Yangon Myanmar, Burma, Rangoon - Shwedagon Pagoda

Yangon Rangoon, Burma, Myanmar. 5448 Diamonds, 2317 Rubies, 99 metres tall (325 feet), originally built in 588BC, gold plated with gold plates. Tons, of solid gold plates. The "Shwedagon Pagoda" in Yangon Rangoon, Burma, Myanmar. This is what I call, a lazy travel post. Oh, the Pagoda was one of the most mind blowing structures I have ever seen. It's surreal. Look it up. The point is, one day soon, I'll get around to showing the other side of Yangon Rangoon, Burma, Myanmar. It's not all precious gems and gold. More like cups of rice and prison tat's. Possibly dependent upon your public opinion on certain, say....issues..and...things...about the government, just as a wild example. Perhaps I'll title the post " Burma, Myanmar : Visiting a Unitary Presidential Republic, With No Preparation At All Just a Last Minute Whim , It Sounded Like a Good Idea at The Time, and Hey The Flights Were Cheap". Or maybe "Yangon Rangoon : It Was Good Enough For George Orwell, Lets Check It Out". Which is precisely the method I normally use, to select our next travel destination. Not without fault, the selection criteria of potential countries to visit may need some fine tuning, in case we end up in North Korea, or even worse, London.

In the meantime, here's a photo of the Shwedagon Pagoda, from last week. Given that 99% of the people who read this blog are here searching for photos of Balangan Beach, Bali, it may only be of interest to the 1% who personally know us, to inform you that last week we safely made it into, and out of, Burma, Myanmar.

Bulgaria - We Were There, Iwan Iwanoff Was There in Spirit

Times like these I think to myself "it would have been a good idea to go through my photos". I may have a problem with leaving things to the last minute. Not all things, just travel related things. Tonight I'm getting on a plane again, four more countries, four more weeks. Packing, incomplete (technically, not actually started). Passport, credit cards, cameras, I guess a few t-shirts and a pair of nice slacks, maybe a rain jacket. In any case, I should have some great photos to show you of Bulgaria. I don't. I probably won't be getting to them any time soon. Shame, it was the first time I had seen words like "България". Which is Bulgarian for "Bulgaria".

Bulgaria was home to one of the worlds greatest architects, "Iwan Iwanoff". Iwan moved from Bulgaria, to my home town, Perth Western Australia, and built some of the coolest houses on earth. He remains remarkably unknown, in both Australia and Bulgaria. This isn't an architecture blog, but if you are interested in what happens when you mix the styles of Frank Lloyd Wright (who?) and Mike Brady, please check the worlds number one resource for everything Iwanoff - my other blog.

RIP, Iwan Iwanoff, you were an inspiration to the first photo-less post on NoPlanes.com. I am sure, България is proud.

Istanbul, Turkey - The End is Always Near

Istanbul, Turkey. "You should go see the beach. It's a long drive to nice beach. Here, take my car! Let me buy you lunch! I have a spare room in my house, you should come back to Istanbul and stay longer. Meet my wife!". A few days prior, we had bought a couple of leather jackets from him. There had been no talk of any leather jackets since. He was genuinely, just a nice guy. Experiences like these can make all the difference to your impression of a city. In any case, within days of arriving, Istanbul joined an exclusive list of cities that I would be happy to spend a longer amount of time in. Good food, incredible historic sites, surrounded by water, and technically, just next door to our home continent. Oh no. Were we really on our way back home?

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Romania - A Heavy Case of Francophilia

Romania. Why Romania? Early on in the noplanes piece, I offered Phillipa a choice. Pick a country to go to. In fact, just give me your dream list, lets go. Romania was on the list, Iran, home of the Supreme Leader of Iran, made it to the list as well. Due to India being totally against Australian's just showing up without a Visa, Iran didn't happen. Yet. Long story. So, at this point in the journey, it came down to Romania (her choice), or four weeks in Compton, South Central Los Angeles (my choice). Yes, opposites do attract. Romania. The recent history of a frog loving megalomaniac so mad as to build a soviet version of the Champs-Élysées, had piqued my interest. Of  course, Nicolae Ceauşescu made sure his boulevard was slightly wider and longer than the original in Paris. It's just around the corner from the Arc De Triomph, which is also in Bucharest. WTF? Does Paris know about this? In any case, like Ceauşescu, I have a heavy case of francophilia (not to mention my yellow fever). I know about Dracula and the Castle Bran, and had heard about some crazy Bucharestian Gypsy ghetto's. So we hopped on a bus bound for Cluj Napoca, and drove across the Carpathian mountain range to Bucharest. If it wasn't for me walking around snapping pics for three days without the film actually winding on, I would have a few more photos. Oh well, shit happens...

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Kutna Hora, Czech Republic - Just a Big Ol' Stack of Medieval Plague Victims

Kutna Hora, Czech Republic. Skulls and bones derived from as many as 70,000 human corpses have been artistically arranged to decorate a church, just a short soviet-era train ride from the fairytale city of Prague, Czech Republic. Clearly, this was a death filled day trip too good to possibly resist. The Sedlec Ossuary, in the town of Kutna Hora, is Bohemian in geography, and spectacularly macabre in nature. Frantisek Rint arranged the bones within the Catholic church, unaware that several hundred years later this would be a satanists wet dream. In any case, the day-tripping town of Kutna Hora is more than just a big ol' stack of medieval plague victims (or so the travel brochure reads). A medieval  town core, including the fascinating Gothic monument that is the Saint Barbara cathedral, is elegantly wrapped by 'burbs filled with brutally designed housing blocks. Communist cookie-cut architecture. Food is good here, but then, how could you go wrong with a slab of fresh deep fried cheese, washed down with a local Pilsner? Compared to Prague, the streets were quiet. Tourists were few. The Kutna Hora train station, frankly, is what travel dreams are made of. Decaying eastern european infrastructure, battered signage displaying town names with nary a vowel to mention, and not a ticket machine in sight. Fuck. Why did I ever leave this skull infested wonderland? WHY! WHYYYYYY!!! I thought about renaming this day-trip "Kutna Hora, Seriously, What the Fuck Just Happened". I could go on, but this is a micro-post. At least I remembered to take photos on this day-trip.

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