Yangon, Part 2

A bit more work, but it still sounds wonderful.

She brought a small photo book with her full of pictures of her and me and her mom and our dogs and Idaho and all sorts of stuff to explain to people where she's from.

Also, I'm editing out parts directed at specific people, or the mushy stuff.

Here's the second e-mail I've got from Cathy:


very nice to hear from you! too bad you're not at work now because i think we could IM. they get around government block of hotmail by signing into a french server so it is very slow but it works. to be honest, we have not noticed a lot of signs of oppression here. people are definitely very very poor but there are a lot of bookstores with current magazines like newsweek and the economist and they get asia CNN so things dont seem to be too restricted in the capitol. i remember it being more restricted in china. one thing though, i looked in the economist because there was supposed to be an article on myanmar in there and i couldnt find it so maybe it was censored.

so yesterday was frustrating. limited tourism facilities combined with high season means lots of full planes and trains. we were going to take train to mandalay tomorrow but all sleepers are full for several days. then wanted to fly toi kentung (near border with thailand.. supposed to be awesome trekking and very remote.. foreigners can only fly there) but flights full until next week (there are only 3 flights a week). so now we are flying to mandalay tomorrow and i'm going to call to see if we can arrange a place to stay.

our place in yangon is full tonight so we dont know what we're going to do but we'll figure something out.

we ate more awesome street food yesterday. sat down on those tiny plastic chairs and ate whatever they gave us. you'd be proud i've been pretty adventurous. yesterday we ate some yellow stuff that looked like noodles but was maybe some kind of tofu? they cut it up then cut a bunch of fresh herbs on it then put a bunch of spoonfuls of chilis and ginger/lemongrass etc and mix it all up and hand it to you. 100 kyat (about a dime!). much more expensive in restaurants. our bill at dinner last night was a whopping $4.

we still think people are very very friendly and they genuinely seem to want to help you. if we stand and look at our book for 30 seconds someone will come up and ask us where we are trying to go. a few people, mostly children have asked for money or food but their approach is very low key compared to anywhere else we've been.

so wish up luck today with our arrangements!! i think we need to actually try to book a few rooms as things seem to be getting full. we hardly see any white people anywhere though.

the photos i brought are a big hit. i pull them out when we are sitting on those little plastic chairs and soon there is a crowd gathered around looking at them. i'm so glad i brought them!

also very glad i brought the small camera because folks are pretty camera shy and it was much easier to walk around the market with that one. i used the big one when we were in more touristy areas where folks were more used to cameras.

i dont mind if you put stuff on blog...as long as it is interesting... a lot of what i write isnt that exciting!

have fun at the cabin this weekend and glad we are getting snow. who knows where either one of us will end up on christmas! there are christmas decorations all over town so they celebrate more than we exxpected.

hello to gussy and henry. i've made 1 dog friend that i see every day. he seems to have an owner but all the dogs run around free and are very skinny. i havent seen anyone chase them away or be mean to them though which is good.

and all the men really do wear skirts (longhi.. not sure how to spell). everyone does. business men wear them with buttondown shirts and ties , it looks cool.

it is 9am now and we are leaving for mandalay at 6am tomorrow. spend a couple days there then take train to hsipaw then not sure.