28. July 2001 10:52
by Rene Pallesen
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I initially made plans to explore Burma and then make my way across the border into western China at Burma's only border crossing up north. I had not made any definite plans wanted to play it by ear... but in the end my trip consisted of Thailand, Cambodia and restricted areas to Burma.
I was away for a total of 5 weeks and must admit that parts of my trip really frustrated me - there were many restrictions in Burma and being in Bangkok at times stressed me because of all the tourists and crowds. I really only went to Cambodia to see the magnificent Angkor Wat - actually I really did enjoy being there. I think my most enjoyable part of the trip was the days I had climbing on the secluded areas of Krabi.
28. July 2001 10:51
by Rene Pallesen
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29. December 2021 17:12
by Rene Pallesen
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Lucas has joined the chess club at school, so for fun (and to give him practice) we sometimes play. I was very proud that I one day managed to checkmate him with just two pawns and my king.
29. December 2021 17:12
by Rene Pallesen
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We were looking after a couple of guinea pigs for a couple of weeks while one of Aiden friends was away.
The boys had to do all the work cleaning and feeding them.
29. December 2021 17:12
by Rene Pallesen
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We did another Hunter Valley Trip with Sasha and Richards families.
Again we stocked up on a lot of wine.
29. December 2021 17:12
by Rene Pallesen
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Kim had a big birthday this year. All the plans were ruined so it because a low key affair with just a family dinner.
Plan:
A - Europe trip - Covid cancelled
B - New Zealand Ski trip (travel bubble was open) - Cancelled day before we were to leave
C - Staycation in Sydney - Locked down to local council
D - Staycation in same council - Restricted to 5 Km radius
E - Dinner at home
We did however make up for it later with some golf and spa while she wasn't working.
29. December 2021 17:12
by Rene Pallesen
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Lucas and Aiden got themselves a surfing lesson. Aiden was too scared to go, but Lucas had a great time.
Because he liked it so much we decided to get him (and Aiden) a surfboard for Christmas as well.
28. July 2001 10:49
by Rene Pallesen
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I saw the most interesting puppet show, known as the “Mandalay Marionettes”
There were 2 or 3 puppeteers out the front, with a live band of musicians.
Unfortunately, it was more of a show for the tourists, rather than the locals.
It cost 1,000 chats or US$2 per show.
28. July 2001 10:49
by Rene Pallesen
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I decided take a 20-hour train-ride to Myitkyinã *laugh* it took 20-hours to get there by train because there was only one track.
It was definitely faster to run next to the train than to travel in it!
We had to wait for the oncoming train to return before we could travel north.
At one point, we crossed a bridge that was so rickety that I thought it would collapse any moment!
Locals working in the rice fields.
Locals using water-buffaloes to plough rice fields.
The train travelled along the Jrrawaddy River.
It would have been nice if I was able to travel to Mandalay via a riverboat down the Jrrawaddy River.
It was amazing to find out that people live “on” these lakes, by building houses on stilts.
This sort of housing is quite common in many parts of Asia, especially areas where monsoons quite frequently flood an area.
It is also very environmentally-sound, I think, and hurts the land less.
Most of the houses are made of wood.
Myitkyinã is pretty dismal in rain!
There is a huge drug problem in Burma, especially through the crossings into China.
I have scanned a copy of a recent newspaper article about this problem in Burma.
28. July 2001 10:48
by Rene Pallesen
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When I initially arrived in Yangon / Rangoon, I wanted to fly up Bhamo - one of the bigger towns north of Burma. I also considered exploring Myitkyinã - a town further north of Bhamo.
My Lonely Planet guide indicated that the only border crossing into China was to the east of Bhamo. My initial plans to Burma also included exploration of western China. However, I was disappointed by the military turning me back, despite the fact that my Lonely Planet guide said I could cross into China at Ruili.
I decided instead to fly to Mandalay, not only because it was cheap to do so, but it saved me a 20-hour bus ride there from Yangon.
I heard about a song for sailors.
“To be a real sailor, the sailor would have to have been to Mandalay way upriver”
I quite liked Mandalay.
The photo below, is of Mandalay Hill.
During World War II (20 March 1945), the British and the Japanese fought one another to gain control of the position on this hill.
The photo to the left is taken from the hill itself facing east - as you can see, it has an aerial view of the whole city, and puts any oncoming enemies at a disadvantage. Control of Mandalay was important during the war, as the soldiers were able to set up artillery and attack anyone approaching the fortress.
This hill was of big strategic importance.
The building you see near the shrine is a monument to the British regiment who managed to take control of this hill from the Japanese.
At the eastern part of the delta, a lot of logging takes place. There was a train line built that used to cart all the trees/wood for export to Thailand.
The moat around the fortress is man-made.
Although man-made, comes from the local river.
The original fortress was burnt to the ground.
The whole fortress covered an area of 2.5 x 2.5 km
The design of Mandalay was quite colonial, and surprisingly, most of the streets were at 90º to one another.
Overall, I found Mandalay the most expensive city to travel to in Burma.
No matter what one does in Mandalay, be it explore Mandalay Hill or the city itself, the locals always had “special” foreigner prices. It really annoyed me.
I tried to use local currency as much as possible. However, FEC (Foreign Exchange Currency) was more valuable and worth more to the locals. FEC is also used in China, and one tries to use local currency as much as possible. Any item you buy has 2 prices - and obviously it is cheaper to use local currency than to use FEC.
I must admit, even Mandalay Hill was not that nice for the price I paid to explore it. It was also expensive just to go into the fortress.
Surprisingly, I could not find maps of the area that was not more that 40 years old.
28. July 2001 10:47
by Rene Pallesen
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I reached a significant milestone in karate this week. I graded for my 3rd Kyu (Brown belt) and at the same Kim graded for her 5th Kyu (Blue belt).
On the occation I treated myself to a new dogi (karate uniform).
I was so nervous and tense - and screwed up a few places. There is now a lot of hard work ahead to get to the 2nd Kyu which is at least another half a year away.
Here are some photos from the grading. The ones from the dojo are a bit blurry because they weren't taken from my camera and I don't have the full resolution photos.
13. March 2021 18:03
by Rene Pallesen
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Back in the late 90's I visited Laos. In the northern corner of Laos I acquired two old swords from a local.
Through some forums I have tried to find out as much as I can about them and this is what I have been told:
- The swords are of a Burmese style called Dha (Means sword in Burmese).
- They are of museum worthy pieces
- I should NOT EVER attempt to restore them. This would degrade their value significantly.
- The flower script design on the swords are reserved for the rulers and officers of those days.
- အဲဒီဓားတွေကငါတို့ရဲ့ဗမာဓားတွေပဲလာအိုဆိုတာအရင်ကဇင်းမယ်လို့ခေါ်တယ်အင်းဝခေတ်မှာမြန်မာတွေတက်သိမ်းခဲ့တဲ့နိုင်ငံပဲဓားကိုငှက်ကြီးတောင်ဓားလို့ခေါ်တယ်ဓားကဓားကောင်းပဲ အခုငါပြတဲ့ဓားဟာလည်းသမိုင်းဝင်ဓားပဲငှက်ကြီးတောင်ဓားပေါ့ (Translation: These swords are our Burmese swords. Laos was formerly called Zin Mae, a country that was conquered by the Burmese during the Inwa period. The sword is called the Sword of the Bird. The sword is a good sword.).
- It's
a Ngat kyee daung Dah the sword that was once used by Burmese warriors
and Thai during the dark age of Konbaung (1765–1767).
- This
Burmese Empire was destroyed during the English colonized to the East
and totally wiped out by the English cannons kind of like a scene from
the last samurai movie in the end! They were like charging to the enemy
where they were being shot at.
- These are also antique pieces in a good state of preservation! Swords, even if they are in such good condition, belong in the museum. You have to take a look at the Malaysia Sword Museum! They are great specimen
- One would have to analyze the material metal wood winding fibers would certainly be very interesting! You don't see such a bundle every day
- The handle on the smaller sword is made from wound rattan fibres.
- The larger sword is made from silver and wound silver threading (I believe it is the typical not so pure silver/tin that was used).
This means that it is likely that the swords are up towards 250 years old and that the long one belonged to someone of a high status.
The area they are from is a place that has been ravaged by war for several hundred years right from the wards beween Burma and Siam (Thailand), conquer by the English empire, the Second World War, the Chinese civil war through to the Laos Civil/Vietnam war.
It is highly likely that the swords have seen some action. Although a bit rusty, the swords are still very sharp. Given that the blade on the longer sword is narrower at the hilt it is likely that it has been sharpened several times through history. Again this probably means that it had a practical use/purpose and wasn't just for display.
22. January 2021 01:03
by Rene Pallesen
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Between Christmas and New year we made a trip to Newcastle with the family.
They had this beautiful little animal park that is maintained by the council and is free to visit.
Just outside Newcastle is fighterworld, which is an aircraft museum next to an active air strip.
Newcastle museum was also worth a visit on a rainy day.
One evening we went to the games arcade...no idea how Aiden managed to get a first place in racing.
21. January 2021 18:03
by Rene Pallesen
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Karate during 2020 was challenging to say the least.
I was devastated when everything moved online. I love the partner work and couldn't see how this was going to work through video conferencing.
The boys and Kim were okay with the new format and I hung in there. I was so happy once we were able to get back in the dojo again.
Just before the lockdown I had purchased a punching bag, so at least we were able to do some outdoor contact punching.
During the lockdown there was a kata competition and other programs, and we did get a few prices.
...but dojo definitely rules...
We have managed to go to gradings...
And I have kept all the grading certificated we have gotton...
21. January 2021 14:03
by Rene Pallesen
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Another encouragement award for Aiden. This time in Tennis...
31. December 2020 14:03
by Rene Pallesen
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2020 was definitely a bit different because of Covid.
Australia managed to get through with very few outbreaks because of very early and sever lockdowns.
This let people to panic buy. We spent the time to chill out and solve lots of puzzles in the evenings, do lots of exercise in the parks (which was still allowed), Karate online and work moving fully to conference calls.
31. December 2020 13:03
by Rene Pallesen
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