Yangon

 The view of the Women Hospital from my balcony...

 and Shwedagon Pagoda by day...

 and by night.

 Street food vendors in front of the hospital.

 A mosque in the downtown area.

 High rise living.

 Women wearing thanat-kha on their faces.

 Young female monks.

 The Sule Pagoda.

 A monk asleep in one of the chapels.

One of the fabric stores in the Bogyoke Market.

Sunday, May 20^th.

I took the hotel shuttle to the airport, checked out of Thailand for the last time and caught my flight to Myanmar. I arrived at 8:30 and met my GAdventure pickup who took me to the very nice Hotel Grand United where I checked in. They upgraded me to a junior suite on the 6^th floor with a great view of the Shwedagon Pagoda. The pagoda is considered to be the symbol of Yangon and the heart of Myanmar Buddhism. 

I phoned the help line for TD Canada Trust to find out what my pin was on the new debit card and found it was the same. So I updated my on-line banking and paid off the cash I had borrowed from my Bank of Montreal credit card. I found an ATM in the Women’s Hospital across the road and used my new debit card to withdraw 300 000 kyat, about $286 Canadian. So, that is finally sorted! 

I spent most of the day napping, relaxing, typing and sorting photos. I was tired and needed to relax to recover from my cold and regain my energy. I went next door to a supermarket and spent a half hour exploring what was there. I bought some yogurt, bananas, apples, rice crackers, cough drops, a mango, baby bel cheese and had lunch and dinner in my room.

I spent a couple of hours talking to my dad at home, then my mom and brother at the cottage, and my sister at her cottage. I found out my 86-year-old father has bought another motorcycle! A Honda 500.

Late in the day I went for a walk around the neighbourhood in three different directions but found nothing of interest. Then I headed off to bed.

Monday, May 21^st.

After breakfast I phoned my son and talked to him about his new job in the baseball field. I am happy and excited for him, I hope it is what he is looking for.

Late morning I decided to go for a walk in the 35 degree heat to the downtown section where I explored the narrow old streets lined with four storey apartment flats. I wandered through the area until I found the Sule Pagoda temple. I was encouraged to buy a small bouquet of flowers as an offer to the buddhas and then was met by a monk who welcomed me and then asked me my birthday. He did some calculations and then explained that I was born on a Sunday and took me to the little chapel for that day, where I lit a candle, left my flowers and poured water over the buddha’s head. Then he passed me off to another guy who told me about the many orphans that they feed and take care of and made a pitch to me to try to get money out of me.

The actual temple was beautiful, with its gold spires and chapels. It was a circular building and you could walk around it and past all the chapels for the days. I had to take my shoes off and the marble floors were very hot. I spent a half hour or so there watching the people and then moved on.

After that I went to the market area. The old part is closed on Mondays but there was a newer section and attached to that was a brand new upscale mall. I wandered around there watching the local people and all the young female nuns dressed in pink, who were going up and down the streets begging for money and others were sitting and counting what they had collected. After that I sat at a coffee shop and had a chocolate mixed berry smoothie.

Then I walked all the way home again, about a half hour. I returned to my room, had a shower and continued updating the blog.

I had dinner in the hotel restaurant where I had a tom yum soup and a steamed fish main, both of which were quite spicy. Then to the room for the night.

Tuesday, May 22^nd. 

Happy Birthday Dad!!

I was up early as usual and went for the included breakfast. Then I worked on my blog stuff for a while. At 11:00 I caught the hotel shuttle to the ‘old’ market. I was the only one in the van. Half way there I realized I had forgotten my wallet. Try explaining that you want to go back to the hotel to get your wallet to someone who doesn’t speak English. It took a bit but he finally understood, we headed back, I got the wallet and we started out again.

The old market was not as interesting as I had hoped. It wasn’t as old as others I had been to. There were sections for fabrics and seamstresses who were making clothes; a jewellery section; souvenirs and wood workings. I couldn’t find any food markets and after an hour I decided to head back. But first I went to the upscale mall and the coffee shop to have another smoothie and cool off before the half hour walk back.

As soon as I arrived in Myanmar, I noticed people with a light yellow patch on their cheeks, including the women working in my hotel. I asked about it and found out that it is used to make them more beautiful. Thanat-kha is a yellowish-white cosmetic paste made from ground bark. It is a distinctive feature of the culture of Myanmar, seen commonly applied to the face and sometimes the arms of women and girls, and is used to a lesser extent also by men and boys. It is recognized to be of great help to bear the heat of the sun. Those working in paddy fields wear thick layers of thanat-kha to help them tolerate the intense heat of the sun.

I just relaxed for the rest of the afternoon, until 5:00 when I went to the lobby to meet my new group. My guide is a woman named Pu Pu and the only other passenger is a Canadian-Korean woman named Young who is older than me. That’s it. We’ll see how it goes. I was aware that the whole time I have been in the hotel that I was the only western person, and I had only seen a couple of other westerns in the city.

We had a briefing and Pu Pu explained that this is the low season for tourists because of the heat and the upcoming monsoon, but the problems at the border with Bangladesh with the Rohinga Muslims has also put a huge dent in the number of tourists coming to Myanmar. I’m sure there will be more about that later. Then I headed out to a local restaurant for dinner. The food was great and the company was okay. Then we walked back to the hotel to get ready for the early start.