Today is mainly a planning and organising day. While Lars' parents have the rest of their trip planned out for them (they will be going on the boat "The Road to Mandalay"), we have not finalised our plans yet. We have a rough idea and went to the travel agent in the hotel, but they quoted an outrageous price, so we wanted to do some checking around.
We find one travel agent that seems to be very professional and they offer us a better package. They even tell us things that we do not need, in order to save us money. For example, a private tour guide is not really needed for what we are planning on doing. After spending sometime going through various options, we head over to Scott's market to do some quick shopping and to catch up with the others. The markets are filled with all kinds of stuff, ...
... from paintings that all seem to be the same (it appears that once they sell a particular style, they seem to believe that is what tourists want and just repeat it) to ...
... wicker wares to ...
... jewelry (and do not forget to bargain hard!!!)
We also wander the streets to take in some of the local activity. There are plenty of portable stalls where women (and some men) are selling food and all sorts of other kinds of things. The streets are bustling with plenty of people going here and there, picking up some food or just idling away the time.
Some entrepreneurs have set up there own public pay phone system. Seems the official pay phones are not working so well, so why not just pull your own phone out onto the street and charge people to use it.
Lunch is in a western style cafe in a building across the street from our hotel. Good food and much more reasonable prices than in the hotel. After lunch, we spend a few hours planning out our trip. We sort through all the different permutations on how we can visit the three main places that we want to go to. Then off to the travel agency to book the trip and make all the arrangements. They do a good job and despite the last minute bookings, pretty much get everything organised as we want it. With some back and forths between the hotel and the agency and gathering up all the money (and changing some more into local currency at the black market rate), the day is pretty much used up.
For dinner, we head out to a restaurant that we are told serves good local food - Sandy's. It is located in one of the mid-market hotels out near the Shwedagon Pagoda and the place is pretty much deserted. We get excellent service (almost too attentive), but the food is average. We were disappointed about the selection of local food. At the end of the meal, we go through the usual process of trying to count out all the necessary money to pay our bill.
Getting home is the usual adventure of getting a couple of the local taxis. The street is quite dark and deserted and we flag down whatever taxi we can find. They are pretty bare-bones. The old cars that are no longer wanted in Japan or other parts of Asia. It is amazing the cars still run and they bring back memories of the taxis we used to take on our Trans-Africa trip. Often just exposed metal in the interior, no air-con, seats that have lost all their cushioning so you are sitting on springs, etc. Then of course, we have to bargain with the drivers. What we pay is cheap by our standards, but most likely 2-3 times what a local would pay.
One getting safely back to the hotel, we spend the rest of the evening packing our bags for our four day journey to spots around southeastern Myanmar. We will not take everything with us - just enough to last for the four days.