Happy New Year 2016 from Ngwe Saung! Don't worry, I can’t pronounce it either.

So my new observation from Myanmar is that the locals get motion sickness before the bus even starts to move. I call this phenomenon Vomiting Burmese Roulette. For the rest of us, this creates an uncomfortable, mystery-like environment where everyone is on the lookout for when and where the next gacking local will be depositing his or her lunch. All we can do as foreigners is try to stay clear and hope to Buddha that these random acts of spewing occur somewhere where you are not.

Ngwe Saung is Myanmar’s 2nd best beach and we’re here because we can’t afford Ngapoli Beach, which holds the #1 spot. In Ngapoli, the Law of Supply and Demand has room rates over the holidays at over $100 per night. Since this is the tail end of the trip, we know that $100 should buy accommodation, transport, food, and entertainment for 4 days! So we had to settle for #2. The beach is a long stretch of whitish sand that goes forever in either direction and the water temperature in the Bay of Bengal will do you right on the hot days. Our little bamboo cabin has electricity only in the evening and small creatures run through the walls and ceiling at all times of day at no additional charge.

I’m not sure how long a Chinese made scooter is supposed to last under normal operating conditions, but I think I reduced the lifespan of the one we rented by a couple years. One of the recommended excursions from Ngwe Saung is to ride down to the fishing village of Simna. Simna is like taking a step back in time. They receive very few visitors and their way of life hasn’t changed much over the years. What we didn’t know is how difficult it was to get there. There are no roads. Riding on the beach is hard enough but there were trail sections of deep dust and sand that were so treacherous that Nora could get off the bike and walk faster than I could plow through it. It seemed to take hours just to go a few miles. Then throw in a couple ferries to cross the occasional river, and it made for an exciting but tiring trip. The village was really cool once we arrived. The locals use the most piece of **** boats you’ve ever seen, then dry everything they catch in the sun. The kids are super playful and nothing close to shy. The return trip sucked just as much as the journey to get here except I was already pretty tired from fighting the terrain. We also had an incident where I drove too close to the edge of the water and splashed the air intake, killing the motor for a good 20 minutes before it would start again. Consuming beer and rum to celebrate 2016 could not come soon enough.

And then it was New Year’s Eve! And nothing happened. Nothing. No wild parties. No crazy night clubs with extortionate cover charges and overpriced drinks. Not even much of anyone to talk to. Someone did light some fireworks around midnight and the local kids zoomed up and down the beach on scooters. But that was it. At least we had beer and rum.

The day after ringing in New Year to the sound of crickets and the creatures that are always in our walls and ceiling, we headed out to Bird Island on the same piece of **** boat we saw in the fishing village a couple days before. This boat had a nicer paint job though, so I proposed that this may make it a bit more seaworthy. The snorkeling was only average but I’d rather be here than anywhere cold. From here, we return to the big city of Yangon where we have a couple days to explore before our flights back to Bangkok. Nora flies home to Austria immediately, and I will get another 30 day stamp in my passport for Thailand to do whatever.