Myanmar!

I can't check email, but I CAN enter blogs and read your comments. So if you want to contact me before Feb 15th, when I leave Myanmar, I can only be reached here. Someone please let my mother know, so she doesn't worry about me. Her email address is pamandron@nfinity.com.

My first day in Myanmar was quite an adventure. I hardly slept last night due to being relentlessly attacked by mosquitos, even though I was under a mosquito net. I stayed in a dorm room, and it was WITHOUT any sort of fan. In other words, it was ROASTING. All the beds are butted next to each other, so I was sleeping next to someone I didn't know at all. So the only way to fight the skeeters was to cover myself up with a blanket or dig through my pack for my repellent, which was certain to awake everyone... so I tried the blanket. The blanket only made me sweaty, which seemed to attract the skeeters even more, and any flesh that poked out of the blanket was IMMEDIATLY BITTEN. It was insane. I finally gave in and dug out my repellent at about 1:30 am. It felt much better without the hot blanket, but any spot on my body that I missed spraying DEET on was bitten. It took all my nerve not to scratch and make things worse. This went on until I finally got every part of my exposed body covered and I finally drifted off to sleep around 3 am...only to be awakened at 4 AM by the LOUDEST MEGAPHONE BHUDDIST PRAYER SESSION I could have ever imagined. Earplugs did very little to drown it out. This went on for AN HOUR. Some time around 5:30 I started drifting back to sleep, but awoke at 9 AM for breakfast, which was great. I then moved to a fantastic room at the top of the guesthouse which not only has a nice comfy PRIVATE bed and a fan, but what's best is that it has a great view of the Shwedogon Pagoda, which is this amazing 2000 year old towering pagoda that is covered in over 54 tons of gold, 5000 diamonds, hundreds of rubies... It the holiest place in Myanmar and one of the greatest human-made structures I have ever seen. I have been trying to kick this phlemy throat and cough thing I've had since I went diving, but it seems to be getting worse again. So I went out and exchanged money from a money exchange tout (only to discover later that he tricked me out of about 7 dollars in the exchange, clever monkey!) and found my way to a pharmacy to get some drugs. On the way, two local boys approached me and wanted to practice thier english with me. They took me to the Sulay Pagoda which is another gold-encrusted pagoda in the center of town. A man approached us there at explained in perfect english everything about the pagoda, the practices happening everywhere, and about transendental medication, which he went at length about for over 20 minutes before we got rid of him. We got rid of him by my agreeing with the boys to go to their english class and say a few words...

I arrive at the class, which has about 40-50 students in there late teens to late twenties, and I am immediatly brought to the front of the class. I am asked to improvise. So I go on for about 10-15 minutes about who I am, what I have been doing, etc.. and then ask if anyone has questions... boy did they.

Are you married? No. Why not? My girlfriend and I broke up. Why? She left me. How did that make you feel? sad. Someone asked me to explain how I felt about relationships and love. JESUS! What is this?? What is your religion? Do you like Jennifer Lopez? (No. Which was an unpopular answer, I found out.) What do you think of Myanmar. What do you think of Thai people? What do you think of George Bush and the Iraq War? (I LOVED this question, because I tore into George Bush. I found out later that MOST people in Myanmar really LIKE George Bush. I can't imagine why, other than the only news they can sometimes get is CNN.) All in all, I was up in front of this class answering questions about travelling, love, relationships, politics and J-lo for an hour. I WAS the class. I was exhausted and little embarrased about my answers afterwards, especially when I revealed how LITTLE I knew about thier culture and country. At the end, I took a photo of the class. Which I will post when I can. It was actually great fun, and I have been asked to return before I leave Myanmar. Then my new friends took me to lunch, then the Shwedogan Pagoda which was stunning but was unfortunately under some rennovation, so photo ops were limited. Then we worked our way back home by super croweded bus, and then I got a sarong, because almost everyone here wears one! You don't know how happy this makes me! It's like being back in indonesia again! Tomorrow my friends are going to take me around again starting at 9 AM. I am exhausted. I found this internet place about a mile from my guesthouse, and it may be the only one in town. Anyway, it's late here, so I am heading back to my guesthouse for hopefully a peacefull night of sleep.

Off to Burma!

Ok, I am off to Burma today. I may or may not be able to receive emails or
update the blog while I am there. The Burmese government is unpredictable
and things are changing all the time. I will be back in Bangkok on the 15th
of February. My quick stopover in Thailand has stretched out to 20 days
somehow. Strange. Everything took much longer than I suspected. The Burma
visa alone took nearly a week to get, then the plane ticket to Burma took a
few days. My diving trip in the Similan Islands also took much longer than
I could have guessed, since getting sick there (fever) kept me in Koh Lak
several days longer than I predicted. I also had some technical
difficulties with my laptop and my new digital camera back here in Bangkok
which took some time to figure out. It all adds up! I guess I was meant
to slow down for these 3 weeks. Now everything is sorted out perfectly and
all is good. I am finally ready for my next adventure!

PHOTOS!

I want to remind all of you who are reading my blog that I am uploading LOTS of photos to my website. The link is listed on the right (RTW PHOTOS!)....

Also, I will try to keep my blogs shorter and hopefully sweeter so you will actually read them.

I am in Koh Sok, which was tsunami ground zero here in Thailand. Many destroyed lives. Nearly 5 thousand in this area alone. There are a few huge boats still on the far side of the highway. There are many new fancy bungalows being built at break-neck speed. There are only fat German tourists here. The dive shops, which are many, are all owned by Germans. The only reason to come here is to dive or be lazy in a fancy new resort on the beach. I came here on a whim(and an invite from my friend Nicole) to dive the Simlian Islands, which I heard are fantastic. They were. I will write about it later. I didn't have any underwater housing for my camera, so don't expect many photos...

Greg

PS. REMINDER: I am going to Burma in a few days, hopefully, and will NOT be able to send/receive emails nor post to this blog for the entire month that I am there. So don't WORRY about me. Just pretend I've gone to a distant planet for a month. I will return to Earth some time in mid February.

Cameras! (Boring Gear Blog)

Warning: This particular blog is probably dull to all but the photo gear freaks out there.

I got two new spaceships, as my lovely Italian friend Irene would call them. I spent more money yesterday then I've ever spent before. As I've mentioned, I lost my great little Canon SD500 Digital camera. It's been gone now for what seems like months and I've been missing it, especially shooting little movies with it and snaps of friends along the way. I've also heard about by dream camera being released, the Canon 5D. A full frame 12 MP SLR. I researched prices online at B&H Photo, and tried to figure out how much time & money it would cost me to ship them here. It would have ending up costing more (and would have been a huge customs headache) than if I just bought the stuff here, so I ended up finding the best pro camera shop in Bangkok and buying here! First of all, the Canon SD550 (IXUS 750). This this is truly a spaceship. It's like a tiny computer with a lens and and 7.1 MP sensor. Even though I had it's predecessor, I still needed to study the manual for over an hour and take notes. Insane. At 450.00, it's not cheap. It can be found for under 400.00 back home. Now I can shoot videos again! Yeah!
Then there's the dream camera. This is the camera I've been wanting since digital SLRs first came out: A full frame digital SLR. This is the third model released by Canon, and only the fourth one ever made by any company. Canon is definitely leading the way for digital SLRs. It's also the first full frame SLR to be "affordable" as the others were closer to eight thousand dollars when they were first released. It's basically a Canon 20D with a better sensor, so I am completely comfortable shooting with it. It's also got a nice big review screen, which I am very happy about. It cost me about $3200.00. Scary. I hope it pays for itself before it's replaced by something even better. I better get to work shooting some great photos! Anyway, that price is about 150 dollars more that if I bought it in the USA. But the owner of this great camera store in Bangkok was so nice, I told him the price differences and he helped to make it up by giving me a free memory card and some lens/body protection bags. So ultimately, I've only paid about 100 dollars more for everything. Not bad at all actually. I was worried about not having a USA warranty...but then I realized I won't be in the USA very much in the next year, so it doesn't matter! Now I have two Digital SLRs and the great little pocket camera. I am totally set!
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My Photo Gear:
Canon 20D (x1.6 CMOS sensor)
Canon 5D (Full Frame CMOS sensor)
Canon 16-35mm 2.8L
Canon 50mm 1.4L
Canon 70-200mm 2.8L IS
5 batteries
6.5 GB worth of CF cards
(Range of Lenses:16mm-320mm at f2.8, up to 448mm at f4.0)
Canon SD550
2 batteries
1.5 GB worth of SD cards
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I don't want to tell you what all of this is worth. I don't even want to think about it.

My 20D has the 16-35mm lens on it (making it a 24-53mm), and the 5D has the 70-200mm on it, So I have just about everything covered from 24-200 at f2.8 without having to change lenses! I also have a 1.4 50mm lens, and a 1.4x extension for the 70-200mm. This is truly a dream kit. No more switching lenses all the time!!! It's taken me 10 years, but I am finally really happy about my photo gear. Who wouldn't be? If I want, I can also switch the lenses, and then I have from 16-35mm and 112-320mm. So, because it's a full frame sensor, it's also like I got 3 new lenses! The new camera addition obviously makes my bag a little heavier, but not by much. The 5D weights just a little more the the 20D, so it's almost nothing compared to that insanely heavy 70-200 I'm hauling around. Hopefully this will allow me to get shots much faster. The last thing I need to figure out is my camera bag. It's a great bag, a good size, but it's not really designed to carry cameras and lenses around. My 50mm has been damaged from hauling it around, and is in repair here in Bangkok. I am thinking about how to tweak the bag almost every day, and now I am on a quest to find some plastic inserts to give the bag some better structure and cushion. Ok, sorry to bore you with my camera gear business. I am just so excited about my new gear! First thing I need to do is INSURE it! God help me if I get it stolen.

I am really enjoying Bangkok much more this time around. I still haven't met anyone to hang out with, which I seem to have a problem with here, but I am actually liking the city much more now. Everything I need is here, and much of what I don't need. Tomorrow night I will head down to Koh Lak for a diving adventure in the Similan Islands! Then I come back to Bangkok once again, and fly off to Burma! Please note, I will be COMPLETELY UNAVAILABLE for the entire month I am in Burma. There is NO email that I know of.
Greg