Suzanne Gibson Photography
  • My Blog
  • Bicycle Travels
    • 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
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    • 2018 >
      • Bicycle 100 >
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        • The Cold Months: January - April
        • The Merry Month: May
        • Here Comes Summer: June
        • The Warmest Month: July
        • More Summer - August
        • Easing into Autumn - September
        • Colorful Days - October
        • Before We Leave - November
      • Cycling in Circles - Bike Challenge 2018 >
        • The 7 Rides in 7 Weeks Challenge
        • 1: The spirit is willing
        • 2. The weather is good
        • 3. Off to buy a new saddle
        • 4. Got a new saddle
        • 5. Testing the new saddle
        • 6. Spring Equinox
        • 7. The sun is out
        • 8. Starting the Circle
        • 9. To Schleissheim
        • 10. The Second Segment
        • 11. Easter Sunday
        • 12. The Third Segment
        • 13. The Fourth Segment
        • 14. Visiting Friends
        • 15. The Fifth Segment
        • 16. The spirit is willing ...
        • 17. The Sixth Segment
        • 18. The Last Segment
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A Good Start in 2020

1/17/2020

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Winter Rides

January has been kind to us so far ... knock on wood. We haven't seen a single snowflake and have had plenty of sunny days. It's cold, yes, but not often below zero and I am managing to get out on my bike often. This year my goal is not only to ride as often as possible but to increase my mileage. Nuff said. I won't commit myself here to what my km goal is. But I have one.

This is not the end-of-the-month post, that is yet to come with more pictures, stats - kilometers.
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Famous Last Words

"we haven't seen a single snowflake"

That was yesterday. Today we got some snowflakes.
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Back in Munich

1/2/2020

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The Polar Bear Club

It was an abrupt transition from +30°C at 10 pm in Bangkok to 0°C at midday a day later. But we aren’t letting that deter us! Our local bicycle club as of this winter has introduced winter rides. We were away for the first three, but on this frosty but sunny January day we decided to join them. Actually, I felt obliged since on a warm afternoon last summer I had  asked if the club also rode in the winter. It was an innocent question but Sebastian, our group leader, took it seriously and initiated the "Eisbärtouren".

Yesterday when we met it was -2°C and Sebastian had planned a 35 km ride. So far my winter rides have been at the most 15 km, usually more like six or seven, nothing to brag about but just enough to make me feel good about being out. I was surprised to see that 12 hardy cyclists turned up! We rode a good 25 km before we stopped for lunch at a Greek restaurant for warmth and energy. The remaining ten were then no problem.
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Catching a few rays of sun
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Bridge over the Isar
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We ride through Forstenrieder Park
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Bagan

12/29/2019

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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

12/28/2019

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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

12/28/2019

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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

12/27/2019

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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

12/26/2019

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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

12/24/2019

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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

12/22/2019

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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

12/17/2019

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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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<<Previous
Forward>>
  • My Blog
  • Bicycle Travels
    • 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
  • Projects
    • 2020 Projects >
      • Bicycle Days 2020 >
        • January
        • February
        • March
        • April
        • May
        • June
        • July
        • August
        • September 2020
        • October 2020
        • November 2020
        • December 2020
    • 2019 >
      • Bicycle Days >
        • January
        • February
        • March
        • April
        • May
        • June
        • July
        • August
        • September 2019
        • October
        • November
        • December
    • 2018 >
      • Bicycle 100 >
        • The 100 Rides Challenge
        • The Cold Months: January - April
        • The Merry Month: May
        • Here Comes Summer: June
        • The Warmest Month: July
        • More Summer - August
        • Easing into Autumn - September
        • Colorful Days - October
        • Before We Leave - November
      • Cycling in Circles - Bike Challenge 2018 >
        • The 7 Rides in 7 Weeks Challenge
        • 1: The spirit is willing
        • 2. The weather is good
        • 3. Off to buy a new saddle
        • 4. Got a new saddle
        • 5. Testing the new saddle
        • 6. Spring Equinox
        • 7. The sun is out
        • 8. Starting the Circle
        • 9. To Schleissheim
        • 10. The Second Segment
        • 11. Easter Sunday
        • 12. The Third Segment
        • 13. The Fourth Segment
        • 14. Visiting Friends
        • 15. The Fifth Segment
        • 16. The spirit is willing ...
        • 17. The Sixth Segment
        • 18. The Last Segment
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