Getting out of Yangon

I am in Yangon for another day as todays flights are all fully booked.
So better luck tomorrow. The good thing is that I will have some time
to buy a new camera and visit the big pagoda again. I lost my camera
on the bad road yesterday, it must have fallen out of its framebag
without me noticing.

Normally spending an extra day here and getting a new camera would not
be a problem, but Myanmar is different: it is not possible to take out
money or pay by credit card. So all shopping for souvenirs and things
to get has to wait until just before leaving to make sure the money I
brought doesn't run out before boarding the plane back to bangkok. Of
course I did bring quite some cash, both in dollars and thai baht, but
getting a camera and paying for the flight north will eat into my
emergency money...

Then again, not having a camera is kind of an emergency in a country
that mixes old style colonial buildings with marvelous pagodas and
monasteries, and is full of smiling and friendly people. The streets
are filled with a mixture of Indian buses, old cars that serve as
taxis, big Chinese 4-wheel drives and lots of trishas: bicycle taxis
where the passenger seat is set next to the driver.

I am staying the old colonial area: the city centre with many Indian
and Chinese people living in converted buildings and the streets are
lined with food stalls. Apples is apparently a big thing here as they
are carefully packed and sold piece by piece at the same price as a
full meal!

As for my bike: all the tires are now checked, checked, sealed and
checked... the rest of the bike is ok after tightening all the srews 3
times... yesterday I said the road was bad... I should have said that
the road was under contruction and basically they had just come to the
first stage of laying big rocks... worse than anything that I have
ridden so far... and I don't even have a picture to share of it.