One of the pleasures of traveling with Overseas Adventure Travel (besides the home hosted meals and school visits) lies with the encouragement given the guides to explore the unforeseen along the way, the serendipitous possibilities that crop up but aren't included in the formal itinerary. Our adventures today proved an excellent example of the results (as well as some of the pitfalls sure to occur along the way).
The schedule called for an early morning "orientation walk" followed later in the day by an optional visit to a local museum, a walk througa the local Chinatown, a cocktail hour "drink with a view" and dinner somewhere in downtown Rangoon. Johnny pressed us at breakfast, however, to be sure to bring along a dollar bill and our passports (without telling us why, exactly). We figured something new lay on the horizon ...
Turned out, after a quick taxi ride to the railroad station, we were about to board the Circle Line train that girdles the city. Individual tickets cost each of us one crisp, unblemished dollar bill in pristine condition -- if we had our passports with us; or, as we were to learn (spoiler alert) if at least one of us had a passport with which to assume responsibility for the entire fare purchase. Things are achanging fast around here!
Following a thirty minute wait on the platform (where we attracted our fair share of attention), spent exploring all the various activities centered there and interacting with our fellow passengers, we boarded the local and chugged out of the station for the other side of town.
We alighted some thirty minutes later and proceeded to walk through a lively Sunday market scattered for blocks along the roadside. As we walked, a woman who claimed to be the government official in charge of the entire market, accosted our guide and demanded that we stop taking photographs -- shades of the ancien regime! For the most part, at Johnny's suggestion, we simply ignored her. Such has become the spirit of the times!
The adventure of the day followed: to return to our point of origin (and with Johnny's gleeful encouragement), we scrambled aboard a local bus which proceeded to take off like a shot, a hyperactive bus boy hanging out the door, whistling loudly (if melodically) and shouting directions and instructions to the driver as we sped along, screeching to a temporary halt whenever the bus boy spyed a potential rider.
Then, suddenly, we ground to a halt due to an accident ahead and remained stuck in an horrendous traffic jam for some twenty minutes or so with the internal bus temperature raising higher and higher and higher with each passing minute.
We eventually escaped, then zipped along to a stop deep in the posh area of Rangoon. Here we visited the house in which Ang Sang, Burma's liberator and Ang Sang Sun Kyi's father, lived with his wife and children just prior to his assassination in 1948. The home is now a sparely furnished memorial museum.
The surrounding wealthy neighborhood proved interesting as well. A number of newly built and extravagant homes testified to the General's economic stranglehold on the country over the past several decades while just yards away a neglected and abandoned colonial era wooden masterpiece crumbled into oblivion.
All that activity and all that tropical heat, however, took its toll. In response (and knowing we'll be returning to Rangoon on our own at the end of the tour), after returning our hotel by taxi for a lunchtime break, we opted to skip the afternoon activities and settled into a much appreciated Sunday afternoon of rest and relaxation.
Early tomorrow morning we're off to Bagan -- but not by jitney.
Instead, we'll fly!
The schedule called for an early morning "orientation walk" followed later in the day by an optional visit to a local museum, a walk througa the local Chinatown, a cocktail hour "drink with a view" and dinner somewhere in downtown Rangoon. Johnny pressed us at breakfast, however, to be sure to bring along a dollar bill and our passports (without telling us why, exactly). We figured something new lay on the horizon ...
Turned out, after a quick taxi ride to the railroad station, we were about to board the Circle Line train that girdles the city. Individual tickets cost each of us one crisp, unblemished dollar bill in pristine condition -- if we had our passports with us; or, as we were to learn (spoiler alert) if at least one of us had a passport with which to assume responsibility for the entire fare purchase. Things are achanging fast around here!
Following a thirty minute wait on the platform (where we attracted our fair share of attention), spent exploring all the various activities centered there and interacting with our fellow passengers, we boarded the local and chugged out of the station for the other side of town.
The adventure of the day followed: to return to our point of origin (and with Johnny's gleeful encouragement), we scrambled aboard a local bus which proceeded to take off like a shot, a hyperactive bus boy hanging out the door, whistling loudly (if melodically) and shouting directions and instructions to the driver as we sped along, screeching to a temporary halt whenever the bus boy spyed a potential rider.
Then, suddenly, we ground to a halt due to an accident ahead and remained stuck in an horrendous traffic jam for some twenty minutes or so with the internal bus temperature raising higher and higher and higher with each passing minute.
We eventually escaped, then zipped along to a stop deep in the posh area of Rangoon. Here we visited the house in which Ang Sang, Burma's liberator and Ang Sang Sun Kyi's father, lived with his wife and children just prior to his assassination in 1948. The home is now a sparely furnished memorial museum.
The surrounding wealthy neighborhood proved interesting as well. A number of newly built and extravagant homes testified to the General's economic stranglehold on the country over the past several decades while just yards away a neglected and abandoned colonial era wooden masterpiece crumbled into oblivion.
All that activity and all that tropical heat, however, took its toll. In response (and knowing we'll be returning to Rangoon on our own at the end of the tour), after returning our hotel by taxi for a lunchtime break, we opted to skip the afternoon activities and settled into a much appreciated Sunday afternoon of rest and relaxation.
Early tomorrow morning we're off to Bagan -- but not by jitney.
Instead, we'll fly!
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