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Haircuts and hanging out
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We got up bright and early to leave Mandalay on the morning of the 23rd, and met our trishaw driver for the final time.....to say thank you for our business he bought me a beautiful conical painted hat. How incredibly sweet the Burmese are - here is a chap that probably doesn't even usually make more than a dollar a day, and yet he is thoughtful and generous enough to buy me a gift. What a really wonderful place this is.
We headed to Pyin U Lwin for the night (I will write more in the next blog about the place, as we stayed there on the way to and the way back from Hsipaw). Yesterday morning our hotel taxi drove us to meet the bus for Hsipaw....except it never appeared to arrive, so we hopped on the back of a pick up truck instead. What a hoot - it was (I think) a work truck heading up north and all the guys in the back were labourers. They were happy to let us hop in though, which was great - except I felt a little like a dog with my head out the car window.....open pick up trucks are indeed a wee bit breezy. Still, they tried their best to play tour guide, and one guy shared his whiskey with Malcolm.
Hsipaw itself is a nice town - easy to walk about and explore. We went to a popcorn factory which was really interesting (although not making popcorn at the moment - they are making potato chips until June) as it was actually in a woman's home. She took a real shine to Malx and he visited her to show her some pictures of Scotland.
We also found a really nice coffee shop run by an Australian lady. It seems like a very out of the way place for an expat to settle, but she seems to really enjoy it there. Although she did comment that she was desperate for a cold beer - the town hadn't had electricity for a week by the time we were there. (Its actually quite common here to not have electricity - most people use generators, but only sparingly.)
And Malx got a haircut and shave for a dollar. I was rather jealous (not of the shave!) so I decided that I would get my hair trimmed as well. Hmmm....... I went to a lovely little hairdressing shop, and the owner had a perm, and was very happy to cut my hair. We discussed only about 1/2 an inch off the bottom, no problem. My hair is now between 3 and 8 inches shorter and has thousands of layers (that I had just finally almost gotten rid of!) and is barely long enough to pull back into a ponytail. ARGH!! Still, in her defense, it is a wonderful haircut, and looks really nice when its down now - but its five zillion degrees here - that's never going to happen! And it was also a very reasonable price - $0.50....and just think I have to pay 30 pounds to get a haircut I don't like in Scotland. :o)
We really mostly just relaxed and hung out in Hispaw for a couple of days. Then we headed back to Pyin U Lwin, which I will write about next!
K & M
Where I stayed:
Mr Charles Guesthouse
Latest Comments (2)
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hair (reply)
Mar 31, 2008 15:26 EST by felder10
50 cents for a hair cut!! my god!! my goodness!! desperate for a hair cut but im skinned so got super long but super scraggly hair!!
got my new cambodian bag from mum the other day, thanks so much guys!! all my pals say they love it!!
come home soon!!
feels like it's been ages now!!!!
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dfv (reply)
Mar 28, 2008 16:32 EST by oggie-e
is it always difficult to keep your hair in order out there? xxxxx
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