Happy Birthday Mum!

The beach is a long stretch of beautiful white sand, with a cool breeze, spectacular sunsets, fringed by coconut palms and the Bay of Bengal water is warm. There are about a dozen hotels along the beach - none are massive yet and many what appear to be identical local seafood restaurants along the road behind the beach, so spoilt for choice for delicious and cheap seafood.

Today Anne and I took a local boat out all morning supposedly to an island to do some snorkeling. We set off at 7.30am which was still quite cool but the water felt warm and the first stop was ok, but not great visibility but a few fish. The boat boys went off with their spears to fish, one catching a massive one. Then we stopped and got off onto the island to find ourselves in a remote beach bar/restaurant. We had no money but they said we could pay the boat boys later - in very broken English. We ordered two coconuts and had a lovely swim and relaxed in the shade. We were then offered the large fish cooked - it was only about 9.30am so not really what we wanted. We asked them to cut the coconut up we had drunk from instead, so enjoyed beautiful fresh coconut flesh. However an hour or so later we fancied the fish so big meaty chunks were grilled as well as being presented a sort of fish bone soup which was pretty spicy - the coconut and fish for £2 each!

Flying from Bagan to Thandwe (the airport near the beach), with Air Mandalay this time, was interesting. Not only did we go back on ourselves to call in at Haho where we first flew to, but I have never seen the luggage be thrown up manually above the porters heads onto the plane and then have to be taken down again because it didn't fit and re-arrange a bit like squeezing into the boot of a car. Also among the safety announcements on the plane a little snippet on why it is such a good tourist destination is thrown in!

On our second day after I went for a lovely run along the beach, Anne and I went for a walk up to the next village and then cut through to the beach to find ourselves among a huge throng of fishing boats that had been out all night and were unloading their fish in baskets carried from the boats by women - lots of shouting and noise. The fish was being laid out to dry on blue fishing nets on straw on the beach. The fish were very small anchovy/white bait type - a huge amount- must be for selling on or even exporting.

Lunch was at a beach hut restaurant and then a bit of relaxing on the sun loungers. It was Anne's birthday so we planned to have a mojito at a local beach bar to watch the sunset. No mojitos so the usual lime juice and then we headed to a restaurant that you had to wade out to or get a boat to in high tide. Unfortunately as the wind hadn't done the usual dying down and the tide was coming in, the restaurant was shutting early due to the big waves - so we had a mojito there (not brilliant) and went back to the usual row of restaurants for dinner. Lovely fish again and a free pancake for dessert. When we got back to the room Anne had also got a birthday cake which was a bit of a surprise.

The next day another long walk along the beach instead of a run so I could take photos and then we decided to have lunch where we didn't manage to have dinner. Waded out but it was dry coming back and a lovely spot although my noodles turned out to be pasta so a little disappointing. The flight back to Yangon was uneventful other than on arriving and waiting for our bags to arrive (porters grab your luggage tickets out of your hands and go out to the trolleys coming off the plane to get your bags) - suddenly Aung San Suu Kyi flagged by a few men dressed simply in blue longhi and white shirts walked right passed. She was wearing the local dress of the province she had come from and stood very straight and looked ahead and moved through quickly. There were big smiles of the staff around, one girl proudly told us who she was (not that we needed telling). Having been here for over two weeks and even going to a NLD office to try and buy a bag (a present for Anne's son) when we were in Bagan, she was obviously front of mind - so this was a special moment.