Woke up in the night getting bitten by mosquitoes; we have a net over the bed but it wasn’t pulled shut and tucked in tightly. The room has windows but no screens, just thin curtains that blow in the wind.
Got up with the sun, which rises ‘round the back of the bungalow. There was no power in the room, so I took my charger to the restaurant to charge my camera battery there; at the restaurant they informed me the power will come on again at 6pm.
Lello had chosen the table closest to the beach, overlooking sand and ocean. Breakfast was two toasts (better bread than usual) and a fried egg and butter and jam in a small dish and a banana; questa colazione fa schifo. Lello recounted tales of resort building in Kenya by Italian companies and no planning for water or electricity for the local population; a wealthy businessman bent on sailing his 5-story cruise boat down the river from Phnom Phen to moor it at his resort, and paying the government to rebuild the bridges that would have to be demolished along the way; ruins of mansions off the coast of Nicaragua, where wealthy people had built palatial residences out into the water only to be demolished by a hurricane.
Around 9am we started walking north up the beach, anticipating a 45min stroll to the village. A beautiful morning: sunny, warm, breezy (quite a strong warm wind, really). Lello in his blue speedoes, me in my khaki mini and black sports bra. On a ‘mission’ to find coconut oil and a bikini. On our left, the gray blue Bay of Bengal. On our right, beige streaked with black sandy beach reaching up to the line of coconut palms flanking the beach, behind which squat the bungalows of the various hotels that line this strip of coast. Our hotel is the farthest south but one. Shwe Hun Tha Resort. Ours is the only one with a Burmese name; the rest all have names like Paradise Resort, Ocean Paradise, Silver View, Bay of Bengal Resort. The fancier ones have manicured grass frontage and sagging volleyball nets on the beach and a messy line of buoys in the water to demarcate a swimming area, not that the concept of life-guard exists here. The two resorts immediately north of ours are dilapidated shambles: Treasure Island Resort and Nwyshima (or something). I’d like to learn why they’ve been abandoned.
There were hardly any people out, though rows of deck chairs beckoned on the beach. We crossed two white folk walking in the opposite direction, and two clusters of Burmese families where most of the adults huddled under village-style palm-frond shade-structures while the young kids rocked about in the surf in inner tubes, and the teenagers waded into the water in their skinny jeans and long t-shirts. Families snapped photos of each other sipping juice out of green coconuts in the surf and smiling for the camera. Finally came across one hotel that looked like the Western hang-out; a fancy place with green lawns. Passed a group of middle-aged Italians taking a walk, the men paunchy and the women spilling out of their bikinis. Climbed the tower some hotel architect had deemed an appealing design feature and took photos up and down the coast while Lello lounged in the surf.
Walked north till the hotels ran out and the Bay reached a point, and walked through hotel grounds to the guard cabin at the road. Right to the town? Yes. Or left? Yes. We turned left and followed the road past the Bay of Bengal Resort into dusty countryside. Backtracked and turned off the paved road onto a sandy track, the highstreet of Zwe Min village. Came across a few stores and Lello asked for coconut oil, and the shopkeepers looked nonplussed. We greeted a man on the road who said he was ‘anglo’ (though he was quick to add he didn’t use a last name in the anglo fashion), explaining he had a French grandfather and telling us he had relatives in Australia. He was a keyboard player and tonight would be playing at Treasure Island (wasn’t that one of the resorts that looked abandoned?). He took us back down the street to the ‘Mini Mart’ (it had a sign outside proclaiming so). A young man sat having lunch with his wife and young nephew in the house-area behind the counter. He told us he was an aircon electrician, and had gotten married in 2008. He brought out photo albums for us to peruse, with photos from what must have been the wedding and a trip to the Shwedagon Pagoda in Yangon. Lello opted for the bottle of coconut oil that didn’t smell like chemical fragrance, and we picked up one of our trusty sesame snacks, and tried a crispy fried rice snack with a lemony flavor. We asked where we could eat lunch, and after first being recommended the Lookout Bar at the Bay of Bengal resort, were led by our host down a path between some houses to the paved road we’d branched off from, where there was a local roadside restaurant.
Some white-shirted Andaman Resort employees were hanging out there, and helped translate our order to the woman of the restaurant. We had rice with a side of spicy greens and a side of beef curry. And one each of the fried snacks – fried banana, fried long skinny veg, crispy fried cake with encrusted peanuts. It must have been about 11.30am; the sun was high and hot and it was time to sit in the shade and take a nap. I was feeling like I’d gotten too much sun.
We tried to explain to the man with a rickshaw who was napping in his vehicle outside the restaurant that we wanted to go to an internet café, and another young hotel employee chilling in the hammock helped us with translation such that the man’s ‘ok ok’ was more plausible to us. He still dropped us at the wrong place -- the EFR hotel rather than Recreation center – but the latter was just a 7min walk through the village where we’d arrived by bus, with its stalls selling dried fish and ‘junky’ souvenirs, and then it was ‘left-right’ down the road towards the pagoda. EFR is there on the left, an odd concept with internet and beauty salon (where they ‘cut hair and wash face’) and a restaurant. Had a cold beer and freshly fried peanuts while waiting for the internet to be activated; then I took a nap in the shady reception area while Lello tried his luck with email. They charge 3000K/hr here, compared to 300K/hr at the last hole in the wall down the street from Beauty Land in Yangon. In the end it didn’t work after all.
Felt groggy from my nap as we walked back to town, my skin red and parched under the hot sun despite the cooling breeze. Decided to get some fruit and waited while the girl peeled the pineapple, making an unsuccessful foray to find sesame candy (the label I’d saved from our last packet read only ‘Made in Myanmar’). Motorcycled back to the hotel laden with pineapple and bananas and papaya. Took a cooling shower and read some Finding George Orwell – Lello fell asleep while I was reading some choice passages outloud to him, and I dozed off shortly after. Awoke about 5.30pm in time for a swim in the still-warm ocean, along with a beautiful sunset. Walked down the beach to some rocks and took lots of pictures of sky and light and water and reflections. Sat with Lello after the sun had set, watching the sky turn red and the stars come out. Munched on some pineapple and banana as we gazed. The moon is a thin sliver tonight, just starting a new cycle.
And here we are, sitting on our porch, listening to the waves rolling in and out. Lello whistles – Summertime, Songs of Freedom, Italian classics; he carries the melodies perfectly. Some girls just walked by, ‘all dressed up with no place to go.’ ‘Do they go to the disco?’ joked Lello. They strolled back 2 mins later. ‘Maybe there was no taxi, aye.’
It’s so nice to be here with Lello. This whole trip in Burma has been a pleasure because of traveling with him. It’s as hard to imagine traveling on my own now, as when I left London.
No comments:
Post a Comment