Expats and sort-off expats

Since a little while I'm a member of the expat google group here in Myanmar. The group was established 2 years ago to share information for the foreigners living in Myanmar. This is a country where lots of things are possible to have/buy but it is,still, very difficult to find out where to go. For example, you might be looking or something relatively easy to find in the west and go to all major retailers and not find it. Then, by chance you might see what you were looking for in a tiny mom-and-pop store where you walked in by chance.

So, the group can be very very useful. Now, there are a lot of members and the questions asked can range from very good to plain dumb. That, of course happens to most groups and forums on the net.

What I find interesting, at least to me it is,  is the sometimes complete lack of local understanding. There is something about 'real' expats that baffles me continuously. The utter lack of regard to costs, the sharing of things that for most people are way out of league, and so on. Luckily those kind of topics don't come up too often but when they do I, for one, often wonder what people were thinking when they posted them.

With the fairly massive influx of 'real' expats at the moment, I think I better get used to seeing posts like that more often.

If I see a really good one again, I will post it here. Saw one the other day and deleted it but there'll be others for sure.

Holidays

It is the hols at the moment and somehow I put in a lot of work for school but very little on writing anything on this blog. We also don't go to Ocean a lot since we can access email and even facebook with KK's phone. It doesn't work great but well enough to not bother with 'proper' access.

Anyways, a quick hello and more posts in the next year.

Have a fabulous holiday time and I wish everybody a wonderful 2013. 

Alamanda Inn

A few weeks ago I finally made it to this place. We were in the neighbourhood and had wanted to eat at a place not too far away but that place had closed due to lack of business. Then someone in our group mentioned going to the Alamanda Inn for a bite. And iI must say I was pleasantly surprised. Of course we were in good company but the food was great and the ambiance is excellent. We stayed much longer than we had planned and were eventually the last to leave.  

I really like this place and I'm sure we'll be back here sometime soon. The prices are not much more expensive then anywhere else when you have good western food (there are cheaper places but then the food is usually less good as well). 

They have their own website Alamanda Inn and even a facebook page but I found the facebook page remarkably empty and of no help at all. This might change over time though.

 

 As always, my pictures don't do the place justice. I think it might be time for a new camera.

Great location, ok food

General Aung San's workplace

 Yesterday we had a  birthday party at this place. The food was good, the company better and the location really nice. After dinner, one of the party members suggested we'd have a look upstairs because General Aung San used to work here. So, upstairs we went. Me, I'm just a sucker for old buildings and history so I enjoyed our 10 minutes looking around.

I just like this room

From outside the building is fabulous. Unfortunately my camera doesn't do it justice by any means.

Beautiful colonial building that my camera can not capture

Downstairs

Upstairs

I did and still do find the menu uninspiring. I saw a lot of Thai dishes, some western food a bit of Indian. Almost as if they can't make up their minds. That said, we ordered a couple of Indian dishes and it was nice.



 Adress: 290, U Wisara Road
Kamayit Township
Yangon

Tel: 09501 534 242


Or follow them on Facebook House of Memories

Grade 4 sleepover

Tonight we had our holiday show and for the last 3 years I have had a class sleepover after. For most westerners that sounds like good fun, here we usually have to convince parents that it is ok for their child to sleep away from home that is not with family or with family in a hotel.

My kids are on average 10 years old and for the majority this is the first experience of this kind they have ever had. And again this year  the kids are hyper exited and the parents hoover around for ages. They find it really tough to let go. Which is difficult of course but most parents have this phase a little earlier.

I have had parents unpack their son's pajamas and every year we have one family where we have to stop the maid going along with the kid to change. though I didn't notice this this time now I think of it.

This year I had one of my kids ask me who was going to sleep with them. He meant an adult. Now my TA usually sleeps with the girls (more for her sake than the kids mind). The classrooms are very close together and I always sleep where I can hear everything (with the door open. The mosquitoes will have a field day.) The first year I had a TA and a shadow teacher staying the night as well and they were wondering where I was going to sleep if I did not sleep in the boys or in the girls room. I told them I'd be sleeping in the small room we used as video room. They got really worried whether I would be ok. It was their first sleepover as well. I thought it was endearing but it was kind of sad as well. I can't believe being around 24 years old and never have had a sleepover in my life.

Update: we had a parent call us the next morning at about half past 6. She hadn't been able to sleep all night and was waiting for us in the teashop. She and her husband were there when we arrived. Their daughter wasn't too interested in seeing mum and dad, she was too busy with her friends (as it should be). Apparently, it was the first time their daughter had slept somewhere without her parents.

Finally, cool weather

This morning was the first morning the morning air had that little nip of cold that I like and that means that winter has arrived here in Myanmar.  It is already early December and it seemed like winter would never arrive.

This is the one season most westerners who live here find nice since the temperatures hoover around the 20 degrees Celsius.

Thandar even ran back into the house to get a light jacket and I think I'll dress Eaindra and Xenne slightly warmer to tomorrow morning.

I'm very happy since it'll also mean we can leave the aircon off at night and have the windows open.. Yes!

First motorbikes in Yangon

Actually, what I wrote in the title is not correct. Motorbikes have been here for a while but there were very very few of them and you only saw them every once in a blue moon.

Lately there are more and more of them and I see them regularly in my quarter. They are not allowed on the main roads and Yangon is in that respect very unlike other Asian cities. I think it is a good thing they are not allowed since traffic is already bad enough without the motorbikes weaving through traffic. The majority of the drivers in Yangon (and Myanmar for that matter) are awful chauffeurs and barely know the difference between the accelerator and the brakes. You don't really want to encourage an environment where the death toll is set to rise.

The banishment of the motorbikes on the main road is a good thing, like I said, but I think it is difficult to stop the tide. We were on a main junction waiting for the traffic light and there she was; the first mum to drive her daughter to school on a motor bike. It was bound to happen of course and she will be the first of many. Give it a year or two and even Yangon's streets will be swamped with those horrible machines defying all traffic rules and regulations. 

ATM's

ATM's outside of Ocean Northpoint

These nice, sleek machines have been out there for a while now. I haven't tried it myself yet since you need a bank account with the bank that provided the machine. You can't use any ATM to use your bank account, not yet. Apparently, they are doing their best to get the systems connected and hopefully it will also soon be possible to have access to a foreign bank account since that would be great for tourism.

So far, I have never seen anybody use any ATM. Not these at Ocean, not anywhere else. I'm now thinking that it might be useful for us since it happens every once so often that we wonder whether we have brought enough cash along. Inflation is a nasty thing...

Unbelievable.. there are now even more car sales centres!

In the past week I have travelled around Yangon a bit more than I usually do. What surprised me so much is that there are now even more car sales centers. And I do not mean one or two new ones, there are many. Even in areas where there are already a fair few. They all seem to be selling the exact same types of cars and I doubt prices will vary much since they all have to go through the same car import scheme that the government has.

All these places are build on prime locations almost like it is an impulse buy decision. A couple drives by a car sales center and says to each other "shall we buy a car honey?".

Maybe  just don't understand the Myanmar psyche but even with something as expensive to set up as a car sales center, they seem to copy what someone else is doing and what they see as being successful. No matter if the other makes money or not, the perception is what counts....

There are now car sales centers in the front yard of houses to enormous steel constructions. They are almost as abundant as phone shops. How is it possible that these places can be profitable?
 

Weather troubles

At the moment we have a huge rainstorm dropping its water content all over the area here. It almost feels like being back home in wintertime. The sky is almost black and it is relatively cold at the moment.

This isn't the first downpour cum storm this week either. We had a similar one yesterday although I heard later that it was a very local one.

These past weeks every third day or so we have these storms. Sometimes accompanied with a massive release of electricity in the form of lightning. Sometimes just ear deafening booms. Like the one yesterday that made the glass window next to my computer rattle.

Usually around this time of year we have warm, dry weather. Now it sometimes seems like we are in the middle of the monsoon instead of cooing down to the Myanmar winter.

I always feel sorry for the people who are flying in or out of  Yangon when there is a storm like this. I hate flying on perfect flying days and anything less than perfect flying weather is worse. Flying in a storm like the one battering Yangon right now is something I do so not want to experience.

THE VISIT is over

Since we had an unexpected long weekend, we went to a favourite teashop of ours.  After all, we could take it easy and be out of the house for a little while as well.

When we arrived, the live coverage of President Obama’s visit was about to start. It was filmed at the airport and it was obvious that he hadn’t arrived yes. Even though there wasn’t much to see, all eyes in the teashop were glued to the TV set in one corner.

We saw him land (on TV) and how he greeted the reception committee. There was an intermezzo in which probably some formalities took place on the airport side. We saw a short recap of Barack Obama’s life.

We left while President Obama was driving along Pyay Road towards his meeting places. The streets were lined in students in their traditional school uniforms of white top and green trousers or longyis.

A friend who lives very close to Pyay Raod told me that her street was repaved this week and that all the owners had had orders to paint their gates. Heaven forbid that President Obama would look into a side street and find a street full of potholes and badly maintained fronts!

I do wonder what he has made of Myanmar. Just looking at some of the buildings that he would encounter like the international airport with its bumpy landing strip; some very modern and recently constructed business properties along Pyay Road, the houses along New University Road (since he would visit Daw Aung San Suu Kyi who lives along that road and the American Embassy is there as well), and the beautiful Shwedagon Pagoda which he managed to visit briefly.

It was odd seeing President Obama and Hillary Clinton decent from the plane. I’ve been here a few years now and it still surprises me how fast some things have changed. Myanmar has gone from a country you couldn’t talk about to a country everybody is discussing. From a pariah state to a country that has seen more dignitaries in the last year than in the previous 50 together.

Don’t get me wrong, I thing that this visit has been good for Myanmar. By the look on the faces of the people in the teashop what probably counted most for them was the fact that this visit was happening at all. It must have been something they thought would never ever come to pass. For the people here, the fact that he has been here must have been the biggest boost of confidence they have had in a very very long time. 

Quite a disruptive visit

We were speculating last week about having a day off tomorrow because of President Obama’s visit. Unfortunately, the always welcome words ‘you have an extra day off’ were never spoken.

This afternoon, during KK’s cooking class, we talked about it again, same result though, no one had heard the words that would give us an extra day.

Then this evening at around 9 pm, my assistant teacher called. She had it from a colleague. We have indeed a long weekend thanks to President Obama’s visit. Apparently a large section of Pyay Road will be blocked of tomorrow and our school happens to be on Pyay Road.  There is no use having the school open when nobody can get there.

Even though I have no problem at all with having an extra day to spend with the kids, I am a bit disappointed. We were working on persuasive writing with Grade 4 and they have sent beautiful letters of invitation to President Obama that I delivered last week at the embassy. They invited him to our classroom for some Myanmar snacks and a short lesson on the language and history.

It is a pity that the kids can not even have the suspense of the slight possibility that President Obama  could come for a visit.

Me, in stead of getting ready for another workday tomorrow, realize I can read some more in the excellent book I grabbed from the Library on Friday.

Kyats to dollars

Sometimes it amazes me how fast Myanmar changes in many ways.

I happened to be at the airport a few times lately. You can now rent a phone card at the airport for $2 a day and yes you can call and be called from abroad.

The 2 exchange counters now have opening times that actually match with most of the incoming flights. There are also many more flights. Some companies like Air Asia have expanded to 3 flights a day. Other companies open new lines or are completely new to Myanmar. You can now fly  to more destinations from Yangon than I have ever known before. And you can fly to Mandalay as well, It is getting almost busy at the airport. There are more counters for immigration and they are manned.

When we flew to Bangkok on Wednesday, I even found an exchange after immigration when leaving. I was in shock. I asked them if I could change my kyats for dollars and they said yes. wow, that is a huge change. Of course people could always change their money before, but on the black market. That or you would find someone who could exchange with you. We've done this quite a few times before when people needed dollars. So to have an official counter that was very nice to see.

The airport and Myanmar in general are finally picking up on the tourists desires.

An enjoyable trip around town

Yesterday we took the new teacher's around town. We started of in a very Myanmar  way. Breakfast in a teashop. For some it was their first taste of Mohingha, the most Myanmar of dishes and one that every teashop serves.

We saw a few pagoda's, the big reclining buddha in Yangon and even the recently opened for real Bogyoke Aung San Museum.It was great fun and very interesting. Especially Aung San's museum. It is small but we all considered it the highlight of the day. They even have his service car tucked away in a tiny shed. I wanted to post some pictures here but my card reader is refusing to help me out. I will post them soon.

After lunch we went to Bogyoke Aung San Market for a quick look around. It is a market best visited by oneself since there is so much to see. We rounded of the day by visiting a long-established but still to many people unknown DVD-shop where you can spend a lot of money on DVD's you always wanted to have but never found before. I drooled over a box-set of Star Trek and I couldn't resist Lassie and The Muppets  in space.

A snake in the back yard

Yesterday when I arrived home Xenne ran outside to tell me the news.. we had a snake in the garden. 

Apparently it came via the mango tree from the garden next door. That house had been empty for a while and the garden hadn't been maintained well even before  that.

KK killed it eventually but he said it hadn't been easy. The snake was fast and he said it was of the poisonous kind. Mmm, glad I wasn't there. I did see it this morning though; a long, thin, green-and-white snake.

This morning, the mango tree lost several of its branches, especially the big one that reached our roof. I hope that after the huge black ants who also came from that mango tree, and now the snake, the mango tree will host no more guests who we rather do without.

Finally, working internet but no time to post

Internet has been terribly slow of late. I did try to log on yesterday from home but it was an exercise in futility.

Now, internet is working but i have been running around for most of the day at school. Catching up on so many things that needed to be done. Especially since the computers and server were cleaned and therefore were unavailable for use at the end of last week.

It is almost half past 4 in the afternoon and I've just had a chace to check my email. I'll post this, then go shopping. We're out of diapers, wet wipes, and milk.

'New' shopping mall

We're at the shopping mall that is close to our house. We can walk here in about 15 minutes (Xenne's pace and stroller dictated). The place has been here for 4-5 years already but we never really visited. They didn't have a supermarket and somehow we forgot about it.

Since it is 'summer' holiday (more like rainy season holiday but at school we western teachers still refer to it as summer holiday) we decided to walk over and have a look around. We hadn't been for quite some time and someone told us it now  had a supermarket and even a playground.

It turns out that that is all true. Even better, the playground is much bigger than the one at Ocean where we usually go. Ok, this one is $1,20 to get inside but you do have a fair bit of space to run around in, climb over, swing, and more. The supermarket is there too though it doesn't look terribly big. We;ll have a look around there a little later.

But best of all, there is also a small bookstore (with a few english titles in photocopy form but heck they cost next to nothing) and a good myanmar selection. Next to the bookstore is an internet cafe. And all that is on the same floor, just around the corner of the playground.

So now we have everything we want very close to our house. The walk here is also interesting and it is a walk through small streets. We encountered 2 bicycles and 1 car. So very easy to do with Xenne and Eaindra.

Taxis

(Found this in my 'drafts' box. The joy of regular interruptions with the connection and/or electricity)

I actually wrote this last year during the rainy season and never got around to actually posting it. And it is still as valid as it was last year... Taxis haven't improved much. Though it is slightly easier to get a Parami Taxi (very decent with drivers who actually can drive. And Xenne loves to have these taxis). But the antique, striped-down to metal casing-and-wheels-kind of car is also still around much more then they should...

Let me tell you about the average Yangon taxi… Where do I begin? The other day, we came back from downtown. It had rained so here and there it was rather wet. I hadn’t given it much thought since the downpour had happened an hour or so before. We were halfway home when suddenly I feel a lot of yucky-icky wet-something over my feet. I look down and gaze straight at the street. Between my, unconsciously strategically positioned feet, there was a neat, round whole in the bottom of the car. I checked KK side and he too had the same extra aircon…. I was luckier than I though. Apparently there was no puddle on his side.

Taxis here range from decently luxurious (aircon and everything working) and we all prefer those if we get them. Unfortunately, there is never a taxi like that around when you need one. The majority though is of an altogether different kind. I’m by now so used to not having a handle to turn the window down that I automatically search for it in the ‘i-dump everything here place’ between the 2 front seats. You attach it to the little ‘pin’ that sticks out and you can actually lower your window or turn it up depending on your need. Sometimes this doesn’t help though. And then you just push down the window. The taxi driver can always literally pull the window back up later when he has time.

The seats range from ‘have been around since the first days of automotive travel to a little more recent, say 20 years ago. And as for the interior… I’ve been in taxis more than once where there was nothing left of the inside of the doors apart from the metal casing. You just lean out of the window and yank or the driver gets out and opens the door for you…. If doors don’t really budge when they should, I already give a big shove without even thinking about it…

The part that I like (or sometimes definitely not like) is when the most striped-down taxi wants double the price for a trip because I’m a westerner. I do know that the taxi drivers rent the car from the owner and that they have to pay all costs as long as they are driving the car. And a Junior driver (no matter if he is in his 60s or 20s) starts with the oldest car in the owners fleet until he has proven himself. But hey, I don’t have a money tree in the backyard either. Now it is even worse. It is rainy season and my my, prices have already gone up again… Which is especially nice when you have negotiated and get into the car, only to find that the driver hadn’t closed his windows when it last rained… I’ve had a few wet bums lately and I’m sure to have a few more before this season is over… But I am forward now to check the bottom of the car. Just in case we hit another puddle…

Update on the hospital experience

On Wednesday we had an appointment at 6:30 pm. We were on time but this time we didn't have to pay the 1,000 ks ($1,20) for 'services' aka having one of the nurses measure your weight, blood pressure, and temperature while 3 of them are watching.

At half past 7 we finally met the lady who was going to do the operation. First of all we had the normal preliminaries of report reading, checking of Thandar's tongue and a but of question-and-answer. She then asked us if it was possible to come in on Sunday at 5 am for the actual operation. 5 am ?! I told her that that was way too early. Sorry.

Ok, half past 9 on Thursday (yesterday) the? Ok, that would work. Thandar could drink things like ovaltine and milk up to 3:30 am and juice or water till 5:30. So I asked her if she was going to give her a general anesthetic? No no, but Thandar might be nauseous after and this could help her. Ok, sure enough. The lady kept on being vague though about what she would do ultil after a good while she told us that she would give Thandar a local painkiller-shot and that would be it. Then, minutes after she said she was going to insert a small tube like one used for babies and she made motions like it was something she would do in her hand like a drip or so. It satyed quite vague but oh well. So we did make that appointment for the next day.

We got Thandar some juice in the early morning and she and I went to the hospital on time. The nurses had asked us to come at 8:30 for preparations.

We had to come to the nurses room first so that was what we did. We were then escorted back to the general reception area for the necessary 1,000 ks fee for services. That paid, we were taken to the cashier. The nurse who accompanied us told me I had to pay a deposit. I thought I could understand this since not everyone has money in Myanmar and this might be the hospital's way of making sure they got paid.

The amount I had to fork over was mentioned in Burmese. I thought I'd heard it wrong. After all, my Myanmar is rather lousy. So I asked them if I had heard it correct and had to pay 20,000 ks (about $22) deposit? So far on all our visits over those 4 days I had only once paid 16,000 ks (about $17) and that was for the hearing test. Every other time it had been a couple of dollars. No, said the woman behind the desk 200,0000 ks. Excuse me? I wrote it on my hand just to make sure. Yes, 200,000 ks. ($240). I was in shock. For one thing, I think they should have told me it was so much before. Second, it was a deposit. What about the total price? Nobody could say but if the procedure was less expensive, they would give me back the remainder. Yeah, and what if it is more?But, they said, we needed to pay for the surgeon, the operation room and all these things... It sounded like she was scheduled for open heart surgery.

I cancelled the appointment right there and then. Sorry.

So, now we're going to ask around at some other places and in Thailand. The biggest drawback is that this place has a speech therapist and it is close to our home. Of course, we also wasted a fair couple of hours there as well.

Hospital excercises

The last 3 days we've been to one of the private hospitals/clinics here in Yangon. This place is fairly well known and not very far from our place.

The first time we went, I wanted all three kids to see the doctor. Eaindra has a diaper rash that is rather persistent, I wanted to know if Xenne needed his next vaccination, and Thandar is literally tongue-tied.

I'd been to this place before and in general I rated it as quite good. It is new, clean, and at those times the doctors were knowledgeable and efficient.

This time the waiting room was so full I wondered if we would ever make it before lunch -time (we came in at about 10). All three kids were checked by the nurses of which there must have been at least 5 in the room. Then we went for a sort of screening by a doctor who just wrote down in the booklets why we were there and then we could return to our wait.

3 hours later we were finally in the doctor's office. It was liking being in a factory. While he was dictating to 2 staff members (one in front of his table and one on the side) about the patient who he just examined, the next patient was led to a chair next to him. He then turned his attention to us (being the next patients) and started to talk to me about Eaindra, Xenne, and Thandar. Like most doctors, his english was very good so there was no problem of communication. While he was busy with us, the next patient was ushered into the room already. I have been in that office twice this week and I think that on average there are at least 10 people in there.

He did ask me some strange questions about Eiandra I thought, like whether she gets a bath regularly and things like that. But that might just be something to do with experience on his side...  Xenne and Eaindra were sorted quickly and for Thandar we needed to make an appointment for a hearing test.

The hearing test was yesterday and that was all fine. Luckily. The facilities were good and the waiting time was not very long. When we came down again though I wanted to make an appointment for her to have that tongue tie cut and the follow up of a meeting with the speech therapist. The reception wouldn't budge, I had to see the same doctor again.

So this morning back to the hospital. We were number 19 on the waiting list. We had to go through the hoops again of nurse's room with the measurements of temperature, blood pressure and so on and the screening doctor. Then we settled in for a wait. Again. We arrived at 9 and at just before 10 we saw the doctor we came to see only for him to ask us why we came to him since he would only refer us to someone else. I told him I tried but the reception wouldn't budge. He showed me why. In the booklet the doctor who had done the hearing test had referred us back. And that was the only thing those ladies had looked for...  Thinking skills are not necessarily involved. He apologized though for the time wasted.

So, later today we have to go again. And I'll give you updates on how we're progressing..

Every time we come into that hospital, we have to pay 1,000 ks (about $1.20) to just be allowed to wait. Or so it feels like. It might be that we pay the money for another reason but I haven't been able to come up with one yet.