Day 26 (Wed, March 9) - Ngwe Saung doing absolutely nothing

I woke up before Lello (that’s a first) and took a stroll on the beach as the sun came up. Had breakfast (opted for the Burmese noodles this time), then hung out on the deck chairs and Lello talked and I read a bit and we lounged. Extended our reservation for another day. Took a swim. Had pineapple and banana and sesame biscuits for lunch (threw out the remains of the pineapple coz it was starting to ferment). Watched a Burmese photo-shoot throughout the day: could this teenager be a Burmese pop star? The photographer looks to be a personal photographer, and is shooting lots of photos of her in different poses, in the surf, on the rocks, in different outfits. Around 5pm we set out on a jog south along the beach, but my calf cramped up after about 200m. Lello continued down the bay, and we did some exercises on the beach when he returned; his karate moves caused a couple of tourists on scooters to pause and take photos. Watched the sunset from the deckchairs, not as spectacular as last night coz no clouds. At sunset took a nice shot of our German neighbor who moves like a dancer, standing straight and still on the beach watching till the sun disappeared into the waves. Decided to walk down the road to one of the few roadside restaurants for dinner. Took some photos of the palm trees through barbed wire: an apt synopsis of Burma? The Golden Guest restaurant which is an advertising station for Dagon beer turned out to be pretty good: attentive service, 8 tasty shrimp ‘BBQ-ed’ on skewers, and good tomato salad; Lello’s fish was fried not BBQ’ed, and the Thai papaya salad was fine but not as tasty as the one in Bagan. Had a few draught beers with our meal, and chilled on the bench by the entrance afterwards, we were so full. Walked home along the dark road under the sliver of a moon. I went straight to bed; Lello sat whistling on the porch, observing our (other) German neighbors smoke and drink the night away. One of the two guys had approached us during the afternoon asking if we’d want to take a boat out to the island you can see in the distance; the 85,000K charge wouldn’t be so bad if we could split it 10 ways, he said. ‘But where will you find 10 people?’ asked Lello in his laconic way. We weren’t interested anyway. ‘Is far, is really far, takes at least 2 hours, maybe 3 hours, to get there; in one of these small boats…Is far,’ Lello observed.