Our First Days in Yangon

After having slept for so long, we received a wonderful breakfast at the guesthouse. You can always choose between a traditional breakfast (which varies every day, e.g. fried rice with beans, noodle soup, vegetable soup etc.). The only disadvantage: The eating place is outside… Which means, already 35 degrees in the morning with an incredible humidity. And it only gets worse during the day… 

Still eating breakfast, we already received a phone call from our university partner here in Yangon, who invited us to come to his office for meeting him. We did so. It was fantastic to meet Dr. Win Myint and Nwe Nwe, very nice people! Dr. Win Myint is the senior researcher of EERi and Nwe Nwe assists him. They were the ones helping us so much for getting into Myanmar with a Business Visa. Especially Lara will spend a lot of time in their office. We had a very friendly talk and were served coffee with sugar and condensed milk (seems to be the usual coffee type).

With our wonderful partners

One day later, we also met with Joan and Heini from CDE at CDE Office Myanmar, where both of us will also spend a lot of time. Joan will be our main contact here in Yangon, as he is the country representative of CDE.

 At the door of CDE office in Yangon

The road to CDE office (dusty dead end road) :-)

We also already spent some hours in the old town of Yangon. As in many cities, old town and new town are totally different. Old town of Yangon has been influenced a lot by the British and the Indians. You can still see the ancient British buildings everywhere. And nowadays, this area is very crowded and lively. There are many market stands, a lot of traffic, little shops etc. We started with the big market hall in the North of old town and then strolled down to the Yangon river. When walking through the narrow streets of old town, we felt like in India, although we’ve never been to India. But this is a little bit how we would imagine it (just with more people, we guess). Crazy old town, a very interesting and dynamic mixture of different Asian cultures such as Burmese, Indian, Chinese and probably more.

In the market hall: the cloth section

One of the many little stalls: a girl sewing with a very old sewing machine (with pedal)

In the jewelry section

In this city, there are so many contrasting buildings! Old and new... One wonders what happened to the old buildings and residents when the new sky scrapers were built...?!

Nice electricity... :-)

Have a close look at the bus: they need to open the cover of the engine, otherwise it gets to hot

Pretty much everywhere you can see the roof of a pagoda. There are pagodas everywhere!

We’ve seen some tourists, but there are not many yet. Or it is probably not the tourist season anymore. So we already became an attraction to Burmese people, some of which wanted to take a picture with us. As we are new, we friendly agreed and in return insisted in also taking a picture with everybody. They were happy to do so. :-) We had a little rest in the park and then continued to the harbor, where we enjoyed a creepy snack, which was a fantastic end of our little tour through old town.

 Group selfie :-)

 In the parc: sports for urban people

 The city of contrasts and incredibly fast development

 One of the old colonial buildings (British), and in front of it the rumbling traffic

Also one of the British buildings, but in a pretty bad shape... With broken windows and growing trees on the roof... (in the middle of old town)

 

 Evening rush hour for pedestrians: catching the ferry to the other side of Yangon river

Below: boys jumping from the peer into the dark brown and stinky water of the Yangon river harbour

We ordered a deep fried chicken. And we really got a entire chicken, including head, feet and wings.

What else is there to say about Yangon after the first few days? The people are really very, very nice and warm. No aggression, no impatience. Always friendly. If we smile at them, we always get a smile back. The traffic is crazy. Making a u-turn in the middle of the street is very normal. Changing the line every 10 seconds is also very normal, because you want to drive as fast as possible and choose the easiest line out of the three (on the highway). Traffic lights exist. And in some places they work well. In other places they don’t and traffic gets a mess. Mosquitos are around, but not so many. Cats and dogs as well are around, but also not so many. But we have so far not seen any fat animals :-) They are all very skinny. Poverty and wealth can be found very close to each other. But apparently, it does not bother the people too much (as far as we perceive it). And the monks pass our street every day to collect food from the neighborhood. 

 At a junction: one video with sound, one in time-lapse-mode. Also watch out for the pedestrians...

The Journey and First Night in Yangon

Finally, the adventure starts. After weeks of preparation, emptying the flat, asking for visas, troubles with the flights etc., we ended up in the train to Zurich airport. It was only the evening before, when we finally received the confirmation that we can actually fly. Our flights had been changed at least 5 times, which was getting very annoying. But it worked out in the end. And we could fortunately do the online check-in through smart phone in the train to Zurich.

 Flo checking in online (in the train to Zurich)

Flo still a bit sick (at the airport in Zurich)

At the airport, we admitted that we brought too much luggage, so we had to pay some charming 120 CHF for additional 7 kilos. :-) But what else can you expect when moving to another country…?!

After a very comfortable flight with Swiss to Bangkok, we changed to a smaller airplane operated by Bangkok Airways. Since the connecting flight was late, we were allowed to spend the waiting time in the first class lounge, where drinks and food was served for free. Nice one! :-)

When arriving in Yangon, we had to take a bus from the plane to the building. Oh my God, this heat!! We will burn, burn, burn!! But fortunately, most buildings have air condition, also the tiny airport of Yangon. The immigration check point shorty checked our visas and passports and let us through. The luggage was already there and we left the airport. We actually expected an extensive inspection, but they were not interested in us, nor in the huge luggage. Perfect!

The taxi drive to our guesthouse was already an adventure. Crazy traffic, crazy drivers, crazy pedestrians… We arrived well in the guesthouse and received a wonderfully cool and home made ice tea before checking in. And the nicest surprise of all was: Our room has an air condition, woohooooo!!! So important, I can tell you!! :-)

Our lovely Guesthouse Thanlwin

After resting a bit, we left for our first Burmese meal. Once we arrived at the recommended Burmese restaurant, nervousness broke out among the waiters. But they stayed calm on the outside and smiled all the time, since most of them didn’t speak English. After having received the menu, the waitress in the most beautiful dress just stayed next to our table but on decent distance. So we were wondering, whether we had forgotten something or broken some kind of rule…?! A friendly smile then gave us the idea that she was just waiting for us to choose our dishes. So, the first thing we learnt regarding restaurant manners, is that the waiters wait next to your table, until you have read the entire menu and decided what to eat and drink. They would even wait there for 30 minutes, if you haven’t ordered yet… :-) And once the food came, we again were put into trouble… They only brought one plate, not the ordered two plates and also no rice with it. Should we ask for rice now? Or will they bring it? Should we have ordered rice? And should we wait for the second plate before start eating? Or would this be rude? But if we start speaking in English, they would become very nervous… So we waited for another 5 minutes, smiling friendly at the waiters, they smiled back and walked around. After a while, an older waiter came to ask, whether we wanted rice and we happily confirmed. Soon after, the second plate arrived. And it was full of CORIANDER, noooo! Lara hates it, Flo somehow does not mind it but does not love it either… Well, we were brave and ate all of it. :-) So, the second insight we had, is that you should ask for rice if you want some. And apparently, many dishes have coriander in it, especially when it’s a traditional meal from Kachin state. We also ordered two bottles of Myanmar Beer. And they looked very surprised that we would order two bottles at the beginning already. They asked especially Lara, whether this is really true. We confirmed and soon after realized why. The Myanmar Bottles contain more than 6 dl beer. Lesson number three: Probably ask for one bottle first, and then, when this one is empty, order the second one. If you order two bottles at the same time, the beer only gets warm… :-) After some time, the waiters, especially the young men, become very used to us and overcame their shyness. They tried out many English words with us and were very happy when we replied. We guessed that they wanted to practice their English. Later we learned (we read it in our guide) that many young people take private English lessons, because in school the English teaching is not good enough and that they hope to improve their job opportunities if they learn English.

Our first Burmese dinner :-)

After this wonderful and very delicious dinner, we returned to our guesthouse and slept for 11 hours. We were completely exhausted. But we slept really well!

Goodbye Party Vol. 1

Thanks to everyone who came and made this night a very special night! Usually, the hosts should both be present. But Flo unfortunately spent the evening in the bed with a nasty flu. What a shame! But he’s seen all pictures and looks forward to the goodbye party volume II (29 Sept. to 2 Oct) to see all of you again.

Here some of the impressions...

Thanks and see you soon!