Stuff Slam Does

So it’s our final full day in Myanmar, so we decided to head out and spend our remaining cash at the big market up the road from our hotel. It’s called Bogyoke Aung San Market and is a covered market... it may be shady, but it’s still crazy hot! There are hundreds of stalls, mostly selling fabric, clothes, jade jewellery and souvenirs.

We must have walked for miles around the crazy lanes, I mostly bought bags & purses as prezzies as the material is so beautiful. I also bought a back scratcher for 1000 Kyat (56p) which I love! And a bamboo ball that the locals use to play their keepie-upee games.

After the heat got too much we found possibility the only place with actual aircon to cool off, a juice bar, which in true Myanmar style doesn’t quite get it right. I ordered a pomegranate juice and it was basically a small amount of pomegranate mixed with water, but never mind it was the aircon I appreciated most!

We went out the outer block and walked upstairs where there was a hint of a breeze. There were some art galleries which had some really lovey work, I wish I could have afforded one. Then there was the same ethical shop that we visited last week and a shop selling authentic hand woven fabrics. We both bought stuff here (thankfully they took credit cards!) as it’s amazing quality and the kind of stuff we saw being made across the country.

Next we visited the crazy new ‘market’ next door which is basically the same as any western shopping centre but with a lot more shops selling flip flops!!! There were a handful of brands we recognised such as Timberland, Body Glove, United Colours of Benetton and KFC!

I found a Japanese ice cream shop and got a pineapple ice lolly which was just what I needed as I was starting to feel a bit feint outside in the heat. The sugar boost was perfect!

Teri found a crazy Japanese shop selling lots of weird & wonderful things such as a finger massager that she bought!?! I bought myself a face mask which I really could have done with at the beginning of this trip because of all the pollution!

It was so nice to be in a nice clean air-con environment, you instantly feel more alert. It’s also kind of strange seeing the kind of people in there, as I guess not many Myanmar people can afford to shop there, so you don’t see many traditionally dressed people and a lot more dressed like westerners.

We were going to go to the local street food market on the way home, but gave in in the end by getting a pizza in a nice air conditioned building that is clean... as we just couldn’t bear having any more rice or noodles... or food poisoning!!!

Feeling a bit better today, got up for a walk along the beach to breakfast to take it all in for the last time.

At breakfast communication was a bit off again. A lad asked if I wanted coffee, I said “No Tea please” so he said “Coffee Coffee?”, I said “no tea please” this went on until I said “No coffee, tea please” and he nodded and walked off. I don’t think he knows what tea is! When it didn’t come I asked a waitress for it who promptly went and got me some.

I opted for the ‘American Breakfast’ as I’m fed up for rice and ordered the omelette... but they bought two fried eggs! They soon changed it though, but annoyingly I couldn’t eat it as they put peppers in it, the first time I’ve seen peppers here!

I walked back along the beach listening to the waves crashing and watching translucent crabs scurrying away into the sand. The water is so clear!

We packed our bags & got our bus to Yangon... thankfully this bus was stress free! There were only two complaints... one was the tv screens that hung from the ceiling that wouldn’t go up, so everyone kept banging their heads on it! 😂 plus the aircon was on arctic mode and the blankets weren’t long enough to cover both your feet and your shoulders, so you had to choose which would get frost bite!

The passengers were all nice, lots of tourists who were friendly. Plus the services wasn’t a complete dive, it has a basic shady spot which they had tried to spruce up by colouring the paintwork of the bricks in bright colours.

The journey took much longer than it did the other way, we left at 10.30amand didn’t arrive til 6pm because we arrived into Yango during ‘rush hour’ more like ‘standstill hour’.

At the bus stop a French girl asked if she could share a taxi so after turning down one guy who wanted to charge us 8000 (it pays to be a bit savvy) we got one for 4000 (£2.24).

We went back to Cozy Inn Guest house just coz it was easier, we got the exact same room which made us feel quite homely. I think we’re ready to go home now, everyone is saying it’s snowing in the U.K.!

I woke up early this morning and threw up, I think I have food poisoning! I feel really weak. Sarah got her bus back Yangon for her trip to Thailand and I just went back to sleep!

After 6am there is no electricity so it gets really hot in the room. We also had to move to another room for two people, which is a lovely hexagonal detached chalet in the gardens.

I decided to cool off in the sea, it’s not so hot today as it quite cloudy. I was watching the sand particles glistening in the sun as my feet moved it in the water.

Teri came on to join me and we just floated and bobbed about in the waves realising this was our last chance to take in this amazing location.

I went back to the room & slept, I think next year I’ll go somewhere that I’m unlikely to get a stomach bug!!

Later I walked very slowly to a small hill with a little Pagoda on it to get the view. At the bottom of the hill was a little woodsmans’ workshop with a dog just standing there making noises randomly.

After sitting for a while at the top on the cool marble tiles, I made my way back to swim in the pool. There is absolutely no one here!! It’s quite amazing!

After another sleep we headed back into town to our local internet shop. I felt a bit better after taking paracetamol and ibuprofen and the bike journey cooled me down too.

We bought a few nik naks including some sea sponges, some shell key rings that had been carved and I bought a traditional parasol for 7000 Kyat which is £3.92. Teri bought her mum the tackiest shell mouse she could find 😂.

We then had our final meal at our ‘local’ of grilled prawns & veg. And a lovely fresh lime juice.

No buffet for breakfast this morning as there isn’t enough people staying here, so we were given a choice of dishes. I had a seafood rice dish that was very much like a paella.

I decided to walk over to Lovers Island and walk around it. It was quite tricky as it meant clambering over rocks. The far end was the hardest because the rocks were higher. As I came around to the other side there was a group of lads who clocked me. Two of them started to make their way in my direction, so I changed course... as I did one of them fell in his bum into a rock pool! Much to the hilarity of his friends and me! 😂

I tried to take a photo of the Mermaid statue at the front of the island but there were so many people there trying to get a pic of themselves with it that I gave up.

I went for a leisurely swim/float in the sea. There is literally no one else swimming, I don’t think people here swim, I don’t get it!! There are no jelly fish or any fish that I can see, there could be sharks but I haven’t seen any thankfully. I truly think that they just don’t go swimming.

So I have miles and miles of ocean all to my self, looking back on an empty beach lined with palm trees!

Afterwards I went n laid by the pool, thankfully they weren’t playing any music so it was nice just listening to the waves crashing. But eventually they did put the music on. I think it is only on when the electric is on, so I’m gonna have to schedule going to the pool when there is none!

I tried to laze about but found it boring, so went for a wander around the little street of shops. Here I noticed the beach huts that I guess is where the Myanmar people stay. I have no idea if westerners can rent one, but they would be perfect for backpackers.

I couldn’t find any decent snacks, so wandered up the main road in search of something. Yet still nothing. I could have gone into a cafe or restaurant, but all I wanted was some snacks & fruit!

Fortunately I’m not crazy hungry as breakfast is pretty substantial.

I found myself a place to laze in the shade, a sun lounger just in front of our chalet under the trees. It was lovely just laying there reading and snoozing.

Then it was back in the sea for more swimming & chilling before we went back to the town. Although it took ages to get there as the lad at reception didn’t understand English and had to ring someone else to come and sort out the taxi bikes for us. When they finally did arrive there was only two, so my & Sarah had to share one! I’ve never risen three on a bike before!!

We did our hour of internetting and then back to our local restaurant for food. When we arrive the guy who speaks English the best cane over and said quietly “We don’t have any alcohol today” we looked at him puzzled, he continued “The government inspectors are coming!” Teri said that she had seen the hotel clearing out all the alcohol from the fridges and replacing it with fruit earlier, so it all made sense! I think they must have to pay a hefty sum to be allowed a liquor licence!

Today I had chicken, I asked the guy if they maybe had some chips, they said they could do some but then cane back and said they couldn’t, but that they could do fish chips. I said okay, well try those! Not quite knowing what to expect, we thought maybe it would be something like white bait, but it was actually prawn crackers! Well fishy crackers! They were very nice though!

After dinner we did some clothes shopping. I bought two Ngwe Saung t-shirts at 1500 each (84p)!! The girls bought some stuff too, some kaftans and dresses.

We then decided to walk back along the beach which is 4.8km back to our hotel. It took us an hour.

The sky sparkles with stars and the moon lit our way, as well as the hotel gardens that were lit up by various lights, some including elaborate colour changing lights!

There were various things happening in the beach, the first was the smell of fish followed by Teri screeching that she had stepped in some! It turns out the locals were drying their fish on the beech.. we heard the locals laughing at us as we walked into their fishy trap 😂

Further down the beach was a tight racket which turned out to be a karaoke party! As we walked past they finished a ballad and started in a rock number!

Later we passed a group of lads dancing around a fire!

Breakfast at our hotel (Central Hotel) was a buffet style affair with fried eggs, sausages, ham, rice, fried tomatoes, noodles, samosas, spring rolls and fruit. There was also bread but I hate the bread here!

The staff don’t seem very friendly, maybe it’s because we were the last people to breakfast! Hardly any of the staff speak English here, there is one guy who can speak it, so he’s the only one worth asking questions to! We got hold of him later to organise buses back to Yangon. Sarah is going a day earlier than us a she is off to Thailand to cruise around some islands! You should check out her blog at www.nomadicnortherner.com

We asked the guy to book us on a bus that wasn’t Asia Drangon as we were all too scared to go through that again!

We all had a nap then me & Sarah did a mammoth walk up the beach (around 8.5km there & back). We noticed that there are a lot less people about today, I think that it was busier yesterday as it was a Sunday & locals come here for the weekends.

Sarah was beach combing for interesting things to draw, she picked up pretty crabs and shells.

I was taking photographs of our beautiful surroundings. We hardly passed a soul, just the odd local on a motorbike wizzing past and the odd group outside the very spaced out hotels. After about an hour we decided to go for a swim. The waves were bigger here, not big enough to surf, but bodyboarding would be good... but without either of those we did some proper body surfing! It was a lot of fun and once you get the hang of it you can take a wave in a fair way!

We finally arrived at a very small fishing village with a few huts on the beach, with one man fixing nets, a young boy following us along inquisitively and a couple of small fishing boats coming in.

We decided to head back and walked much quicker. We could see that there were a few new hotels going up, we think it will become a much bigger attraction to tourists in following years, but they need to sort the infrastructure out or at least get some better buses or build an airport! So for now it will continue to be a mostly Myanmar peoples’ holiday destination, which is what makes it so special, I think foreign tourists bring much needed money into the area, but I wouldn’t want it to loose it’s identity and become like Thailand.

Once back I got Teri & we went in search of a snack. We went to the small village/road of shops next to our hotel and got a coconut, then headed to the beach in search of food. The only food available seemed to be fish on sticks that ladies carried on trays in their heads! I thought I’d risk it and have some king prawns on a stick! It cost 2000 for five (£1.12) and they cane Ruth a bag of spicy juice/sauce to dip them in. I showed Teri how to shell the prawns as she had never done it before & she loved it! So she went back and bought some octopus on a stick and a fish in a stick!

Afterwards we she fed the leftover fish to one of the many stray dogs, it was nervous of her, but was most happy devouring his fish!

We chilled out for a bit at the chalet before getting our motorbike taxis to the town. We headed straight to the Internet cafe so that Teri could chat to her boyfriend on his lunch break. Then we went back to Royal Flower restaurant for food. When you find a decent place to eat it’s easy to keep going back as there seem to be many mediocre places with questionable hygiene! I chose to have spicy crab and Teri had curried crab as she’d never had crab before. Sarah went simple with some Morning Glory & rice. When my crab fish arrived it looked amazing with crabs piled up, but the top of the shells had no meat in them, so I had to break open the legs and claws to get the meat. I picked one up and tried to break it when I somehow managed to spray chilli sauce into my eye!!! Ouchy! Once I’d washed it out I asked for some crackers to crack open the shells which made it much easier!!! It is a lot of work to get the meat out, but it was obviously fresh that day and very tasty.

After dinner we did another trip to the Internet shop, so I managed to get up to date with this blog finally!

We were woken by the sound of what sounded like a motorbike rally outside our chalet! It seems that the locals use the beach as a road and zoom up and down it to Lovers Island which is a fair way from the main town, but right across the beach from our hotel. I got up because Teri sprayed some Deet on and it set off my asthma, so I went down to sit on some rocks to get my breath working again.

We realised that the bus had dropped us off at the wrong hotel which is why they didn’t have our booking last night! We decided to check out some other hotels as the aircon in this one sucks plus the electric is only on from 6pm til 6am! (This is because the government restricts who gets the power supply and when, due to short supplies.) the beds were also small and uncomfortable.

We wandered down the beach a bit away from Lovers Island where it was to be much quieter. There was a big hotel called Central Hotel which has a pool overlooking the beach, so we checked it out. I thought that the beach would be similar prices to Goa, where you can stay in a beach hut for about £3 a night. But the only options here are hotels and they’re either very basic for locals or big like this one. We decided to get a room here because it has a lovely pool and the room has decent aircon and the electric comes on during the day at intervals. It was more expensive, but to have a nice chilled experience at the end of our holiday is just what we need! It cost $110 (£83) for a chalet for three over looking the beach, it has a little balcony where you can sit & watch the locals playing on their rubber rings up the beach or the fishermen bringing in their boats. We figured that £28 a night each was pretty good consider that it would cost more than that to stay in a Holiday Inn at home!

Our chalet is nicely positioned away from the cheesy music poolside and far enough away from the busy Lovers Island area that we can see what’s going on without it bothering us. It really is perfect, with palm trees out the front for shade and pretty pink flowers lining the beach.

I got myself straight into the sea! It’s really warm and clear, you can see your feet at the bottom and it feels like floating in a big salty bath. I only saw one small fish near the waters edge, nothing else. The view whilst swimming is rows of palm trees and Lovers Island which is walkable via a sandbank that gets covered over a the tide comes in. Later me & Teri ventured over to it. It has a large mermaid statue and a small Pagoda. By the time we got there the tide was already covering the sandbank and most of the locals had retreated with their rubber rings to the beach, so we had it to ourselves and a family with two lads who were fishing with spears!

Teri found a spot which she calls her whirlpool and I watched small fish and colourful crabs going about the rocks.

I said we should get back to the beach before we got stranded there as the tide had come in, so we made our way back. It was still possible to just walk back, but it was more up to our shoulders.

All three of us then went to the pool which was much cooler than the sea and I relaxed in the pool by putting my arms over the side and looking out over the sea. The hotel DJ then changed the music from the nice Myanmar music to horrible Western pop music! I had to got and get my iPod after having to endure Sam Smith & then the Maccaraina!

Later we got some motorbikes to Taxi us the 5 miles up the beach to Ngwe Saung village/town. It’s a cool little place with a Main Street lined with touristsy things (for locals, not the likes of us) mostly rubber rings and shell necklaces, but I did see some sea sponges which I am going to buy some of. We went for some food at the Royal Flower restaurants sit had good reviews in my guide book. It was really nicely done, it felt a bit more geared up to westerners, as it was clean! Ha ha and it had a cool bar from which they had decent cocktails with known branded spirits! There is also a small stage where they have live music each night, but we were there too early... in fact we got there too early for the electric too, so they had to put the generator on which kept going off! I ordered squid, which was kind of battered, I asked them to bring me some lemon which really confused them! I don’t think they’ve seen any one squeeze lemon on them before!

I also got a Blue Hawaii cocktail which was lovely & creamy with rum, Malibu, cream coconut, blue curaçao, pineapple & lime. It cost 6000 (£3.36)!

Sarah & Teri both had the local prawn curry which the said was lovely.

Afterwards we went to the local Internet cafe... well it’s not really a cafe, it’s a small room in which you can rent a connection to the internet for your laptop or WiFi for your phone. It cost just 500 Kyat (28p) for an hour, so very worth it considering that there is no internet anywhere else in town!

When our hour was up we found the local bank and we had to walk up the unlit streets past the pretty lit up restaurants along the way. Fairy lights have a big impact when there is no other lighting!

We went back to the Royal Flower to check out the band and have another drink. I had a Captain Morgan’s and coke which cost 3000 Kyat (£1.68) I think it’s pretty fortunate that we don’t drink much because at those prices I could imagine it would be pretty easy to be drunk the whole time! There was a group of Russian tourists next to us who had just bough the entire bottle of vodka and was passing it around!

Me & Teri got a bike taxi back and Sarah stayed to sort out her flights to Thailand on Friday. It was 1500 Kyat each for the bike Home which is 84p!