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!

Wedding and other things

This weekend we went to a wedding. A Burmese Buddhist style wedding reception really as the civil ceremony and gifts to the monks happened at some other time prior to the party.

On arrival we gave our gifts to the gift desk and signed a form (a handy accountability system set up to ensure no gifts go missing I presume). I caused some confusion as I had written the name of the bride and groom on the envelop, when in fact it seemed I should have written my name on the envelop in order to aid gift registration!

We were allocated a table and sat around chatting whilst others arrived. When it says 1pm on the invite, that just means start showing up from 1pm… the actual wedding doesn’t start until 30-60min later.

The bride and groom arrived and processed down an aisle between the 300 odd people attending, who were seated around tables. There were lots of bright lights and cameras flashing from the photography team… and somehow a group of tourists had also found their way into the venue and so joined in the photo taking fun. Apparently the walking down an “aisle” is not really traditional – it is borrowed from western style weddings.

There followed a small amount of talking by the announcer – who was hired – I understand he does/ used to read the news on one of the TV channels. Wedding announcing being a sideline. I don’t really know what was said, but the qualifications and occupations of the bride and groom were read out – these were also printed on the wedding invitations (standard in Myanmar). Guess it shows the importance of education.

Finally some wise elderly people gave them jasmine garlands and then we all ate dim sum and then went home. Much shorter than an English wedding… in fact I think I went to a wedding at lunch time last year.

The bride and groom looked amazing amazing and very sparkly.

  

I also saw a couple of things that amused me. The helpful reminder in a toilet. Indeed. Probably best not to forget ones valuables in the toilet. And one of my favourite shops in Yangon. T.art High Fashion. What a name!

 

Yangon old and new

Pink robed nuns, paper sun umbrellas, trishaws…. and shiny white 4x4s. Yangon old and new.

 

Depending on your perspective. Fancy-pants collectable gallery/ private home/ posh jumble sale. Catlady and I weren’t really sure we needed a dried mini alligator…

  

Chinese New Year

This last week it has been Chinese new year. We headed down town via a stand selling fat, wriggly, live bugs of some variety or another to be eaten with chop sticks. We gave it a miss.

 

Chinatown was full of helium balloons… the usual combination of Angry Birds, Gangnam Style and Minions, Hello Kitty and a few Chinese dragons thrown in for good measure.

It was dark soon enough. We really miss the long days you get in England (obviously not at this time of year). It is lighter longer in summer here, but I think it is always dark by 6.30pm.

Oranges, apples, and pomellos under naked bulbs.

 

Then it was time for the dragons! It was a bit like the Olympics with all the teams parading round, with their team flags and girl/ child holding team name sign. Dragons seems to be a mail dominated activity, but women do seem to be allowed to wander around in shiny Chinese dresses as glamorous team mascots. The serious business of dragoning is left to men. Of course.

 

First of all there was a long thin pink and yellow dragon.

 

Followed by the main act. Hard to describe. Like a panto horse (but better)… the two man dragons leapt from yellow pole to yellow pole with incredible acrobatic skills, whilst at the same time manipulating the dragon’s faces into fun expressions. It was amazing to watch!

We only saw a couple of dragons, but the competition was going on for 4 nights!