We took a taxi after our lovely breakfast of traditional Myanmar food and European food (I opted for the local bean steamed bun, local pancake with something interesting in the middle and chicken noodle soup) into the town centre. We explored a pagoda in there and were conned by a couple of people who saw us coming. One to pay for a photo they said I could take, but told me it cost after the photo and another, a monk, who we thought was being friendly but charged us for the information he gave us about the pagoda. Peanuts really.
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| This monk kindly told us about one of the buddhas then followed us around telling and showing us stuff. When we got to the end he told us it would be 5000 kyat! He was staring |
We wandered on and stumbled upon a music festival in a park. The place was absolutely packed. Heaps of people wanted to take selfies with us or just stopped to take our photo. I only saw two other tourists in the whole festival so I think we are a novelty. It is happening everywhere we go. People staring, pointing, photographing and all smiling at us. I would hate to be famous!!!The music was all the latest stuff with Burmese lyrics! Was such a great atmosphere.
We hung around for a while then went off to find the train station to book our tickets for Mandalay tomorrow. That was for both of us. We got totally soaked time after time on the way to the station. When we got there some dude tried to send us to a booking office telling us the station booking office was shut. We didn't believe him so we went in a another entrance and found what we wanted. They cost us about 18000 kyat which is about $18.00 NZ.
We decided to have a beer at a wee bar by the station. It was just a local street one. We had the best time. I could have settled in for a real session there. Firstly they all just stared and said hello. After a wee while they put on some music and one of the guys started dancing so I got up and danced with him. Then we were besties! Because it is new year we ended up having a bit of a water fight in the bar. I had such a good time. The people here are so lovely. We couldn't stay all day, although I could easily have settled in, but we only have one day left here so we had to go and do some looking around.
Down the road we went towards China Town. On the way through the street food stalls we saw the most delicious samosas so we stopped for a feed. They dished us up the samosa all cut up in a broth with lots of vegetables. I was horrified! It turned out to be one of the most delicious things I've eaten for ages. Man the food here is delicious.
Finally we made our way to China Town. A bit of a fizzer really because everything was shut because of the festival. Was an interesting wander though. The party was still going on full boar around us and we were constantly being hammered by hoses and buckets of water. Good targets us tourists. My camera was safely sealed inside plastic bags.
We used some public toilets there. Cost us 100 kyat for the two of us. OMG talk about disgusting! I won't give you any more detail than that!! We flagged down a taxi and went back to our room for a bit of rest out of the 39 degree heat. We looked like lobsters!!!
After we lay our clothes out in the sun to dry and had a lovely rest we ventured out again and walked towards the big lake. It took us about 40 minutes to walk there. I am quite proud of that because I haven't walked that far for a while due to the operation on my back. What an adventure getting totally soaked every 20 meters or so by people on the side of the road with their barrels of iced water. We were so soaked. My dress was sticking to me and my knickers showing through. Not a great look for someone in such a strict communist, Buddhist country but no one seemed to mind (or freak out!).
Eventually we made our way to the lake. It was packed with everyone out celebrating the festival. Lots of music and water thrown around. We found a wee street food place and got a wee feed of sweet and spicy chicken with fried rice. Yum! A few beers of course. The beer is costing us $1.00nz for a big bottle. It is Myanmar beer. It is so nice. I love it! The sunset was beautiful. The sky turned pink, the lake turned pink then the bats came out to skim the water for insects. Heaps of them about the size of blackbirds. So cool. Fish were jumping. Crows flying to roost. No photos though. We wanted to go out and relax without worrying about our devices or camera getting soaked. They would have been wrecked if we had them with us.
If we didn't drink the cheap beer here we could seriously lose some weight cos the food is so healthy.
We taxied back to the hotel and dried out again. I was over being wet. We waited for the water throwing to finish before we went down to our local bar (that we have gone to three times now so that makes us locals!). We got fish and cheese rolls. So nice and more beer before coming home to bed. Big day. Love this place.
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