I've not got off to the best start with Myanmar. Having taken my brand new passport, with Angelka's, to their London embassy, they proceeded to lose it, or at least, mislay it! I had to go to London a second time to find it by which time I'd hatched numerous plots to render their embassy unworkable until they found it!
The embassy was in swanky Park Lane but was little more than a squat on the inside, dreadful organisation..... but, I have an open mind!
We had a 7 hour day time flight back from Seoul, a 5 hour kip at an airport "hotel", an argument with a taxi driver who thought our bags a distraction to his driving and I was hungry, thirsty and descending into a foul mood, you know the one!
However, our first full service flight for sometime, 18 flights to be exact, and, fed and watered I'm starting to get the peripetetic bit of my hedonism back, lets call it mojo for short! No more overnight flights until we come home, this one to Yangon is the last over 1000 miles and, to date, we've clocked up over 26,000, which is one circumference of the world!
Myanmar really feels like the tourist part of this trip, we had to book everything through a local travel agent as you cannot book flights, hotels online and they don't accept credit cards! We had to pay for this part of the trip by US dollars to an account in Singapore, not mentioning Myanmar on the transfer details!
Preconceptions and stereotypes were displaced by the flight into the capital and the taxi journey down town. Lots of golden, conical temple roofs reflected the sun, wide tree lined avenues, manicured public parks, lakes etc and we are off to the races. There is some distance to go, you can only use MasterCard for cash at the airport, the First National Bank hasn't got an ATM yet, and the biggest note is 10,000 Kyats, (£6)which means I cannot fold my wallet! We had to go to our travel agent who gave us our plane tickets, remember when they were little books, and the office looked like the travel agent of 25 years ago. Nearby, we had seen a temple on the taxi journey and walked back to it after our meeting. This turned out to be Shwedagon Pagoda, probably one of the most staggering buildings I've ever visited. It's actually a complex of guilded temple set within a huge marble floored courtyard, probably 1 km square. They all surround the biggest which is 100 metres high. It's full of monks, child monks, Burmese and the occasional tourist. One monk wanted to know where we were from so he could tell us he liked Manchester United! "Me no like Birmingham" he said, "me neither you glory hunter" said I! It is jaw dropping, stunningly beautiful. I feel disconnected from religion except that I do feel a connection to Buddhism, I like its social awareness, it's tranquility and its smile. Why oh why, this site doesn't feature as a wonder of the world astounds me? UNESCO, I demand a recount!
We visited another temple next to the mighty Yangon river, a hive of commerce, and returned to the hotel to be served a local dish by a delightful young lady called Christine and her mate, Phwe Phwe, pronounced pooh pooh, cue much embarrassing sniggering! Christine gave us a Burmese language lesson, two local names, Hla Tla and Kyaw Kyar which mean beautiful and famous, pronounced La La and Joe Joe,and utterly charmed us.
We've decided that its early to bed for early rises, all you do in the evening is eat, so it makes sense. The next few days see 3 and 4 o'clock rises so we are off to bed before 8, it's back to the womb stuff as we head for our second stop in Burma, Bagan, one if the most remarkable archeological sites in Asia.