After running around like tourists on speed the last week we cool down today. We had originally made a few plans but when we get up we talk a little and just take it easy instead.
When we planned this trip we decided we wanted to do south east Asia and not the world in a year because we wanted enough time on each place. The days in Bagan and yesterday here in Inle is enough running around for a bit. We know we’ll do a lot of sightseeing in Yangon and the area around it in the coming days, so we decide to charge the batteries today.

After a lazy breakfast where we read a little on Laos and Vietnam we rent bikes next door to the hotel and move out. At a leisurely pace we go towards the center of town and stop at a mobile store.

 

Telenor obviously don’t support much outside of Yangon so I have no coverage here. As we try to get in touch with the guys from the pagoda in Yangon to plan some sightseeing there I get myself a new SIM card. It’s charged with about six sms’ and I guess that’s all I need. The store with the most traffic in the city it seems. It’s six people working there and I count at least sixteen customers in the small space. All are not shopping as it is clear that buying a new phone is a task for you and all your mates, not something you venture into alone. After a long wait they finally finished up and we move over to the market.
Any place is Asia have a market. A place where you can get vegetables and other food, but also any kind of junk. Be it bottle openers or fake hello kitty jackets. It’s a sight and not two markets are the same, but it’s equally hard to find anything to buy in any of them.

We got a tip about a spa with good massages and we passed it on the way to dinner last night. We roll over there and check out the menu. I get a Swedish massage and Katja ticks off most of the boxes on the menu. Of course I finish first, pick up the bill and move to the cafe next door. I spend the time on the computer sorting out pictures for the blog. That way it’s at lest “just” to set then to upload when we get an internet connection that works.

We do lunch at the cafe when Katja finally arrives. She’s been given massage in a room with open windows and are colder than an ice cube. A little time in the sun remedies that and we take the bikes through the housing area outside of town. It’s small distances here so we are rather quickly back in town. And here we first find an animal transport. Two pigs are transported by horse drawn carriage, while the driver uses his mobile phone. Did I mention this is as land of opposites?
We’re also just in time to see the cows moving slowly into town. No-one is herding then, they just move together through the streets. Something you might see in India, but here they’re still considered food. I don’t know if they escaped or if it’s normal.

We end up at the French cafe we were yesterday for a coffee. This text is written here as Katja has taken over the work on the pictures. When you have from 300-500 pictures on some days it’s a hard job taking out the few to be published on the blog. Still, it’s a job that needs to be done as it shows the best we have and thereby will be our guide to making a collection when we get home.
We move back to the guest house and can confirm that football is big around here. The kids play it here and in so many other countries around the world. Myanmar holds fifty million people so it has a formidable base of potential players.

We take a shower and just chill out in the room until the power goes out. We go outside and look at the stars. The manager tells us it used to be like this every four hours in earlier days. Now we’ve experienced it twice in our days here, so it’s better but not stable. We get a light dinner at restaurant in the guesthouse and from there we call it a night.
Tomorrow we go back to Yangon.

It is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages.

–  Friedrich Nietzsche