn right….
• Fast food is different: McDonalds is not only referred to as Maccas but some of the signs have actually been changed to "Maccas". Also Burger King is called Hungry Jacks.

The best culture shock: I could now drink tap water!

The worst culture shock: I felt homesick and got a box of KD (mac and cheese) from the grocery store. Then instead of finding the bizarre but soothingly familiar packet of neon orange powdered cheese I came across a metal can full of some weird cheez whiz like substance. NOT COOL AUSTRALIA. NOT COOL!

The most disappointing shock, though not cultural: My sister who I’d moved to Australia for, so that we could be together again, bailed on me two weeks after I’d arrived so that she could stay in Ottawa for a boy. Bit of a kick in the teeth but at least I was no stranger to solo travel so moving solo can’t be that much of a difference right?

*Aussie Slang

A friend showed me this brilliant youtube video that sums up ridiculous Aussie slang words. The first two times I watched it the sentence at the end was nonsense. Now I can actually understand wtf this is: 

Australian: “After a smoko I might go down the bowlo sarvo for a schnitty and bevvy with Tom, then I’ll head back to the missus for din dins with the fam and watch some footy hopefully on the way I don’t get pulled over by coppers coz I don’t have the rego”

English: “After a smoke break I might go down to the bowling alley this afternoon for a chicken schnitzel and drink with Tom, then I’ll head back to my girlfriend/wife for dinner with the family and watch some Australian football. Hopefully on the way I don’t get pulled over by the police because I don’t have the registration”

Goodbye Thailand

After several weeks in Myanmar I returned to Thailand where I would spend my last few weeks before *hopefully* heading to Australia. It was bizarre returning to Bangkok where everything seemed ‘normal’ and familiar after being in Myanmar. It must say something pretty odd about me that my version of normal now involves the chaos of Bangkok, endless streetfood, weird buses where I had to know Thai numbers, and Thai spoken all around me, however I was grateful to be in a familiar spot since that is where I would be spending Christmas. Unfortunately for me I spent all of Christmas and the few days after in a coffin like hostel bed only speaking to others when the girl two beds from me would offer to pick me up more drugs or would ask me when I last ate and would follow it up with a trip to 7-11. My one foray into the outside world was to head to the Bangkok Hospital to get a checkup and a chest x-ray so that my Australian Working Holiday Visa would go through. My sister had told me she was moving to Australia so using the terrible Burmese internet I’d managed to send off both our visa applications. She had approval within an hour, I was told that I needed an Australian approved doctors appointment and the one I tried to see in Myanmar (yes there is only one) didn’t have openings till spring. Luckily Bangkok fit me in and even more luckily their doctors are terrible. Despite the fact I felt I was dying the doctor said I was perfectly healthy and signed off on my visa application. A week later an equally terrible doctor told me I may have Malaria, they never were certain, they just threw some meds at me. Either way I feel I probably shouldn’t have passed a health check mid-Malaria or whatever I had but no complaints!

Up until my departure date I was still pretty weak but my New Years Eve and last two weeks in Thailand were pretty good. I headed back to Pai to the Circus School where I met some great people, I got to explore around some more, revisit the hot springs, see the famous Reggae Festival, and celebrate a pretty spectacular New Years Eve. The Pai Circus School easily has the best view of Pai and on New Years at midnight the entire sky was lit up with hundreds of fireworks and people sending of thousands of lanterns. It seemed like the sky was dotted with giant brilliant stars until you noticed them moving and realized they were lanterns. It definitely made up for my downer Christmas.

The one other notable thing during my last week in Pai was that I declared war on chickens. The sketchy 16 bed dorm I was staying in had holes in the floor that allowed you to see the outside ground and the family of chickens living under us. Since I was still sickish I spent so much time in the dorm that I discovered those damn chickens don’t ever shut up. I was describing in elaborate detail to a friend my plans to kill them all and some strangers overheard my plan, then told me they were not only 100% on board but they were willing to stand guard as I crawled under the building and wrung their necks. Luckily it never came to that because before I knew it, I was heading back to Bangkok to catch a flight to Australia. I was leaving the land of endless chickens and entering something much scarier. The land of poisonous spiders, snakes, spiders, sharks, spiders, kangaroos and most frighteningly spiders. At least it was a new adventure and one I’d be tackling with my sister!

One of the many fireshows at the Pai Circus School

Burmese Temples and Beaches

Hpa-An

After my time in Inle Lake I headed south to Hpa-An where I stayed for two nights. My first day there I just wandered and ate but then early the second day I joined up with a group of four others to take a hostel tour of the surrounding area. We piled into one of those sketchy little trucks and started off at this one monastery cave that was a giant cavern that we could walk through that was dotted with religious figures everywhere and beautiful views if you were willing to climb up a bit. The next temple we saw seemed to be flipping off gravity itself. There was this giant rock and at the very top of this teetering rock was a pagoda seemingly there by magic. Weirdly we were actually able to climb the stairs up to the top, I say weirdly because the way it was balanced I’m amazed it could handle the monks inside it so a steady stream of tourists seems too much like tempting fate. On my way up to the top I was stopped by a monk who grabbed my wrist, then blessed me right there and wrapped an orange thread around my wrist to bring me protection on my travels. I could have used that bracelet before the dengue fever or falling through sidewalks but better late than never! The final stop on our tour was this giant cave filled with bats where we needed flashlights to go through. It was also bizarre walking barefoot through this giant cavern but because it was like a religious pagoda to them we had to adhere to the no socks, no shoes rule. At the opening on the other side of the cavern we found the long boats waiting for us where we were transported through the reeds back around to the entrance and somehow the weirdly balanced pagoda was still always in view. After the tour we headed to the Thanlyin River where I saw one of the most amazing sunsets every before heading off to my last destination in Myanmar.

Sunset over the Thanlyin

Traveling to Chaung-Tha

From Hpa-An I travelled to Chaung Tha and my journey from hell actually started off pretty decently. I easily caught a bus from Hpa-An to Yangon and while it was weird that at one point some man took my passport, left the bus and showed up with it 10 minutes later and we had no leg room because it was taken up with cases of beer (that we weren’t allowed to drink), it was a great bus ride because a half hour into the overnight bus ride the a/c broke greatly reducing my chance of freezing to death. In seemingly no time at all we were at the Aung Mingalar station aka My Personal Hell, this bus station is so crowded, huge, confusing, and covered in unreadable lettering that I’m sure it’ll be the setting of many future nightmares. The taxi drivers were harassing me from the second I stepped off the bus and as I wandered around trying to find out where to catch my 6am bus to Chaung Tha. The cab drivers of course told me there was no such bus and that I needed to pay 8,000kyt to get to the other station, however when I finally found the rare bus station employee or traveler who spoke English they also told me I needed to go to the Kline Taya station. I kept trying to research the station and find out where it was but it didn’t seem to exist so I had no clue how to get there or if there was even a Chaung Tha bus there. Turns out Kline Taya is spelled Hlaing Thar Ya and there was in fact a share truck I was able to take there for only 1,500kyt. Sitting next to me was a man who’d been on the Hpa-An bus with me and who ended up being my Guardian Angel aka GA. The drive to the also confusing Hlaing Thar Ya station was 30 minutes of death defying driving with a madman at the wheel where seatbelts weren’t needed because we were crammed in so tightly. GA showed me where to catch the bus and as we’re in the middle of nowhere waiting for a random bus to another town with an unpronounceable name where I am the only westerner at this station, I thought for the umpteenth time, where the hell am I? The bus broke down twice and the third time it broke down we waited so long that the next scheduled bus caught up to us. GA tapped me on the shoulder, said ‘We go, bus not going’ and we ran onto the next bus. This bus was so full that the aisles were packed with little stools and people packed on them. I was sitting between the legs of some old dude as GA was sitting between my legs, where my knees were up to my chin and a chicken sat next to me. That was an extremely long 5 hours. From there we were dropped off on the side of some random road, grabbed a share taxi into a random village and caught the final bus on my journey. The entire way was horrendously confusing and I guarantee without GA guiding me every step I would likely still be lost. Even when he got off an hour before me I was still surrounded by lovely people who kept trying to share their food with me. Also I think they are trying to kill tourists. Every bus that was predominantly foreigners has had the worst music ever. Sometimes just religious wailing cranked up to max volume. The zillion local buses I took to Chaung Tha all had decent music. Coincidence?

Chaung Tha

I arrived in Chaung Tha dead tired after my million hour commute and a little pissed off because apparently there was in fact a direct Yangon-Chaung Tha bus at Aung Mingalar station that locals don’t seem to know about, and even though I was tired and desperately in need of a rest, I quickly found out that Chaung Tha was the most difficult town to find a guesthouse in. I asked the first place how much for a night and they just shook their head. This happened multiple times and sometimes they’d mix it up by responding “No, you no stay here”. Finally after checking a dozen places one person spoke enough English to explain to me that guesthouses needed to pay for a special permit to have foreigners stay there and most places didn’t have one since it was more of a vacation spot for locals. Miraculously I did find a place a little out of the way that even had a ‘dorm room’. Well the dorm room was a cottage surrounded with beautiful scenery with 3 queen size beds (pro) and only one single couple staying there who didn’t seem to want to socialize the one night they were there (con).

When normally thought of Myanmar I pictured temples and pagodas (so basically Bagan) but never really thought of it as a beach destination, turns out the beaches in Chaung Tha were pretty beautiful. I spent most of my first day there enjoying relaxing and watching the sunset and being mistaken as a mermaid - okay that last part was weird even for me. The next day was somewhat of a tough day for me. I was completely alone in the dorm, there was nobody around for me to hang out with so essentially I spent my entire birthday by myself. I still made it out to the beach that day but my heart just wasn’t in it, I’d never been alone on my birthday and I wasn’t even able to call anyone from back home. Luckily my ex boyfriend and mother saved the day. Before my mother visited me in Thailand they coordinated to have dozens of birthday/Christmas cards given to my mother that she passed along to me. These cards had been burning a hole in my pack since November and finally I could justify opening them. At this point I’d been away from home for 6 months so these cards and messages of love meant the world to me. I am so incredibly grateful to all the people who wrote cards and especially to my mother and Phil. For the rest of my time in Chaung Tha I mainly wandered the small beach town and bounced back and forth between the two main beaches. One was a mostly empty beach next to my place where there was the occasional foreigner and you could wear a bikini, the other was the main/locals beach where I wore a tank tops and shorts while swimming and it was still the most scandalous swimwear around.

My time in Myanmar ended so quickly and while it ended up being pricier than I’d expected it was a place of beautiful endless pagodas, great and dirt cheap food, absolutely lovely people, bizarre road rules, great beaches, nauseatingly bad bus soundtracks, and amazing scenery. It’s bizarre to think about much it will likely change in the upcoming future and that if I return in 10 or even 5 years, it will likely seems drastically different and/or much more touristy.

Our view from the boats in Hpa-An

Trekking from Kalaw to Inle Lake

I loved Myanmar and had some great experiences there but my favourite part hands down was when I did the 70km trek from Kalaw to Inle Lake. I checked into the Golden Kalaw Inn early in the morning and spent the morning wandering around the tiny and beautiful town of Kalaw hunting down the best tour company. At the end of the day I had booked a tour with the best which was of course the first one I’d checked out which was offered by the Golden Kalaw Inn. For 40,000kyt ($40cad) I’d be going on a 3 day tour hiking through small Burmese villages with the amazing tour guide Jojo. Since the tour didn’t start till early the next morning I was able to explore the town, stop for chapatti, potato curry and loads of indian sweets for about $1.50 and later meet and talk with my fellow trekkers Eliza and the couple Thi Thi and Phil.

We left early the next morning and passed through farmers fields, over lush hills, through plains and hills and saw so much stunning scenery. At one point we passed a random house and Jojo spoke with the lady and since she was so unaccustomed to people passing by she insisted we come into her home and share tea and snacks with her. We couldn’t understand her but sign language did the trick, and once again I was blown away by the sweetness of the Burmese people. We continued walking and each time we’d pass through the tiny villages the children would smile and follow us while shouting ‘mangalabar’ (hello). The village we eventually stopped in for lunch was small and filled with garlic and while Jojos cousin cooked us a delicious lunch we chatted, or attempted to, with the 80 year old men who lived there and had the most incredibly lined faces you’ve ever seen but beautiful smiles. Afterwards at the nearby viewpoint I nearly had to be dragged away it was so beautiful. 

We walked for a few more hours and I chatted with Jojo the entire way and talked about Myanmar and learned some great stuff from him, then next thing I know we’ve arrived at his mother in laws tiny village. There are numerous trekking companies in Kalaw and they pretty much all take the same tourist trail but because Jojo’s Hpa-Oh wife’s family lived in that village we took a different route and never ran into the other tour groups. Like most Burmese houses it was a two story house with produce and storage below and the family household on the second level. The family we stayed with didn’t speak English but the language of food is universal. We sat in the kitchen with the small family as dish after dish was made and it was like watching fine art seeing it all come together around the warm glow of the hearth. It was 7 courses and possibly the best meal I had in my travels. We ate till we could not possibly eat anymore and then sat around the fire shelling and roasting peanuts. During the days it was fairly hot weather but nights were freezing so it took all the courage Eliza and I had to step outside to head to the bathroom outside but the second we stepped outside we were completely floored by the sky. It was like we had never really seen the stars until that exact moment. We stood there for ages completely mesmerized by the brightest stars we have ever seen until we retired for bed and fell asleep under a mountain of blankets.

Covered in thanaka and ready for another day of trekking

After a great breakfast we were on the road again trekking for hours seeing wonderful sights like fields of ladies and children picking fire red chillies, men threshing rice, ancient old men behind ox driven carts and the adorable Burmese children. We walked upon a school class practicing an end of school year dance and a little later we came across some little kids and somehow ended up getting in a burr throwing fight with them. One of the gems we found was when we came across men making honey in a field. They had giant buckets of liquid gold full of honeycomb and for 2,000kyt ($2) we walked away with half a litre of the freshest honey I’ve ever had and a giant bag of honeycomb to snack on as we walked. We stopped at a fresh stream and Jojo showed us this sapyati fruit that when split the liquid inside is like soap, very useful for washing our honey covered hands!

We spent our last night in one of the (slightly) larger villages where we found ourselves back on the tourist trail with other groups around. One more night with our group and meals around a kitchen hearth and sharing some Myanmar beers and suddenly it was the morning of our last day. Now that we were back on the tourist trail I could overhear some of the guides and we clearly had the best and most knowledgeable guide. Plus he had great stores about the local Hpa-Oh culture that involved alchemists and their dragon ancestors. We said goodbye and parted ways when we reached the river and got on one of the long boats. On the boat we passed farms that were actually in the water with the houses on stilts, we saw the long neck weavers, monasteries, and the famous one legged fisherman of Inle lake. Once we arrived in Inle Lake I said goodbye to the lovely Eliza and Phil and the crazy-not in a good way- Thi Thi, and found myself on my own again (and loving it) and after the last few action packed days I was able to relax in Inle Lake, see markets and visit the local winery. Months into my trip and I hadn’t seen wine since vineyards don’t exist so when I heard the Red Mountain Winery was located close to the town I had to check it out.  The wine was pretty mediocre but I was happy to pay the 3,000kyt for 4 tasting after so much time of wine deprivation and the views were incredible from up there. Getting there I had walked half the way and ended up hitchhiking the last bit and it was then I realized how bizarre it is hitchhiking in Myanmar. They drive on the right side of the road so when the driver pulls up to let you in he’s on the right side so you have to go around the car into traffic to get into the passenger side. The Burmese man who picked me up was an absolute sweetheart who repairs monasteries and seemed genuinely happy to help out a random stranger, once again reminding me how genuinely nice the people are in Myanmar.

The rings around their neck are unbelievably heavy!

Normally they stand on one leg and use the other leg to paddle so they can fish hands free. This guy was just showing off.

Heading North into Myanmar

Mandalay

After Bagan Mandy, Line, and I headed north to visit Mandalay, a town that was so drastically different than Bagan and seemingly more congested than Yangon. We checked into our hotel and then rushed to find a taxi that would take us to the U-bein bridge, the worlds longest teak bridge and our main reason for visiting Mandalay. We found at taxi for 15,000ks ($15) which was definitely overpaying but absolutely worth it since we were in a rush and the driver was a great guy who taught us a lot about Myanmar. It was through him that we learned more about the recent election that had actually gone peacefully, how many Burmese schools taught English, and most interestingly we learned why the cars in Myanmar are so confusing. Every car has the steering wheel on the right side, however they also drive on the right side of the road. Apparently they used to drive on the left until 1970 when the ruler of the country changed it to the right side....based on the advice of a wizard (crazy military government). Since then all modern cars with left side steering wheels are too pricey so they buy second hand cars from Japan with right hand steering wheels. Seriously. A wizard.

We arrived at the U-bein bridge and while I hadn't been to excited for it before, I was pretty impressed by it. Mandy and I were too cheap to spend the 4,000ks ($4) to watch the sunset by boat so instead we walked the length of the bridge and at the midpoint we still saw a pretty spectacular sunset.

Hsipaw

Getting the bus to Hsipaw was further proof of how awesome the Burmese people are. Finding the bus station was difficult since the signs are impossible to read and it was just an open garage door with a desk but while looking for it every single person along the way was incredibly helpful, even if they had no grasp of the English language. We stayed one night at the Yee Shin Guesthouse and the next day we swapped places to the Red Dragon Hotel where I was thrilled that there were finally cheap accommodations in Myanmar. Mandy, Line and I went out to explore a bit and we wandered through the small village of Hsipaw, walked through the daytime market and found the famous Mr. Shake where we had dumplings, ridiculously good guacamole and magical oreo shakes that were dirt cheap and awesome.

After a day of bumming around we decided to rent bikes and go exploring along with a random friend Jeffrey that we had met outside our hotel. Whoever said its just like riding a bike was wrong, after months and months of not being on one I was pretty wobbly. Luckily the stunning country roads, the farmers working in the green fields, and the misty mountain views distracted me from my wobblyness. On our way to the falls I somehow was tasked with being the leader and at one point I look behind me and the other 3 had disappeared. Mandy's bike had died so it ended up just being Line, Jeffrey and I heading to the falls. After being sick in Bagan it was so good to finally be hiking and biking again. We passed a monastery, hiked through fields, passed farmers houses that surprisingly had satellite and finally reached the falls which were surprisingly large and impressive. After a day of hiking and biking we also rewarded ourselves with more dumplings and fruit shakes at Mr. Shake. Afterwards we visited the bamboo buddha and a monk school and soon I found myself saying goodbye to the girls. They decided to leave and I felt like staying another night.

Heading to the Nam Tok Waterfall

Monk school

I'd gotten used to traveling solo so after the girls left I actually found myself feeling a bit relieved, I'd been somewhat of a third wheel for the duration anyways and now I was free to do what I wanted. Which after I said goodbye to them was finding a small bookstore and finally getting the book Burmese Days and talking for ages with the Burmese store owner who shared tons of information and history on the area and the setting of the book. Later, while I was feeling antisocial the universe apparently had other plans for me. I ordered a pina colada shake at Mr. Shakes (they're only $1!) and 3 people asked if they could join my table. We parted ways and as I was leaving a large table of girls called me over and I saw that it was 2 of the girls who had been on the bus with us from Mandalay. I ended up sitting with them for more hours sampling the pina coladas, mojitos and caipirinhas, all of which were amazing.

Despite the late evening with the girls I was finally able to make it out to the morning market, a market that is open from around 3-5am. I arrived a little after 3am and being there was a little bit like going back in time. Instead of using electricity most of the produce stalls were lit by candlelight, a completely bizarre concept. After going back to bed for a few more hours I spent my last day in Hsipaw exploring the city (on foot) and visiting Mr. Popcorns garden which also had great shakes, delicious food, and was a great place to sit in nature and read and relax before I had to get on my umpteenth night bus.