The journey matters more than the destination

by Thae Phuu (Myanmar)

A leap into the unknown Myanmar

I love travelling. One time, my father and I went to Mandalay by night train from Yangon to see the flower festival in Pyin-Oo-Lwin which is near Mandalay in Myanmar. That day was the Xmas Eve and we took a 3 AM train from Yangon and along the journey we met new people then we had a dinner together on the train. We arrived at Mandalay about 4 AM then we checked into our relative house from mother’s side. After that, we found a bus to go to Pyin-Oo- Lwin with a group of people. One thing I found out quite interesting was the bus driver pick up a small stone on the bus since we were 9 people on the bus. According to the legend story, we never travel 9 people and if we do, we will face some dangerous along the journey. By the time about afternoon, we went the flower festival and I took pictures a lot of myself with flowers and enjoyed their traditional meal there at lunch. After enjoying a half day there, we went back to Mandalay to meet up our relatives again. The next day, we came back Yangon by bus. We did really enjoy our trip though it was a short one. Now this is the time for me to share my solo trip with you all. In Myanmar, we celebrate water festival in April as one of the religious things in my home country. I thought that was happening only in my country, but Thailand, Cambodia and Laos, Sri Lanka also celebrate this water festival like us. Since April 10 to 20, 2019 was my long holidays, I went to Bangkok to celebrate their Song Kran. There were some water fights going on that road and also they let the people wear some powder and make up on the face. I caught up only the first day of Song Kran in Bangkok since I went to Siam Reap (Cambodia) by night sleeping bus and it cost 1000 bath. I arrived at the border of the Cambodia in the very early morning and I was the only one to pay for the visa fees, actually I don’t need to pay since Cambodia is one of the visa free countries for the Myanmar passport holder. When I was in town, I just realized that I got scammed by them so that I went straight to the tourist police station in Siam Reap. Sadly, the police explained me that he couldn’t control the immigration from the town. Most of the time in Siam Reap, I stayed in my female dormitory room since the weather was really hot and dry in day time. I didn’t really enjoy that much in Cambodia to be honest with you. I went to Bangkok after spending 3 days there. One journey can give one lesson for me that you can’t learn when you are home. When I came back to Bangkok, I met my Filipino friend along the way. Agreeing with her advice, we went to Pattaya to catch up the last day of Song Kran. Literally, that was the best idea to recover from my Cambodia trip. So that I accepted her ideas and we took a small bus to go to the Pattaya. At night time, we went to the walking street which is the party place on that beach. We stayed there till 3 AM and we went back to the hotel and I took my bag to catch up the bus to the Bangkok as I have to catch up afternoon flight the next day. I chose a right gate there and tried to take a nap a bit by setting up an alarm. By the time, the alarm went off I didn’t hear anyone was calling the flight number so that I double checked then I found out that I was sitting at the wrong gate. Hence, I ran through the right gate and luckily I caught up the flight in the last minute. This trip was an amazing and exhausted sometime anyway, I really enjoyed myself a lot and even came out some stories to share it with the people here.