Time warp

When you fly into a city at night, it's difficult to get a feel for the lay of the land. But one thing about Yangon's (Rangoon's) international airport was apparent: there were no other planes. After going through immigration the first order of business was the FEC's. A Czech chick I met on the plane, Marie, wanted to see if we could talk them down to $100 between the two of us, but I didn't want any. So we told the lady at the counter we wanted zero FEC's. Then all hush-hush like she asked us where we were going, asked us not to tell anybody, then asked for $10 each. I got out a ten, but Marie said she didn't have any money, so I stupidly got out a five, all I had handy. When we said that was all we had the lady waved us through. Turns out Marie was trying to see if she would have taken ten. Oh well, now we don't have to worry about Monopoly money.

We split a taxi to the Golden Smile Inn, in central Yangon, which was OK, but $6 each, a bit expensive. It did have air-con and en suite, though. Then we went out to explore a little. Yangon, the capital, shuts down at 10 pm, so the streets were mostly empty, save for a few cars and some kids playing football (or soccer if you're American) in the streets. We walked to Sule Paya, a small gold pagoda I thought was the huge Shwegadowa Paya. We noticed the end of the street was barricaded and guarded and as we approached with cameras drawn the guard stood at attention. Quick! Hide the cameras!