China round 2

NIHAO MA!!!

This whole trip I asked myself why I have a winter jacket and long underwear and now I know why! Because I was planning on staying in China for a long time and it is cold here!

After leaving China my last visit with a strange feeling I am pleasantly suprised about how amazing of a day and how excited I am for my days in Beijing. And as is when you get to a new place you want to see/do EVERYTHING and wish you had more time.

Here people speak English and the city is clean and beautiful. An ancient city in the middle of the new capital and its an amazing mixture. It doesn't feel overcrowded, overused or hectic the other places in China felt. This is a Chinese city where you feel like you are pleasantly in China. Actually I couldn't help but feeling like I was in Chicago all day. Something about the cold windy weather and the ways the trees blew in the wind and blew leaves around the streets. The way people dressed and the wide streets and clean city.

I also have had to keep in mind that all these impressions are coming after the countryside of China, Thailand and Myanmar.

I believe I understand the definitions of 3rd, 2nd and 1st world.

Happy thanksgiving to all! Love all of you! I'm thankful for all of you and your all constantly in my thoughts. The most important thing in life for me is people and the most important people in my life is my family and friends. THANK YOU!

Speaking of friends I got to see my amazing friend Yiren tonight who I hadn't seen in over a year but not a second had passed and it was unbelievable! Truly unbelievable to be able to go around the world and see people who you have created relationships with and to create relationships with new people as well who I hope to meet in future time.

Tomorrow I'm going to meet a cousin whom I never knew existed, should be fun!

On the air, road, bus, taxi, scooter, bicycle, legs, Mac

Will the real Myanmar please stand up

The land of the red stained teeth, but the golden smile. One of the only places a man looks fashionable and normal in a skirt (I must say its refreshing:)). Driving wheels on both sides of their 1960s battered cars. No McDonalds or other chain stores/restaurants (although they are making their way in). The land of simple bamboo houses but extravagant golden pagodas. A place where people give when they barely have anything for themselves, they are the most genuine and easy going people I have met. The place where people ask you if you are happy and truly hope you will return to their country. Somewhere where nobody is truly on the same page about road conditions, places you can travel, if you are being spied on, what the government is going to do next, if they will truly have fair elections in 2015, when the South East Asian games are even though they are being held in Myanmar. A place with one mother who has fought and will continue to fight for her people, and whom everyone considers their mother and loves her like one, Aung Sun Suy Gyi.
A place that is truly poor but there are hardly any beggers. You cannot avoid seeing poverty, people sleeping on streets as rats run past them, large piles of rubbish that stink up street corners, broken sidewalks and pudddles of oddly colored stagnant water. Seeing people taking bucket showers in public is common, especially in the rivers that are sometimes full of rubbish. A land where the family business is your business. Where people sleep where they can, in the back of their taxi pickup trucks, bicycle taxis and anywhere in the shade when they get a chance. A place with 3 seasons: rainy, cold and hot, but most would consider the cold season their summer. A place where people love to combine Grand Royal Whisky, which seems to sponsor the country,  and Myanmar beer.
A place where you can be the first tourist to lay eyes on a place. Somewhere you can see how the land naturally looks and functions without little human interruption and its beautiful. 
Somewhere that has a future which nobody is sure about but everyone is looking forward to. You can feel the development and see it coming but selfishly as a tourist you want it to remain the same and at the least hope they do not sell out and screw themselves over.

When you are un Myanmar you know you are in Myanmar, there is no avoiding it ir trying to live your lifestyle in this country and that iswhat makes it so amazing for some and difficult for others.

A place where you feel far away from the rest of the world but all the people want and try is to make you feel at home

Rambling man

I was so ready to leave scumbag city aka Bangkok. I made a really great group of diverse friends at my hostel that I had a great time with but Bangkok isn't anywhere I wanted to spend any more time in. Looking around you see white guys with Thai girls and rarely ever the opposite combo. What you see is neither love or lust, but prostitution. You wonder how these hags could feel comfortable holding hands with girls who look no older than 18 around town as if they are showing off a prize. Don't feel special buddy! It doesnt matter what you look like or what your personality is like,  just the size of your wallet!

After staying out way late on Halloween on Khao San rd, the famous town for backpackers in BKK I was on the road again saying adios to Thailand, until next time or forever. I had a great mix of tourist fun and unique exotic experience that I could not have imagined myself getting into.

Most memorable moments of Thailand: Staying in Umpang with my friend I met who worked for an NGO there. Hermit village, Burmese refugee camp, cock fight, breakfast lunch and dinner with only Thai people, rice wine, eating frog that i saw get caught, killed and cooked. Hitch hiking in the back of a pickup truck on a 2 hr ride  Sleeping in a bamboo house in the middle of a rice paddy waking up to roosters and in the meanwhile my friend had picked up breakfast and we ate it on the porch. Also my motorbike rd trip around 300km through more than 1,300 windy turns up and around mountainous rds through the jungle.

Anyways, after a super-tourist night I shortly after on a plane to a place where I feel far far away from the party haven of Bangkok. 

As I was sitting in a restaurant getting lunch I suddenly got the feeling as if a ghost had crawled up my spine, a cold flash and a light head,  the feeling of your body and mind at the same time realizing you are in a very different place. Hard to explain but we've all felt it. I had lunch and all the girls at the restaurant looked at me so we started communciating, barely and all of a sudden 8 girls are surrounding me laughing at me/ with me and speaking Burmese language. We entertained each other for awhile and finally when it was getting too difficult to talk more they ran and grabbed a older guy who spoke English. We got to talking and didn't stop,  he ended up taking me around the city showing me all these local things and explaining to me the culture, beliefs, languages, history, etc. Etc. He is an amazingly friendly, funny, spiritual and philosophical guy. We then went out to eat at a restaurant that while we ate and drank there was a stagr that ran in the niddle of everything where girls sang karaoke and did a fashion show. It was wild.

I'm exhausted but I just wanted to get some of these things down before I forget so excuse the rambling that proaby doesn't make sense.

I cant believe any of this happened such an unexpected day. Put yourself in situations and some things will happen.