Breakfast was included at the hotel and consisted of a crepe with honey, bananas, watermelon, toast and an omelette. This was also the first time I tried Myanmar tea, it was very sweet as is made with condensed milk.
Our room in the Five One Star Hotel was spacious and clean, a good spot to relax. It was also quiet, only one other room in the hotel was occupied. Our room opened up onto a big balcony which overlooked a soccer field. During our stay they were setting up a stage on the field for a free concert on the 6th April.
From brekky we set out to get our laundry done. The hotel offered free bicycles so we took one each and headed into town. The baskets on the front made it easy for us to carry our long overdue pile of washing!
Once in town we found a spot to lock up the bikes and searched for a laundry on foot. Eventually we found somewhere and the price was reasonable (1500 kyat ($1.50) per kg) so we dropped our load. From here we set off to explore the markets and got lost pretty quickly. There were a lot of clothes and food stalls, the dried fish was pretty stinky so we didn’t stay to long in areas where that was sitting around. While exploring I suddenly stopped after a glimpse of a must have from the corner of my eye… A new hat for Kyle! It was about time, his Filipino cowboy hat was pretty well destroyed by this point.
Stoked with our new purchase, we decided that we’d had enough of the markets and set out to explore on the bikes. The first point of interest was a horse club…. What a mission to find. On our search we found ourselves completely lost in the middle of a village. Kyle saved the day and managed to get us back to the road by biking along the edges of villages fields.
We decided that seeing horses really wasn’t going to be that thrilling so we would ditch that plan and continue along the main road to the winery. Kyle had also been struggling with his bike so we swapped over so I could have a turn with the beast.
The ride to the winery was enjoyable, until the last 100 m or so which was all uphill. With our fixed gear bikes we had no choice but to get off an walk up. It was pretty bloody hot at this point so we were both hanging out for a drink.
Finally we made it to a table! We skipped the wine tasting and were straight on to a cold Coke and Sprite to cool down. Still considering the wine tasting, we did some research on our old friend Google to see what those before us had thought of the Brees available. To sum it up, the answer was not good. Instead we ordered a fruit platter and played cards. Turns out the fruit platter was also not good. This place blows but at least the views nice.
After a few hours soaking in the view and getting thrashed at 500, we jumped back on the bikes and headed back to the hostel.
Beer o’clock on the balcony, fantastic. Singha’s were only 850 kyat ($0.85) from the minimart.
For dinner we went to Bamboo Hut. This was a bit out of the way, so we had to hire a tuk tuk to take us there, wait and then drop us home. All was organised by the hotel for 12,000 kyat ($12).
The restaurant was amazing! It was in a great location in a village overlooking some farmland and it was clean and tidy. However, we lucked out on timing as the village had chosen this night to blast music out on the loudspeaker. This is common throughout the villages. Old school Burmese music is played. It tore through the atmosphere and did not make for a relaxing dinner!
The food on the otherhand was exceptional. For entree we had the deep fried spring onion and tomato fritters with a sweet dipping sauce and mains were a vegetable curry and chicken curry. They also served tasty brown bean soup between courses. Absolute stunner for only 11,000 kyat ($11).
Home, shower, sleep.
Kyley on Tour 