See food sea food.

The other highlight of Ngapali was the seafood.  Humble beach side restaurants dotted the beach with kept promises of fresh seafood.  I had the best prawns of my life.  Several plates of seafood and fresh juices later, our combined bill was $10.  I think I could live there.

Ngapali beach is reminiscent of jimbaran bay, Bali 20 years ago or Cabo San Lucas during the same era.  The area is evolving quickly, I feel lucky we caught it when we did. 

Ngapali Beach

Best decision of the trip.

We intended to spend our time split between Bagan and Yangon, but realized midway through the trip that we had room for one more destination.  After scouring the lonely planet guide and digging deep into our adventurer hearts, we opted out of tourism and made a beeline for the beach.  

Negotiating trip changes, including flight and hotel 24 hours before departure is usually a bit of work, but it required a full. afternoon commitment, two moped ride, and many conversations with non-English speakers.  Until the end, we were not entirely sure if we would be allowed on the plane. 

As luck would have it, all plans went without a hitch.  If you are ever in Myanmar, add Ngapali beach to your short list of destinations.

After the dusty trails of Bagan, the bath like ocean of Ngapali was soothing.  The beach wide and generous and time immediately slowed to a delicious crawl.  Our intense pace of seeing everything was met within five minutes, and left us with the ability to relish doing nothing.

We walked on the beach, swam and ordered mangos and watermelon from the women walking the beach with baskets full of fruit on their head.  We got so lazy, I didn't even take a picture of our beautiful fruit lady (which I now somewhat regret), though I will never forget the taste of the mangoes.  

Again, it was a good reminder to build time for nothing into every trip, especially at a beautiful beach.  

Lost in translation

At our hotel in Bagan, the in-room directory highlighted a number of cultural destinations of the area.  Funny enough, whoever copy and pasted the highlights must have done so directly from the Lonely Planet guide and with no understanding of the English language.  My favorites below: 

Ko Ko

I have to dedicate a posting to one young man we met in Bagan. The most westernized of any local we met, Ko Ko was probably 22, brash and your typical tourist hustler. He had big gold rimmed sunglasses and a slightly tight, v-neck metrosexual shirt. His hairstyle was black with flaming orange highlights and styled like any current US boy band member. He was incredibly image conscious and would fit in well in LA, NY or other major metropolitan area. His English was excellent.

He was smart and inquisitive and as interested in mining information about western culture as he was in mining our pocket books to fund his sand painting drawings.  We spent an entire lunch chatting with him while he pitched artwork to us and we were struck by what he symbolized.

Ko Ko was the perfect embodiment of the changes that the Myanmar culture seems to be undergoing. On the one hand, he was everything Myanmar people are known for; friendly, quick with a smile, willing to help and eager to talk about their land. On the other hand, he had clearly embraced (and was striving for) a very western life. The boy band hair and sunglasses (sorry world), the iPhone, non-traditional dress, conveyed his image and his desire to move to Australia, where and he was determined to work in his friend's restaurant and not "eat chicken" his whole life. And by "eat chicken" he meant that he wanted to date many Australian women and enjoy the variety of life.

While we thought we had him pegged initially as a self-serving hustler, we later ran into him when Rhonda's scooter had died on the side of the road at night.  While I went for help, Ko Ko saw Rhonda, tried to get the scooter started, and when he couldn't, he stayed and chatted with her until help arrived.  His Burmese sense of community and genuine sincerity were so evident, I can only hope those qualities don't get lost in the westernization of this country.

Manic for mopeds

The mopeds of Bagan deserve their own post.  Along the dusty roads and vastness of Bagan, you have few options for transportation - bike, horse-drawn carriage or moped.  For freedom, speed, convenience and good ol' American laziness, we generally chose the mopeds.  

Officially they are e-bikes, run entirely on battery power.  They are plugged into a wall socket to charge, with the appearance of a standard moped.  

Why these things aren't all over college campuses in the US, I don't know.  Myanmar is ahead of the sustainable emissions and energy curve, especially since they frequently pile a family of four onto one of these bad boys.  

We were simultaneously thrilled and terrified riding these nefarious contraptions.  No helmet, no observed road rules and no map meant that navigating the roads would take some iron will determination.  Ok, and sheer delight.  My driving skills have been called out by any number of people in a number of ways, but probably best summed up as anarchist. 

Anarchist driving works well in Myanmar.  If you want to pull over on the opposite side of the road, you just do it.  No u-turns, turn signals or other silly right-of-way measures.  Somehow, the traffic scene is a bit more fluid and just works within the chaos.  

The unpredictability of the e-bikes added to the emotional roller coaster.  On separate occasions, each of our bikes died on the side of the road.  When they didn't die, they could spontaneously break into cruise control at high speed until you pressed the brake.  The seats varied as well, with some that rattled and had a tendency to push into your most delicate areas.  Despite all this, we flew off the roads and onto the dirt trails, doing some serious temple off-roading. 

It was like we were sixteen, all over again.    

 My only note of caution to future riders, be careful at night don't get stuck behind a tour bus.  They can literally poop exhaust on you while you are trying to see a dark road lit up only by your flashlight sized headlight.

All in, I wouldn't trade the experience for the world.

Calm the nerves

"Don't fly after dark."

This was the sage advice from an Australian that has been coming to Ngapali beach for the last six years.  

We are on the same flight as our new Australian friend and it is considerably delayed.  The only way we know this, besides the fact that no plane is landing, is because they take a sharpie to a small hand held sign and write down new departure times every so often, then set the sign up, laying against a window.  

When I ask about flying at night, this nice father, who is traveling with his two young children, says that there are no lights on the runway.  Odds of something going wrong jump up considerably.  He then chuckles and tells us how a couple years ago, a plane skidded off the runway into the ocean.  Everyone was ok, but it took the locals two years to remove the plane from the water.  Until recently, every time a plane landed, you were accosted with a view of a half sunken crashed plane.  Not very good for the nerves.

As we line up, the agent lets us know it will be five minutes.  Since there's no computer or wallow-talkie I wonder how he knows the timing and I ask.  He points to the sky and a plane is emerging from the mists.

Oh.  

Fingers crossed, we are now on the plane.

Marketing with Gods

We have been flying around the country on KBZ airlines. The company's tag line is "flying beyond expectations."  A nice, slightly catchy phrase.  However, when you pair it with their logo of two deities flying, wings outstretched, with conical, yet aerodynamic helmets pointed skyward, the catch phrase takes on a whole new dimension.  Who wouldn't want to fly with the gods on your side??

On the flip side, given the safety records of the domestic airline industry in Myanmar, perhaps instead it means pray like hell.