Mt Poppa

Crazy mountain rock formation, toped with a monkey filled monastery.

Beautiful at sunset.

TGMW Minibreak 2014 #1

Last week saw the TGMW Minibreak 2014 #1. They came from the freezing wilds of the motherland to visit us in tropical Myanmar. It was over 3 years since the last TGMW Minibreak when we all ate ourselves stupid in America and saw giant baskets, Y-Bridges, tramped on frozen lakes and visited Little House in the Big Woods.

After the MWs had arrived and taken off their 50 million layers of clothes we all consumed our weight in a crate of Dunkin Doughnuts from Seoul Airport. We then took a couple of bottles of Chinggis and a kilo of coloured felt of their hands before we headed off for some sunshine…

… although not too much sunshine… Ant is now a true Asian as he carries an umbrella with him for protection from the sun. No chance of any rain here for at least another couple of months.

The Buddha and a screws and nails and hooks and nuts and bolts “shop”. Always a good combination.

 

Poor Whitie was inflicted to a longyi shopping trip. Apparently said longyi might be converted into a table cloth back in the motherland.

 

Downtown Yangon

Myanmar is a centre of excellence for health and safety. Clearly.

Sunset in the crumbling but beautiful former Pegu club.

The picture doesn’t  really do it justice, but it captures a fraction of the millions of bats flying out of Shwedagon at sunset. I have  seen this once before and it really is incredible. The bats just stream and stream and stream out of the pagoda like billows of smoke. Seemingly endlessly.

The men busied themselves with beer drinking whilst us Sarahs entertained ourselves with various crafts. Including a bizarre soap craft from Korea. Sadie’s soaps were a fish and a Mongolian sheep and ger scene. Mine were a burger and a soap image of my husband. The likeness is striking.

 

Then we went off to the beach. The MWs were calm and collected on the (possibly dodgy) short flight north. The TGs were in panic mode.

 

The beach itself more than made up for the internal flight… stunning.

Trees in the sand.

  

The TGMW 4

Brian was excited by the quality of road construction in Myanmar. Apparently it is better than in the motherland. If this is true then I suspect the location of this particular road close to extensive real estate owned by Myanmar’s elite might have something to do with it. Ant on the other hand was excited by fresh Pina Coladas served IN coconuts ON the beach.

 

Investigating what wasn’t the Burmese Python of Whitie’s dreams… but was nasty looking all the same… and fortunately very dead

Part of the beach was a fishing area. Hence the anchors…

 

… and drying silver fish…

   

One of the trials of living in Myanmar is that sometimes one is forced to take Afternoon Tea at the Strand-darling. mmmm YUM.

… another trial is the pedi-manicures… Sadie was clearly toxic… either that or the beauticians were wannabe surgeons.

 

Before the MW’s departed there was time for a trip to CityMart for them to stock up on Ovaltine, Agar-Agar powder, baking powder, tortilla wraps, pickled tea leaves, jasmine tea and palm sugar. Those Myanmar essentials that one just can’t get in the motherland. We concluded that if we had been in the motherland we would have been buying up tonic water, lasagna sheets and oats, all of which are currently unavailable here.

 

Thanks for visiting us MWs. Twas fun!