4.20am showered and went down to reception to pay the $22 room bill. Nobody there, so picked up a Myanmar paper and read a commentary about how the G-#s are now an outdated concept and have no clout any longer (along with the Worldbank and IMF and US government). And how China has now surpassed Japan to be the world’s #2 economy. Turned out the receptionist was asleep behind the counter, and his alarm went off at 4.30am sharp. Packed up last bits and bobs, and had breakfast of toast and coffee and banana (the guy who fries the eggs wasn’t at work this early, apparently) with a few other early risers. Beautiful marionettes hanging in the breakfast room – an elephant, a horse, a sultan. Along with a map of the EU, and a photo of a smiling woman with thanaka on her cheeks and ‘Mingalabar’ printed underneath. There were tourist pamphlets with maps and potted factoids about Myanmar pinned to the walls, and signs in our room labeling the hot and cold taps and urging residents to turn off the lights. A hotel catering to tourists, clearly, unlike our polite and clean Yoma Hotel. Our booked taxi arrived at 5am, and we bundled into a Kangoo-style wreck with a gear-box that choked on the uphills; on the downhills the driver leant on his horn to warn cyclists and pedestrians and other drivers that he wasn’t about to brake and waste momentum. His dashboard was a graveyard of good luck charms. He drove us to the Aung Mingalar bus-stop, which was the wrong one and a good 40min drive from the one our bus was due to leave from at 6.30am. He did his best for us, and managed to get us to our bus in the nick of time. It was a local 30-seater, with seats built for diminutive people and extra plastic stools packed into the central aisle. Our seats were over the right back wheel, boxed in, so it diminished our limited legroom even further. We were both bursting for a pee, but figured there’d be a stop in about 1 ½ hrs and we could hold it. No such luck. But we did stop for a toll, where the driver’s assistant had to turn over the passports of the 6 foreigners on board to the toll police for documentation, and I took the opportunity to literally climb over the bodies packed in the aisle to take a pee by the side of the road. Lello figured we’d take an official stop soon and he’d hold it, but practically turned blue in the face as the driver kept going for another few hours, and in his turned climbed out of the bus at the next toll booth at the far end of the highway. Other people followed his brash lead, including the two nuns, and the driver relented and turned off the bus. We stopped shortly afterwards in Pathein, a town pitched to tourists for its umbrella-making, though economically more important as the center of a major rice-growing area. There is a large ‘tombstone’ announcing the town and suddenly the roadside curbs are manicured and the main roundabout with pillar is almost worthy of a small French village. 100m off the roundabout, where the bus disgorged us for lunch, the restaurant looked much the same as those we’ve seen in less affluent places. From Pathein to the coast it’s a hilly bendy ride that had at least one of the kids nestled between the luggage across the aisle from us heaving. They vomit very quietly and discreetly, do these Burmese, into the small plastic bags provided at every seat on every bus we’ve been on. At the crest of every hill I hoped to catch a glimpse of water, but each time saw just more trees and greenery clubbing together to the next rise. And then, of a sudden, we were on the flat and passing signs to the Bay of Bengal Resort and, more cryptically, EFR. The bus stopped outside a row of tourist shops selling shells and dried fish, and trishaw and motorcycle drivers swarmed around us. Lello hopped on a motorbike, and I opted for a trishaw where my large bag could occupy the backward-facing seat, and we were whisked south down the long straight road running parallel to the beach and along the backs of hotel compounds, to Shwe Hin Tha hotel and our bungalow-on-the-beach. For me those words conjure up a thatched hut right on the sand with a hammock strung between two palm trees by the front door, at least 100m from the next humans around. It wasn’t that, but it was awesome nonetheless: ours was one of a row of six or so huts built up off the ground, and from our porch we had a view through some palm trees to the beach and out across the Bay of Bengal; we fell asleep to the sound of the waves rushing in and whooshing out; fresh coconuts were to be had from the restaurant just down the beach. We took a swim straight away, and the water was just the right temperature, and the Bay inclined at just the right rate to swimming depth, and the waves were just the right size, and overhead the sun was just the right brightness, and the view back to shore had just the right mix of beach and palm trees, and underfoot the sand was just the right grain. Che paradiso! Walking south along the shore we came to Lover’s Island, which has a statue of a dark-haired mermaid flicking her hair, for locals to pose next to. It was low tide and motorbikes carried whole families over for the photo opportunity. We crossed over and took a walk along the southern shore of the wooded mound, where tongues of rock reach out into the Bay. They look smooth but in fact are covered in quite sharp barnacles, so I stepped gingerly in my bare feet. Emerald green crabs sidled into crevices when they felt me coming, and tiny silver fish darted about the rock pools. Glorious. As we walked back to our bungalow we crossed a women carrying a plateful of grilled fish on her head, and a few carcasses, along with a plateful of rice from the restaurant, made a fine dinner on our porch, as the setting sun stained the sky shades of gold and pink.
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