First impressions of Myanmar
Before leaving Thailand, there was one last spanner to be thrown into the works when my debit card was eaten by a rouge ATM. It’s not an issue right now as I’ve got enough dollars (the universal currency) to keep me going for a while and then I’ve got my credit card as back up. The card got cancelled straight away online but due to bad internet connections I’m still attempting to organise another to get sent out.
Off roading
I had an 8:30am train to catch from Hua Lamphong station in Bangkok and had arrived with plenty of time after I had accidentally hailed a cab instead of taking the metro as I had planned. As the other trains pulled in I could see the complete lack of accessibility, these trains must have been forty years old easily. That didn’t bother me too much, it’s fantastic when things are accessible, but when they aren’t you just have to be flexible with you expectations.
Creatures of the night
Other than the flight being delayed, leaving Dhaka was a smooth operation. I got on a small plane with wider aisles going through first class so I managed to take my chair all the way to my seat. Tricky transfer but definitely preferable over getting dragged along in a standard aisle chair.
Bye bye Bangladesh
Every morning at the CRP I’m woken up at 5:30am by the morning call for prayer at the mosque that’s located next to me room. As much as I don’t like waking up that early in the morning, I have to say that the low rumbling of the voice that is chanting away is preferable to the usual high pitched shrieking alarm that usually starts my day.
First couple of days in Dhaka
It was the night before I was due to leave and lying on the floor in front of me were two packed rucksacks and my old wheelchair, solid tyres fitted and footplate held together with duct tape and cable ties. I was a bit worried. I felt a little too prepared for this trip, like everything was in place and that was slightly unsettling. It seemed like I was travelling light, but that was the plan and everything on my list had gone into the bag. As soon as the plane left the ground I was convinced I would remember something of significant importance that hadn’t been packed.
Back to Bangladesh and beyond
Back in September I was recovering from surgery, twiddling my thumbs and wondering what I was going to do with my 3 weeks of annual leave that I still had left to take off work before the end of the year. It’s been a few years since I did any adventure travel when I drove to Mongolia in 2012 and I started thinking that something like this is the high that I’d like to end the year on.