Festival day at Shwedagon

Today is a public holiday. New moon day and the end of Buddhist lent. We got up early to go to Shwedagon with one of my colleagues who was keen to show us around. At 7am the place was thronging with thousands and thousands of people, but still somehow peaceful.

The weather at the moment is apparently the hothothot period before it cools down for “winter”. So even though it was first thing in the morning we sweated our way around the place. Always nice.

Along with the thousands of adults and children there were lots more monks and nuns than usual. All out and about with their alms bowls. Members of the public came prepared with sacks full of sweets, treats (choco-pies) and cans of luminous fizzy drinks to give to the waiting monks and nuns, who hopefully have a good dentist lined up. (Strike me down but there was something vaguely trick or treat about it… although admittedly more treat than trick).

Anyway we had a great morning, and are going back tonight with some other friends to see it in all its night time glittery splendour.

      

Bike ride

Last weekend we went on a bike ride across the river. It was very hot and sweaty (as illustrated by the photo of me where I look a not so beautiful prawn colour). Cycling along a fairly busy dusty road was not super fun, but we had an adventure, and met some interesting people… and in the case of Ant got to hold some ducklings which made him so happy.

The first photo is the first river we crossed, Yangon’s version of the London eye in the background. This crossing was easy as we cycled over the river on the bridge. At the next (much bigger) river crossing there was a lot of hand waving and gestures from the police/ bridge monitors (?? they looked official). Initially we thought perhaps foreigners were not allowed to cross the river, but then someone with slightly more English than the others appeared and explained that although bikes were not allowed on the bridge we could go across. A bus came along and so we clambered on with the bikes and along we went. Once on the bus we realised why we could not cycle on the bridge. It was very narrow, and about 1km long, so would have meant all traffic crawling along behind us…

   

We stopped for a cup of tea, and a man approached us to introduce his three daughters for a photo. They were clearly dressed up for something special! The hat of the biggest girl seems to say “sexy” on it. Suppose it is one of those lost in translation things.

Next up was the family of three boys, 2 of which seemed to have pet ducklings. Ant was so happy about this, and luckily they were happy for him to hold them. In the end he had to give them back to the toddler…

  

We conclude toddlers and ducklings are not the best of combinations. Their way of holding ducklings by the head/ legs/ wing/ beak etc. probably doesn't make the happiest of ducklings. Once we finished our tea it was time to pootle onwards…

 

An amble downtown

We can walk downtown easily from our apartment, so Saturday afternoon when it was a bit cooler we went for an amble around the town. The photos below are quite central and although there is a fair bit of traffic, it is really not too hectic (well not compared to Bangkok). The streets are reasonably calm, I think mostly because motorbikes are banned in Yangon so there is no motorbike craziness winding in and out of the traffic. The church with the white spire is Holy Trinity Anglican Church. It seems to have trees growing out of the stonework. Like many of the beautiful Victorian buildings in town I suspect it probably needs a lot of cash thrown at it if it is to survive the next 100 years. Anyway… I find church spires in Asia random… somehow they are part of a very English skyline, and we are definitely not in England.

 

Looking down towards the Traders Hotel. The vegetable seller in the right hand photo was sitting on the bridge on the left hand photo, selling to anyone that walked past. There are lots of these small scale veg sellers about the place. The way they display their produce is quite an art. I can’t think they really make any money though.

 

This is a fun market – you can buy all sorts of meat, fish, poultry (alive or dead), spices, eggs (interestingly quails eggs are very popular and super cheap)… of course there is also a huge range of fruit and vegetables, many of which we have absolutely no idea what on earth they are or how to cook them. The road is mostly closed off to traffic, but I am sure I came down here another time and a truck drove down the middle carefully avoiding the cucumbers and okra etc… but probably spraying them with lead based petrol fumes or something less than wholesome. Spot Mr G’s pasty legs up ahead in the left hand photo. Also note his giant like status… most people here are smaller than him.

 

Fish. Fish heads. Fish and chicken. Chicken feet.

 

Finally. Fruit. Looking down towards Sule Paya.

Interior part 2…

Our bedroom is downstairs off the main living area and currently looks a bit like a jumble sale. We both really like the wooden cabinet which we had made into a wardrobe. Do need to work on a bedframe…

Upstairs we have 2 rooms; one leading directly off the staircase and one which is slightly larger and has its own door… and will become a guest room once we organise a mattress etc. Currently Ant has it set up as a drying room. As I mentioned he is a good wife.

That's about it for the tour for now… if I manage to get the internet speed to upload all these photos then it will be a small miracle. Will see how it goes!

Interior part 1…

Here is a small tour of our new abode...

The main living area is somewhat lacking in furniture… although we do have a small table and cushions to sit on and enjoy our morning breakfast of tropical fruits, yoghurt, and muesli from Oz. YUM. The washing machine seems to have been installed as something of a feature in the living area… which is interesting. Ant says it plays a song when it finishes the washing. Nice touch.

  

Although we lack furniture, we have bought a fairly large turquoise giraffe. Admittedly not particularly practical, or as useful at this point as a chair might be. Giraffe doesn't yet have a name, but Ant did buy him a scarf in case he gets cold. The shelves/ cabinet come from Helping Hands which is a charity that works with former street kids and trains them how to do carpentry etc. I love it that they both have stories. The wooden bookshelf is a former traditional babies crib – perhaps you can imagine putting the shelves on their back and then hanging it from a swing and then sticking a baby (or 2) in it? Not sure it would pass UK heath and safety. The blue cupboard did have chicken wire where there is now glass, and is another traditional Myanmar piece that has been renovated. It is called a “cat safe” and people would store food and other precious items in there to keep them safe from cats. It would likely be one of the only pieces of furniture a family might have… this sounds bad… like we stole someone's only piece of furniture… but in reality the stuff all comes from houses that are being pulled down or reclamation middle men.

The final photo of the trio is the ceiling. I had to include a photo of it in all its wonder and blue lighting (but fortunately not candy cane paint colours). It is a bit crazy… and not the finest feature of the apartment… but I suppose at least it is bright when its dark outside!

  

Mr Geer is very devoted and cooks and tends to life in the kitchen… kitchen surfaces are very limited, so I think we probably need some other kind of freestanding unit in here. Most babies we have photos of now feature on the baby/wedding door.

 

end of part 1…

Views

As I mentioned earlier the views in our new place are amazing. The only chairs we currently own are plastic lounge chairs and sit out on our balcony so we can take in the Shwedagon magic…

On the left we have sunset over the playing fields from the balcony in the living area. The big building in the background seems to have a multi-coloured light display on its walls every night, which is amusing. When we want a more classy view we turn to the bedroom balcony, and look towards Shwedagon. The photo on the right makes it look far away, but really it dominates the view from the back of the apartment, and I don’t think we will tire of its golden wonder any time soon.

 

Post

I have always been a big fan of the postal system… and if the Royal Mail fails any time soon it will probably be because I left the country and stopped buying stamps to feed my postcard writing addiction.

So I am just saying… do feel free to send post any time… as you can see it does work… and we will most likely be eternally grateful… especially if you include chocolate… ha ha

Finally… home

So we finally made it home… to our new apartment of wonder, light and a certain amount of builders dust.

In the 2 months we have been here we have acquired quite a bit of stuff. We were probably the first people to check out of the hotel with a mop, broom and full set of plates, knives, forks and spoons…

That said, we don’t have enough stuff to fill an apartment! The photo on the left shows the living area when we just arrived… and the photo on the right shows the arrival of the boxes we shipped… including 2 bikes… and a pair of flippers (Ant was clearly optimistic about the beach opportunities in this part of the world when packing).

 

As you can see the floors have come up well… a bit like an ice rink… and the walls and ceiling are white… the space and light is really nice, and the views are amazing…

Birthday…

Seeing as I made a post for Ant’s birthday I thought I should make one for me too.

On my actual birthday we went out for a pedicure… nice pink toe nails for me, and then for diner in a nice little hotel not too far from the hotel where we were staying, which by this point we were desperate to leave. I had a birthday Creme Brule with candles and with heart shaped melon pieces!

The following weekend we went for champagne breakfast at a fancy hotel. This was good timing as due to delays with our apartment and a full house at the Summit (not to mention that the room rates doubled overnight on 1st October), we had unfortunately been forced to leave the Summit Parkview Hotel and move into the Yangon International Hotel. Lets just say the Yangon International Hotel is a bit of a dive, and made us long to be back in the Summit… and reminisce with fondness about its clean floors, functional bathroom, salmonella free breakfast etc… most of all we rejoiced that we did not have to languish in the Yangon International Hotel for 7 weeks… that would have been worse than depressing.

Anyway… back to the birthday breakfast. Super yummy. We gorged ourselves on all things fruity, cakey, cheesy, cold meaty, and dairy - I ate strawberry yoghurt, coconut panacotta, and lemongrass crème bruelle… yes it was slightly over indulgent… but you have to eat these things whilst you can. After breakfast we lazed in the hotel gardens by their beautiful pool… really relaxing… and quite the opposite of the Yangon International Hotel. This is definitely on our list of tourist attractions in Yangon, should you come visit we will most likely drag you here.