Exploring Burma and Vietnam

Coffee search in Old Saigon 

Our travel this time starts in August 2012.

Not convinced about the Frenchness of old Saigon I would have thought a good coffee would have been easier to find... Certainly the strange flavored filtered concoction we had for breakfast and the hotter than hot flat latte (that would be a flatte?) in airport departure gate left a little to be desired .... Both drinkable none the less and the breakfast selection at the Riverside Hotel was good apart from the powdered orange juice.
Managed to finish the book I could have watched the movie of on flight from Melbourne (salmon fishing in the Yemen)....I guess I have to wait to flight home to see if the flick measures up, as Myanmar to Vietnam connection is only two hours and we were on a Fokker 70-- fairly basic jet.

The best coffee was in Sapa

Off to Yangon

Things worked well on Yangon touch down. The young man and the agent Gina had been in touch with on net were there with a name sign for us... He particularly was helpful with good English in addition to his Russian second language ... Has two friends in Australia.
Off to hotel and rendezvous with the MD of Mekong River Travel. ... Gina's little sister from google chat, who continued to chat after exchange of gifts re organizing itinerary for whole trip again...  Including a highlights of Yangon in an afternoon.

River Mekong Travel MD, Nwai

We decided on Kadawggi park  -- pretty awful looking green lake but looked like  it would be a happy place in high season. It also had an impressive view across the lake of Karaweik castle where we going to have dinner and show later. Then off to a reclining buddha ... 

Reclining Budha

Very big but not a patch on the famous and huge and magnificent ShweDagon pagoda... Quiet, contemplative almost mesmerising .....  Until noticed the blackening sky and within a minute or two a downpour. We managed to reach some cover with the help of some friendly umbrella equipped monks and waited five or six minutes for the torrent to subside. Then back down the lift (chosen for us) instead of the stairs.

Shwedagon Pagoda

Dinner and cultural heritage show at the quite striking castle was again something of a tourist trap, but there were also locals present and it was an interesting entre for ignorant foreigners.

 Karaweik castle

Food also interesting buffet ... We avoided American fried rice and roast chicken -- in separate dishes and a few other oddities, but still ate too much accompanied by a bottle of "first Myanmar wine" which started tasting like metho but mellowed a little with some and air and food ... Not sure I'll go there again though given the choice for a red wine there was a French merlot I think with a few years in the bottle... But we here to support the locals after all.

Buffet dinner.....ok

Yangon to ourselves ...  Well along with the five or six million (if that is actually all there is) locals. After another leisurely breakfast at the buffet which among others had bread, Asian and Japanese counters as well as eggs and waffles cooked to your liking we took life into hands .... No put them into the hands of the driver of a "street taxi". This is not the air con seat protected conveyance that had been our transport yesterday ...  These are twelve to twenty year old jallopies held together by bits of wire and blind faith. .. It also only just occurred to us whats tricky here is that while unlike Vietnam most of the vehicles are right had drive, like Vietnam they drive on the right side of the road and where the lanes are marked they all of two centimeters it seems wider than the average vehicle. That along with constant lane changing encourages drivers to endanger themselves from repetitive strain injury from honking .... But there's no doubting their skill.

Near Scott Market - the foot bridge

Anyway our taxi ferried us safely to Scott market in the old down town part of the city nearly half an hour from Micasa hotel. As expected the main market is largely given over to a big proportion of the worlds jade ...  Elephants, Buddhas, chess sets or stock standard bracelets and necklaces. There were a few other handicraft stalls well quite a few and a couple of odd antique sellers as well. But we had a shopping list and despite the advice from the money exchanger the Rolex shop did not have the sort of timepiece I needed to last three weeks only (they had the genuine article which they could knock down to me for 4000 dollars that is) I was flattered that I looked like I could afford that.

Scott Market Yangon

However... Over the road at the super one market they had just about everything on the list -- hat ... to make me look like Marlon Brando or some other Italian playboy, sandals, razor and a watch which even spells citizen correctly and cost about two bucks. Gina even lashed out and bought a dress for around four dollars instead of the top she nearly bought over the relate for five.

Many warn about the street food in tropical places and some did look decidedly "yesterday's bake" but when we saw some potato crisps being processed right there on the footpath down to the tomatoes and garlic sauce I couldn't resist ... There goes another 500kyat -- about 60 cents. And they were VERY potatoey.

Hard working young girls in the market

The Monsoon rains

That's when today's storm arrived ... Stall holders and customers alike just seem to take it as it comes

We waited while the heaviest rain eased crossed back over the footbridge to get a good look of surroundings and found another taxi to take us to the Strand hotel ..  Once in the same stable as raffles of Singapore ... Not as big but equally A list clientele in early days.

The Strand Hotel Lobby

We ordered g and ts in the lobby while Mrs  did some "work" via the free wifi ... Within the hour some hopeless tech heads had liked the picture posted of mois musing over glass.

Still raining lightly so back to hotel taking our  further exploration of the colonial architecture through the taxi window rather than on foot. Much of it is rather sad these days especially during rainy season probably.
We hadn't got too wet despite the rain ...  So we went for a swim at the hotel ..  Before repacking our one suitcase and delivering to Inya Lake hotel just up the road as Micasa only had over the top rooms when we get back to Yangon next Thursday.

A much better class of cab back suggested a restaurant almost next door to the Micasa ...  It was Japanese and we didn't eat too much for once. Rain jackets finally came in handy in the sprint back to hotel and early night ready for early kick off tomorrow.