Our trip to Moulemein/Hpa-an part 2

Ok, where did I leave off before everything got really hectic around here…

Oh yeah, the boat trip to Hpa-an. Xenne nowadays loves throw things away and then look where it has gotten to. The German couple who sat next to us (true, they sat in the only available chairs) had a small bag of mandarins. We had them too but they were in the stroller, so Xenne saw the German’s bag first. And he loves those. He wasn’t hungry so he started to play with the fruit and both the German woman and the tour guide played with him. He would roll the fruit to them and one of them would roll it back. And then suddenly Xenne threw the fruit overboard and wanted to see where it had gotten to. All at once there was a big scramble of adults going for a baby…. In the end he managed to get three mandarins in to the river but we managed to keep a fair few on board…

.Kyaw Kyaw and I took turns in keeping Xenne busy while the other would admire the view and decide whether it was possible and worthwhile to take a picture. There is a much-acclaimed boat trip between Mandalay and Bagan which many tourists take every year (at least many of the people that actually come to Burma, which in tourism standards is not a high number). I did that trip to a few years ago and found it terribly boring. But this part between Moulemein and Hpa-an is a whole different matter, that trip is fantastic. For one thing, the views are much more spectacular and the boat is a local boat and not a tourist boat (which does a whole lot to the price and for me personally, I like a beautiful view much more when I know I haven’t paid through the nose to see it). Besides that, the trip is about half the time which is also very nice since it leaves you with time to do something else (instead of getting up at 5 am in the morning to get to the boat on time).

In Hpa-an we got to a hotel that was reasonably priced (we thought) until we saw the bathroom. Ok, it was a room on the first floor (nice with a baby and a stroller) and it had a hot-and-cold shower (also very nice with a baby) but the bathroom was so yucky we asked for a different room. There we all crashed. Xenne fell asleep almost immediately and spread himself out on the bed as much as he could. KK went out to get us fried rice (we’d skipped lunch so were fairly peckish). At around 9 we were all fast asleep.

The next day we hired a yep, what shall I call this, a motorcycle with attached car? A pick-up motorcycle? It isn’t really a tuk tuk but similar I suppose. Though for me it is more a cross between a motorcycle and a blue taxi (in the back you sit facing each other parallel with the sides of the car. And off we went to see some cave outside Hpa-an. Along the road were beautiful, traditional style, wooden houses that I tried to photograph in vain. There were too many bumps in the road to get even a half-decent picture. But KK and I kept yelling at each other to turn around and see that beautiful house behind us. The cave where we got to was small but full of Buddha statues. Even the roof was decorated with small, clay Buddha figurines. Fantastic. And while I tried to take the best possible photo of that ceiling (or a part of it), I completely forgot that I was standing on a small platform. So with my eyes and camera looking upwards, I stepped into a void and sprained my ankle…. So while I sat there massaging my ankle, our driver went out for tiger balm and KK tried to keep Xenne busy AND check whether my camera was still working properly…Luckily all that was ok. And my ankle, well that has been a mess for ages…. We hang around a while longer since it was such a nice spot and Xenne liked to walk some more. On the way back our driver told us that there was another interesting place to see and it was only a short distance from our way back. Sure, we said expecting another cave of sorts. We drove through some jungle and ended up at the foot of what, to me, looked like stairs. So I asked how far up this interesting place was. The driver asked one of the women who had a teashop there. An hour’s climb was the return answer. Like that was an option with a baby, not to mention a sprained ankle…. So instead we drank some tea and enjoyed the tranquillity of the village square. Xenne was tired so after a Burmese lunch we headed back to the hotel where both Xenne and KK instantly fell asleep. In the evening KK wanted to visit the bonehealer (physiotherapist?) for my ankle but she didn’t feel well. So I still haven’t met a traditional medicine man/woman…. Instead we went straight for dinner and after that back to the hotel. We had an early bus to catch (7 am).

The bus was a little less luxurious than KK had thought (after seeing a leaflet or something like it). The aircon was a big, open window. And the seats weren’t too comfortable either (one was a little broken) but all in all it wasn’t too bad. We did start out almost an hour too late though. I assume that this is more often the case but somehow the driver got all confused about the stopping schedule so the first break was when someone yelled to the front when the bus was going to make a stop. People do have to pee and all that (cigarettes and tea amongst others). So the bus made an unscheduled stop and people scrambled over everything (the middle path was filled up with plastic stools for people to sit on) to get out for the things they needed to do. Then suddenly the driver realised that there were 4 monks on the bus and monks are not allowed to eat after 12 noon. It was already 11 o’clock. So the bus stopped at a tiny restaurant so that the monks could eat. Everybody else stayed in the bus. It took them 10 minutes before they found out that there was no food for the monks to eat. For the next hour the driver asked at every possible place whether there was food. He didn’t succeed until 11.55. The monks got out and had their lunch while the rest of us stayed in the bus, in the scorching sun. It took them over 20 minutes to finish and all this time not a single person complained. I knew that monks were very revered but I couldn’t imagine a bus in the west spending an hour and a half to satisfy the need of a religious person or anybody else for that matter).

The rest of us didn’t get a chance to eat until around 1 when we pulled up at what was obviously their usual stop. We came home at about 6 and KK’s brother who had been house-sitting for us, made us a quick meal. It was nice to be home again even if it was only so that Xenne could rest a bit again. Travelling was much fun and he loved it but it was tiring. For all of us. Maybe next time we should book hotels and things like that in advance. I say now. Knowing us, we’ll go off without anything like that again next time…


Xenne’s birthday (9-1-2009)

A quick note on Xenne’s birthday. It was busy all day with people dropping in at all times. But it was fun. And he got so much attention that he was laughing out loud half the time. Of course he also got some presents. A huge (ugly) bear which he immediately tried to chew on and our present that we had brought from Thailand (the nearest place to buy kids toys since here you only have bad Chinese quality and nothing for under the age of about 4-5).

Oh our visitors have arrived. More later (or not).