Myanmar and Dubai

Were now safely in Dubai. In our £80 a night 2 bedroomed. 2 bathroom, living room kitchen serviced apartment. It's a mad place here- why live in the desert in air conditioned bubbles. Is that what civilised society aspires too?

So Myanmar?

We both enjoyed it - from a travel snob viewpoint it was great to go when the country has just opened up to tourism and you get to see the 21st century view of the blank canvas.

On the positive side there is huge potential here not just for tourism . The country is large and has all of the ingredients - mountains, rivers, beaches and culture. The people are as ever very friendly and not at all angry about the repressed state they have been living in. And the road infrastructure is pretty good and should allow better travel then in the neighbours of Laos and Cambodia. The hotels are also pretty good although there are nowhere near enough of them. Ang and I kept thinking of the backpackers we saw queuing at the embassy for visas and wondered what on earth they would do here , as there is certainly no 'scene' here.

Three things for my memories that need improving.

Firstly Burmese food is poor- it's supposed to be a Thai Chinese blend but its not. It's very bland uninteresing food with little flavour. All of the group were glad to leave it behind. Menus are the same from place to place , not that there are many restaurants, and everything does taste the same.

The main cultural references are all temples and stuphas . Bit boring after a while. And you do wander around getting annoyed with the amount of money people spend and donate to the temples, the sheer amount of gold they donate and plaster on the ubiquitous statues of Budha. goodness knows how many huge reclining buddhas we saw but too many! they should spend the money on their drains and infrastructure and developing a rubbish collection system.

The poor dogs. Most animals in Burma have a purpose and are well looked after. Huge numbers of chickens, pigs, cows etc all attached to families. They generally look happy and well fed - even if their purpose is clearly defined as being food. But the poor old dogs are everywhere . Pretty much 95% of them all look well fed and they do usually belong to a family and pick up food as everyone is eating and living on the streets. But they obviously don't see vets so they have flees and are not sterilised so they are permanently in pup and the population is way too high. There needs to be less of them. However they do seem very happy and good natured and are well treated by the people. They wander around when you are eating at restaurants but I never saw a single dog pinch food from a table or a market stall - they are extremely good natured and wait for it to be put on the floor. And the interbreeding has created a single Asian mongrel dog wherever you go. Poor things.

Dubai

Back on Thursday, just eating and golfing in Dubai to go.

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