Week 1

So by the end of last week we were all packed up, and had said goodbye to most people we knew… all that was left was to said goodbye to the wonderful Wolverton and our lovely house. It seems like so long ago. This photo wasn’t actually taken the morning we left, but in the last couple of weeks. A rainbow over our house!

• 3 bags for the hold. No more than 60kg (well perhaps a few kg over). Check.
• 4 pieces of hand luggage. (Stretching the handbag/ camera bag rule and hoping no one enforced the 7kg limit). Check.
• 1 “Freya bag” of items to declare to VAT return people. Check.
• 1 sob story ready to (successfully) mitigate risk of paying £56/kg excess baggage. Check.
• Last minute calls made. No international roaming in Myanmar. Check

 

The adventure begins… it was raining in London… and 14 hours and another continent later it was still raining… except a lot harder, a lot longer and a lot more frequently. The general theme of the week has been rain. Fortunately, as demonstrated by myself, we were greeted with his and hers matching umbrellas, which have been exceedingly useful, even if I managed to break the handle off mine by using it as a walking stick to go up some slippery steps. I am standing in front of our house for this week and next.

   

Ant vs largish spider. Ant 1: Spider 0.

We have so far not been very snappy with the camera, I suppose we have 2 years to take tourist photos and it is wet the whole time so not great conditions… however here are a couple of local scenes. A view of Yangon from a restaurant on the 20th floor of a tall building and St Augustine’s Catholic church. There are obviously many many Buddhist temples, photos of which shall abound at some point as some of them are incredibly beautiful, however we have also seen more Catholic churches than might be expected: St Augustine's, St John’s and St Anthony’s.

  

First day of work. New bag (with new laptop in it) and new flip flops. This is my dream work location as when inside homes and offices you can’t wear shoes so you can either go barefoot or slide around tiled/ wooden floors in socks. For anyone who knows me it will be obvious what I do, and if not, I ask the question why one would be wearing socks when it is 30 degrees centigrade outside.

Whilst I am at work Ant has been busy tending to the house, washing clothes and preparing food for the working wife. He went to the “Orange” super market and bought some aubergines. I was of course amused that it was an “orange” super market.

That’s all for now. Over and out.