The alpha and the omega

About day 6, rainy season arrives with a downpour. The streets flood instantly up to one's shins. Doesn't bear thinking about what is in that water. Cars stall in the middle of the street, taxis refuse to go to certain areas, buses are overflowing with passengers. So after class we head for the Governor's Residence, and a glass of wine ( or two ).



Quoted from the hotel website:

'The Governor's Residence Hotel in Yangon, Myanmar is an imposing luxury teak mansion hotel dating from the 1920s within the elegant Embassy Quarter of Yangon and close to the spectacular Shwedagon Pagoda.

'Built in 1920, The Governor's Residence by Orient-Express is an imposing Burmese two-story mansion built as the official home of one of the governors from the southern states of the country.'

Life is lived on the streets of Yangon; eating, sleeping, selling, buying, talking, talking, talking.

Tinkering with the ubiquitous generator. They are everywhere; noisy, smelly, and essential to conducting business.

The tri-shaw. I was rescued by one after class one evening when I took the wrong #48 bus in a downpour and ended up very lost. Tri-shaw guy says with a big grin, 'Auntie, where you go?' I pull out my water-logged guest house card and he says 'OK, OK, 500 kyat' (.50 cents US). I would have paid him $50 US at that point; dark, wet, and lost. He pedalled me home, handed me up the muddy curb to the door, and said, 'Buy new umbrella!' Mine had succumbed to too many gusts of wind.


I think Burmese love to read. There are many, many of these street booksellers and they always seem to be busy.

Look at the titles carefully.