Bagan to Ngwe Saung

Bagan to Ngwe Saung...la plage quoi!

The bus which was meant to pick me up at 5.30 from my hostel turned out to be 10 min early. Luckily I was in a restaurant in front of it and the owner of the guesthouse found me easily. So a bit of a panic, especially that right at that moment I was realising that I had a virus on my netbook and external hard drive..aaarrgHhhH! Can't believe this is happening, I looked online how to sort it out and hopefully it'll be fairly simple.

So..big rush, no time to pack properly, to organise myself, no time for my cigarette or even go to the toilet. I just had to go. And here I was, in the bus for another night trip. The thing is that it's hard enough to fall asleep, but as soon as you do, there is a toilet or food stop and everybody got to get off the bus, at 8, 11 and 1 in the morning, a pain in the bum but always good though when you're desperate for the toilet.

Around 3, quarter to, to be exact the bus stopped again and this time everybody got off and unloaded their suitcases and stuff...was I already in Yangon? I've been told I'll arrive round 4-5am. I looked around, it looked like India...so yes, I was definitely in Yangon. Damn! 3H to wait until my next bus!

I found out that the bus going to Ngwe Saung was departing from another bus terminal, miles away, so I took a shared taxi, while I put my bag in the car I noticed that my bag of shoes that I attached quickly to my bag wasn't there... Noooo, I can't loose anymore shoes!!! Thought it must have fell in the bus, since it was badly attached at the last minute. Went back to the bus company, tried to explain, they called the driver as the bus already left. Panic, panic, went back to the taxi to double check, and there they were, they fell at the bottom of the cover of my bag. Ooops! Matt will laugh, I always do that!

Panic at 3 in the morning over (not the best feeling at that time of the day) I jumped on the cab for the other bus station. The office wasn't even open! Had to wait and finally got my ticket for the shittiest bus EVER, it stank so much and was so sticky I didn't dare touching anything.

As we got closer and closer it started pouring down with rain!!! Haven't had any rain the whole trip and it's when I want to go to the beach that it starts, how unlucky is that??

The bus dropped me off at Panthein where I jumped into another bus, to go to my final destination. I was worried to only come across expensive resorts, but no! Managed to find a rather lovely room in a bungalow for $10, it even got a bathroom! Yoohoo! No sea views though. But at least the rain stopped!

First thing I did was putting on my bikini and dive into the sea. I was so surprised by the beach, it's much better than I expected. A huge beach with forest of coconut trees and no one around! It's so big that there are loads of space between each guesthouse/resorts, just coconut trees and white sand everywhere, it's magical. Unfortunately, I'm sure that if I come back in 10 years it would be a very different story!

After my dip, the clouds came back and it started raining again but not for long so I headed toward the village which is about 3km from where I'm staying. Had some huge prawns for lunch/dinner, it was yummy. Just hoping I won't get sick again....

Loads of people have said they are never sick, in India, Cambodia and all that but here everybody seems to have had a bad experience at some point... I have to say the hygiene here needs to improve a bit! Cleaning a dirty wet table with a feathery duster, using a cup from a tray, drink out of it and putting it back on the tray without washing it is not the way forward... and no hand washing at all. No wonder why I got sick.