We Said Go Travel http://www.wesaidgotravel.com/ October 24, 12 Honey Hotel has issues, trash around the lake, unidentifiable food but friendly staff! My suggestions for this hotel: clean up the hallway, stairwells, and rooms especially the refrigerator. I did not included the video of the moldy dirty refrigerator but really if you are going to have one. You have to clean it. Adding a choice at breakfast like different types of eggs, fruit and clearing a path to the Lake would all be good improvements.
We tried to wander around the lake. I think a promenade around the lake would do wonders. Lonely Planet says you can bike around the lake but then again they said ask for room G2 in a building that seems long gone. Not sure the Lonely Planet reporters have been here in decades.
We did not see the British officers quarters where Aung San Suu Kyi and husband honeymooned. We did see many pagodas, monks asking for alms and school children in green longyi uniforms.
We walked to the main road from the guesthouse in about six minutes, we stopped after we crossed the street and instantly there was a bus. We said, “Mandalay.” They said, “yes,” so we hopped on. At first it seemed far too crowded but I jumped over a motorbike and there were two seats in the last row.
Within about ten minutes many of the passengers got off and we wondered if we were going to the Meiktila bus station but we zoomed on. We got on the bus around 9:30am and arrived at the Mandalay station 12:30pm. We had one stop for food around 11am but we were not hungry so we just waiting and stretched our legs.
There were many stupas, fields and tollbooths along the way. Road construction is a big priority and I was told that private companies are doing the building and they can charge tolls. If they try to overcharge, they will lose their right to the route.
Back at ET Guesthouse, the man at the desk seemed surprised when I said, “Do you need the passports? We were here three weeks ago.” I think now that the Air Asia route is open from Mandalay to Bangkok; they will start to see more repeat guests. Unless people do the route like us like and fly into Yangon and out of Mandalay.
George told me today we have spent about $1300usd in 27 days(not including our flights). We changed $680 to kyat. My dumb money move was trying to open PayPal in Myanmar. It is a sanctioned country for PayPal. I cannot believe I am in Paypal Jail AGAIN on this trip!
This movie is from our 28 days in Myanmar (Burma) from September 28, 2012 to October 26, 2012 and our year TRIP in South East Asia, see all the videos from our trip.
Traveling in Sin is a true tale of TRANSFORMATION thought LOVE and TRAVEL! After meeting online (on two different sites), George and Lisa travel internationally, give up their jobs, condo, ice cream and toilet paper in search of adventure and love. Along the way, Lisa sheds over 60 pounds and the couple gets engaged underwater in Thailand. There are tears, twists and true love!
Lisa Ellen Niver is an award-winning travel expert who has explored 102 countries and six continents. A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, she worked on cruise ships for seven years and backpacked for three years in Asia. She is the founder of the website WeSaidGoTravel which is read in 235 countries and was named #3 on Rise Global’s top 1,000 Travel Blogs. Niver is a speaker at the Los Angeles, New York, Chicago and Dallas Travel and Adventure Shows for 2023. Her podcast, “Make Your Own Map,” has been watched in more than 11 countries on 4 continents. Niver is represented by Chip MacGregor of MacGregor Literary, Inc. Look for her memoir in Fall 2023 from Post Hill Press/Simon and Schuster.
You can find Lisa Niver talking travel on broadcast television at KTLA TV Los Angeles, Satellite Media Tours, The Jet Set TV and Orbitz travel webisodes as well as her YouTube channel, where her WeSaidGoTravel videos have nearly 2 million views.
With more than 150,000 followers across social media, she has hosted Facebook Live for USA Today 10best, is verified on Twitter and listed on IMDb, and is the Social Media Manager for the Los Angeles Press Club.
As a journalist, Niver has interviewed Deepak Chopra, Olympic medalists, and numerous bestselling authors and been invited to both the Oscars and the United Nations. She has been a judge for the Gracie Awards for the Alliance of Women in Media, and has run 15 travel competitions on her website, publishing over 2,500 writers and photographers from 75 countries.
For her print and digital stories as well as her television segments, she has been awarded three Southern California Journalism Awards and two National Arts and Entertainment Journalism Awards and been a finalist twenty times.
Niver has published more than 2000 articles, in more than three dozen magazines and journals
including National Geographic, Wired, Teen Vogue, HuffPost Personal, POPSUGAR, Ms. Magazine, Luxury Magazine, Smithsonian, Sierra Club, Saturday Evening Post, AARP, AAA Explorer Magazine, American Airways, Delta Sky, enRoute (Air Canada), Hemispheres, Jewish Journal, Myanmar Times, BuzzFeed, Robb Report, Scuba Diver Life, Ski Utah, Trivago, Undomesticated, USA Today, TODAY, Wharton Magazine, and Yahoo.
https://bit.ly/m/lisaniver
Awards
National Arts and Entertainment Journalism Awards
2021 Winner: Book Critic: Ms. Magazine “Untamed: Brave Means Living From the Inside Out”
2019 Winner: Soft News Feature for Film/TV: KTLA TV “Oscars Countdown to Gold with Lisa Niver”
2019 Finalist for: Soft News, Business/Music/Tech/Art
Southern California Journalism Awards
2022 Finalist: Book Criticism
2021 Winner: Technology Reporting
2021 Finalist: Book Criticism
2020 Winner: Print Magazine Feature: Hemispheres Magazine, “Painter by the Numbers, Rembrandt”
2020 Finalist: Online Journalist of the Year, Activism Journalism, Educational Reporting, Broadcast Lifestyle Feature
2019 Finalist: Broadcast Television Lifestyle Segment for “Ogden Ski Getaway”
2018 Finalist: Science/Technology Reporting, Travel Reporting, Personality Profile
2017 Winner: Print Column “A Journey to Freedom over Three Passovers”
Social Media Presence
YouTube Channel: We Said Go Travel (1.7 million views)
Short form video:TikTok, Instagram Reels, Facebook Reels, YouTube Shorts
Twitter: lisaniver (90,000 followers)
Instagram: lisaniver (24,000 followers)
Pinterest: We Said Go Travel (20,000 followers and over 70,000 monthly views)
Facebook: lisa.niver (5,000 followers); We Said Go Travel (3,000 followers)
LinkedIn: lisaellenniver (9000 contacts)
