Yangon (formerly known as Rangoon)

Mandy: Tuesday 21st – 28th October

We woke at 5.30am to the sound of music and singing outside (morning prayers) it didn’t matter as we needed to go down for breakfast as we were leaving to catch an early flight.

The Breakfasts in the Bagan Nova Guest House were a little on the large side and each morning the courses just kept on coming! The lady serving looked amazed when I tried to indicate that I was full! She wanted me to keep eating and stood and watched most mornings! (Smile) Most people in Burma were thin but the lady who served us breakfast was a lovely plump lady. When I felt bad for not being able to eat the continuous stream of food they brought Glen said not to worry as he felt sure that she would probably finish anything we left. (Chuckle) On the last day I felt a bit sick (seeing as we were flying again) so I tried to tell her that I only wanted coffee and one piece of toast (not the 6-8 she usually brought) “no egg?” She asked. “No thank you” I said. Simple I thought, but no that meant Glen had to have two eggs! She gave him the extra egg and gestured towards me (chuckle) and he was given both portions of each of the other courses too. She was definitely a feeder!

We took the short taxi journey to the airport and saw female monks going about their early morning food collections. (female monks are only allowed to take one spoonful of uncooked rice from each place) we saw the ‘rich’ people hanging above us in hot air balloons having paid $300 to see the mist rise over the plains whilst the poor local people drove their Ox carts and worked the fields beneath them.

We arrived at Bagan airport which was even more ornate and even smaller than the one in Mandalay. There were many red toothed men waiting to welcome us. (smile) Some with mouths still bulging as they chewed on the stuffed Betel leaves.

Because the Internet had been so slow at best and non existent at times I hadn’t looked up the flight details and hadn’t got around to asking Glen what he had booked. Subconsciously I think I didn’t want to know either!

As we sat in the tiny airport looking out of the window at the bus which would take us to the ‘plane I could see the driver sleeping. Suddenly a tail fin went by, behind the hedge, only slightly higher than the bus itself. (look of horror!) I looked at Glen and couldn’t stop myself from saying three very inappropriate words for such a sacred area as Bagan….. “FOR “F*** SAKE!” (Sorry Mum) My face must have been a picture because Glen started laughing and when I said “We aren’t flying on a small aircraft are we!!!!!!??” Well! I haven’t heard him laugh so heartily for a very long time. (I would like to think that it was nervous laughter, wondering if he would actually get away with the latest anxiety he was causing me without me leaving him!) I hoped and prayed that he was wrong and that there were steps down to the runway and that in fact it was a large ‘plane that just taxied along below us as we sat on an elevated departure gate…… Well no such luck. The bus driver woke up, mended something under the bus and we drove a ridiculously short distance around the hedge to the propellor ‘plane!

Anyway, seeing as I am writing about this now you will of course realise that we landed safely in Yangon despite my concerns! It was a good flight actually and a good landing. As we taxied to the terminal we saw two bright blue fighter jets landing just after us. They had parachutes trailing behind them to help them stop on landing. Strange to be landing in a commercial Airport.

Our first impressions of Yangon was that the traffic was very busy! the women there wore even more cream ‘pancake mix’ and most people carried umbrellas for protection against the sun, like in Malaysia.

So here are our photos from our week in Yangon at the Chan Myae Guest House.

Not sure about THE Burmese railway, but we went on a railway in Burma. More people watching….

I forgot to say in the last blog that on our way to Bagan from Mandalay we had to drive along an actual railway line over a bridge to cross a river!! We thought perhaps it was an old disused railway track but we realised later that it was part of the working railwaily.

Jack, toilet paper here is not stretchy like other places in Burma. It is better value for money though as it doesn’t have a hole in the middle! (Chuckle)

There was no excuse to get dehydrated in Burma, these pots of water, with metal or plastic cups, are free of charge and located in the Countryside, inside the grounds of Temples, in towns….everywhere, although we never actually found we were thirsty enough to use them luckily!!

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Yangon had many and varied street food and condom stalls! But most stalls here are making and selling the Betel chewing pouches.

I wish I had your telescope Verena! We have enjoyed people watching in this block from the communal balcony but would like a peep inside of their rooms too. (Smile)

Glen asked this lady why she had these birds (to eat perhaps?) She told him that he could pay her to release a bird for good luck…. Good luck for whom!? Her and the birds but not us surely! We have since read that Buddhists believe it is good luck and as they release a bird they whisper the traditional Burmese benediction, “Today I give you your life, someday you will give me my life.” We now realise why we saw so many people with similar cages outside of Temples. (Sad face) Denise we think of you all of the time knowing you would have forty fits here. I don’t want to talk about the other reasons why but you can imagine/you know about most of them.

The people are lovely and seem so very happy here in Yangon but how they manage that with the awful smell from the open drains along the pavements I will never know. This coupled with the fumes from the dilapidated buses helped us decide that a week here is enough! This shows just one of the food stalls set up by, and over, the filthy streets.

The ShweDagon Temple in Yangon is the most sacred in all of Burma and it is every Burmese Buddhists aim to come to visit here at least once in their life time. Anyway It is for this reason I felt bad for not appreciating the importance of it. It houses strands of Buddah’s hair! I won’t bore you with the story they believe in. It reminded us of the Buddha’s tooth temple we came across in Singapore last year! (Smile)

We watched as the Asian visitors washed the statues and left beautiful flowers on them using more clean water than seemed to be available for a lot of the people who live in and around the town.

We met an English girl (of Indian decent) at breakfast one morning who was conducting some sort of survey here amongst the poor local people with the aid of an interpreter. She asked what they would do if they had a lot of money. They didn’t seem to know what they would do with it except to say give it to the Buddhist temples.

I am sure you have seen enough photos of Temples and Buddhas for now so we haven’t included any. This Monk had seen one too many too it seemed. (smile)

Our Guest House in Yangon was different than places we’d stayed in before. We had our own en-suite room but most of the rooms had shared rooms or small dormitories. Not quite a hostel but as near as we have got to one. This was good because there were only a few large tables laid out for breakfast and we all sat together. So every day we sat with different people of various nationalities ….. and personalities! Actually it was the same at one of our favourite cafes there. The young lady owner didn’t miss a trick. She didn’t have a table of four where two people might sit like in most places. She had larger tables and used to come over and sit everyone together! Which was good because again it meant people got to talk to each other. It must be good for people travelling on their own of course. As most of you know though we are not exactly social animals but this forced integration has been a good thing for us! (Smile) we met a lot of interesting locals as well as other travellers. No English people though.

There was a good variety of authentic edible street food and plenty of cafes and local bars there. Not that we ate everything we came across! These fried Crickets seemed to be a local favourite!

The people in Yangon may have to put up with green/black algae on all four walls and ceilings of cafe toilets, so bad you can’t imagine (I wish I had taken my camera in) yet still they seem more than happy with their lot. They are very trusting people, one man sat happily at one of the cafes plastic tables on the street counting a huge handful of cash in front of everyone and then left his bag unattended on the table to go to the aforementioned toilet without a backward glance. We’ve seen people leave iPhones charging in airports, mobiles and keys left on cafe tables without any concern that they won’t be there when they get back. We couldn’t do that in the UK could we.

We will miss the Burmese people we met in Yangon but not the smell!