Yangon to Vientiane

I planned to have a massage this morning but the hotel massage wasn't open till 12 and we were checking out at 11:30.

I went for a walk, but the Sera Beauty Spa in the Lonely Planet Book either wasn't there anymore or was closed and not sign posted. No luck today, though I did have an interesting walk down some back streets of Yangon, past some old French Colonial houses surrounded by large gardens.

We had breakfast in our hotel room as there were smokers in the restaurant. The jams were delightful: homemade orange marmalade and a grapefruit jam, tangy and tasty. Our airport transfer was again filled with much talk of Myanmar, politics and the mystery of the government. Our transfer to Bangkok was delayed on take-off and was also further delayed on arrival; our pilot requested to reduce airspeed due to high traffic at Bangkok Airport.

Our flight to Vientiane was also delayed, and coupled with a very long wait for Visa on arrival our guide at Vientiane was forced to wait almost an hour for us. Our guide Mone was lovely and pleasant and transferred us directly to our hotel, the Don Chan Palace. We went to sleep pretty much on arrival, despite the karaoke night club music playing into the night.

Yangon

No touring today. After our 5:30 breakfast we met up with Phyo for the boat trip back to Nwang Shye, watching the sunrise along the way; a beautiful sight passing the many fishermen up early working hard to catch their fish.

Back in town we loaded up the car as the monks on their morning collection walked past.

The flight to Yangon took 45 minutes, passing over many mountain ranges and huge dams.

On arrival we were saved from losing our baggage by a kindly airport staffer as we assumed baggage collection was inside the terminal. Instead we had to go through a door onto the tarmac to collect our bags.

Arrival in Yangon

We flew into Bangkok airport whilst it was still dark; a full moon following us on our flight from Melbourne. The lights of Bangkok like jewels cast to the horizon.

Bangkok airport is huge; and new only being completed 2 years ago. We made our way to transit as our baggage was checked through to Yangon.

The distance between our arrival gate and departure gate was about one kilometre! Michelle took advantage of the many travelators. I’d eaten so much on the plane that I needed the exercise: having eaten two meals during a time that I would normally have been sleeping! Our first in-flight meal was Thai Fish Balls in spicy green curry, delicious whilst Michelle had the chicken pasta. For breakfast we both went for the cheesy omelette.

We had a very brief look in a newsagent, but I had no baht on me so I had to give the tempting salty durian chips a miss. We retired to gate E2A to await our flight to Yangon.