Quotidien Rhythms
Trip Start
Oct 11, 2009
1
8
9
Trip End
Mar 18, 2010
Yangon,
Yangon,
Myanmar
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Exercise
Whether a morning or sunset dip in the small pool in our guest house, or a trip to one of the larger hotel pools for laps, swimming is very much part of our life here. Although it is supposed to be the cool season, the heat has not yet broken, and at the end of the day, the cool water is a wonderful contrast to the sweat and dust accumulated over the day. While I have stuck with the pool, Daniel has been more adventurous, experimenting with Yoga and Burmese kick-boxing.
"I had my first kick boxing class the other day with the former Myanmar kick-boxing champion
Dawnover the pool from our balcony
. Not perhaps where I expected to find myself, and after my performance, probably not where my trainer expected to see me either. His gym, if it can be called that, is an oil-stained external garage with a tin roof, no walls, one large mirror and three tyres used for "warm up" or 20 minutes of bouncing up and down from stance to stance. Between that and yoga, trying to make an impact on my hamstrings."Food
We discovered the morning 'kitchen market’ for affordable produce (we are addicted to pomelos – go through about 10 a week), eggs and some very fresh (if slightly scrawny) chickens and fish. Our favourite starter is hard-boiled quail eggs (20 for $1) served with roasted cumin, though without a mortar and pestle, we’re still grappling with the best way to crush the cumin. For a treat, there is delicious bread and amazing black truffle cheese (with gold leaf and loads of truffle) from Sharky’s (the shop of the Burmese-Swiss foodie). When we cook, the temperature in the house rises dramatically, so we often have to retreat to our air-conditioned room upstairs to cool off. We’re also slowly making our rounds in the local restaurant scene. We’ll write up some reviews at the end of our Myanmar sojourn.
Shopping
As our time here is drawing to a close, we’ve been collecting recommendations of the best places to shop (mostly window-shop) for high quality handicrafts. Last week we headed out to Mangosteen Mansions, the showroom of the Patrick Robert, the man behind the interiors of Buddha Bar in Paris and Dublin. He designs beautiful teak furniture with Burmese influences and very clean, modern lines and also uses some very innovative veneers for trays and tables: eggshells, cinnamon, and ray skin in addition to the more traditional mother-of-pearl. We’ve been to the tailor to have some additional tropics-friendly attire made up and are also on the hunt for a few rocks, as Myanmar’s mines are a rich source of rubies, sapphires, jade and other precious and semi-precious stones.
Tomorrow is a public holiday and we are off to the luminous Shwedagon Pagoda, the brilliant gold spire we see daily in Yangon but have not yet seen up close.
Comments
Your adventurous spirit of local food is an inspiration! Given Melora's experience with parasites, I trust you are being careful. Keep the notes coming - its great to get a sense of what you are thinking as well as what you are seeing.
LYL
D
Not to worry - Daniel is unbelievably careful on this dimension.