Friday
Our weekend at the beach has finally arrived! we leave
downtown around 5pm, ready for a long-haul drive to the beach. Traffic getting out
of Yangon is horrendous, and we spend more than an hour and a half moving very,
very slowly. Outside Yangon, the roads are dark, narrow, and windy; people are walking,
invisible, on the road; fixing their cars on the road; riding bikes with no
light reflectors. Trucks with only one front light, appearing like scooters,
are packed with merchandise 5 meters wide. And on drove my loyal driver.
Until we saw an accident. Two people were sitting in the
middle of a very dark, very narrow road. And their scooter was lying on the
road a few meters ahead. We stopped the car, turning it around to light up the
scene, so that other cars don’t run us over in the dark. Running to the people
on the road, I wasn’t sure what to do.. it took me a moment to remember the existence and relevance of CPR. One young guy in his 20s was holding his friend
in his arms. The first seemed fine; the second was certainly dead. I tried to
get him to lay down his friend, so that we could check for vital signs and
maybe try and do something; he wouldn’t let go and there was definitely no
pulse. Slowly people started gathering around. Phone calls were made. No one
spoke English. After a few minutes we offered to drive them somewhere – no one
else had a car. Finally they understood, and agreed, and a group of 5 Burmese stumbled
into our car. It seemed like they’d never been in a car before, because they
didn’t know how to open the door, not from outside nor from within. We drove
them to some community center they guided us to; with a stop on the way to talk to one of these crazy overloaded trucks to explain to the driver he had just killed someone.
We made it to the beach with a fast-beating heart around
mmidnight, and were relieved to see our friends had stayed up waiting for us.
Saturday
Our beach weekend started delightfully; beautiful
weather, clean, empty beach, and a walk to a small gorgeous island. We ate sea
food and salads, drank beer, and successfully avoided sunburn. At a reasonable hour, we retreated to our rustic bamboo huts.
Sunday
3:30 am – I wake up abruptly from a scratching sound.
Something is scratching. I shake Arne. I suggest that we try to scare THE THING away
with noise, but under no circumstance leave the perceived safety of our
mosquito netted-bed. Arne fearlessly still gets up and looks around. There’s no animal in sight and the
scratching continues. I thump on the mattress – the noise stops. But there’s
nothing under the bed. And then the noise continues. 30 minutes of searching conclude
that THE THING was is living IN the mattress – really?? what was it? Not wanting to find out, we risk being eaten up by mosquitoes and gospend the rest of the night on the hammocks outside.
 |
| Nicer during the day. |
Monday is eventless, thank god.
On Tuesday
I get home from work, and there’s a power cut.
That’s normal enough, but after a few hours I realize it doesn’t seem really normal:
there’s no generator noise outside. I step out and quickly realize it’s not a
general power-cut: it’s just us. And yes, I realize we moved into a new place where
the power bills might work a little differently, and we haven’t paid them yet.
I quickly go pay the bill and the disconnection fine and am told that it's fine, tomorrow morning the power will be back on (as if just one night and morning with no
power is nothing to even bother for). So I follow the Burmese advice and don’t worry: we go to a bar
just to check the equipment before tomorrow’s pub-quiz, and end up having a
great time, drinking way more than usual and staying up pretty late.
Wednesday
I wake up with a hangover. Still no power. And no power means no
shower and eventually no water at all, since we need to pump it electrically to our
apartment. I fill up a bucket, just in case. We skip the coffee and shower and
go to work.
At 6 pm I get home. Still no energy. No water. By now, the fridge
has been warm for over a day and smells a bit funny; the toilet doesn’t flush
anymore. I go to the people who promised it would be fixed and they say there’s
nothing to do about it now; "come tomorrow". I'm hugely upset but no one cares and it’s
not helping. It’s time for the pub quiz, so I go – It's Arne's turn to lead it, the place is packed, it goes great; and for the first time I join a team
instead of helping the organizers, and my team wins.
Thursday
has just started. Instead of going to work I went to discuss
the power situation; again it’s been promised that the power will be back on
today and again I believe them. I have no choice: we have guests staying over
tomorrow and it HAS to be fixed. Please be fixed.
(Thursday evening) Spoiler alert: It wasn’t fixed. We were forced to stay over at a
friend’s house and send our guests to a hotel.
On the positive side, for lunch I finally dared to try
chicken feet. Chicken feet soup!
