Sunderland, England

'We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time'
TS Eliot, Four Quartets

Bangkok, Thailand

As much as I love travelling in South-East Asia, I wish they wouldn't cut the crusts off sandwiches. Also it would be nice if they'd stop advertising sugary hot dogs as 'sausages'. And I can never quite accept their peculiar attitudes towards queueing and personal space. But I can happily forgive their poor command of the English language. The highlight of one evening this week was a Thai bar singer's rendition of 'Creep' by Radiohead ("I wish I was spatial...you're so f***ing spatial...").

Bangkok doesn't need any lengthy insights from me, because it's already well known to many of you, and it's one of those places about which probably most things you read elsewhere are true. It's also the place where I reached the end of my 2008 world trip, the first time I’d ever travelled properly. I remember feeling very subdued and thoughtful in the taxi taking me to the airport for the flight home, because the greatest adventure of my life had just ended and I couldn’t help wondering if - having given up my career and spent literally all my money - I might never get the chance to do something like that again.

Since then I’ve been fortunate enough to have had more adventures: South America in 2012, round the world again in 2013, the USA road trip in 2014, and now this third journey round the world. But which trip is my favourite? If pressed, I'd have to say…the next one.

For which, watch this space in 2016. In the meantime, happy holidays Merry Christmas to you all.

SkyTrain heading for Mo Chit

Looking west down Ratchadamoenklang Road at the Democracy Monument.
This was during the 'Bike For Dad' mass public cycling event.
'Dad' in this case being the King.

The Maha Nakhon building.
It's not quite finished at the top, but the rest of it is meant to look like that.

Inside the Grand Palace

Ananta Samakhom Throne Hall (built 1915)

Wat Benchamabopit Dusitwanaram Ratchaworawihan
(that's easy for you to say)

Edd vs Food #39
Beef burrito and self-service salsa at Sunrise Tacos.
I've had enough Asian food for one year, thanks.

Mandalay, Burma

Compared with countries like Malaysia or Thailand, Burma is still relatively unspoilt. That's what attracted me here, just as with Vietnam back in 2008. Of course, I always remind myself that people like me who visit unspoilt places are, by definition, the people who end up spoiling them.

The train from Rangoon to Naypyidaw took 9 hours and cost £2.80. The train from Naypyidaw to Mandalay, further along the same line, took 6 hours and cost £1.85. These prices are for 'upper class' tickets. It's a decent enough train, if slow, but it was bumpy as hell and more than once a bump lifted me clean out of my seat. God knows how people manage to sleep on the night train. Admittedly this line is a fairly dull flat route, apart from the bumps: the real scenery is to be found en route to smaller places like Kalaw and Inle Lake and Pyay. Something for me to remedy next time.

In Mandalay I made perhaps my worst social faux pas of this trip. (Worse even than that time I semi-drunkenly wandered into a women-only carriage on the Osaka subway.) I was sauntering down a dusty road, squinting against the sun, when a roofless minivan drove past carrying women singing through loudspeakers. I assumed it was some sort of home-made political broadcast, so I took a photo and waved gaily at them, grinning, as they passed. Then I looked to my right and noticed the appproach of a huge, gleaming black hearse, topped with flowers and Buddhist icons; it was followed by a long train of more roofless minivans, all crammed with mourners. The song had clearly been a Burmese funeral dirge for some local big cheese, and several dozen people were now looking somewhat askance at my gormless grinning mug. I would have hidden away with shame, had there been anywhere to hide, which there wasn't.

Burma has been in the news recently, what with the election and the military's apparent acceptance that this time they're not going to get away with just ignoring the result. However in my time here the revolution has not been on display. I haven't witnessed any kind of political rallies or gatherings, nor any kind of turmoil or repression. But of course I'm unable to read the local newspaper headlines, or to understand the conversations I overhear; and just possibly the police and soldiers may not be quite as nice to locals as they are to tourists. So I can't say I've gained any real understanding of what's going on that I didn't already have from the news. All I can do is wish the Burmese people well in their hopefully peaceful transition from tyranny (where one is governed by arseholes who nobody voted for) to democracy (where one is governed by arseholes who other people voted for). Don't get fooled again.

Mandalay Castle, south-east corner.
Each side of the square castle grounds is 2 miles long.
For those of you who didn't do A-level maths, that's 8 miles of moat.

Inside the castle grounds

Myanmar!!! F*** yeah!!!

At the very top of Mandalay Hill: an oasis of peace and tranquility.
Apart from all the smartphones with loudspeakers...yes, even here...

As above

Looking south from Mandalay Hill over the castle grounds.
You can see part of the eastern moat in the distance.
Squint and you'll see a bridge - it's exactly 1 mile from the bridge to the far end of the moat.

Temples below the hill, lit up at dusk

A typical Mandalay street scene

Naypyidaw, Burma

Rangoon was Burma's capital until 2005, when the military (who still run everything at the time of writing) decided that it would be a really good idea to have a brand new capital in the interior of the country, miles from its borders and coastline and indeed from everything else. So they built a city from scratch, and called it Naypyidaw. All civil servants were ordered, on pain of harsh penalties, to relocate. Perhaps the generals imagined that the new city would take over from Rangoon as the country's cultural and commercial hub? More likely they just wanted a capital where it was much easier to hide things from the massed ranks and prying eyes of foreigners, and indeed of their own citizens.

Officially, ie according to the military, Naypyidaw's population is around 1 million. Having traversed the whole place in a taxi, I can say with certainty that the official figures are nonsense. This is a ghost town. The photos you see below were taken on a Saturday afternoon. The freeway in the first photo has literally 20 lanes - I've never seen anything like it, not even in the USA.

Naypyidaw must be the only capital city in the world where TripAdvisor's 'Top 10 Things To Do' list has been abridged to a Top 5. Also, it's surely the only capital city in the world where one can arrive at the central railway station at 5.30pm on a Friday (as I did) and find not only no public transport, but no taxis either, and no wi-fi...

I was the only tourist in town and I quickly became a celebrity among the locals, all of them hanging around at the railway station presumably because there was nowhere else to go. They knew no English beyond 'hello', which they all repeated gaily while following me around like a little troop of disciples. Going outside, I sat down on a step to get my laptop out. My followers gathered in rows behind me, some sitting, some squatting, some standing, some tiptoe-ing; all of them peering over my shoulder, an intermittent chorus of 'hello's still chirruping out into the dusk. Finally I found my hotel's phone number. One of my disciples had a car, so I got him to phone my hotel on his mobile and then I took the phone off him and told the hotel concierge - who spoke English, thank Buddha - to give my guy some directions. Thus I finally got to my posh hotel, a huge palace of eerie and haunting luxury, almost totally devoid of guests. My improvised taxi driver was paid generously.

The next day I commandeered a (real) taxi and driver for a couple of hours to take me to all the sights. While I was walking around taking photos, the driver insisted on trotting along after me, holding a parasol over my head to shield me from the sun. I wanted to tell him I was happy for him to wait in his car and relax, but he didn't speak English and I didn't feel I could just shoo him away. Anyway, one quickly gets used to these little colonial privileges, does one not? Apart from a handful of business delegations within the hotel itself, I didn't see any other foreigners anywhere in Naypyidaw, and I was definitely the only tourist.

After I was done taking photos, my driver took me back to the hotel. (Outside the gate, a guard used a mirror on a stick to check under the car for bombs. That was a first for me.) I spent the rest of the day lounging on my bed, eating room service food and watching football on TV. The next day I was back on the train, heading away to the north. This is one place to which I don't ever want to come back.

Lovely hotel though.

"You say you'll give me
A highway with no-one on it..."
'All I Want Is You', U2

Burma's national parliament. This is as close as you can get. Photo taken through locked gates.
Similar gates at the Supreme Court, but photos weren't allowed there at all.

Another big empty road...

Uppatasanti Pagoda. Built 2006-2009 as a near-replica of the Shwedagon (see last blog).
It's like us building a replica of Durham Cathedral in Milton Keynes.

Looking south from the pagoda

  

Reverse angle of the above photo

Sadly this T-shirt wasn't available in adult sizes, otherwise I'd have bought it.

Edd vs Food #38
Room service. Tuna sarnies.
In the world's biggest ghost town, I'm not leaving my posh hotel room after dark.
Especially not on a Saturday, when all the football is on the telly.

Rangoon, Burma

Strictly speaking this is Yangon, Myanmar. But where's the romance in that?

My flight here was with Malaysia Airlines, who are perhaps not top of the aviation safety leagues right now. I did not feel greatly reassured by the Koranic prayer beamed across all the entertainment screens as we took off, nor by the in-flight map compass pointing to Mecca all through the journey. Religious piety, or propitiation of religious humans? I suspect the latter. But even when flying in the name of Islam, the male air stewards are still flagrant homosexuals. Some things never change.

Anyway, after three months of comfort and self-indulgence, finally I feel like I'm actually travelling. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the opulence of plush Japanese hotels and my friends' lovely house in Melbourne. But at the same time, it feels kind of nice to be back in a cycle rickshaw with the dust in my eyes. Burma does not contain a single Starbucks, Subway or 7-11. It doesn't even have a McDonalds. I'm staying in the Millenium Hotel, which is presumably named after the last time it got a proper clean. Sh*t just got real.

Rangoon is like most capital cities in this part of the world: huge, dirty, overcrowded, and perfectly safe. What makes it unique is the total absence of all motorcycles and scooters (the government banned them a few years ago). That and the strange, casual, almost other-worldly perfection of the women. You see Vogue cover girls standing behind every street stall. There must be something in the water.

Other first impressions: whenever you see two male friends walking down the street, one of them will always have his arm across his friend's shoulder. And saffron-robed monks of all ages can be seen everywhere, mingling peacefully with white-robed madrassa students. And the rackety old buses don't have signs on the front: they have young men hanging off the side of the bus, yelling out destinations.

Finally, I'm sorry that the photos below are a bit people-free. I don't like snapping away at people, even in crowds, without their permission. I had intended to get some more human-based photos on my last day here, but those plans had to be abandoned. Just as every rose has its thorn, and every night has its dawn...and every cowboy sings a sad, sad song...every trip to the developing world has a full day spent locked in one's hotel room while one's digestive system temporarily turns itself from a processing plant into a mass-transit system. Sh*t just got even more real.

Botahtaung Pagoda at dusk, from my hotel roof.

Don't try this at home...
The Circular Train goes all the way around the city. It's a three-hour ride.
And there are no doors in the doorways, so you can lean out and take pictures like this.
Ticket price: 200 kyat (about 10p).

Snogging. Normally I'm the first to shout 'get a room!'...
...but it seems a shame to actually ban it.

Schindler's Lift.
Ha ha.

Puppies for sale on the street.
As a result you also see lots of stray bitches with badly swollen teats.
I can handle human poverty and suffering, but I hate cruelty to dogs.

West entrance to Shwedagon Pagoda, the biggest and holiest Buddhist site in Burma.

Inside Schwedagon (1)

Inside Schwedagon (2)

Fountain in People's Park

Fountain and Shwedagon together, seen facing east.

Tokyo, Japan

Greater Tokyo has a bigger population than Canada. Fact.

Of all the countries I've visited, my favourite is the USA. Even without those aspects which I love but which might be less attractive to others - shared language and cultural heritage, blues music, craft beer, cheap gasoline, Taco Bell - I think it's undeniable that no other single country has such a range and depth of unspoilt and accessible natural beauty. That's why I'll always keep going back Stateside for as long as my legs and air miles permit.

But, as of this week, a shiny gleaming silver medal goes permanently to Japan. Japan is just awesome. Most of you won't have visited Japan, but you should do so, as soon as you can. It's everything you'd expect, and much more. The people don't speak English, but they're friendly and helpful and you always get what you need eventually. It's the cleanest and safest place on Earth. Everything works and runs on time. The food is marvellous. And the Japan Rail Pass (see last blog) is a gift from God.

Best of all, frankly, Japan is cheap. A couple of decades ago, it was rightly known for being expensive, but that impression has persisted long after it ceased to be true. In almost all respects it's now a cheaper place to be than the UK. For instance, when a minor flight schedule blip left me needing a hotel near Narita airport, a decent room at the Radisson cost me only £35. And a can of Asahi beer to sip on the bullet train was less than £2, from the kiosk on the platform. And a draft beer in a plush central Tokyo bar was only just over £2. And bottles of soft drinks are generally under £1. And you can eat like kings downtown in the big cities for £15-£20 a head including drinks. I could go on, but you get the point.

(The one negative blip on the scanner is Tokyo's district of Roppongi, which sells itself for 'nightlife' but is in fact a sleazy hell-hole where dead-eyed whores offer you 'happy massage' and greasy Nigerian pimps don't even bother to be as subtle as that. If you're ever in Tokyo, give Roppongi a miss.)

One day I'm going to come back here and spend a couple of months seeing this country properly. I might even learn to read some of the squiggles.

Shibuya crossing

Ishibashi
Greatest. Guitar. Shop. Ever.
In the top right is a full wall of genuine vintage Les Paul Standards.

This confirms what I've always thought about people who bury themselves in their smartphones:
they deserve to be cold-shouldered by hot women. And killed by trains.

Surely this too is a cause behind which all right-thinking people can rally.
Every time I see a selfie stick, I want to grab it and beat its owner to death with it.

Interactive Japanese toilet/bidet. It washes both back and front bottoms.
Note the helpful colour-coded diagrams...
...to clarify where front bottoms are to be found.

Kyoto, Japan

Prior to the Meiji restoration in 1869, Kyoto was Japan's capital. Going much further back - to the period 710AD to 794AD - the capital was Nara. Me and Sean have been soaking up the scenery in both former capitals, taking day trips from our plush Hyatt Regency hotel in Osaka.

Such city-hopping has been made easy and pleasurable by using the Japan Rail Pass. This pass is only available to foreigners - it has to be purchased outside Japan. For about £160, at current exchange rates, you get unlimited travel on the Japan Rail network (including the bullet trains) for a week. It doesn't include subway travel within the cities, but separate day passes for the subway can be had for less than a fiver. All the trains in Japan are exactly as you'd expect: fast, quiet, totally clean, and punctual to within seconds.

I wonder what it would cost to get unlimited travel on the whole British rail network for a week? It makes me feel dizzy just thinking about it.

Japan is notable for being by far the most racially homogeneous of all big rich countries. Basically, everyone is Japanese and of Japanese descent. Immigration is negligible. (In 2014 they accepted the princely total of eleven asylum seekers. In 2013 it was just six.) The inevitable consequence of this nativism is that you lose the benefits of diversity - as a tourist, you don't have the variety of experiences and surprises (and cuisines) that you get in places like London or New York or Paris. I could add that you also lose the risk of being shot like dogs at the hands of medieval Arab death-cults. But I haven't got room in this blog to get into politics. Anyway, Japan continues to be wonderful and you should all brace yourselves to be lectured at length on this subject when I get home.

Temples and rock pools on the Path of Philosophy, Kyoto.

Five-storied pagoda at Kōfuku-ji, Nara

Nandaimon, the 12th-century Great South Gate of Todaiji Temple, Nara

In Nara Park, the deer are considered messengers from the Shinto gods.
Accordingly they're treated with reverence and allowed to roam freely.
Visitors are allowed to feed them - they're tame, hence the photo.
But if they see the food come from your pocket, they'll follow you and nibble at the pocket.

Todai-ji Temple Central Gate

Todai-ji Temple

Inside Todaiji:
a statue of Les Dawson.

Osaka, Japan

For the first time ever, I've let someone else decide what country I'm going to visit. I agreed to meet my Melbourne mate Sean for a week's drinking in an Asian country of his choice: he was keen to pay his first visit to Japan, and I was delighted to come back (see last time).

Sean is from Melbourne, so he starts to shiver any time the temperature dips below 25 degrees C. I'm from Sunderland and I start to sweat any time it goes above 12 degrees C. But Japan has very mild and temperate weather so we've both been mostly OK. The main bone of contention has been the blackout curtains in the hotel room, because Sean likes to have them closed but I like to be woken by the dawn. Stern words were exchanged, so we agreed to settle it like men. I lost the pillow fight and the curtains stayed closed.

In Tokyo things are relatively tourist-oriented, with English signs (or at least Latin characters) accompanying the Japanese squiggles. But Osaka doesn't have many tourists and in some places squiggles are all you see. It's not a problem in bars, because you can ignore the squiggles and just point at the bottle you want. With restaurants, we've had to restrict ourselves to those where the menu has photos accompanying the squiggles. Even then, it's a bit of a lottery. After all, what looks like chicken might actually be pork. Or octopus. Or God knows what.

In one restaurant, a Korean grill actually, there was an English-language menu which listed specific cuts and derivations of beef including 'rectum' and 'sausage'. Given that the Japanese word for 'one' is 'ichi' (pronounced 'itchy'), and given that we were sharing food from the same plate, you can easily see the comic potential of the situation. But obviously Sean and I are both far too mature to sit making crass jokes about itchy rectums all night. Obviously.

Japanese bars are mostly very small - no more than 10 to 15 seats at the bar, and few (if any) tables - but in this case size definitely doesn't matter. Every bar we found was pleasant, friendly and inexpensive, with all the bottled spirits you can think of and plenty more besides. Our favourite was Jack's Inn, where the solo barman doubled as a DJ, spinning vintage jazz LPs on a turntable at one end of the bar. He made my night by playing one of my personal favourite recordings: Ella Fitzgerald's unsurpassable 1960 rendition of 'Mack The Knife', sung live in Berlin, wherein she forgot the lyrics halfway through and started improvising Louis Armstrong impressions instead. All listened to in convivial surroundings through a Cuba Libre haze. We love Japan.

Downtown Osaka

View from Osaka hotel room, 20th floor

Osaka Castle

Jack's Inn (see text above).
What you see here is pretty much the whole bar, complete with on-bar turntable.

Osaka Aquarium (obviously)

The aquarium has a petting zoo...for manta rays and sharks.
We'll give those Asian 'tiger moms' the benefit of the doubt,
and assume that the kids are there of their own free will.

Edd vs Food #37
Sonamu
They don't have a website or any TripAdvisor reviews.
Me and Sean just wandered in off the street.
It's actually a Korean place. We were looking for Japanese food...
...but we didn't notice the subtly different-shaped squiggles until after we'd ordered.