From Myanmar to Indonesia

 Traditional parasols in an airport shop.

1 000 000 Indonesian Rupiah = $90Can.

 Bali masks at the airport.

 The plane to Labuan Bajo.

 The Ciao Hostel. My open air room is top floor on the far right.

 It looks like this.

 The view from my room.

 Views from the town.

Sunday, June 3^rd.

I woke up just before six and remembered that Mark had said that the monks do their morning parade at six, so I went out to watch the locals feeding them. This is called the alms giving procession. The monks leave their monastery at 6:00 and walk single file on a prescribed route. The local people rise earlier than that and prepare food for them. Then they wait quietly on the side of the road for the arrival of the monks. As the monks walk by they dish out a ladle full of rice into the bowl of each successive one. After I watched that I turned to walk back to the hotel and an old lady holding a pot of rice pointed down the street to another group of monks that were coming her way, so I waited and watched them too.

Then I headed back to the hotel for breakfast and to get ready to leave. Our taxi picked us up at eight and took us to the airport. It was a little ramshackle national airport with little security. While we were waiting I showed Pu Pu and Young the pdfs of two of the books I have made. Our flight was just over an hour, but the Australian from yesterday had said he took the bus here from Yangon and it took twelve hours, so it shows the state of the roads. We arrived back in Yangon by eleven and, after the taxi ride, back to the Grand United Hotel by noon. This is the hotel I stayed at at the beginning of the trip and again they upgraded me to a corner suite with a view of the Shwedagon Pagoda.

We met up again at 12:30 and had lunch in the hotel restaurant. I had the same meal I had when I was here before, tom yum soup with chicken and steamed fish with lemon, both of which were quite spicy. Young brought along a dragonfruit which she had bought. This is a really interesting looking pink fruit, with white flesh and little black seeds, but I find it pretty tasteless. We had a good talk about tipping and its inherent pitfalls.

The rest of the afternoon was free time. It rained off and on again and since there is nothing really interesting to do in Yangon for a couple of hours, I hung out in my room. We met up again at 5:30 for our last group dinner. We took a cab to the old downtown area and a little restaurant on the second floor of a very busy narrow street. This is another of the GAdventure sponsored local organizations that aim to help local people. This restaurant was called LinkAge Training Restaurant and trains young people to be waiters and kitchen aids. The food was which was a set menu of soup and four dishes was excellent. Pu Pu bought us a beer, as we had no Myanmar currency left as we had converted our money. I wanted to take a photo of the young trainees and the GAdventure sign, but for some reason they didn’t want to do that, so that is why Pu Pu is pouring our beers.

Then we headed back to the hotel, said our goodbyes and headed off to our rooms. Pu Pu will return to her home village around Inle Lake in the morning as she is not working for a little while because of the rainy season. Young leaves early in the morning for Vancouver, and I will catch a cab to the airport later. That’s all she wrote, on to the next adventure.

Monday, June 4^th.

This was an in-transit day. I met Pu Pu in the morning and we said our final goodbyes. I had my last breakfast at the excellent Grand United Hotel and headed to the airport by taxi. It was about an hour ride that cost $8. I had two flights, the first from Yangon to Kuala Lumpur and then on to Denpasar, Bali. Both flights were about three hours and they were not full. I had no one sitting beside me on either flight. I asked Denise if I paid extra for that or if I needed to do my laundry more regularly.

I arrived in Denpasar at 9:30 and walked to the beautiful Novotel Airport Hotel. Denise booked this for me, so that I could utilize my limited time in Bali to sleep and not have to worry about taxis to a different hotel and back again in the morning for the next flight.

June 5th.

I slept very well and then enjoyed an amazing breakfast buffet before walking back to the airport and going to the domestic terminal. I checked in and then wandered through the airport where I found a good WS Smith bookstore and bought two books. One about the history of flags titled: Worth Dying For, the Power and Politics of Flags and the other one called The Shortest History of Europe. I am excited about both because I have been looking for them for a while. The first one is by the same author who wrote Prisoners of Geography, which I really enjoyed.

Another short flight and I landed at Labuan Bajo. This turns out to be a town not an island. I am on the Indonesian island of Flores, which is the closest inhabited island to Komodo. I had pre-booked a bed at the Ciao Hostel here and was picked up at the airport by their shuttle. I checked in and was shown my 12-bed room. It is an amazing open-air room with an incredible view over the harbour. I was provided with a little lock for the locker and shown around. There is a restaurant on the second floor and a sunset viewing area on the third floor. They also have a travel company on-site where I booked a two-day, one-night boat tour to Komodo Island and a few other places.

I needed money to pay for that and the hostel, so I took the hostel shuttle into town to find an ATM. I found a grotty little town. The view is much nicer from the hostel than the actual town. I got the money and waited for the shuttle (which does a loop route) to take me back.

I went up to the bar which overlooks the harbour and had a beer and typed my Myanmar summary. It was beautiful watching the sunset and the lights come on on the boats. The hostel is full of mostly young people. I got to talking to an 18-year old girl from Buckinghamshire, near John who is traveling the world for eight months. I admire young people who get out there, especially young women, great life experiences. I had dinner with her in the hostel restaurant. I had pasta as the owner is Italian. Then off to bed to finish the summary.