Peri-urban Yangon.
A mixture of mouldering apartment blocks and traditional bamboo housing.
A mixture of clean concrete roads and stagnant water.
A mixture of electricity poles, TV aerials, and collecting water by hand cart.
Some very cute Thanaka clad munchkins.
… and a random photo of Chelsea Clinton… who was visiting this past week. Celebrity watch continues.
Today we went on an outing to Yangon Zoo. This zoo is something of a dream for small children, but perhaps more of a nightmare for animal welfare types.
It was all rather wet. Monsoon is here. First up – hippos. We had heard that a small child had been killed by these hippos… and after seeing their enclosure it wasn’t hard to see how easy it would be for that to happen. We enjoyed watching the monks watching the hippos, and Ant enjoyed feeding the hippos some green stuff… bought from the hippo food selling man next to their enclosure.
Next up it was the Asiatic black bears with their amazing furry heads. Rather sad in their concrete cages… especially when tormented by umbrella wielding Brits.
It was feeding time at the lions. Big metal bowls of meat were brought round in trucks. The animals knew the food was coming and were suitably growly. The zoo keeper thought it would be fun to stroke one of the lionesses through the bars. This seemed to me rather foolish (especially with all the growling going on).
Then onwards to the King Edward VII Carnivora House, built in 1915. I am sure that one day this will be turned into a boutique hotel. The zoo is in lush tropical gardens in central Yangon. Prime real estate. Anyway, the tigers were beautiful, and we were so close to them… but they really were so sad pacing up and down their concrete cages.
Finally, our favourite, elephants! Sadly on very short chains. More feeding was in order. This time bamboo. Ele seemed to enjoy a trunk scratch… and an attempt at eating my umbrella.
One ele tried to reach out for nature… but alas no… poor sad elephant in his concrete cage on his short metal chain. Green trees are just out of reach.
Finished up with a cup of hot chocolate and a banana muffin served on a slab of teak at a new coffee house in town. Yum.
Yes. He is. It is John-the-cat. Back with us for a weeks minibreak.
He is still quite needy, and likes to be with us ALL the time. This morning I noticed he was rather wet. Turns out he had been in the shower with Ant. Strange cat. Right now he is sitting on the desk behind my laptop, purring away and cleaning himself. He has been busy helping in the kitchen, and I think that he thinks that he is a parrot.
Dilapidated beauty. There is a lot of that round here. Hoping it wont all get pulled down and turned into soulless concrete apartments which wont last in quite the same way as these ones have. Although it’s easy for me to say that. Perhaps if I was a tenant in one of these places I would prefer something newer and shinier?
One of the parks down town has been done up. The fountains smell of chlorine, which was rather exciting on a sweltering hot day. I stood enjoying the cool spray, and lovely red and yellow trees, for quite some time.
We now have TV. Real live TV. Will Ant ever leave the sofa? Possibly not when motorsports are involved.
We also grew Swiss Chard quite successfully. I harvested the Swiss Chard and made a stew which also involved some Chorizo from Tesco's in the UK. Ant baked more sourdough bread (wholemeal this time) and it was a fine feast.
This weekend we visited the cemetery in “Rangoon” run by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. Here 1,131 servicemen from the 2nd World War are buried/ remembered in immaculate gardens. It would be very peaceful, aside from the fact that it is right next to a very busy main road.
There are 86 unknown graves (I read that on the website – can’t claim to have counted them all)… many graves with lovely inscriptions… and right at the back a line of Nepalis, alongside Indians and other Commonwealth servicemen, and a memorial to those Hindu’s who were cremated as opposed to buried.
When I opened the box to sign the Cemetery Register I was greeted with the sign below. Probably slightly inappropriate to be amused in a cemetery, but I couldn’t help thinking I might be a bit unimpressed if I had come all the way from England to visit the graves, only to discover I had to go back to England to enquire about signing a register.
We decided we need to take advantage of the wide range of unusual (to us) fruit and vegetable options and learn how to cook with some of them. This weeks challenge was a banana flower pod. We looked up an nice sounding Banana Flower Salad (Thai dish) and then prepared it. Turned out super yummy, even if it did involve lots of chilli and fish sauce.
1. Take 1 Banana Flower Pod
2. Look at it very, very hard
3. Hey Presto a Banana Flower Salad with chicken and prawns appears. Magic.
Friday night involved a wander around some downtown markets. Anyone for a locust. A nice crispy crunchy tasty locust?
mmmm yummy yummy yummy.
After a Thai fishy curry, we visited a new bar in town which serves super fancy cocktails. The fresh mango Daiquiri was amazing. We look somewhat unlike ourselves in the attached photos. Ant was wearing his Burglar Bill outfit, and somewhere along the way I acquired a Jasmine flower necklace (I don’t think these 2 facts are related). The Jasmine necklace was possibly sacrilegious as I think they are supposed to be offerings to Buddha, however in these sweaty times they provide a fresh flowery scent, which doesn’t go amiss.
