Our weekend in fantasyland (Singapore)

We spent a nice long weekend in Singapore, with the excuse of renewing Arne's visa (no success there), and with the real reason being that we wanted to visit his friend who lives there, and also escape our real (hard) life for a few days.

It was like a (tacky) dream. Sipping a Singapore Sling on the balcony of the 57th floor at sunset, staying in a posh, airconditioned, swimming-pooled, cheese-packed-fridge apartment, walking among the glaring Louis Vuitton signs - we felt far, far from home (wherever home may be).

Singapore is a very plastic-y place in the sense that it's planned and clean and has tons of extreme laws, but not stupidly plastic-y, but smartly plastic-y. The know what people like, so they build it. Sometimes a little over the top. Example:

The Gardens by the Bay, a huge, beautiful park that featured several themed gardens and two domes, one of which had a fake 35-meter waterfall inside. And costs 20$ to enter. We skipped the domes, and even though I really love parks, this was a bit.. Too big. But beautiful - I give it a 10.

My buddy explorer.

Singapore had some other crazy things. Like an initiative to extinct mosquitos - the bizarre "mozzie wipeout". 

When I protested that that can't be right, Arne pointed out that since Singapore has no eco-system left anyway, the lack of mosquitos will probably not be a problem. Sadly, that makes perfect sense.

I thought of my dad when I saw this:

But Singapore also has some normal and very nice sides to it. We ate yummy Indian food (eating with my hands is really a lost skill!), walked around in the perfect summery weather, and saw quite a few beautiful things. 

  

Special thanks to Ollie - what a great host!

Going home was totally fine. Quite surprisingly. Rainy season should start any day now, hopefully taking with it the heat, the sweat, the noise, and the dust.

Images from our (Burmese) New year's holiday

Old and new Burmese bills - note the denominations (e.g. 25 Kyats):

Upon arrival at the Island just outside Mawlamyine:

Village life on the island; love the goats.

Sunset over Mawlamyine:

And outside of Hpa-An - this funny little monk was shooting at us with his laser gun.

In the same area, we saw more buddhas than anyone would care to see in one place.

and took a cool boat.

Standard monks in Hpa-An, collecting food:

Climbing up Mount Zwegabin - steep & hot and somewhat picturesque.

Once we reached the top, we were so tired, sweaty, and sticky.. but we couldn't go look for food or water before we took about 30 pictures with the stubborn locals (who then didn't even smile!!)

We then found the best place to have a drink once you climbed up and down a mountain in 40 degrees:

Weekend at the beach

Much delayed.. pictures from our first weekend at a Myanmar beach - Ngwe Saung.

Bamboo bungalows - best served with a hammock.

Oh, the joy.

Locals & coconuts

Sunset walk on the beach..

Surprisingly beautiful shapes in the sand.. never seen anything like this before. 

And for the finalé on the way back - elephanties!!

Sunday afternoon in the park

After a few days of staying mostly in our room due to a sickness in the family (probably caused by food), we decided to take the afternoon off and visit Bogyoke park / Kandawgyi lake. Very green and full of hidden young couples, it was beautiful.

Loving welcome to the park

The overall feel of the park

The beautiful.. erm.. Arne says it's a "buffet restaurant". Better look it up.

Wedding photography; I learned yesterday that Myanmar weddings take 2 hours. First, the couple signs something, then they feed each other. Then there is a dinner where the couple goes between the tables and thanks the guests for coming. End of wedding.

Many many in-love couples in the park..






















(including us)

An adorable pineapple-shaped plant-thingie. How did we not think of that?

The always-majestic Shwedagon pagoda

Yellow flowers floating on the water

Beautiful wooden bridges all over..

Bye Parkie! Until the next time!
You were very nice (even though you ripped us off at the entrance for being foreigners).

Weekend out of town

After several quite successful days in Yangon, we decided to head out of town for the weekend, to see some of the nearby attractions. Since Myanmar is huge, and the public transport is bad, we didn’t go very far:  started in Bago, a pagoda-packed town, and then continued to the famous Buddhist pilgrimage site of the Golden Rock.

I was hoping to get some work done in between the sight-seeing, and in the past days have come to appreciate the importance of having a working infrastructure – a room, with a desk, with internet. A chilly room, preferably. It’s actually quite impossible to do anything otherwise.

So our tourism started with a wonderful train from Yangon – the bumpiest, slowest thing imaginable; but with all the windows open, the breeze and views compensated for the comfort. In Bago we rented a tri-shaw driver to take us around to see the temples – we thought this was the most socially/environmentally responsible way to go around. Until I saw our driver.

This kid was more or less my size, and I felt pretty bad for him (in the picture below, he's the one in the striped blue t-shirt). It was hot outside. He negotiated a pretty good price for his services, but still I asked myself – are we encouraging child labour?

No. Turns out he’s nearly my age, married with a baby.

The kids here are SO cute (sample in the above picture). They’re so friendly, always smiling, giggling, waving. They look happy even when they’re doing chores (carrying wood, sweeping floors, etc.).

Bago was nice, and temple-packed as promised. Still very few foreign tourists to be seen anywhere.

That tiny person is me.

Sunset over a water reservoir, as seen from a pagoda on a hill-top.

I realize that the concept of time here is rather different than that of the west. I bought a watch last week and it seems that fact that it loses about 15 minutes every other day makes it, comparably, a pretty good watch here. The vast majority of clocks here show the wrong time. I wonder why they would even have a clock then? 

Two wrongs most certainly don't make a right.

The trip to Golden Rock left a mixed impression. We wanted to hike part of the way but neither one of our 2 guidebooks nor the internet provided sufficient information on the paths, and the friendly locals, who either don’t understand us or don’t know the answer, just smile and reassure us we’re walking the right way (which we weren't). The rock itself was more of a tourist bazaar than a classic pilgrimage site, and not that impressive.

The Golden Rock. Major pilgrimage site, major cheap-looking tourist bazaar.

Among all the hand-made unnecessary souvenirs (=crap) we saw up there, this is by far the cutest - carved out of a coconut.