A Quick Date

Since coming back to Malaysia, we have always made it a habit to go out on the evening prior to me traveling abroad. It would be too far this time. I'll only be heading to Singapore, but when I return, I will need to be in Ipoh for Monday and Tuesday. So a quick stop at home before driving up North.

We had dinner at The Apartments, before going for a quick shopping around Isetan. My flight will be at noon, after which I have meetings starting from 5pm. Will blog from the hotel lobby's free WiFi.

More glimpses

According to my father-in-law, a military man himself, homemade soap was a treat in MyanmarYou read it right. It was 'Spirulina Beer'. Any excuse to get drunk while taking in something possibly nutritious.Each symbol on the Buddha's sole mean something. Unfortunately, I can't really make out what it said on the chart next to it.More shopping!Me at Shwedagon. Barefooted of course.Every frame tells a story. Or two.I was sure these decorations carry some significance .....Yangon has transformed over the years. The building on the left was the hotel we stayed while at the ground floor of the red building opposite housed a cinema. It was showing Gulliver's Travel and some Hindi movies then.Colonial architecture still fill the city

Addicting

Anita was never that big a game fan but she finally caught up with Angry Birds. Oh! my God! She was up until 1 am last night. As soon as I arrived she just could stop talking about it. She's downstairs at the moment. Wonder what she is up to?

Glimpses of Myanmar

I wished that I brought my 7D along, but the photos coming out of my trusty LX3 wasn't too shabby either! Here they goes;

Paying tribute and prayers - at the Chauk Htat Gyi temple

Prayers offered took many formsShwedagon - with its gold-plated templesThe famous Bogyuke Market - here my colleagues were doing some bargainingThe place was filled with ornaments made from semi-precious stonesAlthough I really can't tell the differenceSee no evil, hear no evil, say no evilAnd the street markets were lively tooPopcorns!

More thoughts of Myanmar

I was not sure what really to expect before my Myanmar trip. I tried looking for travel book at Kinokuniya. Zilch! Internet gave a mixed bag of stories, most of them untrue. A couple of days before leaving, there were worries that handphones would be confiscated T the airport, as well scary stories about to leave other communications devices at the airport, to be picked up again on the way out of the country. Internet would also be limited.

But it was much better than expected. It was a very safe city, we were allowed handphones in although we were not able to connect to any of the local networks. There were no problem taking laptops and cameras in. In fact, the Immigrations Officers at the airport was very courteous and efficient. The hotel we were put up in was very comfortable and smack in the city centre. The Internet was rather sketchy, with Google being blocked. Internet was generally very slow but in the early hours, it was more than adequate. I was able to assess emails from the lobby wifi, and the signals in the room enabled me to log into my blog, twitter and Facebook.

During the stay, we were taken to a couple of temples as well as the main shopping market. Myanmar was steep in Buddhism. In fact close to 80% of the people were Buddhist, reflected by the number of temples in town. The biggest one was definitely Shwedagon, which we vested on the second day we were there. People there lived a simple life, reflected by the way they dressed up and the way they communicate - you'd be surprised at how many of them can communicate very well in English. On one of the evenings, I actually visited one of the Sunni mosque, only about 300 meters from my hotel. Unfortunately, not many of them can speak English there, and I performed my Maghrib prayers there. There were mainly Indian Moslems coming to Yangon to make a living rather than the local. That explained why they were not Hanafi.

On the last afternoon before we left, we were taken to the main market, the Bugyoke. A typical market, selling bangles, T-shirt, as well as the local jades and rubies. I did not buy any of these precious stones, because first of all, they were damn expensive and secondly, I really can't tell if they were really precious. Better to be safe, to avoid being conned big time.

All in all, Yangon was a very safe city. Yes, there were beggars and children running around, but they were polite when you turn around and said no. The weather was very warm during the day - apparently we just missed the Monsoon season. The time there was an hour an half behind Malaysia, and it was better to use American Dollars for transaction.