Colombo and Sigiriya, Sri Lanka

Somebody was telling us about "Lion Mountain" in Sigiriya, Sri Lanka and when we saw the pictures from internet, we thought "we have to go there!" So we did. To go there from KL of course we have to fly to Colombo which takes 3,5 hours and then from Colombo we rented a car and a driver to take us to the city.
Colombo is much nicer and cleaner and more develop than I thought it would be. People were very friendly and nice. First day we just wanted to take easy and get to know Colombo and that is exactly what we did. The hostel we stayed in was a house turned into hostel, an over cost hostel. The house and rooms were very cool and unique, but it's definitely not worth CAD $75!! The lady who is the owner of the place and we have been in contact with was not very helpful and stiff. Our airport pick up was late (and later of course we found out we paid too much) As soon as we set up we went outside to look for lunch. We ate a very nice vegetarian Srilankan lunch, involve rice, dal, beetroot, okra, etc. It cost us about CAD$2 for both of us! Ay ay ay...Kuala Lumpur is very expensive compare to Colombo!
The next morning we had breakfast and get ready for our tour to Sigiriya. We passed some Srilankan jungles and villages. We ate lunch in a restaurant in a village, it was really good but the lady charged too much for the meal. Of course, It's hard being tourist and not get a "tourists price". Our driver was really pushing us to stop a few times on the way to try elephant rides or stop at a spice garden, etc. We kept telling him that we wanted to go directly to Sigiriya but he was told we wanted to do a full tour to Sigiriya. So, we took the 7 hours way instead of 4. That's kinda annoying.
But we got to Sigiriya and checked in to our hotel and went straight to Lion Mountain.
Lion Mountain or commonly named "The Rock" is a large and ancient rock fortress and palace ruin and Monastery. According to Wikipedia is one of the eighth World Heritage Sites from the 5 BC.  If you are not afraid of heights, go all the way to the top and see the terracotta of the palace ruin, plus the view is amazing. I must admit that I was a bit scared going up because some of the stairs were pretty steep and looked unsafe, but it was worth it. Halfway to the top you will be welcomed by giant lion's paw guarding a stair to go to the top, pretty cool. We got to the top and it was incredible, worth it! But I was really annoyed by this chinese tour group who were talking so loudly, and screaming, and just loud! I don't understand people who are so insensitive and ignorance about these things. Please do not scream at historical sites or holy sites! or just simply do not scream at all anywhere unless you got hit by someone!
Sigiriya town is very quite and peaceful, other than the "Lion Mountain" and some spice gardens, there aren't much to see. We only stayed there one night. The next morning we hit the road again and wanted to go to this town called "Kandy" about 2 hours from Sigiriya. This place is very famous for Buddhist pilgrimage because there's a temple that keep Buddha's tooth, which was brought from India. It was ok, nothing really special. You have to wear covered up clothes to enter and of course we didn't wear proper clothes and left my sarongs in the car so we rented sarong for $5 each! We felt bad walking around inside the temple while others were praying. We got out and went back to our hotel in Colombo.
We stayed at this lovely hotel called "Mount Lavinia". Supposed to be a nice and very famous one because it's a very old and historical hotel. It situated next to the Indian Ocean and view from the Swimming Pool terrace is amazing! The style is very Old British Colonial style. They even still have this really old school lift, it's pretty cool. First we arrived here, we were a bit dissapointed. We booked this hotel from Agoda and it doesn't look as nice as their ad in Agoda and our room smelled old and musty. Looks like it's a reject room too. But they really listen to you and fix it right away. The staff were super friendly and helpful. After the second day we stayed there, I got the feel of the hotel and love it! Food is excellent!
I was so tired from the climbing and walking through Sigiriya so I thought, why not a nice massage? Turns out all of the masseuses are from Bali. Whaaat? I guess Balinese massage are so famous that they have to bring real Balinese to give Balinese massage. It was pretty expensive though, I thought if I'm in Bali, I would've gotten 3 hours massage with the half an hour price I paid :)
In Colombo we went to this old Dutch Hospital turned into restaurant and shops. Very nice. But along the way we noticed they were so many cops everywhere. Every 500 m, there was a cop holding huge guns, it was pretty scary. Apparently, their president was about to pass the road, one policeman was yelling at us to get out of the way. You don't want to mess with Srilankan Police officers! In fact, we noticed that there were police base every where we go and lots of police with huge guns. I felt safe and unsafe at the same time. We know that the war has ended but still seeing people with militery or police uniforms holding AK 47 is not fun.
We walked along the beach before taking the tuk-tuk and back to our hotel. One thing about Srilankan Tuk-tuks, they're all have meter! What an awesome idea, so you don't have to get annoyed by bargaining with the driver or paying a ton of money for something actually cost nothing.
We learned there, that there are so many other places to go to Sri Lanka, but we didn't do enough research so we didn't know.

All and all, our trip to Sri Lanka was really nice. It was more that we hoped for!

Myanmar/Burma

Considering the history of Burma, I was a little bit sceptical and scared of going. But my husband assured me that everything is gonna be ok, so we go. And it was more than ok, it was great! 

I have friends who live in Mandalay and there's no direct flight from KL to Mandalay so we stopped in Yangon for 1 night. We arrived at night in Yangon so we couldn't see much.  We took airport taxi to our hotel "Grand Palace" and it costs $ 10. If you are going to Burma, note that no Credit Card or ATM in the country, so you have to carry cash all the time. They accept US dollar or Kyats or FEC. Our driver was asking us why we stayed in that hotel and told there aren't many tourist go there, only locals. Arrived at the hotel, where they mentioned they're close to the airport, which is not, and it looks like it's in a sketchy neighbourhood and most rooms were windowless. We saw the room and thinking "looks nice...", and we checked the bathroom and saw something different in their toiletries...Soap checked, shampoo checked, toothbrush checked, condoms checked? Hmm... Interesting we said. And after connecting the dots, it was a hotel for "short timer". Ew. I guess it's nice to know that they support a safe sex, but still, ew.

We wanted to go to this place call "Bagan" which is an ancient city located in the Mandalay region. There's also no direct flight from Yangon to Bagan, you have to transit in Mandalay. We stayed at "Sedona Hotel" in Mandalay,  a much better hotel than the one in Yangon :). The staffs were very friendly, helpful and it situated right in front of an old palace surrounded by moat, very beautiful. It is very close to Mandalay Hill, which is a must come place for sunset. Along the way, there are some nice temples to see. We really like this particular one, I forgot what it's called but it's a big pagoda surrounded by hundreds of little tiny temple fill with Buddha teachings. 

We decided to rent a car and a driver to take us to Bagan the next morning. It's only a 4 hours drive and it saved us $50 than flying. We enjoyed the view of Burmese countryside very much, the road was pretty smooth too.

Bagan used to be a kingdom, and during the reign of King Anawrahta (1044-1077), Theravaddha Buddhism was established and he initiated the building of thousands of pagodas. There used to be 10.000 pagodas but there are about 4000 pagodas and temples survived and still remain today. We arrived in Bagan at 11 am and it was already so HOT! They said it's summer time in Burma and in the day time can get to 40 degree! We walked around to see 3 temples and at 2 o'clock we gave up and went back to hotel to rest. It was burning, literally. No one is allowed to wear shoes in the temples and we have to walk barefeet all the time and the stone floor outside the temples burned our feet. All of the temples there were amazing though, the city itself is so amazing, thousands and thousands of temples. You can climb up to some of the temples and enjoy the 360 degree view. All temples, pagodas, and Buddha statues from different size, colours, and shapes! Most of pagodas also have beautiful murals inside, from different centuries, mostly are from 11 C-13 C.  We've been told by our driver (who is awesome by the way, who took us to some must see temples, other wise we wouldn't know and just wondered around because there's just too many!) Anyway, he told us to go to this one temple called "Ananda Paya" which is very famous for sunset. The sun was blocked by clouds when we got there but you still can see the beauty of the temples against the orange sky background, we were sooo amazed! But word gets around so this place is packed in the sunset time. But, it was worth it. Another famous temples was "Shwezigon pagoda". It's a big and beautiful pagoda, reminds me of some of the temples in Thailand and Laos, it looks very similar.

We only spent one night in Bagan and should've stayed longer but we had to go back to Mandalay to see our friends again, who just had a baby by the way, a cute one too! So who could resist that! It was really nice to see her again. I've known her when we were still living in Manado and worked together. Who would've thought that 5 years later we would meet again in Mandalay, Burma?

So we went back to Mandalay and spent another two nights there. Our friends took us to this really nice restaurant in a hotel called "Red Canal", a very nice and cute little hotel. Food was excellent. They served Indian food. Turns out there are many Indian people in Burma (mostly in the cities), they were brought by the British a while a go. We also went to U Pain bridge, which is a 100 years old bridge made out of teak.

We flew to Yangon early in the morning and our flight to KL was in the evening so we thought we could arrange a day tour at the airport in Yangon. There's only 1 travel agent at the airport but they do tours outside of Burma so we asked this guy who kept following us around offering his taxi. We made a deal, it was $10 per hour. Very expensive we thought, but everything cost so much in Burma, for tourist of course. All because they just open their country to tourism, so still less competitors, that's why hotels, transportation, still cost so much in this country! Our flight from Yangon to Mandalay was $US 460, using "Air Bagan".

We went to Shwedagon Pagoda", an enormous pagoda in the middle and surrounded by 4 other temples from each wing. Another beautiful temple. What I love to see is the roof of the temples, very detailed wooden carving, just beautiful!! And then we drove around Kandawgyi lake and we passed ASSK's house and then we hit the "Scott market". A huge market selling everything from beautiful Burmese crafts, paintings, food, clothing, you name it! But thinking of the $10 an hour charge for the car, we didn't spent too long at the market. And so, we went back to the airport.

Yangon, really reminds me of Indonesia in the old days, in the 60's I would say. Well, we do have the same history background. Our President got coup from their Generals, we were living under military suppression for a while, one president ruled for years and years. Even though both have different method but it's still the same motives. Old cars, man wearing sarongs and chew pan. These men love their sarong. We saw some guys jogging with their sarong folded to his stomach. Very interesting indeed.  

There are so many reasons to go to Burma, the people, the Crafts, the lakes, Bagan city, temples, rivers, etc. Burma is a country waiting to be discovered!