we're on the road to nowhere....

We arrived at HCMC airport with our Myanmar visa's in hand. As a reader of previous blogs you will know that this part of a journey is always the most anxious for me. I was even more nervous this time as there were two things wrong with our visas. 1) I had entered the wrong passport expiry date for Mr L's visa and 2) we had stated our point of entry was Mandalay when in fact we were flying into Yangon. We had booked a tour for this leg of our trip and the company had advised that entering at a different aiport was ok provided it was an approved point of entry which it was. I played it cool at the check in desk but the eagle eyed lady (I thought of other names for her but she was just doing her job) was onto us immediately. After 20 minutes discussion & debate with the supervisors,  it was looking like we might not be able to fly then suddenly, with 5 mins left to check in,  they agreed we could. The flight there - about 2 hrs - was uneventful save for a man in the seats across the aisle from us decided to cut his finger and toe nails during the journey. in what world is that acceptable??

On arrival after we past through security without incident we were greeted by a man in a skirt. It was Bobo our guide for this part of the trip. The skirt is in fact a longyi,  traditional wear for men in Myanmar & worn by the vast majority of them. The ladies also wear long skirts & have their faces painted in a yellow liquid which comes from the bark of a tree & protects them from the sun as well as being fashionable. 

I should explain a few things. We decided to book a trip in Myanmar as we wanted to learn about its history, about the culture/political changes & to see all the key sights so it made sense to have a guided tour. We booked the trip a few weeks earlier but as we set off I couldn't find the itinerary so could only go by the highlights on the website. So we had no real idea of where we were going in any detail, no idea where/which hotels we were staying at, how we would get from place to place. However it was a tour so we were confident it would all be organised for us. We also thought we would be with other people but lucky for us it turned out to be  a private tour. 

Our journey from the aiport to the hotel was 16 km/10 miles so in normal circumstances should have taken 20-30mins.  It took us 1 3/4hrs & we had to walk the last 200m. The traffic was complete gridlock. It wins the award in my book for the worst traffic we have experienced so far. Motorbikes are not permitted in Yangon so everyone has a car. At one point we sat at traffic lights for 10 mins waiting for them to change. 

When we got to the hotel, we headed out to get some food from the street vendors. There was one at the end of the road but the sighting of a rat running along the gutter made us move on to the next street where we had the most delicious chicken in coconut with rice. We sat with some locals on some small tables and little stools who were quite pleased to see us and they handed us pots with chilli and coriander to add to our food. It cost us under a pound.Bobo met us and we drove across town to the Shwedagon Pagoda which sits on a hill in the centre of Yangon so where ever you are you can see it. It's an absolutely incredible sight. We walked around and then watched as the sun set and disappeared behind it. The colours were wonderful. Quite a special place. After we went to dinner on a ridiculously over the top boat where they have a show clearly aimed at the tourists of traditional dancing, puppets and, my favourite, a dancing elephant. Not real but pretty impressive. Tourism only started back up four years ago so the country is still finding its way but we both warmed to it & look forward to exploring more.