Left my Yangoon hotel at 05:15 to catch a 07:00 bus west from the big terminal, accros the river in the western suburbs. Must have been many hundreds of buses with a multitude of bus companys, in the huge station compound. Arranged with, En tohn, my hotel desk lady, who made sure my cab knew what bus company to drop me at, good thing! Seven tourist besides me on this bus whose final destination is Chaungtha Beach. I however decided to take my favorite website SE Asia guide tip, to break up the journey stopping 6 hours in and 1.5 hours short of the beach in Pathien, the provincial capital town on the East bank of the next big river. I had told the conductor guy I was going to Pathien, but as we start accross a big bridge over a big river I ask my seat mate “Pathien?!” pointing behind us, yes. Stop the bus, let me off. Lucky there is a motorcycle taxi stand on the road side, with some help from g Maps and my mass on the bikes back, plus luggage hanging off my back away we go. I used motorcycle taxis in Vietnam, but never without some apprehension, and never with luggage.
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Travelfish.org only had one sort of tourist thing to do besides just checking out a non tourist town, to go see some of the local cottage industry pasasol production. A whole lot of people hear use parasols/umbrella’s. This time of year for shade, Come the monsoon for downpours. I started out my free full day to do that. but get distracted.
The Fuel dock spot on the river side is maybe a bit lacking in enviromental regulations
The sound of drums and crowds lining the street I wait to see what’s up. And it’s Nigyawda a festival of all (and there are a whole lot) of pagodas. Think the Homer 4th of July Parade, except it goes on for hours. I’ll post just a few pics now, wait for Wi Fi for more. sometimes a bit monotomous, but also some quite charming,& excoctic. Especially liked the dancing girls of course, and the bullock carts.
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I’ve some video which waits for Wi Fi. From all the looks (friendly) and offers of seats, a better place to view, waves and smiles, westerners are pretty rare in Pathien. A great parade which went on for hours.
Waiting for Wi Fi although my hotel is equiped, is because apparently web connection besides cellular is shut off on the weekends. I ask why but just got a shrug for reply. But the cell is real LTE I can watch netflicks. I couldn’t tell how much data I had left on this sim, so I bought a recharge for $3.33 of 4 GB. Then a helpful Burmese guy in the resturaunt showed me the “Myetel” app where even not reading burmese scrip I could see I had 12 GB now. Still I’m going to husband it in case this situation of no Hotel connection is typical outside Yangoon.
Tomorrow I’m off to the beach for three nights. Back to Yangoon one night then with a sleeper train (17 hours) to Bagan the next day.
You’ll notice most guys are wearing a kind of skirt. Called a Longi, it’s about a 1.5 meter long, two meter wide. sween into a big tube. They secure it by pulling 1/2 the width accross the front then sort of fold the other 1/2 over and tuck into itself. Looked really cool and comfortable So I bought one, $6, & tried putting it on. However after testing the securety of my tuck I have seween in two pieces of velcro on the waist band, when folded in I had enough confidence to wear it to dinner. It is indeed comfortable, lacking only in pockets. I’ll try to get a fashion selfy soon.
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