Thanksgiving

Being British we don’t celebrate Thanksgiving. However when Ant heard that we could go to the American Club (Rangoon) and eat turkey, ham and a “selection of pies”… well we had to go and celebrate Thanksgiving with the Americans. I have actually celebrated a few Thanksgivings, the first one being 10 years ago in Mongolia with dear Munson. It was our first meeting in fact. So Thanksgiving day started off with a phone call to Mongolia (where Munson once more resides). Happy Anniversary Munson!

One thing that amuses me about the “clubs” in Yangon (the Brits have one, so do the Ozzies), is that they all refer to the place as Rangoon. No one really calls it that in the country (although sometimes foreigners get confused and call it “Yangoon”), so it all sounds very colonial.

  

Once inside the club there were turkey decorations galore, and lots of Americans. In fact I suspect we were the only British people there. We even managed to speak to one real live American which was quite exciting as you can imagine.

Photos below show Ant with his first helping, and a bottle of American ale (no we haven’t acquired a child)… and and Ant by turkey/ thanksgiving decorations and the wondrous stars and stripes with his second helping. Apologies to all vegetarians but he seemed to opt for a plate with only meat on it. Actually when I say second helping, it’s not exactly true, because we had Pumpkin soup to start with, and Pumkin Pie and Pecan Pie for desert… and only then did Ant go back in for a final meaty course!

 

The American Club has also a “Tuck Shop”. Ant was in HEAVEN. He bought many exciting (to him) American sweets. Reece’s Peanut Butter Cups. Butterfingers. Double Dip Nerds. Sour laces. etc. (alas no Lucky Charms). According to Ant sweets are in short supply in Yangon. But clearly not at the American Club. (Which we couldn’t join even if we wanted to because we are not American. Fortunate in some ways as I think we would need to take out a bank loan to cover the fees… and bank loans are not really possible in this country). The photo with the trophies is interesting, as these trophies relate to the “Yangon International Darts League”. Who would have thought? Darts. In Yangon. Seeing as half the world wants to visit perhaps Phil the Power Taylor himself will find himself here playing a spot of darts with the Americans??

 

Barack

So great excitements, Barack was in town today. We knew this some time in advance of the press release, courtesy of the ex-pat rumour mill. We also knew roughly where he would be going, courtesy of the newly painted curbs. Basically if Barack was going somewhere the curbs were cleaned and painted red and white… and if he wasn’t they weren’t.

It is now possible to buy Barack t-shirts (alongside Aung San Su Kyi t-shirts), and American flags too. We also enjoyed this slightly scary Obama graffiti at the weekend. Cross between Stevie Wonder and a vampire (the teeth are particularly disturbing).

I was at work today so alas missed all the excitements… well aside from admiring the newly painted curbs on the way to work, and the strategically placed, but ancient, fire engine outside of the old Parliament, and the hundreds of military police and battle trucks scattered about the place.

My personal favourite Reuters photo of the day is Obama at Shwedagon. I love it because looooook they all had to take their shoes off. Even the secret police/ commando body guard people! Apparently rumour has it they nearly didn't go to Shwedagon because of the security risks involved in walking around barefoot (indeed). Nice that they did manage to fit in a bit of sightseeing… 6hours in Yangon isn’t long.

Ant on the other hand spent the day following round the Obama motorcade (by the looks of it it wasn’t hard to miss). Here are some of his photos.

Left: Conducted arrival of President Obama towards the old Parliament (note: traffic conductors don’t usually wear white. Perhaps it is some sort of ceremonial uniform?? or perhaps they aren’t really traffic conductors). Right: Some American loving Myanmars. Apparently America is the only country in the world with full human rights and democracy. Would. You. Believe. It. ????

  

Uncommon sights in Yangon - shiny new roads and empty at that… until of course… ta daaaa along comes Mr President… travelling light… only 2 jumbo jets full of entourage. Ant counted 30 cars. Apparently the imported American ones were slightly better than the beat up Myanmar 4x4s.

  

Everyone loves Obama… and all his cars. Is that an emergency American ambulance I see trailing the procession? One can never be too careful one supposes.

 

It should be noted that “the Lady” travels far lighter… and is even allowed to open the windows of her car and wave. So as a final photo please admire the right arm and hand of Aung San Su Kyi.

Beach weekend

Yangon is not on the coast… but it is only a 6 hour bus ride away from the beach (or a 9 hour bus ride away in the case of our return journey). Asian bus travel is pretty efficient. Comfy reclining seats. Ultra air conditioned (next time we are taking hats and blankets it was freeeeezing). Plenty of stops to buy dried bananas, eat rice, use less than salubrious toilets… and thrilling entertainment – we are now big fans of 3 hours solid Myanmar stand up comedy. (Hoorah for the ipad and our current Larkrise to Candleford series addiction).

On arrival there was white sand, warm water, palm trees, coconuts… and a splattering of middle aged German tourists replete with a towels on sunbeds at 8am approach to lazing on the beach and German music in the bar (never a good thing).

 

There was also a lovely villa on the beach (LH photo), golf buggies (just so you didn’t need to walk anywhere) and a lovely swimming pool with more palm trees.

  

We aren’t very good at spending too long lazing on the beach… so we had to hire grannie bikes and go exploring…

 

… on our exploring we found another beach, ladies working in fields of rice (??), and an un-photographed helicopter, which is probably the fastest (and most expensive) way to the beach.

 

Fabulous sunsets where the sun melted into the sea…

   

When the light was all but gone the wooden fishing boats started coming in. Levered round into position with a chunk of wood and hauled up the beach by very strong fishermen.

Insect invasion

Ant stayed inside whilst the brave and intrepid wife faced possible death (???) in order to capture a photo of the huge green stick insect of doom for posterity.

Halloween and Christmas

Last week Halloween came late and Christmas came early! Thank you Clari, Will and Freddie!!

(As you can see we have got a few more bits of furniture, and blue girraffe has a name – “Tickeleto” – which means giraffe in Myanmar apparently).

 

Cuteness

Learning about fish… with real fish…

Singing and clapping… the Thanaka on their faces is lovely.

  

Music time... the arms folded business is a sign of respect. The children walk around the classroom with their arms folded… you have to hope they don’t fall over!

Nap time… or something like that…

Twante

On Saturday we decided to try another bike ride. This time to a place called Twante. As usual it was a bit of an adventure. First up we went downtown to get boat tickets. Ant had already established that foreigners no longer need a special permit to visit Twante… which is handy!

Then we got on the boat – I think a first for Big Blue and Big White (the bikes)… the short boat ride across the river was more market than boat ride. You could buy key rings with Aung San Suu Kyi’s face on them, pieces of water melon, eggs (quails, ducks and chickens eggs), those yummy pork intestine snackies (always tempting), power ranger balloons in red, blue and black (also tempting), sun hats, baseball caps, tropical beach shorts etc. etc.

  

After the boat ride we needed to find transport to Twante (because no way I was cycling both ways in the heat). This was easy enough… the bikes were loaded on the top of the van, and then we clambered in. Now… you might think that the van is fairly full at the point the photo below was taken. However you would be very mistaken. Actually there is plenty more room inside, on the tailgate, and of course we mustn't forget the roofing space as well. By the time we were ready to head off there were 13 people (including us) on the benches in the back of the van, 5 people on stools in between our knees, 6 people standing on the tailgate… and even more on the roof… we couldn’t really see how many to count. Then there were 3 or 4 in the front cab with the driver. So it was pretty friendly (and sweaty) inside. It took about 45min to get to Twante. Bumping along the roads, honking the horn all the way (I would appreciate this aspect on the ride back - always nice to know when a van or bus is about to mow you down - but on the way it was just a bit annoying).

Twante is supposedly renowned for its pottery. However we failed to see any pottery for sale in the town… and we failed to meaningfully communicate with anyone as to where the famous pottery was. One person said it was 3km up the road… another 10km up the road… we didn’t really fancy what could have been a wild goose chase looking for pottery, which lets face it even if it was nice we couldn’t exactly carry back home on the bikes with us… so we set off back in the direction we came, taking a quiet side road before re-joining back the main road (which wasn’t really very main).

It was a lovely ride… about 20m of peaceful pootling through villages with their bamboo houses on stilts. We also spotted some interesting looking temples, but we will have to return to them another time wearing something more suitable than shorts.

  

It was also very hot and sweaty… so we finished up back at the port having lunch in a tea house. Not sure my lunch looks particularly appealing. It was OK, but not amazing… however I like the fact that quails eggs are so common and cheap here that even in the cheapest eats you get a nice little boiled quails egg on the side. I also like the fact that most tea houses resemble pre-schools… we often enjoy crouching on little primary coloured plastic stools… all the time hoping that our non-asian sizes don’t cause any mortal damage to the furniture.

 

Ended up our ride admiring more artistically arranged vegetables on the quayside.