Global Tour|I am in Myanmar - Naypyidaw
Athen's 2024 travel plans:
Now in Myanmar
May 6 ~ May 16 Grape Fang
May 16 ~ June 6 Xiban Fang
June 6 ~ July 6 France
July 6th ~ July 16th, Belgium
July 16 ~ July 20 卢森堡
July 20th ~ August 5th, Netherlands
August 5 ~ October 1 Canada (Quebec, Montreal, Calgary, Ottawa, Vancouver),
October 1st ~ October 30th West Coast (San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego, Portland, Seattle)
October 30 ~ November 30 South Korea (Seoul, Daegu, Busan, Daejeon, Gwangju, Incheon)
The Chinese face base along the way asks for a letter [high-five]
01
The emptiest capital in the world
Take a 6-hour bus ride to Naypyidaw, the world's most boring capital city.
I didn't plan to come here because I woke up late today and missed the trip from Yangon to Mandalay (a big city in northern Myanmar and a major jade trading town), and there are only two buses a day, one in the morning and one in the evening, and I missed the morning bus, which meant I had to wait for 8 hours for the evening bus.
I certainly couldn't wait, so I decided to change the route, first to the middle city of Naypyidaw, that is, the capital of Myanmar, which suddenly moved the capital in 2005, but in fact it was very depressed, it is said that the housing can accommodate 1 million people, and the actual population is estimated to be tens of thousands of people less than 100,000 people.
The bus to Naypyidaw stopped twice, once to eat and go to the toilet, once to check my identity, I used my passport, and the military police interrogated me for seven or eight minutes.
Probably to ask me which company I am (Chinese people who come to Naypyidaw will most likely be assumed to work in a Chinese company, otherwise why come to such a boring place!) ）
When the military police saw that I was on a tourist visa, he was stunned, and he said tourist? Visitor?
I said, yes.
There was a Burmese man next to me who could speak simple Chinese (not a Chinese face) to help me with a brief translation.
After passing the military checkpoint, it takes less than 30 minutes to reach the center of Naypyidaw.
I found the city with wide roads, but few cars on the road, just a tuk-tuk carrying me, and the whole street was very quiet.
There will be a hotel area in the city, I chose a hotel, the price was cut from 350 yuan to 250, the hotel seemed to be the only guest for me, very quiet.
I only learned that the price of foreigners is twice as expensive as that of locals!
Locals only need 60,000 (120 yuan), and foreigners have a minimum of 50 US dollars X 3400 (their exchange rate) = about 330 yuan.
No wonder I buy weird things on the streets of Myanmar, and I have to bargain later! For example, last time, mangosteen was from 2,500 kyats (5 yuan) a piece, and the counteroffer was 1,000 kyats (2 yuan), and when I went to the morning market, it was only 600 kyats (1.2 yuan)
There is never a bottom line for prices in Myanmar.
Even if you come to this city to visit, it is difficult to hail a taxi in this city, and you can't take a tuk-tuk.
02
Lost passport in Myanmar
This morning, after breakfast, I went back to my room to pack my luggage, and suddenly I found that I couldn't find my passport.
At first, I straightened out my emotions and hinted that I should not worry, it must be in a small bag, and I would definitely find it if I looked carefully.
For the next ten minutes I rummaged through every corner of all my backpacks and still couldn't find my passport.
The first thing that came to my mind was:
1️⃣ Did I not show my passport when I checked in last night? If I had given my passport to the front desk, the front desk would have returned it to me.
2️⃣ Could it be that my passport was accidentally lost on the road or bus when I checked it at the military checkpoint yesterday?
3️⃣ If I lose my passport on the bus, it will be difficult to do because I don't have a passport and now I can't even get out of Naypyidaw, because Naypyidaw has to check my passport when I go out of the city.
4️⃣ If you lose your passport, you have to go back to Yangon to apply for a travel permit and return to your home country.
5️⃣ Then all the U.S. visas, Schengen visas, and Canadian visas in my original passport are gone, which means that all my travel plans for this year are invalid...... All developed country visas must be re-applied.
The "cost of losing all kinds of passports" came to my mind, and the more I searched, the more hopeless I became, because I couldn't find my passport anywhere in my bag.
Still calm, I went to the bathroom and flushed my face.
I pinned my last hope on the hotel front desk that they would find my passport there.
I packed all my luggage and hurried to the front desk (the front desk is far away and you need to take a shuttle bus for 5 minutes), after arriving at the front desk, I asked the front desk in a little hurry, a Burmese girl, I said, is my passport at the front desk?
She nodded, and as if nothing had happened, she calmly took out my passport in the drawer.
At that moment, there was a feeling that the passport was still there!
But what surprised me even more was that the girl at the front desk was so calm, is there a rule in Myanmar for foreigners to press passports in hotels?
This morning's "lost passport incident" made me take better care of my passport, and losing my passport is troublesome! (I lost it once in Egypt in 2018, and that trip was almost over, and it was still very troublesome!) This time I just started my trip, and I haven't been to Europe and Canada yet! ）
03
Malaysia
After a beer last night, I chatted with the restaurateur, who speaks Chinese (about 35% communication rate) and English.
The overall sense of service of the Burmese people is very good, when I was eating, the table was on the lawn, he ordered a mosquito coil for me, the Burmese beer I bought in the supermarket, he saw it and took a cold beer glass directly, saying that you can drink it here.
He asked me where I came from.
When I said China, he started speaking some Chinese.
When asked, I found out that he had worked in a Chinese restaurant in Malaysia for 11 years, and he said that his chef was Chinese and usually spoke Chinese, so he could speak a lot of Chinese.
There are many workers in Myanmar who go to work in Malaysia, because the wages in Malaysia are really low, 400 yuan a month to work in a factory, 600 yuan for a confinement wife, and 300 yuan for parking lot security......
After returning from working in Malaysia for 11 years, he opened a restaurant in Myanmar, mainly serving Malaysian-Chinese style food.
In fact, the Chinese in Malaysia and Singapore are branches of Chinese culture, and the Chinese community in Malaysia is also worth studying, for example, in Papua Guinea, north of Australia, there are a large number of Malaysian Chinese engaged in the timber business.