Week 17 (India and Burma)

10/12

Woke up at 7.30. Breakfast, packed, on the road now to Shillong. Laterz.

Long drive. Passed through lots of small vilages.

Arrived here round 19.00. Diner with salted cookies and a Sprite. Stay at a kind of Salvation Army hostel. Don't mind, though everything is a bit "itchy".
Everybody slept at 10 PM or so. I didn't though. A star trek episode was calling my name... I slept at 12.


10/13

Everybody woke me up at 6.00. Managed to postpone getting up till 6.40, to end up first on the truck, where i'm updating my blog now. Get some breakfast now if i can. If not... got some salted cookies left ;-) . Laterz...
PS; got itchies from last nights bedbugs. Eeewww...

The road to Silchar is extremely long and very bumpy and slow. It's past 18.00 h now and we're still 40 K away from it. Pffff...
The scenery is stunning as usual.

What happened is what i expected. So late in Silchar that no hotel was to be found. So, drove on and on, untill 23.00h. Tried a place to put up tents (i decided to sleep on the truck). Then the Indian police came and send all the tents away. They took us to another spot, where we (they) could put up their tents again. I didn't again. Slept lousy on the truck to be wakened again at 5.


10/14

Woke up at 5, still a bit sleepy now. Feel lousy. We're at a border of a province now, to fill out of form with visa data etc. Laterz.

Mud, narrow bridges, a good and very friendly breakfast, to go short: Another long  drive followed. Last part was good tarmac though. It's amazing how much you appreciate a piece of decent tarmac after al the bumps, potholes, mud, narrow bridges and so on.
Arrived in Imphal too late again, so another night sleep on the truck. I manage to get some sleep every night though.


10/15

Woke up at 6. Tried to: wash, eat, brush, etc. Found some very, very friendly local people, who were willing to open thier gas station for us (need diesel badly). They were angles in disguise, really. Today (of all days) everything is closed. it's a national strike day. So, how bad can your luck turn. Well, this bad obviously. Heading for the border though. Hopefully the people there are not on strike. Hope to talk to you again in Burma (Mayanmar).

10.30 3 check points, only 100 yards apart. And all of them want to see our pasports and check the pessengerslist. No coordination, and it takes ages. So annoying. Indian is retarded when it comes to administrative coordination.

Some more checkpoints, an ebola check (good) and then... Yes, Burma or Myanmar as they call it today. Another long wait at immigration, a 3 hour drive to Kalaymyo. and then finally... a long, long shower. Man i have never felt this dirty before. 3 days on the truck (including sleep) is really too much. Glad it's done.
Wifi here is not good, so... FB friends... laterz.

Star trek, a beer and a good night sleep, that's what i need now.

And that's what it became.


10/16

Carlos woke me up at 7, after a very good sleep. Good breakfast in the hotel, now on the road again for a (1 night) stay in Monywa, and then 2 nights in Mandalay. Keep you posted.

And again it took so much longer than we expected. We were supposed to arrive between 2 and 4 PM, but... it turned out to be 10 PM. The three Burmese people travelling with us have no clue of distances and avarge truck speed and so on. Very friendy people, but a bit naive (and their english sucks). The lunch at 1.30 however... was fan f*cking tastic. The burmese kitchen is my favorite from now on. Man, sooo lovely. If you ever get a chance to eat burmese... do so! And the people serving it... so incredibly kind. Waving coolnes to us, while eating. And one of the burmese guide tours paid for it all.

OK, back to last night. We arrived at 10, showered, found ourself a kind of local food place, where 6,5% beers of 650 ml cost 1$. You get it huh. Bit of a headache (ish) now. Slept well though in a clean, bug free bed. That's good.

Still waiting for a new front window for the truck now, coz we hit a big branche, just before we arrived at the hotel. Glass all over the front of the truck. Luckily no wounds.


10/17

Woke up at 7.45 or so. Updating blog. Not packed yet and waiting to leave... for Mandalay. They say it's only a 2-4 hour drive. Somehow i don't believe that. ;-)
Laterz...

We arrived at 13.00 h, so...not bad. Burma is loaded with temples. Temples everywhere. When we entered Mandalay, you could see at least 40 temples.
Hotel is really nice, so are the people. First stroll at 15.00h, heavy rainfall. Sheltered at a litle shop (got a chair immediately) and did some shopping. Bad wifi brings me to the lobby of the hotel. Updating my blog here. See if i can say hello to my FB friends. Laterz.

Napped, Got a beer and food next door (amazingly, how people trust you: the bar owner just says, get the beers from the fridge, gives you pen and paper, so yo can write down what you took), another stroll and back to the place next door. The party started... Met Adam (successor of Adam, nice bloke and an incredible good guitarplayer (yes, better than me)), doing funny faces on camera, singing songs, met a local popstar, all in all: great night. Will and I ended up paying the bill (34 $ for 12 people partying... is that cheap or what?). Don't remeber coming home very clearly.


10/18

Woke up with a hangover (8 AM is really too early), updating blog. Still a smaile on my face for last night. Laterz.
Shit! Forgot to take my malaria pill yesterday. OK, 1 extra today i guess...
10.00 h did a stroll, got bread and coffee and a softdrink. Napped.

14.00 Long, long walk around the palace, up hill to the temple. Amazing views.
Met... Tony. He was here (had not seen him since China). Coincidence or what? It was good to see him again. So, we went to the temple together.

The walk was more than 15 K all together and i was exhausted when i arrived at the hotel.
Took a shower, changed clothes, and had diner next door with Tony (for "old" times sake).

22.00 h, to bed with a star trek episode for a change...