We all reluctantly dragged ourselves out of bed and caught the plane from Heho back to Yangon, arriving at an airport near the hotel before midday. we were booked into some day rooms ( is that suspicious?) so we had a base and a place to throw our bags whilst various groups of us headed off to the Airport during the day to head home or onwards.
Some of us decided to go to Sharky's - the fantastic delicatessen/cafe that Geoffrey had taken me to on the first day. For those of us used to lattes and coffees at regular intervals, we were pining for a decent cup, as it had been difficult to find elsewhere.
The fabulous Omnahr organised a decent taxi for us: one that was in reasonable shape at least. We arrived at Sharky's and ordered a coffee fast. Fabulous. We had time to fill so we ordered their gourmet version of a hamburger which looked too good to resist and tasted great. They specialise in slow cooked food, cheese made by the owner, ice cream made by his brother, crusty bread, and of course, great coffee.We spent a couple of hours enjoying the ambience and some superb photos on exhibition. We couldn't resist the temptation to try the ice cream and my chocolate hazelnut was as good as I've had anywhere. After buying a packet of bright coloured macaroons for Jenny who's stayed behind the doorman managed to get us a taxi.
So that's how we ended up with 4 of us squashed into a tiny - and I mean tiny! - 'cherry' taxi imported from China/Korea. From the outside it looked OK; shiny yellow duco, relatively modern. Inside the door panels were held together with contact, the seats were lumpy , the windows rattled and Anne and I, who were squeezed into the back with Jan in the middle, had to endure the door handles pressing into us: we locked the doors so we wouldn't fall out in the middle of the road! Quite a trip, with Kerryn in the front seat taking photos or our discomfort.
At one point we pulled up next to another taxi diver who grinned from ear to ear when he saw us all jammed in, and had a great chat to our driver probably along the lines of " How did you fit so many fat foreigners into that taxi?........
Eventually after we had revived ourselves with a swim and repacked our bags we farewelled various groups of the others as they set off for home and the 8 of us set off for Vietnam , arriving at the Hotel in Hanoi just in time for bed.
Omnahr didn't seem to think we could get ourselves through the departure process at the Airport so she hung around for ages waving and smiling like a maniac every time we achieved another step. We were so sorry to leave her as she had been such a wonderful companion, full of information about every aspect of Myanmar. Without her we would not have appreciated the history and development of the country.
I wondered whether we will ever be back but I really hope so.
Your sad-to-be-leaving correspondent
Dianne
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