23.11-2014 Myanmar, Yangon, day 5

Minglaba (=hello)

Today was a "meet friends and relatives" day. 

I had arranged to meet my old Burmese friend Peter for lunch and as you already know the traffic is the important  thing to consider when going to meetings in Yangon. So we had organised the car to pick us up from the hotel at 11.00am to go to Inya lake hotel.

Inya Lake hotel entrance sign

This hotel is actually the first hotel I stay when coming to Burma early 90's. Comparing hotel from those days to today, it is like different world. Those days I was probably only foreigner staying in maybe 1 star hotel, where as it is now 5 star hotel,

The traffic? Well I forgot it it is Sunday and no schools so roads look like this:

Traffic at Sunday, who would have guessed

Needless to say, we sure were in time there.

I met with Peter and his family. Little later joined Nyig, who came 2 weeks earlier from England. As we hadn't met for years with Peter and I met Nyig first time, we had quite a bit to discuss.

Nyig, me and Peter

Buffet lunch was excellent including everything from Pasta to sushi and as I love Japanese food, I mostly had sashimi and sushi. As it should, house offered champagne during the lunch.

Assorted sushi

We also had some lovely company with us in our  lunch.

Local and visiting beauties

So cute

Grand buffet restaurant hall

After long 3 hour lunch, we headed to Thamada hotel to make a contract for following months, that we will stay here in Yangon. After 4 days negotiating with maybe 10 hotels, we got best deal with them comparing the price/quality. Problem here in Yangon currently is that whole housing market is overheated due the fact that there was suddenly last year a huge flow of foreigners coming in as the country opened up more. Simply there was not enough high end housing for all the new demanding people and the market overheated. At the moment the prices are at its peak and my estimation is that when some new housing and hotel projects here are ready soon, the market will take a deep dive. So waiting a year might make a huge difference what you pay here for short or long term living.

Ice cream car in the entrance to pagoda and port

As the long term staying was now settled, we headed back to hotel to change for evening dinner with some relatives. As the pagoda at the entrance to the port was very busy at Sunday evening, we were naturally little late for the dinner and everyone else had already arrived. It was nice to meet some of my wife's relatives and dinner was pretty noisy, which is normal here.

We had lot of food, local delicacies with soft drinks.

Me and relatives posing

Burmese celebration e dinner table

Roasted duck (me like ;)

Shrimp in curry sauce

Tempura style shrimp

Chicken vegetable dish

Shrimp and vegetable dish

Mushrooms and chicken

Mutton curry (my favourite lamb was so tender)

Boneless crab with local spices

Fish head soup with quill egg

"Jaffa a'la Asia"

"Red bull"

Sitting on alien lap and no crying, so brave

Leaving dinner party (darkness comes at 5.30 so it was pitch black at 8.00pm)

After dinner was over, some cousins dropped us to hotel and we show them around the Finnish ship.

Posing in giant chair at the floating hotel

After busy day, I had a skype chat with mother and some friends and retired to bed.
Tomorrow the plan is to relax a bit and I have no idea what I am going to write but hey, it is Myanmar and anything can happen.. 25th we have a plan to go to Immigration and extend my visa for longer stay. Will be interesting visit. 26th is the moving day from this hotel to next one. Stay tuned, as i will post at least something every day. What I am planning atm is to visit some beaches, famous rock pagoda, golf course, open sea fishing trip and Pegu city in coming weeks etc... Gnite all...
Pasi