Last day in Myanmar

We got up at 6:00 to get on the 6:30 bus into town.  The "new port" is an hour away from town, and I wanted a Mayanmar breakfast.  We arrived in the town square at 7:30 and flagged a taxi.  When you flag a taxi, then you need to explain where you are going and negotiate a price before getting in.  Sometimes the customer suggests the price, sometimes the driver.

We were heading for "Lucky 7", a popular tea house (according to the Lonely Planet guides).  It was not too far, so I suggested 2000 kyats -- $2.00.  That was good with him, and he drove us right there.  There were lots of older boys as servers in "Lucky 7" t-shirts, and we were seated towards the front.  I ordered "mohinga" -- a sort of soup and noodles with crunchy fried things that have peas in them.  I had eaten it before at other places, but not for breakfast.  Will had Samosas.

As we were getting ready to leave, after paying our 80 cents, I said hello to a couple of women who had recently arrived across the table from us.  One answered in good English, and we began a coversation.  Turns out that she and her husband run the Karaweik M & Travel & Tours Co.  "M" stands for Myanmar, "J" stands for Japan.  She arranges for tours by Japanese tourists -- speaks Japanese, and has been to Kyoto several times!  Her son goes to college in New Jersey.  Small world.

They introduced us to an adjacent couple -- he is a ship captain, and could not bring his ship into port until our ship cleared out!

We were headed for the zoo -- so they offered to drop us off, and pick us up again after an hour.  The zoo had a few cassowary -- look it up.  They are ostrich sized with brightly colored heads, and look just like dinosaurs.  They have fierce looking feet, that they apparently wield like a velociraptor.

Doing "zoo" is a little different in Myanmar.  At the hippos, there was a woman selling baskets of leaves that you could feed to the hippos.  I bought a basket and shared it with the kids who were nearby so we could all feed the hippos.  Then for the otters, I bought a basket of fish and tossed them to the otters with a metal spoon.  And for the elephants, I bought seven sections of sugar cane.  I shared them with a monk and 2 kids so we could all feed them.

Because of the timing, we did not get to ride an elephant, or get our picture taken sitting on a bench with a bear, or have the monkeys all over us -- all experiences reported by other zoo-goers.  The couple who we met apologized that there were not too many animals.  The government has build a new capital somewhere remote, and they took many of the animals for the new zoo in the new capital.  In fact, the new city is too expensive for anyone except government people to actually live in.  Business people need to go there to deal with the government.

The gracious couple picked us back up after we spent an hour at the zoo, and took us to visit the school that their son had gone to.  Actually, he went to public school during the week, and then went Saturday and Sunday to this international school since he was 5.  They said that public school was very hard because there were always sheets of information for him to memorize for the tests.  His class size in public school was around 50 per class.  The public school fees are around $40 year, less for younger children.

Others had explained that the teachers offered lessons in their homes in the evenings for a fee.  For example, the teacher might teach ABC, then they could go to her home in the evening, for a fee, to learn DEF.

They drove us back to the bus in the town square -- we got the noon bus -- last bus back to the ship before "on ship time" of 14:00.  If you miss "on ship time", you are given "dock time" in the next port.  We arrived back at the ship on time, walked up the 47 steps of the gangway, got our bags inspected, went through the metal detector, and swiped our ID cards to get admission to the ship.  Last step was to return our passports to the ship's purser.

Lunched on board through the regular cafeteria line.  Graded student's exams.  Watched the ship pull out at 16:00.  Put on a new longyi skirt for dinner.  Met with our "extended family" group of students for dinner .  Faculty meeting.  And now to finish preparing for tomorrow's classes.

.......a day in the life of Semester at Sea.  Lots to do, and lots of fun!