Month: April 2019

The New year celebrations last four or five days, the final day being Myanmar New Year itself the 17. April, making the 18. April first new years day. It is traditional to toss water on people or spray people in water on this day. Any means possible will be used. It is belived that the water will rinse you of last year sins. There will even be water-spraying stations set up in the capital city of Yangon. There are pranksters who use ice water and shaving cream. But all in good fun since its super hot outside(40C at the warmest part of the day).

The water fun goes hand in hand with live music. There were many stages set up over the city, where live bands were playng and many stood with waterhoses and pouring water over people who would drive by the truckload.

Myanmar New Year is a Buddhist festival, but it also has connections with Hinduism and is, the Buddhist version of the Hindu myth. The myth of Arsi and Devas who made a wager, the loser losing his head, but gaining the head of an elephant. To stop this new head from drying up the sea or/ and scattering fire-shots through the heavens, it was taken away and given to a new princess devi at the beginning of each new year.

The streets of Downtown Yagoon was filled with stalls with various treats and food. Everyone was very happy and friendly and even though we were clearly tourist (one of very few) we were welcomed like a returning family member.

Well, it is pretty much the same as pan in india, beteltnut wrapped in betel lesf, with som added ingridients. I am still. it a big fan, but had to try one more, maybe the Myanmar ones where better than the Indian ones?

This is what gives you the charming red stains on your teeth and the urge for public spitting.

Its like snus, ish, best it not to chew it to much, keep it between gums/cheek and just suck on it. (lower mouth that is,, upper lip will ot work 🙂 )

naaah 🙂

We had a couple of hours in the pool, perfect. We have had pools in some of the other places we have stayed to, but the last two has been borderline to warm – or for me just over :). The pool at Wyndham Grand is perfect, and feels freezibg when getting in. Thats pretty refreshing ater hours of sweating and walking dusty streets.

Because of this newyears/waterfest setup, most places are closed. Only a few resturants are open and its hard to tell which ones they are. We, or I say ‘we’, I, had found a microbrewery – supposedly the only on in the country. I tried giving them a call, no one picked up – google told me they where open, but I know from experience that this is not allways correct info. Anyways, we took a taxi to the place… closed! , time for backup plan – Shwedagon !

We entered from the south gate – important info that we would forget later on. This is a picture of the main enterance area. If you look around a bit there is an elevator someplace.. the west gate has escalators. We did the stairs.. barefoot offcourse!

You can leave your shoes n socks at the entrance level – you get a ticket for picking them up again, costs nothing. But! There is also an option to just get a bag to put your shoes in, so you can bring them along… might be smart? lets say, if you would happen to forget what gate you left you shoes at? see where this is going! – we left our shoes at south.. south gate! And we did the stairs, not to many of em, and there is lots of small shops along the way.

Nice with a few shops, Maren was dressed a bit mor for microbrew tasting thant pagoda watching – so she was able to pick up a wrap around skirt so that her knees did not show ! (very important)

At 99 meters, covered in gold, it is an impressive sight. And this is also why this is the nr1 sight in Yangon.

It is belived that this pagoda, which is the holiest of al holy in Myanmar, contains … are you ready? 8 hairs from Gautama.. Gautama is Buddha, the main guy budhism comes out of. I visited his birthplace a few years back, its in Lumbini, Nepal.. I have probably soon visited all the most important budhism sites in asia – go me! 🙂

Anyways, this pagoda is supposed to have 8 strains of hair from the main guy. A piece of the robe said to be used by Kassapa… Kinagamabas.. water filter (!!), and the staff of Kakushanda. Right – well, as you understand its pretty important place.

There is a bit back n forth about when this was built. But some time in year 500 something. And after that it has been made larger, destroyed by earthquakes and remodeled by different kings. But the site has been there for ages in some form.

It is huge, and after walking around for a couple of hours you still stop up and rake afew pucs and jyst srare..wow.

We decided to leave trough the WEST exit, since that we xame up – and thus our shoes was at the bottom of all the stairs…

But oh no, climbing down the 600 steps we where at a new place. So we had to climb halfway upp again, and then wander barefoot over parkinglots and houseing walkways – completley out of the matrix.

But we got there in the end – snd walked directley to the nearest resturant for beer n food.. well allmost. Its the waterfest, and during this fest – they drive around and spray water at people.

We were standing just outside the pegoda, waiting to cross the street.. a car, pickup, with some girls drove by.. i saw them looking my way.. ‘here you are, baby!” – and i just had time to take a strategic step back when one of them threw a bucket of water our way. Haha, bet she was annoyed with herself now – missing me with a shitload of water.. just by a meter.. Maren, on the other hand, had not had time for the strategic move. She got soaked 🙂

The picture does not show it that well, but yeah 🙂

Luckily, just cross the street we found some beer n food

So we woke up to pumping techno amd rock beats at 09:00 – something was afoot.!!

I have noticed that the waterfedtival is on in Thailand and that ofcourse it!! Thats a major celebration in Myanmar to, lasting for 4 days.

I have never taken part in this water festival, but its big – like christmas back home. All cullumenating in the Burmese newyear. (in Thailand this is know as the sangkran – same same)

We hit the streets pretty quick after waking up, I am now without any clean clothes at all – and the hotell charges 10$ a sock for laundry.

But we soon figured out, this being a public holliday, most shops are closed and laundrys where impossible to find. – no worries.

Anyways, in Yangon the water festival is pretty much a big party. And locals drive around in pickups and stop at differet waterposts where they are hsoed down, usually to some live music – it seems. The pictures I got where yous outside our hotel, we just had a small storll to se if there was anyone up for laundry 🙂

We found som excelent breakfast! Chicken byriani. And looking on all the stalls beeing set up – we will probably taste a lot more local snaks the next days.

40c’ here today – blazing.. so staying in the nice cool pool until the sun grows a bit tired.

We just arrived in Myanmar by flight from Hanoi,. I have to say it was a pretty nice arrival and airport in general, no papers to fill out – just show visa paper and passort. Done

We got some local mkk’s – 300.000 for me, thats about 1600 NOk. (Might be MMK’s ??) 🙂

In the arrival hall we saw a familiar logo, Telenor boasting fastes 4G in the country. Again, went real smooth – just handed over the phone and they sat up everything, activated and so on.

I went for the 16.5 GB for 30 days, 20.000 MMK’s – dirt cheap.. looks like aprox 25mbps speed on average.

This is ofcourse for my ols trusted samsung phine, that shares wifi and keeps our ‘Trond&MarenPaTur’ ssid up n runnin.

20.000 MMK’s more – for the taxi dude. Pool n food in aprox 20 min !