Happy Birthday to Freddie

We both sleep well and feel much better this morning.  After breakfast at the hotel we head off to find Central Station and the circular train we’ve read about.  Its about a 20min walk to the station and the next train is leaving very shortly.  We have the choice of air conditioned (leaving now) or non (leaving in 40 mins) so go for the former and run down the platform and hop on.  The train takes a circular route through the city, to a busy market and out to the countryside before coming back in and its meant to be a great way to see how people in and around Yangon live.  Its well used by the locals as its cheap and they get on and off as it does its round.  The views are really interesting and we go through lots of villages past the market and also through the countryside.  Its a long ride and, although supposedly air conditioned its hot, so we try to figure out where we are and get off a couple of stops early.

We wander a little and have some nice street food, an odd mix of a chopped up samosa, dahl soup, veggies and spices.  The city is not an attractive one with loads of really run down buildings but also tons of really grand temples and some grand old colonial buildings also. Its also quite dirty but its interesting and very different from anywhere we’ve been before.  This pic is of the Police Station just opposite our hotel.  The people are nice but they do stare at Freddie a lot … she had that Vietnam too!  We sit on a patch of green by the Sule Pagoda to rest.  Two Myanmar girls come and chat to us for a while to practice their English which is nice and we learn our first couple of Myanmar words.  We then talk to a taxi driver as we fancy a bottle of wine tonight for Fred’s birthday.  He takes us to a shopping centre for the wine then back to our hotel (for a fee of course!).  We go to a posher than usual restaurant called Padonmar which we find on Tripadvisor for Freddie’s birthday and have a nice meal.

Back to the hotel for wine and footie … Man City, Arsenal is on the TV!