Road blocks

As in the Amazing Race when they sometimes hit a roadblock, we also have had our share of roadblocks on this trip. Mostly they can be overcome, but are frustrating never the less. 

We had a pretty grueling travel schedule of 4 flights in 4 days. Unavoidable, it seemed.but we told ourselves to only focus on one day at a time.

 As we left Inle Lake to fly back to Yangon, I was checking my e mail for a confirmation of our hotel reservation for that evening. I had booked three hotels the previous week online, or so I thought. Nothing was coming up, and i had no wifi connection to make another reservation. Aack! So we had no choice but to hope we could work something out once we arrived in Yangon. Sure enough, there was a hotel desk at the airport and Jim made us a reservation at the Airport Hotel with a phone call from the customer service agent. It was only 5 minutes by taxi. 

As we turned off the main road into a dark alley, Jim said " ...and they were last seen leaving the airport." It did seem an unlikely place for a hotel, but he kept driving and sure enough, there it was! A bit off the beaten path, and a little "old Burma"style. 

They would only accept cash, and only new bills, which fortunately we had. The room smelled musty, but hey, there was a huge mirror on the ceiling, complete with greasy hand prints. Hand prints?? Super nice, hah! 

I took a Tylenol pm and crawled into bed. 

In the morning I looked behind the curtain at our view:

Scenic, huh? 

I kind of liked the colored towels hanging out to dry, though...

The staff were all attired in traditional dress, and  they couldn't stop watching period soap operas which were very popular in Myanmar. 

Off to Bangkok, and our next roadblock! 

We flew on Air Asia because it was cheap( yes, that Air Asia- as Jim said when I complained(" they only had one plane crash"). Our flight was into DonMuang  airport,,and our flight the next day was out if the new airport across town. This was the line of people that snaked around just to leave the airport through the " nothing to declare " customs lane! Then we waited for the shuttle bus that took us an hour across town to the next airport where we had a hotel reservation close by for our early flight out the following morning. Then we waited in a long, but efficient taxi rank for our taxi to the hotel! We came up with a new travel rule by the end of the day: Even though a flight is cheap, if it goes into the  "wrong" airport, you might spend more time and money in the long run getting to your destination" 

We finally got to our hotel at about 6 pm - a very long day. 

But our cheap hotel was nice, with modern decor and towel art

And a view of wetlands and the airport beyond. I kept my eyes peeled for red winged blackbirds , but I only saw swallows...

They even had a small pool for one last refreshing dip and a restaurant with delicious Thai meals. It was either that, or the karaoke massage parlor around the corner for our evenings entertainment. Jim was a little curious about that combination but not enough to check it out. 

On to our next roadblock!