Day 3: Travel = Tiring
Next destination. Myanmar! Dun dun duhhhhh.
First thought when I heard we were going to Myanmar for four days, is “.....”, I know so articulate. So to clarify my first thought was nothing. When you hear your going to some random country, your mind kind of just goes blank. Then you get over it and do a inner mind pep-talk.
We left early the next morning and had to go through customs and a bunch of stuff. Unfortunately for one team, Sal and Vivian, their visas were invalid because of some date typo and they were left behind but fortunately were able to catch a flight to Thailand and will try to meet up with us from there.
Once we get there, I immediately notice how hot it is. Probably +100 degrees Fahrenheit. Muy caliente. We arrive at our hotel, which is super fancy, get our scavenge book and start looking for maps and a tourist guide book. Except one tiny problem, everything is closed due to some national holiday. What luck. So today is practically useless since you can’t do any scavenges without a map or places to go. So we were kinda stumped.
Oh, something I should mention is that the scavenges are in for four different cities in Myanmar and we have to figure out how to get to each city and back by 6pm on Saturday. Anyway back to being stumped, we had no idea what to do. Luckily, using our Ying smartness we figured we should just use this day to go to another city so the day isn’t a total waste. So we ended up going to Mandalay.
After that there's not much to say. We got off the plane and took a taxi to the hotel and passed out. Today was so long and tiring but that's expected from traveling so much. Can't wait for tomorrow when we do our scavenges.
We left early the next morning and had to go through customs and a bunch of stuff. Unfortunately for one team, Sal and Vivian, their visas were invalid because of some date typo and they were left behind but fortunately were able to catch a flight to Thailand and will try to meet up with us from there.
Once we get there, I immediately notice how hot it is. Probably +100 degrees Fahrenheit. Muy caliente. We arrive at our hotel, which is super fancy, get our scavenge book and start looking for maps and a tourist guide book. Except one tiny problem, everything is closed due to some national holiday. What luck. So today is practically useless since you can’t do any scavenges without a map or places to go. So we were kinda stumped.
Oh, something I should mention is that the scavenges are in for four different cities in Myanmar and we have to figure out how to get to each city and back by 6pm on Saturday. Anyway back to being stumped, we had no idea what to do. Luckily, using our Ying smartness we figured we should just use this day to go to another city so the day isn’t a total waste. So we ended up going to Mandalay.
After that there's not much to say. We got off the plane and took a taxi to the hotel and passed out. Today was so long and tiring but that's expected from traveling so much. Can't wait for tomorrow when we do our scavenges.
Airport
Airport
I hope you two got plenty of sleep - sounds like you are going to have 4 days of adventure! Can't wait to read. I am really enjoying your writing style! Half of the time you have me cracking up and half of the time I an enthralled!
ReplyDeletethis is the stage where i remember why i love this trip. imagine you're back in college. you have your finals every other day for like two weeks. you go into the first final. its an open book test and you've brought your book. you open the test and... its on completely different topics than you studied. from a different book than the one you used.in a different language than you know. and you are on a time limit. that's what every stage of the global scavenger hunt is like. some are more helpless feeling than others. this stage was turtle-turned-on-its-back level of helplessness.
ReplyDeletethat sounds horrible, right? it is. but its not life or death, its not really finals in college. how many times as an adult do you get to feel like that and then have a path to fight your way thru it? so i know this is horrible, and i know we got literally zero points on the first day in myanmar, which i know nothing about.
but we took a leap - we ran for the airport and jumped on the last plane out of town to mandalay, with a backpack with a change of clothes and that's about it. that leap felt...like being alive. we don't know if it'll work out, what we'll learn, where we'll go, who we'll meet, if we'll get any scavenges at all. we don't know where we'll be the next day.
as a boring middle aged man, i don't get that sense of complete unknown very much. i'm good at what i do, i'm married to the most capable and over the top responsible woman in the world, the kids are great and the school is great. but in this extended moment of this month, that sense of.... christmas, everyday. that's something.
so yes, we got zero points after a full day in myanmar. off to the races!