Today we have the day off from class and on our way to India! On the 7th (6th for you guys) I’ll be in India! First stop is the Taj J Last night was a shipboard dance. It was really awkward hahaha. Like middle school flashback. They had the dance broadcasted on the TV system to all the rooms, so we sat and laughed at people dancing and the awkwardness. Now finishing another day of Myanmar before our busy night ahead of us. Desmond tutu is speaking, we have a hunger banquet and an explorer seminar. On top of this I have a midterm tomorrow I am trying to study in-between all of this. Wooo, bring on today J
Everyday we have announcements from the assistant executive dean which he tries to make funny (and is actually really funny), one of the jokes me made today was saying “Hi, my name is malaria, I am so excited for you to get to India, please don’t take your medication because I would love to meet you. See you soon!”. T’was funny.
Feb 26th
Me and Bridget caught a 9am bus into town and arrived at around 10am. We wanted to find the local market, but we ended up lost. So we ended up trying to find out ships tour agent in town. They had a van set up by the down hall where we could go and ask questions about Yangon. So after much walking around we found the van and the guide, he pointed us in the right direction and we found the market! The market had a lot of paintings, jade, ruby’s and more. All over there was all sorts of beautiful fabric that the women use to make their skirts. We bought some wrap around skirts and we wore them for the rest of the day to experience it. We continued shopping for a while and I bought a few things. Bridget found a coconut that was made to look like a monkey.
After some shopping we found a café which we decided to stop at for Wi-Fi, a milkshake and eventually we ordered food. The menu had “western food” so we both got burgers. It was nice to relax in the air conditioning and chat while we enjoyed Facebook, email and more. We left the restaurant at around 12:30 and decided we wanted to go to the zoo because they had elephants and we heard you could ride them. So we got our map and decided to head in that direction. It was nice to take our time to the zoo because walking around the city you see a lot you wouldn’t notice in a taxi. Things like the people on the street selling their baskets of food, the abundance of Christian churches, Muslim mosques, and more. We found the zoo, paid our 2 dollar entrance fee and entered. The zoo, even at first was noticeably different then ones in the US, first of all it was empty, there was hardly anyone at the zoo. Second there was no gift shop or concession stand. The people selling the food and drinks were street venders that were allowed in. All of the animals could be found in Asia. There were monkeys, elephants, tigers, lions and more. First we went and saw the elephants, unfortunately they only allow people to ride them on Sunday and Monday and it was Tuesday. But we were able to feed them which was a lot of fun. We paid about 1 dollar for the basket of what looked like bamboo or something. The elephants knew we had food for them and as we stood getting our camera out they started to take their husks and flowing air at us, then started blowing spit at us. We couldn’t help to laugh at how mean and demanding they were acting. We handed them the food, which they would stuff in their mouth and quickly ask for more, they wouldn’t chew it, they just stored it in their mouth until we had no more left. Other elephants would try and steal it from each other’s mouths. In a way it was worrying because it was an eye opener as of how poorly these animals might be treated.
Next came the monkeys. We were scary close to them. No glass, they were in an open enclosure and a cage. The monkeys that were in the cage were jumping around and were really active. So we went over and started taking videos of them, a baby came up and reached its hand out to touch us but we stayed away because rabies are bad. When I was videotaping a monkey came up at the bottom of the cage and looked at us, I thought it was cute so I decided to put my camera up to its face. As I did this it reached out it’s hand and then attempted to swipe my camera right out of my hand. Had I not had a strap around my wrist I would have lost my camera. After much laughter and shock we continued and saw there were paddle boats you could use for a dollar. So we decided “why not” since in the US it would cost like 5-10 dollars or more! So we got into these paddle boats that were made for 10 year olds and paddled around the pond. We stopped and relaxed for a while and enjoyed people/ animal watching. We enjoyed the shade of the paddle boat and the light breeze which was heavenly in the heat.
After the paddle boats we went to see the tigers, alligators, snakes, hippos and more. But after seeing all of this it was about 4pm and we were pretty tired because it’s an outdoor zoo and it was 105 degrees outside and the sun was pounding on us the whole time. So we decided we wanted to head to the bus and eat dinner on the ship. We had to be up at 5am for the Golden temple trip the next day, so dinner on the ship and an early bedtime was needed. So we walked to the bus which took about 30 minutes and then ate dinner on the ship. We watched the sunset over the water and then we packed, watched a movie and headed to bed early.
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