Myanmar - The Golden Bowl

11pm MYANMAR time. Sedona Hotel, Yangon. We’re an hour and a half behind Singapore time, but in both time periods, its pretty close to bed time already and we’re all just about done in.


It’s great having my parents and EJ here in Myanmar. We’ve always talked about coming here for as holiday but I think no one really knew what to expect. Well, I knew they all probably expected to walk into a historical time period resembling Singapore/Malaysia 30 years ago. The good thing about that impression is there’s no where to go but UP! The best thing though is that this is going to be one of those great, lie back and relax holidays you always dream about. And one I think that we all really need.


Brought them all to Mangosteen, a charming French chateau housing beautiful furniture and craftworks hand-made locally. The material of choice, of course, is Burmese teak wood, with its trademark absolutely beautiful grains, especially when they cleverly mix it up with touches of mother-of-pearl or coconut husk. We’ve already picked out potential pieces of furniture for our habitat.


Funny how being in this country, widely thought of as southeast Asia’s backwater, and almost an embarrassment for ASEAN in the wider political world, we seem to be experiencing a very very high quality of service. Everyone has been extremely helpful and polite, from our ever-resourceful guide Rosa, to our new-found friend Moe at Mangosteen. They all speak really good English so communication has been no problem so far.



Some other highlights of our day included: Our first local lunch in their popular fastfood chain called... JO... if I remember correctly:


Visit to the temple of the reclining buddha, where we met these lovely children:


And finally, after a nice comforting Chinese dinner at the popular Royal Garden Restaurant, we just had to take a shot with the placard that greeted us at the airport this morning: