5.30am wake-up call, 5.45am Thai breakfast and toast while Lello had the coconut sandwich he bought at the supermarket yesterday, 6am taxi out front. 30min drive to the airport in silence. People out walking and exercising. Spotted an ‘8 mile’ sign on a building and had an 'aha' moment.
At the airport, paid the passenger tax of $10 for Lello, who was flat out of money. Another backpacker got to the guards at the entrance to check-in, and blustered past them repeating, "I have no money; NO money,' and they let him through.
Sat on the seats around the side of the departures hall, waiting for Thae Nu and Zaw Zaw who finally showed up at 7.30am. Went to the coffee shop but it wasn’t open yet. Lello gave Zaw Zaw his Italian Lonely Planet Thailand guide, along with the Paul Smith perfume he'd gotten for Xmas; and a box of dried fruit from Pathein to Thae Nu. Then he hugged us all goodbye and disappeared through check-in to Rome via Bangkok.
Left the terminal building with Thae Nu and Zaw Zaw for a coffee across the road, and talked about going to Golden Rock pagoda with Thae Nu. All good; Zaw will cover for Thae Nu at the office. Then Zaw went to work and Thae Nu and I caught a local taxi (15 people packed in, at least) back to her 'hood. I've thought she's been saying 'Taima' this whole time, but realize now it's 'Ten mile.'
There she walked me over to the bus stop into town and we hung out for a while as packed buses drove past and she seemed in no rush to get me on one. I learned the Burmese script for 1, 2, 3 and 5 as we watched buses 51 and 132 to Sule Paya drive past, along with bus 202 which goes to the university. I suggested we get some sugar cane juice, and we sat and talked till 10am. She told me that when Lello arrived at the airport, she thought he looked dirty and hadn’t waved to say hello. It's true, she insisted Lello buy a new shirt, that first day I arrived in Yangon. Too funny. We dropped in at the Hotel San Francisco just down from the bus-stop, to see if it'd be a place for me to stay after our trip to Golden Rock, but they said there was no room available for viewing, and anyway it was more expensive than Yamo.
It took the bus about an hour to get to the terminus at Sule Paya. Sat on the back seat. People ignored me mostly.
Walked slowly back to Yoma Hotel, the way Lello and I had walked in the rain yesterday. Spotted the YMCA, and the Queens Park Hotel, and a sign for the Lucky Seven – but must have been a street over from the Ocean Pearl and Three Seasons (these are all places listed in the Lonely Planet guide).
Got back to Yamo at 12.30, and finished the Thai soup from breakfast which hadn’t been cleared away, and had the second coffee mix with the still warm water.
Took a bath-shower and washed my hair; felt good.
That's when it started to pelt down with rain outside.
I settled in and read Emma Larkin and dozed off till about 3pm, when I expected them to come and do the room but nobody ever knocked. Read some more, and watched a news update on the tsunami as well as some Burmese karaoke. Did photos for about 2hrs, selecting photos for my blog from my first 4 days in Myanmar. Watched a crap but mesmerizing and happy-ending-ed romance from 8-10pm, when I went and did 30min of email. I was hungry by this point, but the street was closing down when I emerged from Net Corner. A warm and humid night.
Why do I write? (Why do I write THIS STUFF?) Is it a way of ‘living’, of capturing the ‘fact’ that I HAVE lived, of proving to myself that I have a life? Versus Lello, who gets out there and LIVES, and is baffled by the extent of my need to ‘capture’ – in photos or words?
Mood: feel like I sank into apathy today. Sure, read and photo-ed and wrote. And watched a fair bit of TV. And didn’t get out at all – the thought of walking or eating alone didn’t appeal. Know that if Lello had been here, we would have been out and about. Without question. Do I just ‘need’ to tag along, is that my modus operandi? But equally I resist being told what to do. Dilemma / conflict/ paradox, hmm…?
I knew I ought to pack but didn’t feel like it (what I ‘don’t feel like’ loomed large today; a character trait, called ‘laziness’ maybe?). Fell asleep about midnight, and dozed for a couple hours.
At 2am I woke up and wrote about today, uploaded photos, and set the alarm for 6am to pack then.
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