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I was pondering whether to post some photos of our new home… I don’t really want to tempt fate and for it all to go wrong and not work out… but I suppose it is part of the story so it might as well go on here.

I then got to thinking about “home”. I think it takes on a different meaning when you are living overseas. On the one hand our home is in Wolverton, but if that is where our home is then are we going to be home-less for the next 2 years? … and anyway our house is inhabited by random strangers so it can’t be our home anymore. Anthony has gone back to the UK right now… in my mind he has not gone home, but he is coming home to Myanmar on Sunday. Perhaps it is just semantics, but I think (as Janice the cleaner said) home is where the two of us are… and for now that is Yangon, Myanmar.

Ramblings over…

Accommodation in Yangon is very very expensive and in high demand. We spent a few days when we first arrived looking around for somewhere to live, and on the whole it was hard to find somewhere that was:

• Not in an expat enclave, like some sort of leisure resort for pasty faces (mostly these were far too expensive anyway).
• Not mouldy,
• Not entirely purple, and I mean entirely purple, purple rooms, purple hallways, purple exterior. Various other people we have met that have been house hunting recently have also seen THE purple house… it is clearly of some renown. Along with purple we have also seen houses with rooms painted in various other garish, psychedelic, nightmare inducing colours,
• Not within touching distance of neighbouring apartment blocks (from almost all exterior windows),
• Not dark during daylight hours,
• Not with a 4 ft wall right outside every window obscuring what might be a nice view,
• Not a health and safety nightmare – think along the lines of a shower head right next to electric sockets which are used to power the electric heater for those occasions when a hot shower is preferred to a cold one,
• Not so big we would need to sublet to several families/ acquire a large number of children/ start up a hotel/ go into some sort of business which involved keeping a lot of stock on the premises…
• Not a miniature palace with an over the top front porch - see photo – we took one look at this place and decided not to go in…

Anyway, our current home does not feel like a home… and we can’t wait to move out! Room 526 is quite nice, as is the view… but it is still a hotel and institutionalisation is setting in… if we don’t escape soon we may never be able to make a bed or change the bins again ourselves.

  

The apartment we hope to move into was found quite by chance. One of my colleagues was driving past and noticed it was a new construction and decided to ask the owner whether there were any apartments available. Although initially the owners were not interested in renting in the end they decided the apartment wasn’t safe for their own 2 small children to live in, and so were happy to rent it out to us.

The downside is that the apartment is very much a construction site… and is extortionately priced – it will be the most expensive place we have ever lived by a long long way. The upside is that it has heaps of natural light, is spacious but not a mansion, and was basically the only place we could imagine living in after seeing many many many places. We wondered if we were overly fussy or we had bad agents, but speaking to others in the same situation our experience is pretty much the same most new expats face and we are probably super lucky to get this place… which is why I am mildly anxious it might all fall through and we end up having to start again!

The first time we visited (and the 2nd time) the floor was more pond than floor, due to the lack of window fittings and internal ceilings/ floors. Perhaps it gives you an idea of how desperate we were that this was our first choice?!

  

Actually it was the view that sold it… a bedroom balcony overlooking golden Shwedagon… what more could we want?

  

There is another balcony in the lounge and that overlooks green playing fields and green = good… but how long it will stay that way I don’t know, there is a lot of construction happening in Yangon. The pictures below are from today… so it is coming along. The layout is split over 2 floors. Downstairs there is an open plan living-dining area, master bedroom with attached toilet/ shower room, kitchen and second toilet/ shower room. Upstairs there are 2 spare bedrooms. So do come and visit… failing that the mountain bikes will have a bedroom each.

The photos below show the view from (a) living area patio doors, (b) the patio doors and then (c) panning round to the right from the patio doors to the rest of the living area and the stair case.

  

Photos below show progress (a) upstairs, (b) in the kitchen and (c) in the toilet/ shower room. As you can see kitchen surfaces are a little lacking.. but less will be more in this apartment as financially it makes no sense to rent it furnished (would be an extra US$500/ month)… so we will probably collect a few bits and pieces but see how we go being minimalists hahaha… that will probably last about a week…

  

As for the facilities they are second to none. As featured below it seems to be possible to climb out onto the roof to enjoy the satellite dishes and water tanks… plus there is a simply gorgeous swimming pool. The water really was as green as in this photo. I discussed the water colour with the landlord. He claims it is perfectly clean, and that it is green because it contains salt and iodine to keep it clean. I am not convinced. Iodine is yellow not green. But who knows. I don’t think I will be dashing in for a dip… other conversations with the landlord today involved the curtains. He is thinking pink. I am thinking not pink. He asked what colour. I said white. He looked shocked and declared white would be terrible because but the whole apartment is white (on our insistence)… he suggested green… I suggested cream. I do not know what colour curtains we will get. I fear something highly spangely and not to our tastes… but we will see. There are a lot of windows so fingers crossed the curtains will be wonderful… and even more finger crossing that this will be our new home come October 1st.