Day 4: Stairs, We Meet Again

Today is the second day in Myanmar. Yay survived day one! 

Yesterday we arrived at a fancy hotel for the night, went to bed late in a comfy bed. So relaxed. Shablam! Wake up at 6. So not going with the vibe there. 

Anyway once we woke up and stuff, we rented some bikes from the hotel to do some scavenges. This included a selfie at a pretty palace and realizing we had a stowaway in the backpack, Coconut. And going to the worlds largest book. This was actually a pagoda with a bunch of small marble tomb looking buildings around it that had a book inscribed in all of the walls. Cool, but I was hoping for a house sized Percy Jackson or Harry Potter. I would live there. 

Next we went to Mandalay Hill to get our fortune told. Unfortunately that is where I met my mortal enemy, again. Stairs. (Cue creepy organ music). It was a long hike up and it 
was super hot. I also think my calves have officially reached 
their prime time in life and will soon be declining. Stinky stairs 
and their calf curse. Anyway, when we got to the top we found 
out there is no fortune teller there. Bummer. Luckily one of the 
locals said he could read our fortune. Hallelujah. It was a typical “you’ll be happy and have kids,” kind of fortune but it was one nonetheless.

After those horrid steps we took a taxi to a town called Saigon, took some selfies and moved on to the next. Which was taking a horse cart to a pagoda. This was an interesting yet fun scavenge. First I got to drive the horse cart. Although I was not a fan of the horse treatment, I thought it was cool to drive a horse cart. At the pagoda, we took some pictures and walked around, then went to a little stand with wood carvings. We had to buy one as a scavenge, so we bought a weird fire, spiky dog one. And one of the highlights of my day, the sales woman said I was very beautiful! Which is very flattering since I felt like a troll with all the sweat and stinkiness I had goin on. Another highlight: on the way back to the taxi in the horse cart, we saw a game of chaneball. The scavenge for that was to watch and participate in 
a match. How the game works is that on a volleyball court with two teams of three, you have to try to hit the ball onto the ground on the other side of the net, just like volleyball. Except that you can only hit with your feet and head. Plot twist! It was so cool to watch though, because since they could only use their feet, they had to do really cool, high jumps to be able to kick the ball down like a spike. It was basically a bunch of dudes heading and karate kicking a plastic ball. When we played, well we sucked. I mean, I could kick the ball pretty well from my soccer experience and got a pretty cool hit in that made the locals ooh 
and ah, but I was nowhere as good as them.

Next scavenge is crossing the scariest bridge. It’s also the longest wooden bridge. It’s a kilometer long, wooden bridge with no railings and many ice cream stands along the way. It is very obviously not the best kept bridge. Although it’s not too scary except that it has no railings and an inch or two gap between every wooden plank. It was a very hot and long walk, but we powered through and walked to the other side and back. 

After that we went back to the hotel and drove around to try to do some small scavenges. Unfortunately, many of the places to do our scavenges were closed. However we did get to eat some shah food and go to another pagoda for some scavenges. Once we finished that and returned to the hotel, we decided to start planning for tomorrow’s scavenge schedule and wait for the bus 
to take us to Began. 

The four hour bus ride was exactly how I expected. Uncomfortable and hot. Wasn’t the best experience of my life but it got us to Began. We checked into a super fancy resort. So 
fancy I was able to take a bath! In a humongous bathtub with 
bath salts and everything! 

After the bath it is finally the end of a long hard day and I am so 
happy to be able to sleep in a comfy bed with Coconut.

Palace visit with Coconut

View from the Bagaya Pagoda 

Playing with the locals

Scariest Bridge 

Driving Horse Cart