Transfer from Yangon to Heho

It's interesting to contrast notions with first impressions. To be honest, I purposely didn't study much before coming here. Got some basic stats on size, people, economy, religion, then of course what we've had in the news for a decade on politics. 

It feels more open than a "military run" country. So either it's changed fast, or the two word description didn't fit perfectly. 

There's commercial goods of all kinds. There's packs of kids everywhere Doug what kids do - talk half english, half Burmese, dance to music from their phones, take endless group selfies, laugh and post them on Facebook.  They seem to wear whatever they want and outwardly just seem really nice to each other and gregarious.  I can't this far think of a Bhuddist country I've been to where this hasn't been the case. It's comfortable to be around. Other than words and an alphabet that's beautifully scripted but opaque to me they could be kids anywhere in open countries on earth.  

The local dogs don't want to over exert in the heat. 

They have a surprising number of Christmas decorations out. Maybe it's the old British thing going. Maybe it's tourism. But we aren't seen that many foreigners here to keep up with the level of Christmas decorations. 

Cars are compact but clean. Streets are semi crowded but clean. Traffic isn't the mayhem of other places. 

Airport has nice woodwork. 

While waiting I enjoyed an award winning malt beverage. 

We took a domestic flight to Heho. The organization was interesting. Not even locals can hear on the sound system, so they put stickers on everyone then walk through and find you for your flight. It works. 

Then the airplane was decorated for Christmas!

Inle Lake

We had an absolutely amazing sleep. Pillows are firm here, I love it. So is the bed. Our little room on the water is amazing. It's dead silent at night. It's been a while since I've experienced such silence. Not even a bug flying or a fish jumping. Except for Cindy woke up and asked me if I had a laser for her concrete construction project. 

Breakfast was fantastic. Jams and spreads are so delicious and fresh. Our bike isn't here yet but we had nice Merida's for the warm up ride today. 16km only. Along some back roads and to a winery up a hill. Did some scooter chase sprints on the road for intervals too. 

The lake is probably the neatest microeconomy I've seen. They farm and live on stilted houses among floating islands. All the pictures of stuff growing is floating on islands in the lake. They harvest the floating weeds, stake them together, some guys dig mud up from the bottom and layer it on, and they grow hundreds of acres of tomatoes, cucumbers, squashes, eggplants, etc. 

The boats are used not how I'd think by looking at it. They're maybe 25' long and skinny, and fishermen stand on one foot on the back 4" of the boat. The other leg wraps around an oar they brace in the crook of their arm. This propulsion leg leaves two hands free to operate fishing nets.  Usually they smoke at the same time too although it doesn't seem like there's that many smokers here. It's all quite the skill set. 

Kids that look too small to do anything are waterborne on boats when at home we'd think they'd drown in a minute. Schools, monestaries, restaurants, stores  and factories are all on stilts in the water. I'm not sure you can get FedEx out here but is like to try. 

We went to a weaving factory. Girls chop up lotus stems like asparagus to them make fibre to spin to yarn then weave. They spin the thread using old bicycles that judging by chain wear have had decades or service on the road and making textiles. 

Given we were in the middle of tomato farms and a lake, we had tomato soup and fish for lunch. Restaurant over there. 

Baby Bakke

Our Christmas present this year is Cindy is pregnant. We're excited to have a Baby Bakke next year. Given circumstance of our adventures together we're contemplating sticking with and M name like Marvin and Maggie.

Cindy sent me a calendar invite to the first ultrasound a while back, but the office can see my calendar. So I deleted it. But in the same time slot was the start of the Munga bike race in South Africa (since cancelled). So I put Munga as the appointment. That was the week after we rode the Minnewanka ride together. 

So far our leading candidate name is Munga Minnewanka Myanmar Bakke. 

Can't really hide it anymore when we're dressing American Hustle like for our work Christmas party. 

Yangon (Rangoon)

This is only the sneak peak benefitting from out post midnight arrival to 2am head hitting pillow at the hotel. 

It's clean. It's orderly. It looks like the capital is not starved of goods and technology. Or at least those whom can access it. Lots of Japanese brands. But a Porsche SUV passed us too. 

People are skinny. Like there's a few guys around the airport in their purple sarongs whose waists must be closer 20" than 30". Like pencils. They are happy and chatty. The male/female interaction of airport employees, other than being unintelligible to me, looks no different than a bunch of West Jet employees joking around. All smiles and fun. 

Temperature is exactly what would make a Burmese Python happy. Maybe that's why they moved here. It's warm and humid. It's difficult, just a couple days before Christmas, to picture that a shiver would ever occur here. 

National dish, might as not waste time. Mohinga. Rice noodle soup in fish stock with garnishment a like peanuts, cilantro, hot sauce, egg. 

Myanmar tea. Delicious.  Strong, milky, earthy, sweet. 

Lost baggage operation. No computers present. Girls were really nice though. Only thing I really pushed them on was to have someone walk around the luggage back area after they saw a picture of the Evoc bag to see if they could spot it. The girls seemed knowledgeable enough to get that I'd think a tracking system was normal, but sort of smiled and said they don't have that here yet. 

Beijing Layover

This was the first time I had flown into Beijing with daylight. Novelty of that was seeing the mountains give way to city in the way in. I did spot two ski areas which was neat, no snow around but very easy to see against the brown mountains as they must make snow there. 

The great Chinese construction boom was more apparent by day. They don't build apartment buildings one at a time. It's a unit of 10 or a dozen here, there, everywhere. So you so see 50 building sites in the way in and that's 500+ buildings that are probably 15+ stories each. 

We were disappointed that the airport lounge didn't have wife cakes, a staple on past trips through, but we did get a good meal.

Lots of space to eat. 

Mm, tasty. 

Santa!

Bus to plane was literally freezing - could see your breath. 

Nakiska news in Edmonton

It was drawn to my attention that I made the Edmonton paper!

Look who got their cone off!

Maggie is way faster without the cone. 

And way happier.