Maureen's Travel Blog

Relishing every last minute in this paradise, I took an early morning swim. Patricia was already out on the beach somewhere collecting special shells.   There were little scratched patterns around holes in the sand where the hermit crabs had been busy in the night. The sea was like a more than luke-warm bath and clear to the sand on the bottom.

We met up for breakfast in Sandoway Hotel Resort.  This was a fully waitressed affair on a decked restaurant on the beach about 200 meters from our residence. After eating a full English breakfast, the morning was spent swimming, lazing and more swimming, with the odd green coconut drink thrown in and a banana or two! How could we leave this?!

But leave we must! After a light lunch at our favourite restaurant and saying our goodbyes, the taxi drove us back to the airport to catch our flight back to Yangon.

The familiar face of Nye, our Yangon guide, was there to greet us and it was good to recall all our experiences since we left him over a week ago.  As we waited in heavy traffic I noticed this little chap peeping through some railings and then at some lights a very English looking Cathedral stood out on our right side.  Nye told me it was The Holy Trinity Anglican Cathedral built in the early 20th century for the English fighting in Burma.  Despite there being louvers, I read in Doves Guide later that there were no bells and that the pipe organ had been damaged in the war and had been replaced with an electric one.

We mentioned that we hoped to visit a market for last minute shopping but he said it was a military holiday so they were all closed. However he did take the trouble of leaving us to browse a gift shop while he took green tea.   Here somehow we managed to spend almost every last dollar. I particularly wanted some jagoree – a fudge made from Palm sap but he said this could only be found in the Bagan region, however he would see what he could do!  In this country it would seem “Your wish is our command”.

Nye had one more excursion up his sleeve for us this afternoon – China town! This was a busy, exciting and very colourful spectacle . We saw foods we’d never seen before and Nye explained, in the detail only a local could, what they were and their various uses. Eventually he spied jagoree and paid for several packs for us as we had no chats left – just the equivalent of 30p a pack!!!

We returned to the same hotel in which we began our Burma adventure and then walked along to The Friendship restaurant again for dinner. We had thought this very cheap when we ate there over a week ago. But by comparison with all the little local restaurants on our travels around Burma, this was dear – 3 times the price in fact, plus they gave us a poor rate of exchange 900 chats to the $1. Heho.

After a fitful sleep I woke just before the alarm went off at 5am. We ate bits of a packed breakfast supplied by the hotel in the reception area, when Nye appeared to transport us to Yangon International Airport.

Slight worry filling in the immigration form as I’d put a my entry visa in my case thinking I no longer needed it. However, no problem, they had all my details on their system, so relaxed with a coffee.

The flight took off on time 7.55 en route to Doha.  Comfortable flight with Qatar and a quick transfer to our London flight.  This leg of the journey seemed like and eternity but a G&T followed by an excellent roast lamb dinner (or was it lunch?) did ease the monotony a little. Plus, over the whole flight period, I did managed to watch a complete series of Downton Abbey!

What a magical holiday!!

Breakfast brought to our apartment by 2 cheery Burmese girls. All manner of cakes, pastries and croissants and a pot of coffee all on bamboo woven trays. We enjoyed this on our balcony looking out on the White sand and turquoise ocean (sorry to go on about the view).

We had booked a fishing boat for this morning, which arrived on our bit of beach to collect us at 8. We thought we start early before the intense heat of the day.

The boat was a sampan style again, shallow and quite precarious, I’m guessing to avoid rocks and coral below. It had a portable motor rather like a strimmer, which could be ripped up out of the water quickly.

Fitted with snorkel and flippers I was soon gazing amongst the new underwater landscape of rocks and coral at an incredible variety of tropical fish as well as old lobster pots.

We anchored up at various snorkelling locations before being taken to the fishing village over on the other side of an island, eventually arriving at the desert island where we pottered about looking for shell treasures on the beach.

Lunch of delicious avocado salad and another local delicacy at a small local restaurant, set us up nicely for a chilled out afternoon of swimming exploring and just lazing.
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We returned to the same restaurant for dinner and this time asked them to supply the ingredients for a Pinocolado which was not on their list of cocktails- they were of course very obliging, as we have found the local people to be everywhere we go. Just $8 for a fantastic meal and including 2 cocktails!!!

We watched several hot air balloons pass over us sillouetted against the pink morning light as we headed for the airport.  (I’m rather proud of this photo which was taken from a moving vehicle, and includes not only the oxen which was the subject of the photo, but also hot air balloons and a temple, I understand there was even a pig inside the cart, but couldn’t stretch my luck to tha!) Saying our goodbyes to Kie Soe, we were warned that our flight will detour via Heho.

Our flight finally turned in over the Bay of Begal, clear turquoise blue, then almost touched the white sandy beach which was to be our last destination before returning to Yangon in a couple of days’ time.

A taxi was waiting to take us to Sandoway Residences and wow, what a sight to behold when we arrived!! We were greeted with an ice cold damp flanel, to refresh ourselves, and a cool fruit juice, under the shade of palm trees, before being shown our apartment ON THE BEACH. The door opened into a room like a barn with every amenity we could wish for plus a full wall length view of the ocean and our own balcony and area of beach just outside with our very own sun beds and canework sunshade. Of course, we dumped our stuff, jumped straight into our swimmers and made for the warm clear sea. After lingering a while in the buoyant waters, we returned to our sunbeds to dry off and the next thing we found ourselves sipping coconut juice through a straw and then the white flesh was skillfully chopped up for us to eat, by a young Burmese girl who carried varieties of fruit in a cane tray on her head!  In the shade of Palm trees, white sand between the toes, eyes closing listening to the sound of the ocean and no tourists… just a few local people as it was end of season – had I died and gone to heaven?!

A little while later we found a comfortable beach restaurant for lunch – avocado salad and some delicious prawn concoction with beers. So good, It was definitely going to be seafood for the next few days!

The afternoon was spent just relaxing, swimming and exploring along the beautiful quiet curved bay.

In the evening Patricia wanted to seek out a beach awning type restaurant at the other end of the beach made known to her by friends, about a 2 mile walk.  There was in fact a whole row of these little family run food outlets and we first called in at one of these along the way with Happy Hour for Pinocolado!  The choice of restaurant we made for dinner was run by a lovely family – grandfather, daughter and son in law (not sure which way round) and 2 delightful toddlers, one of which clearly took to me and I asked the parents if I could take him home back to England. I don’t think they were very keen! We walked back along the beach in the dark, passing the little stone carved mermaid on the rocks looking out to sea.

Today we were collected by our guide at 8am after early wake up call … loud singing from speakers around the hotel.   An early start before the 40 Degree heat of the day, we took a walk through the desert and besides the numerous ancient stupas, we delighted in seeing an owlet up in the tree and a huge kingfisher, by our standards, on a wire.

I got some super photos of these birds which I will post up when I get home as they are on my high zoom camera. We then drove out to a gold stupa beside the River with a spectacular view up and down the river, then an early lunch in a small outdoor restaurant called Queen. I chose a delicious coconut milk and we shared a selection of items including watercress salads avocado salad and spring rolls with spiced dip.

We then returned to the hotel for siesta because of the intense heat, even hotter than the day before. We spent some time in the gardens by the pool with a swim or two before the sun beds started filling with other guests. Then we returned to the cool of our room to rest.  What a beautiful surprise in the form of a flower decoration on each of our beds. 

Later I decided must have one of the special massages on offer at the hotel and wow, that sorted out my knots! They certainly mean business in this part of the world.

Our driver and guide appeared at 5 as agreed and took us to a much quieter location to watch the last of the hot red sun disappear behind the Bagan landscape. We were then dropped off at The Coconut Rice restaurant where we enjoyed a more adventurous dinner and walked back to our hotel nearby afterwards.

Packed and bed for early start in the morning… off to the coast!