Myanmar Day 1, 28 June
posted by misanthrope on Saturday, July 12, 2014 7:34 AM (
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My first day in myanmar could not be more different than if I'd imagined it.
I'm just going to give a chronological rundown of how my first day went.
5.45am SG time (4.15am MYN time): woke up, washed up and got ready to leave for the airport.
6.35am SG time: left for the airport
6.55am SGT: reached airport
7am SGT: met Bryce and Kahyan at Starbucks because these two lovelies came to send me off :)
8.05am SGT: made my way to the departure hall:
8.10am SGT: entered the departure hall. Checked the screen to see which gate I was supposed to go.
Beside my flight I saw 'last call' and my heart skipped a beat. Bcos on the boarding pass it said to be at the departure gate before 8.20am so what do they mean by "last call"!!! So I started running, or rather jogging, considering my speed, to my departure gate, which was unfortunately quite far zzz. After I finally made it there, I saw a line of people still queueing to go through the scanners to enter the waiting room. -.-
8.35am: boarded the plane. Majority of the people on the plane are Burmese. Beside me was a sweet lady who less than five minutes on the plane realized she dropped her phone in a shop. After some panicking, made a call and found out that the phone was indeed in the store and she called her husband to pick up her phone from the store. Anw after that was settled we chatted a bit and she told me that she moved to singapore 18 years ago with her husband and they have a ten-year-old who studies Chinese and is aiming to enter RV haha. She also worked in HR for 8.5 years. On the flight I learnt that I had $10 to spend on some food/beverage, probably bought by my parents w/o my knowledge. So I got a coffee + red velvet cupcake cupcake for $6 and an overpriced $4 dasani mineral water. Lol. 40 cents mineral water for $4. Nice. WHY IS WATER MORE EXPENSIVE THAN COFFEE?
11.45am SGT aka 10.30am myanmar time: landed in myanmar but we had to wait 10minutes for an SIA plane who was at our gate connector to leave. Parted with the Burmese lady on a good note and we shook hands. I liked her very much because she always had a smile on her face and she was so motherly. I also like her gold bag which she bought for only $29 at jurong point!!
From now on I'll use myanmar time, which is 1.5h behind SGT.
~11.30am: met up with Klaus. I was quite worried I wouldn't be able to spot Mary, the person supposed to pick me up. But turns out klaus picked me up instead because Mary had fallen sick. The amazing thing is, I saw klaus immediately, and the first thing that went through my mind when I saw him was, he looks so weird. Lol. Long narrow, skinny face with small eyes and a mustache and glasses. I guess he is considered unattractive for a white person. Haha.
12pm: took a long taxi ride (7000 kyat) to the accommodation. The airport was all the way north and the accommodation was all the way south. According to the taxi driver the ride was about 45 minutes. The back of the driver's seat had a few ants crawling around and I was quite disgusted but not really cos my head was spinning and I was just concentrating on putting my legs where the ants can't reach them. When the taxi was nearing our place I was quite alarmed because the buildings looked so old and dirty. And when we went up the stairs to our building I was also alarmed because the stairway was so dark and narrow and the steps were so high. Klaus helped me bring up my luggage and I was so scared that he would trip and fall flat on his face. When I was brought up to the second floor where I was supposed to sleep, I was just in shock. Because the carpet was dirty as hell and there were just mattresses lying around on the floor. It took me a while to recover from my shock because I've never slept in such a dirty place before. Met the other people in the flat:
- Klaus, Austrian, 29
- Catelina, Chilean, klaus's gf, 28
- Sissi Cheng Zi Mu, Chinese/French, 27
- Anna, Filipino, 23
- Greg, American, haven't met him because he's away in Mandalay.
1.15pm: we went for lunch at quite a faraway place, walked for I think 30 minutes, had Chinese food for lunch (1500 kyat).
From now on no more time because I don't rmb the time.
After lunch we went to Easy cafe, opened by a Singaporean. The cafe was small but nice, and all the people there were foreigners lol. We used the internet there for a while and then we went over to the house that the Taiwan monastery volunteers were staying at. (Taxi:1000 kyat) Their house was so much bigger and cleaner!! I was so envious. Lol. And there were two Taiwanese girls, huiming, jinyu, and two guys, zhong zheng han, and su hong jia. We chatted and exchanged info about singapore and Taiwan. So I learnt that the school system in Taiwan is like this: primary school, junior high school, senior high school, university. They also taught me some cuss words in Chinese, but all I can rmb is diu nei lo mo (go and fuck your mother) and gan4. And I saw the Taiwanese keyboard for the first time!! Now I can say I know some Taiwanese people yay haha.
Then the whole lot of us went to Chinatown for dinner. (Taxi 1000kyat) We squeezed in some restaurant that served a mixture of cuisines, apparently a popular place with foreigners. We had tons of food. I rmb the roast beef was cold and apparently it is like that over here lol. I quite liked the egg fried rice that klaus ordered. We also had a tomato salad, some beef dish the Taiwanese ordered, beef burger, taco rice, coconut curry rice, banana and chocolate ice-cream, seasoned fries. I tried a mojito for the first time in my life! It was only 800 kyat, which is about a dollar sgd.
After dinner the Taiwanese people went to the roadside BBQ stalls to buy even more food. And they bought TONS of skewers.
After that we went over to a bar to chill and watch the soccer game. The Taiwanese ordered myanmar beer and Reuben, some Belgium guy, ordered tiger beer. And that also marks the first time I tried myanmar beer and tiger beer.
The football game was Chile vs. Brazil, and Brazil won. I wasn't watching the game though, not very interested. There were tons of mosquitoes that bit me several times on my foot and hands. After the game finally ended at 1+am, we made our way home (taxi 1000 kyat).
I think this is probably the first and last time I will have such a long first day overseas.
