Yangon Myanmar

Well, I know this is a post that I suppose to blog long long time ago, but I don't have the time until recently.

I went to Myanmar last December, right after my Bangkok trip. The reason that I went to Myanmar is because the SEAgames were held there too, so I thought I could go catch the opening ceremony and some games while I was there.

While in Singapore
Before flying to Myanmar, I need to get to a tourist visa from the Myanmar Embassy in Singapore.
This is the procedure to get the visa:

1. Go to their website to get a appointment reservation. Follow through the steps and you will receive a queue number for the day you made your reservation.
2. Prepare all the documents as stated on the website
3. Prepare SGD35.00 for the tourist visa and additional SGD10.00 for their service charge. This is the first time I have to pay for service charge at an embassy. I would rather them tell me that that visa cost SGD45.00. I wasn't aware of the service charge until I am making the payment at the embassy because they didn't mention it online, so please take note.
4. On the day of appointment, you can go down at anytime between 0930hr to 1200hr regardless your queue number. When I was there, it doesn't matter what queue number you have, everybody just cut queue. The trick is be there late and NOT early. If you have a queue number that is earlier than the number shown on the counter you can just cut queue to be the next one in line because your number is way in ahead. That's how they work.
5. After the application, the visa could be collected in the afternoon on the day itself from 1630hr to 1730hr.
6. For anymore information on visa application, you can visit their website.
7. Don't bother finding money changer to change your money to Kyat (Myanmar currency) because there isn't many money changer that has Kyat for exchange. Simply exchange for USD and convert to Kyat while you were at Myanmar. Most tourist places in Myanmar accept USD as well. You can conveniently take exchange rate to be USD1.00=1000Kyat for easy calculation

Myanmar, Yangon

Day 1

I took Air Asia from Bangkok Don Mueang Airport to Yangon International Airport. To go to Myanmar, it is always good to go with someone who can speak Burmese because many locals there doesn't really speak other languages. Luckily for me, I have CT who can speak Burmese with me, so I felt safe there.

Yangon International Airport

Look at the crowd there at the airport. I was told that because Aung San Suu Kyi is coming back to Myanmar as well about the same time from Australia. So all the supporters were there to welcome her. Luckily for me, I had someone there to pick us up from the airport when we touched down if not we would have been caught in the crowd too. We had the chauffeur for the next for days in Yangon as well. 

When we touched down it was about 1900hr, so we decided to kick start our tour that night by visiting  the famous Shwe Dagon Temple.

This is an iconic place that you must go when you are at Yangon. You need not be a Buddhist to go there, I am not a Buddhist for your information. To enter the temple, tourist need to pay a small sum of money for entrance. The place itself is filled with so many buddha statues that if you were to pray to all of them, I doubt you can do it in 1 day. If you have the free time and wish to know more about the culture and stories, there are freelance tour guides there that you can hire them to bring you around the temple.

Map of Shwe Dagon Temple

There isn't many photos for me to upload here because it was night time and most of my photos were badly taken since I am not using any fantastic camera there.

After the temple, we headed to a restaurant called Pan Swel Taw for dinner. It is located in Ahlone Township.

Pan Swel Taw Restaurant

It was a pretty decent restaurant selling Chinese cuisine. The pricing is decent as well, but it is considered on the expensive side for the locals though.
Here is what I have ate at the restaurant:

Grilled Prawn

Tom Yum Soup

Stir Fried Mix Vegetables

Day 2

In the morning, CT woke me up so that we could go to Ahlone Market for the noodle salad that she craved for.

Noodle Salad

The market is relatively dark in the inside so I have to use flash to take a picture of the dish. When preparing the salad, the lady actually mixed all the ingredient together using her bare hands, so I am not very sure how hygienic it would be but I am lucky that nothing happened to me.

Lady preparing noodle salad with bare hands

That aside, I like the salad. It suits my taste bud very well. I know Peninsula Plaza in Singapore sells this as well. So you could get it without travelling all the way to Myanmar. Of course, the ones in Singapore will be much more hygienic and more costly. you can also find other other food that I had there in Singapore as well.

The salad is just an appetizer, we headed to this place called Lucky Seven for more breakfast.

Pae Palatar (Prata with bean paste)

Chicken Prata

Both dishes that I tried is quite similar to the Roti Prata in Singapore. The difference is the gravy that they go along with. I preferred the chicken prata because the chicken taste very good and goes well with the prata. The pae palatar isn't that bad either, the prata is fried till crispy and the bean paste taste good as well.

Being someone who likes to swim, I went to the Kokine Swim Club for a tour.

This place is actually a club mainly for the expats to swim and gym. So you actually need to have membership to enter. I didn't go there to swim, but I requested them to allow us in for a while to view the place. The people there were nice enough to let us in for a quick peek.

After that, we dropped by the SEAgames Expo since it is along the way to see what they have there. I will not blog much about the SEAgames here as this post is about my trip Myanmar. I will blog about it in another post.

Next stop is another must go place in Yangon, Bogyoke Aung San Market.  It is located in the city center.

Bogyoke Aung San Market

Inside of the market

Here's a little history of the place:

This place is named after Aung San Suu Kyi's Father. "Bogyoke" in Burmese means general. Her father used to be a national hero who fight for the freedom of the country, and this place was named after him.

This place is filled with Burmese clothing, jades, and gems now. Anyway, Myanmar is well known for their jades and gems, so if you are intending to get any, this is the place you should go.

Former Myanmar Port Authority

Beside the market stands the former Myanmar Port Authority. There isn't anybody using the building at the moment, so it is empty, but it sure looks nice on the outside.

Raw Lotus Seed

While shopping, we bought the raw lotus seed to bite on. It taste like those peas that we usually eat.

After all the shopping (I didn't get anything from there though), we headed to the famous Shwe Pu Zun Bakery House.

Shwe Pu Zun Bakery house

I was told that this shop used to be just a small bakery, and because of it's delicious breads, they made it to where they were today. They do have a wide variety of bread, cakes and pastry. I cannot take any picture in there because it wasn't allowed. We then headed to the cafe next door (which is also owned by them), to try their popular koolfee.

Strawberry Koolfee

Chocolate Koolfee

Cake Ice Cream

Koolfee is similar to ice cream just that it is done the Indian way. To me, it doesn't taste fantastic but it was a good to have on a hot day that day.

After relaxing in the cafe enjoying the air conditioning for a while, we dropped by another iconic tourist attraction, Karaweik Palace.

Karaweik Palace

This place looks very grand and it is a restaurant with international buffet. The price isn't cheap because it is a tourist attractions. We decided not to eat here partly because of the price and we were not in the mood for buffet as well. I have heard good reviews about the place, so I guess the food is pretty good.

Not having dinner at the Karaweik Palace, we decided to have our dinner at a roadside stall.

Kyay Oh

Kyay Oh Si Chat

Both dishes that we ordered is called Kyay Oh, just that Si Chat means "without soup" in Burmese. This is the Myanmar version of meat ball noodle. Look at their servings of meatball in each bowl, there are more meatballs than the noodle. I love their portion of meat. This was totally awesome, satisfying serving of meat. 

Hanging packed food on the wall

I find this rather interesting. The stall actually used the wall to hang packed food so that the customers can pick it up later. It is quite a brilliant idea that i don't see in Singapore.

Shortly after dinner, I started vomiting and diarrhea. I was admitted into the hospital for the rest of the night. I was suspected to have food poisoning. Thinking back, it might be the ice cream that I ate since it was the only thing that I ate that matches the timing of my vomit and diarrhea. The Kyay Oh was not digested because I vomited them out and the breakfast was too long ago for me to vomit only at night. This is only my guess, it might not have been the ice cream, so don't sue me for any accusation please. 

Day 3

I shall skip the whole part of my hospitalization which was not pleasant and I only got discharge in the afternoon. For the remaining of the day, I was resting and not being able to eat much. I just drank plenty of water.

Day 4
When I woke up in the morning, CT decided that I shouldn't be eating anything oily since I just recover so we went for dim sum.

The style of serving dim sum is different from Singapore as well. In the restaurant that we went, all the dim sum were actually served to the patrons so that they do not need to make any orders. The untouched dim sum were then returned and only those dim sum eaten were counted and paid for.

We went back to the city center again and explore the remaining area that we have not covered. Because I have just recovered, I was still too weak to walk a lot. So we went to the Thiripyitsaya Sky Bistro located at level 20 of Sakura Tower. Unlike Singapore, Myanmar does not have many high rise building. Level 20 is considered high over there and I could see the whole city from there. It was a nice sight.

Club Sandwich

I ordered their club sandwich to eat and it was delicious. The wedges were quite little though, but it's fine since I can't eat much either.

We continued exploring the area after a short rest and we found this temple located in the middle of the road.

Sule Temple

We found it interesting that this temple is actually located in the middle of the road, so we decided to go in and have a look. There was quite a lot of tourist inside as well. For this temple, unlike Shwe Dagon temple, I did not have to pay to enter.

After that I went back to rest as we were travelling out of Yangon later that night.

I will continue my remaining trip in another post.

Continuation of the post:
Bagan Myanmar (Part 2)
Mandalay, Pyin Oo Lwin and Back to Yangon Myanmar (Part 3)

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Kampong Lorong Buangkok

Over the years, there have been many people talking about the last surviving kampong (village) in Singapore and I have heard about it quite a number of times over the years. So I decided to make a trip down to the area to see the kampong before it disappears.

Getting there
The nearest bus stops are "Opp Ch Of St. Vincent De Paul" and "Ch Of St. Vincent De Paul". The buses that go to the bus stops are 70, 70M, 103 and 854.

Kampong Lorong Buangkok
The kampong is rather distinct. When you are there, you know you are at the right place because that's the only kampong. That make sense right?

At the entrance, you will see this signboard. If you don't, you might not be at the right place.

D.I.Y. Swing

Near the signboard, I discovered this chair hanging on the tree. An intelligent guess would be this is a makeshift swing. I didn't dare to try the swing though.

Walking in, i saw this nicely painted house. I like the colour combinations. It feels like a kampong house with a modern touch.

In contrast, this house looks more rundown. But this house belongs to the landlord here.

Some of the paths seems to lead to nowhere, but I did went on and explore all the routes. Somehow they will lead back to the kampong. So feel free to explore when you are there, but take note that some routes require a little bit of bashing through.

The place is pretty quiet, so I don't know if all the houses were occupied. Anyway, check out their signboard. Their postal code is 1954 (4 digit), compared to the current 6 digit post code.

From left: Malay lady resident, Me, Landlord, KC

As we explore, we were lucky to see some residents of the kampong so we decided to approach them and we started talking. The people were very nice. The landlord was there to collect rental from the old Malay lady. I bet you can't believe how much is the rental fee. It is just SGD2.10! The landlord told us that the rental fee has always been this amount since her father's time till now. That is pretty awesome right? The landlord also told us about her past and it was pretty interesting and few hours just passed very quickly.

The Malay lady could only speak Malay and I couldn't understand it, so the landlord had to translate for us. The Malay lady insisted that we need to take pictures with even number of people, as odd number is not good. Luckily, we have even number.

The hand print can found right outside the old Malay lady house. This hand print belongs to her son back in 1995.

There were some wooden clogs as well. It has been a long long time since I see all these things.

After the long hours of chatting, we continued to explore the remaining places.

We spotted some houses were drying the leaves. I am not sure what these leaves could be used for though. If anyone of you know, maybe you could provide me with the answer.

Behind one of the houses, they have this huge garden filled with pots and flowers. It was a very pretty sight.

Right at the back of the kampong is a park connector. I was told that it leads to Sengkang Swimming Complex. If you look carefully, you will see that on the right side of the park connector is where the kampong is located. Across the canal, the houses are bungalows! Such a huge difference in housing.

Overall, it is a good experience at the kampong. I would probably go back and visit the landlord when I am free since she is such a nice lady. It is also good to get away from the usual urban city and relax in a rural site once in a while.

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Nathan City Race 2014

I went for the Nathan City Race last weekend (23 Mar 2014) because I think it was pretty fun. So for those who does not know what is this race about, here is a brief outline of the race:

• The race has a few distance
• Mini (~5km)
• Short (~15km)
• Mid (~25km)
• Long (~45km)
• Participants can join a individual or as a team (6 max)
• There is no route for the race, only checkpoints
• Participants will be given map on the day to plan their route
• The checkpoints to go to is written on the bib
• Participants can choose to go to any checkpoint in any order

Other information, you can check out their website. 

Before Race

I thought this race seems fun, since it's like Amazing Race.  It wasn't a really cheap race though, it cost SGD48.00 per pax for mid distance, but I decided to go ahead and try this race since I have't had this kind of race before. So I gathered a team of 6 and we signed up for the race.

My impression for the race went bad when I went for the race pack collection. 

Reasons:

1. The collection venue is located at some warehouse near MacPherson, which is super out of the way for me since I don't stay anywhere nearby, but I was still fine with it.
2. There was no goodie bag given at the collection; all they had was the event tee and bib for the participants. This is the first time I joined a race that doesn't give any freebies.
3. Because we joined as a team, I collected the shirt and bib for my team, that is 6 people by the way. So they handed 6 shirts and 6 bibs just like that. That was quite bulky so I asked for a carrier, and I got rejected. My first thoughts were "What? you have a shop here and you tell me you don't even have a plastic bag?" But that's fine, because I had brought a bag along, just that it was fully filled when I put them all in the bag. 

During Race

Our race starts only at 0830hr at Marina Barrage. We decided to take public transport since there is a chance that there will not be enough parking lot. Shuttle bus was provided near the Financial Centre, so we took the shuttle bus. It's either I's lucky or their bus service is good. There's a bus waiting when we reached there so we just board it and it drove off right after we board. Because of the efficiency of the bus service, we reached at the Barrage about 0730hr, so we have a lot of time to chill. 

The information sheet says we need to check in order to collect the map so I went to the information counter to asked where do I have to go. Guess what, the lady at the counter ignore me and continue talking to her friends. I was very pissed off then, so I asked in a very hostile manner the second time, only this time she replied me. This made my impression of the race worse.

The check in time for the mid distance team is 0800hr so we took a group photo first while waiting.

Left to Right: Thom, TT, Flying Panda, CT, LP and TF

So our team is made up of 3 couples. The first couple is the Thom and TT, then the second pair is me(Flying Panda) and CT, and last pair is LP and TF. TT look like she forgot to wear a bottom.

The check in is 30 minutes before the flag off so we were given the time to plan our route. The checkpoint for mid distance were 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8.

As we can go to the checkpoint in any sequence, our sequence will be checkpoint 5, 8, 6, 4 then 7.

First Checkpoint: Buddha Tooth Relic Temple

First thing first, to get out of Marina Barrage, there is only one way, so all the teams went the same way as us. We cut through Gardens by the Bay all the way till Marina Financial Centre.

Along the way, the girls were so aggressive that they destroyed the road. 

Going to Buddha Tooth Relic Temple is quite straight forward, we just used Pinnacle@Duxton as a landmark and we headed right to it. I totally forgot to take a picture while we were at the first checkpoint. We just had a quick drink and we headed off to the next checkpoint

Second Checkpoint: Labrador Park

This checkpoint is quite far away. It took us quite a while to reach there since we are walking. Before the race starts, we have all agreed that this race is going to be a relax one, with lots of walking and eating, since some of us here didn't train for it and it is ~25km.

Heading down Neil Road and Kampong Bahru Road, we reached Vivocity and we went by the walkway along Keppel Bay

With Superstar Virgo

I think we made the right choice by going via the walkway because we get to see lots of yachts and nice scenery. On top of that, it was quite windy. I saw some groups continued along Telok Blangah Road, and that is the longer route.

This time at the checkpoint, I remembered to take a photo!

Checkpoint 8: Labrador Park

Wondering why my team is only left with 5 people? One of them decided to take off without us to be our path finder. 

By the time we were here, it's about 1100hr. All of us were hungry, so we planned a lunch stop somewhere along the route. After decided the route, we started walking again.

Third Checkpoint: Shaw House

This checkpoint is expected since Shaw is one of the sponsors for this race. 

So we cut through the HDBs and went 79 Telok Blangah Drive Food Centre for lunch because we heard there are nice food there.

79 Telok Blangah Drive Food Centre

Tiong Bahru Shark Meat Lor Mee

The words "shark meat" attracted me because I don't see this sold anywhere else. So I decided to order this.

The lor mee is pretty decent. The meat is battered and fried till crispy. It does taste different from the usual fish. Shark meat taste very good and I like the texture. On top of the shark meat, there are quite a variety of ingredients inside. To get this for just SGD3.00 is very worth it. I would definitely like to have it again some day.

After a full lunch, our speed became more of strolling rather than walking. We were surprised that given our speed, we could still catch up with other groups, so we just contribute it to the fact that we took a lot of shortcuts cutting through all the HDBs while other teams did not. 

Checkpoint 6: Shaw House

Finally, a checkpoint with air conditioning. We stayed at this place for quite a while to chill before moving on.

Forth Checkpoint: Sri Thendayuthapani Temple

The remaining checkpoints are relatively close. I know the route to the temple quite well because I just went there for a friend's wedding dinner the day before. It is still fresh in the memory, so no map required. Some of them were talking about getting Gong Cha so we made the wish come through as we stop by 313@Somerset to get Gong Cha

Gong Cha

Again, we forgot to take picture at the checkpoint because all of us are so excited to move to our last checkpoint and we can head back to the finishing line.

Fifth Checkpoint: Masjid Sultan Mosque

Walking pass Fort Canning Road, it's Bugis and everyone knows how to get there without the map.

Checkpoint 7: Masjid Sultan Mosque

It was a great satisfaction when we reached here. All we have to do now is to go back to the finishing line at Marina Barrage and all will be over. I am still fine here, but some of them had abrasion here and there or blisters already, so it is a torture for them to complete the race.

Finishing Line: Marina Barrage
We got lost a little bit while heading back to Marina Barrage but we manage to find our way through still.

We thought that after crossing this bridge we can get below it and enter Gardens by the Bay, but apparently not. We could only get below if we go on the other side of the bridge. So we just went down to the basement and take the underpass to Gardens by the Bay.

It was the last stretch and we just endure it through,

Finishing Line

After a gruesome 7+ hour, we reached back to the finishing line. It was going 1600hr at that time. All of the team members were tired.

Post Race

What's after the race actually made my impression for the race slightly better.

Free flow drinks, sandwiches and ice cream!

They actually have Edringer beer, sandwiches and ice cream for post race to fill our stomach. So I thought it wasn't so bad after all.

Last group photo at the stage

So it is mandatory to take a finishing shot with our medals on the stage. We did it!

I calculated the distance that we covered after the race, we actually completed ~26km. That's not too bad since it is supposedly to be a 25km race. I believe many others actually did way longer than us and I feel sorry for them.

Overall, the initial impression wasn't that good, but my impression did change for the better especially at the end. They bribed me with their food. The sandwich is pretty decent, I like it. All the free flow beer and isotonic drinks makes it better. They are still chilled. Even at the checkpoints, the drinks were still cold even though we reach there quite late. I feel they did put in effort for their logistics, so I feel the worth of what I paid. I might consider joining next time again.

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