A Day of Travel

December 26 - I had not mentioned the included breakfasts at the Sonalong Hotel in Siem Reap.  They were exceptional.  The four of us sat at a pool-side table and ordered off the menu.  Today, just as we were leaving, I turned over the "American" menu (which had faced me each previous breakfast) and found the local menu, full of great breakfast dishes including yogurt and fruit which I had been craving.  Everyone laughed that I had just figured out that there were more menu choices on the back.  But I didn't care--I got my yogurt.  Fruit in season is papaya, dragon fruit (beautiful pinkish-red globe with green offshoots (you have to be there), bananas and mangoes.  The others had omelets, toast and fruit plates.

We were then ushered to tuk tuks for our trip to the airport, a few miles away.  The hotel staff came to the curb to wave goodbye.  We now headed to Myanmar (Burma), the last leg of our 6 week trip in SE Asia.  Our flights took us from Siem Reap to Bangkok and then to Yangon (formerly, Rangoon).  A delayed flight in Bangkok made us an hour late arriving in Yangon, but a driver met us and took us to our hotel, just a mile from the airport.  We had arranged this hotel because we had an early morning flight to Mandalay.  We had received word that the flight left at 7:15 am meaning we would have to leave the hotel at 6:00 am.  Once we arrived at the hotel, however, we learned that we were on the 6 am flight, which meant we would have to leave the hotel at 4:45 am.  Another early morning!

At the hotel we also learned that the restaurant was closed.  Since we had flown on Air Asia, Asia's Allegiant Airlines, no food or water came with the flight (without a charge).  So we were moderately hungry.  We thought we understood the front desk to say that we could order room service by phone.  When we tried, room service also said they were closed (???).  So we went to the front desk to clarify.  We were at once invited to a party.  We thought it was someone's birthday...and we were crashing it...and not nearly as well dressed as others walking in the direction we were told to go.  But when we got to the balloons and other festivities, we found that it was a 20th celebration of the opening of the Myanmar Life Hotel, where we were staying.  The buffet was open to all hotel guests and other honorees.  It was an unexpected treat to be included.

Speaking of eating - Up until Siem Reap, none of the 4 of us had any stomach-diarrhea problems.  However, on our last day in Siem Reap (some 10 hours after the good-tasting lunch at the shady restaurant), Roger, Kyle and Mark experienced some difficulties.  They all took medicine and limited their eating to plain white rice, broth and bananas.  We'll see how that works.