Friendly Myanmar

Mingalabar!

Friendly Myanmar... this name is more than well deserved. The people of Myanmar are so friendly. In our first ten minutes wandering trough Yangon (the biggest city in Myanmar), we stumbled into a few locals. They were playing music, drinking some beer mixed with red bull & finishing up on dinner. They invited us to sit down and eat with them, all for free. At first we weren't really sure if this was a scam or not, but we sat down anyway. They kept on bringing dishes with local food, beer and other drinks. We had lots of laughs with them and the food was delicious (I'm not sure how i feel about the beer with red bull though). When we tried to pay them they didn't accept it in any way. They were just so happy to give us a taste of the Myanmar food and learn about our lives back home. The next day we went back around midnight with some new friends from our hostel. We had more food, beers with redbull and we ended up giving away a circus show. And this was just the beginning, last 10 days I've met so many friendly people. People smile and greet us all the time or they come over for a quick chat. Some of them, mostly the younger people, dare to ask to make a picture with us. This is probably because they don't see that much tourists around (which is amazing since we don't see much tourists neither). 

Yangon was a nice place to stay for a couple of days. We saw an huge golden temple, chilled in some parks and at a lake, hang out with friends in the hostel, went in a train with way to many locals and walked around some markets. By the way, 'we' is me, Sterre (the friend I travel with trough Myanmar), and Dani (a friend I met in Thailand). This was the first time I saw Sterre again after 5 years, so we decided to remake a picture from back in the days. 

After four days we said goodbye to Dani and me and Sterre went of to Ngwe Saung, a beachplace in the west of Myanmar. We booked a hotel that provided tents on the beach. This was so awesome because when we woke up we could unzip the tent and go for a morning swim just before breakfast was served. Oh and about the breakfast: fried rice with a fried egg. How is that for a Christmas breakfast? 

We stayed around 4 nights in Ngwe Saun, but we didn't really do much except for swimming, snorkling and watching sunsets. We are probably not gonna chill out to much in the next weeks, so it was a good beginning before the real Myanmar adventure starts. I almost forgot to mention that one of the nights at the beach I saw the most amazing shooting star I've ever seen. It was so bright and crossed the whole sky. A minute later someone came up to us to see if everything was allright, probably because I was shouting 'WOW' way too loud.. 

Even though we kind of celebrated Christmas with a few locals and other backpackers, i didn't have a Christmas feeling at all. But how could I, with 32 degrees, hanging out at the beach. It was fun to make some pictures on the beach with santahats on, i'm probably not gonna experience that much again.

Last night we've arrived in Hpa-An, a city that is popular by backpackers, as far as something can get popular here. It's not touristic at all. We met with some Australian friends again and will stay here to celebrate newyears eve. I'll safe up the stories from Hpa-an for later, but below is a picture from last evening to warm you up for this beautiful place.

Till next year!