Yangon, and Surrounds

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It's Tuesday, November 12 and breakfast at the Hotel Windsor is pretty much as yesterday, rice, vegetables and a fried egg. The hotel is slightly quirky, but the staff are helpful and the shower works well. And in spite of the internet being a little patchy, we are warming to the place.



Malcolm and I catch a taxi back into the city and take the ferry to Dilah, an island in the delta across the river from Yangon. if you are a local it costs you 10c each way, but for foreign tourists the fare is $2 US each way. We meet a couple of local entrepreneurs on the ferry who offer to take us around the island in rickshaws. And only for the sum $8.00 per hour. It's a bit of a con, and we pay what I consider a premium price, but it's fun and a good laugh, so we spend three hours being peddled around the island. Buddhist shrines and stinky waterways are all part of the tour.

Observations: there is very little that is pristine about Yangon and its surrounds, plastic bottles and bags litter the roads and waterways. Women, use sunblock on their faces like a cheek makeup. Men and women chew betel nut, their teeth are stained red and are constantly spitting, so it's good to be nimble of foot! Although Myanmar is under military rule, there is little evidence of this on the streets of Yangon



After three hours we take the ferry back to Yangon and have lunch in a street tea house with weeny little plastic seats. Not bad, but we are feeling a little wary that we might get a serious case of the bott in time for our overnight bus to Bagan on Wednesday. As we walk towards our next venue the railway station, we spy technology that hasn't been used in years, a typewriter being used and people queuing to get forms filled in. Also, a man extracting juice from sugar cane in a hand grinder..We also, see what must be the smallest office space in existence that includes a desk, copier and a computer. Occasionally, there is a telephone station on the street under an umbrella, with two desk phones connected by wires to the telephone cable. Myanmar is definitely 40 years behind the Western World



The Lonely Planet has suggested a 3 hour train journey around Yangon on the circle line. Interesting, and again we are astounded by the mountains of plastic garbage and the festering waterways. However, the people on the train interact with us and this is what visiting a Third World Country is all about. We liken it to our Indian experience of three years ago and we look forward to Bagan and it's temples.





Tomorrow evening, we take a fifteen hour bus journey to Bagan.......

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Comments

[Herather]

I can't get over the sun block beauty treatment - are you sure it's for that and not sun protection? I used to drink the cane juice squeezed with a similar contraption in Costa Rica in the mid 70s - fascinating to see it still in use today. I bet the 15 hour bus ride will be a bit of a mission, but there again you're still young at heart! Just loving the blog, thank you

[rob]

Yangon
like the way you are trying to talk up this part of the journey! Plastic bags etc makes it sound like Tonga.