Suzanne's Cycling Site
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      • Continuing on the Romantic Road >
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        • Day 2 - Raustetten to Dorfgütingen
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      • Alpe-Adria Tour 2018 >
        • 1. Alsace or the Alps?
        • 2. We're Off: Munich to Bruckmühl
        • 3. Mountains Aready? Bruckmühl to Übersee
        • 4. Almost Salzburg: Übersee to Freilassing
        • 5. On the Ciclovia Alpe-Adria: Freilassing to Golling
        • 6. A Short Ride: Golling to Werfen
        • 7. A Patch of Blue Sky: Werfen to Sankt Veit
        • 8. Holed up in Sankt Veit
        • 9. The Big Climb: Sankt Veit to Unterkolbnitz
        • 10. Inching Our Way: Kolbnitz to Spittal
        • 11. Flat and Dry: Spittal to Arnoldstein
        • 12. Buongiorno Bella Italia: Arnoldstein to Chiusaforte
        • 13. Best Bike Path Ever: Chiusaforte to Tavagnacco
        • 14. Closer to the Sea: Tavagnacco to Palmanova
        • 15. Last Day on the Road: Palmanova to Grado
        • 16. Grado and How We Got Home
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Bagan

29/12/2019

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Road Construction

On our way home from a walk on dusty tracks leading to the temples, we got a chance to observe first hand how roads are constructed today, probably not only in Bagan but in all of Myanmar. I usually don't like to take pictures of people without asking, but for these shots I found a good spot where I could unobtrusively capture the scene with my zoom lens.
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The majority of road workers are women, the only machine used is the steam roller.
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Waiting to distribute the next round of crushed stones
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Not a machine in sight
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Backbreaking, dusty work
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A smoky fire to melt the tar which will be poured on the road surface
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Transporting hot tar
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Tar being poured through holes in a metal container, carried back and forth until the surface is covered
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The road she rides on
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Bagan

28/12/2019

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A Simple Meal

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For lunch we went to the closest restaurant, the one right next door that we visited on our first day here. They only serve curry, to foreigners at least, although it looks like the Burmese at the other tables have different things on their plates. But four kinds of curry - beef, fish, lamb and chicken - is easily understood. The curry itself is a small dish with three modest sized pieces of meat or fish in a puddle of oily sauce. This is then accompanied by side-dishes of stewed eggplant, fermented bamboo, spicy tomato puree, dried fish fried with onions, green beans and a bowl of broth. A pot of rice is placed on the table, you help yourself. Perhaps the fermented bamboo shoots are an acquired taste and probably the smell of a stinky French cheese is just as unappetizing to a Burmese as the smell of the fermented bamboo shoots is to us. All the little dishes make a nice array to look at, perhaps not my favorite Asian food but good enough and it all seems to be very authentic.
So perhaps if we haven't seen as many temples and pagodas as we wished, I feel the lethargy imposed on us by my illness has given us time to take in the flavor of our surroundings.
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Bagan

28/12/2019

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Temples and Dusty Roads

For today we choose a different group of temples to investigate. We are again lucky that it is cloudy and cool for our walk. A blue sky might be nicer for pictures but being exposed to the baking sun not so nice for us.
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A bicycle and the view of Bagan we didn't see
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The paths leading to the sights are a mixture of red dust and sand, sometimes loose and deep. I wouldn't want to have to ride any kind of two-wheeled vehicle here, with or without a motor. But these paths or minor roads don't just lead to the historic sites but also to villages and there is light traffic.
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Bagan

27/12/2019

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A Stroll to Nearby Temples

It rained all morning, strange for this time of year. In the afternoon the sky remained overcast and the air cool. It was good weather for walking. These pictures are all of scenes closeby, places we walked to and probably nothing on a tourist's itinerary.
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Bagan, Maynmar

26/12/2019

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The Irrawaddy

Although we have been close to this legendary river since we arrived in Myanmar, today was the first time we saw it. That was at sundown, but let's start the narrative at the beginning of the day.

Yesterday I finished my prescribed antibiotic, but I wasn't well yet, not by a long shot. Time for a doctor. We trotted off to Bagan's Global Care International Clinic, its name grander than the building itself. But I got to see a doctor who spoke good English, took his time to listen to me and made a very competent impression altogether. I left with a bagfull of medications, including antibiotics. I don't know what's in all those little yellow, white and blue pills they gave me, but I'm taking them all, no questions asked.

Both Janos and I were relieved to have things under control and in the evening I felt up to a walk to the banks of the Irrawaddy. We got there at dusk, as the sun was setting. When the river came into view, we gasped. It was a splendid sight.
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More of Myanmar

24/12/2019

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Bagan

We flew out of Mandalay yesteray and now are in Bagan. This should be a highlight of our trip.
Also known as the Land of a Thousand Temples, the ancient kingdom of Bagan in Myanmar is symbol of Burmese religion, history and culture. Towering above the plains of Mandalay and cradled by the Irrawaddy River, the treasures of the ancient kingdom of Bagan have survived for centuries. Once a major power in Southeast Asia, Bagan is home to over two thousand Buddhist temples standing as symbols of Burmese history and culture.
That's a lot of temples. We'll be happy looking at a few. For our first day and to get acquainted with the lay of the land, we got in a tuktuk and had him drive us to some of the major sights. There were lots of people at the temeples we visited, mostly locals it seemed, we didn't see a lot of foreigners. They livened up the scenes of old stones.
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Making money offerings at the temple
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Our tuktuk driver and Janos in the rearview mirror
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Road construction - the workers are always women. Tar poured over crushed rock - bacbreaking work.
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A Burmese marionette
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On to Myanmar

22/12/2019

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Mandalay

Niether Janos nor I has ever been to Myanmar. There would be so much to discover and explore, and we have so little time. Our decision was to limit ourselves to Mandalay and Bagan for the time we have left.

To quote W. Somerset Maugham: "Mandalay has its name; the falling cadence of the lovely word has gathered about itself the chiaroscuro of romance." The same would apply to the Irrawaddy. The names have drawn us here.

To make a long story short, when we arrived I was fighting a severe respiratory infection which the flight here hadn't helped. Since our arrival I have been confined to our room for the most part, fortunately in a comfortable hotel. I went out with Janos twice for meals, otherwise I have rested in bed. And since my health is even more important to me than all the pagodas of Mandalay, I shall not do much sightseeing here, if any at all.

Our flight to Bagan is tomorrow and I am hoping to be in good enough shape for the continuing journey.

The two times I went out I snapped a few pictures.
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View from our room on the 7th floor - it's a sprawling city.
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I ordered congee - rice soup - in the room and it was lovely.
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The streets are wide and the sidewalks narrow, not meant for walking. You walk in the street with the traffic. Only after I took the picture did I see the sign "Mixagrip", would it help me?
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We went to a Chinese restaurant down the road and had jiaozi (sort of like Chinese ravioli) for lunch.
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The girls were busy peeling garlic and ginger. They were very shy and embarassed but said yes when Janos asked if he could take their picture.
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Condiments provided at every table - plenty of garlic!
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We didn't eat the raw garlic, and we didn't have any of this either.
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Construction going on across the street - the scaffolding looks a bit iffy.
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SE Asia 2019

17/12/2019

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Another Day at the Temples of Angkor

There will be no history, no background information on the temples of Angkor here, just a few pictures from the many that I took this morning.  The visual impact of these temple ruins is powerful and that's what I tried to capture. Of course the history is fascinating as well, but I would have only been able to scratch the surface.

What my blog doesn't show from my experience of the temples are the many tourists taking selfies at every photo-worthy spot, nor do you feel the heat or the fatigue from the bone rattling one-hour tuktuk ride to the more distant temple in the last two pictures. We thought that the distance would keep the mass of visitors away, but when we arrived we saw many big buses in the parking lot...

We often hear ourselves saying, glad we were here eleven years ago.
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SE Asia 2019

16/12/2019

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Next Stop Siem Reap

It's been eleven years since Janos and I rode our bicycles here. In 2008 we started the Cambodia leg of our trip at the border in Sisophon, before the road to Siem Reap was paved. It was a washboard buried in red dust. After a day of that we got a bus. I'm glad we were that adventurous, I certainly wouldn't do it now. I can no longer imagine it.

This time we flew to Siem Reap from Bangkok. In the past decade Siem Reap has changed - as was to be expected. More tourists, more motorized vehicles, more noise. We are glad not to be here by bike.

We are taking a tuktuk to the temple ruins, which are what we came here for. I have a weakness for these vestiges of the past, I don't get tired of them. Some say if you've seen one, you've seen them all. I could wander all day - if it weren't so hot.

I'm keeping the blog posts short. I don't like processing my pictures or writing on the small laptop that Janos and I are sharing. So here are just a few random shots from our time here so far.
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Jungle growth in Siem Reap
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Local peddler and pedaler - but we don't see very many bicycles here, almost everything has a motor.
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Entrance to the Bayon temple, about six kilometers from Siem Reap.
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The occasional bicycle
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Young temple visitor posing for her mama - and I took a quick snap too.
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Bayon temple, built in the late 12th century
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Tourist monks
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Our mode of transportation - our driver is friendly and his vehicle is well air conditioned.
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One of the smaller outlying temples - very peaceful in comparison to the most popular temples
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Peace
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SE Asia 2019

12/12/2019

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First Stop Bangkok

Returning to Bangkok where I have been several times: The first time was in 1965, with two toddlers, when my husband was teaching at Chulalongkorn University. Those two years made an indellible impression on me. Above all the sensory memories have hardly faded. Like a time machine, the heat, the smells of the street, the melody of the language, the flavors of the food - everything that the eyes, ears, nose, and tongue perceive - transport me back in time.

Years later I returned alone as a backpacker, and many years after that Janos and I came and toured in Thailand by bike.

​Here we are again in Bangkok, Janos and me, without our bikes. We'll spend a few days here, just walking around, adjusting to the heat and the time change, absorbing the atmosphere and wielding our cameras or smart phones. (For my blog my smart phone will be more convenient.)

​Now for some pictures
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Broom bicycle
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Temple bicycle
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Waiting for his driver
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Wearing yellow in honor of the newly enthroned king, Rama X
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Walking
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The Bangkok scene
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Chilling
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Umbrellas
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    My blog...

    ... is up and running again. It is a space for notes on my daily doings - walks, bike rides, photo outings, travel. Thanks for reading.

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  • Home
  • Bicycle Tours
    • 2021 >
      • Autumn in the Allgäu
      • Austria Again
      • A Dip into Tyrol
      • Wertheim and Beyond
      • We got as far as Wertheim
      • Bavarian Getaways
    • 2020 >
      • Out and About in Bavaria >
        • Day 1: Gauting - Bad Tölz
        • Day 2: Bad Tölz - Bad Kohlgrub
        • Day 3: Bad Kohlgrub - Landsberg
        • Day 4: Landsberg - Gauting
    • 2019 >
      • The Season Has Begun
      • Pedaling and Shooting in Bavaria >
        • Day 1
        • Day 2
      • More Pedaling in Bavaria >
        • Day 1
        • Day 2
      • Cycling the Inn in Austria >
        • Day 1 Gautig to Tölz
        • Day 2 Tölz to Jenbach
        • Day 3 Jenbach to Innsbruck
        • Day 4 Innsbruck to Rietz
        • Day 5 Rietz to Landeck
        • Day 6 Landeck and Home
    • 2018 >
      • A Two Day Outing
      • A nine-day tour in Lower Bavaria >
        • Day 1
        • Day 2
        • Day 3
        • Day 4
        • Day 5
        • Day 6
        • Day 7
        • Day 8
        • Day 9
      • The Romantic Road >
        • Day 1 - Füssen to Peiting
        • Day 2 - Peiting to Klosterlechfeld
        • Day 3 - Kosterlechfeld to Gersthofen
        • Day 4 - Gersthofen to Donauwörth
        • Day 5 - Train Ride Home
      • Continuing on the Romantic Road >
        • Day 1 - Donauwörth to Raustetten
        • Day 2 - Raustetten to Dorfgütingen
        • Day 3 - Dorfgütingen to Creglingen
        • Day 4 - Creglingen to Hochhausen
        • Day 5: Hochhausen to Uettingen
        • Day 6 - Uettingen to Würzburg
      • Alpe-Adria Tour 2018 >
        • 1. Alsace or the Alps?
        • 2. We're Off: Munich to Bruckmühl
        • 3. Mountains Aready? Bruckmühl to Übersee
        • 4. Almost Salzburg: Übersee to Freilassing
        • 5. On the Ciclovia Alpe-Adria: Freilassing to Golling
        • 6. A Short Ride: Golling to Werfen
        • 7. A Patch of Blue Sky: Werfen to Sankt Veit
        • 8. Holed up in Sankt Veit
        • 9. The Big Climb: Sankt Veit to Unterkolbnitz
        • 10. Inching Our Way: Kolbnitz to Spittal
        • 11. Flat and Dry: Spittal to Arnoldstein
        • 12. Buongiorno Bella Italia: Arnoldstein to Chiusaforte
        • 13. Best Bike Path Ever: Chiusaforte to Tavagnacco
        • 14. Closer to the Sea: Tavagnacco to Palmanova
        • 15. Last Day on the Road: Palmanova to Grado
        • 16. Grado and How We Got Home
    • 2016 >
      • To Berlin and Beyond
    • 2013 >
      • Eight Wheels in Transit
    • 2011 >
      • From Passau to Vienna
    • 2010, 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006
  • Day Rides
    • Rides 2023
    • 2022 Rides
    • 2021 Walks and Rides
    • 2020 Bicycle Days
    • 2019 Rides >
      • Bicycle Days 2019
    • 2018 Rides >
      • Bicycle Days 2018
      • 2018 Monthly Challenges
      • Cycling in Circles
    • 2017 Rides and Challenges >
      • Late to the Party
      • The Munich Kaffeeklatsch
  • Bicycle Memories
    • 1981: Bicycling with Daniel
    • 1981 - Passau to Vienna
    • 1982 - Provence with Daniel
    • 1985: Believe It or Not
    • 1986 - Southwest France
  • About
  • Contact
  • My Blog
  • Miscellaneous
    • Hochbunkers in Munich