Before we left for Mandalay, Thae Nu had invited us to her home for a meal together upon our return. We called her on our way into town from Aung Mingalar bus station to Yamo Hotel at sun-up on Sunday, and two things happened: a) we agreed to come out to her Aunt's place at 10 Mile for lunch at 1pm, and b) her cousin booked us into Beautyland Hotel. I'm not entirely sure how the latter came to pass, but with my companion already annoyed at our having cabbed into town, I went with it.
Where Yamo Hotel had few caucasians as guests and provided an overstaffed and polite reception, Beautyland obviously catered to Western tourists (map of the EU on the breakfast room wall, posters with "hello" and "thank you" in Burmese, etc) and the reception staff had an attitude. We dropped off our bags (the room wasn't ready) and figured a black coffee would sort out the mood -- only to be served a cupful of grounds at the eatery down the road from the hotel.
Lello had commissioned a plastic sign from a sign-maker on Shwe Bontha Street next to Carolina's tea stand, and we went to pick it up. Carolina had it stashed away for Lello, and went to get it while we had some drinkable coffee. The sign-maker had written the commission down exactly, but still the exclamation point was upside down and 'and' read 'end' and a capital T had crept into the web address. No problem! The sign-maker promptly unglued the offending characters and set about cutting out the corrections with his jigsaw. Lifetime guarantee!
We got a couple hard-bound notebooks for Thae Nu and Zaw Zaw as thank you's for booking our trip, and hopped in a taxi out to 10 Mile. 10 Mile is presumably 10 miles from somewhere in the center of Yangon, and there are neighborhoods closer in similarly denoted as 9 mile, 8 mile, and 7 mile. Thae Nu was waiting for us at the roadside, and led us up a bustling market street and down a side alley to her Aunt's house. We took off our shoes and nodded to the man, woman and child who sat along the side wall before taking our seats on the ground at the low table laid with lunch. When we asked 'Are they joining us?' Thae Nu motioned the girl to join us. This was her cousin and they had cooked lunch together, Thae Nu told us. The cousin didn't speak any English, and left the table as soon as she'd finished eating.
After lunch, Thae Nu was keen to take us to
and to see the White Elephants, which are a sign of good fortune, peace and prosperity apparently. They aren't by any means 'white', but rather are light-toned and might have white splotches on auspicious parts of the body. 'Tonally unimpressive' as someone on the Lonely Planet forum rightly points out.
tbc
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