Pleasantly Surprised by Yangon

So we live in Bangkok but Jonathan *technically* works out of the Yangon, Myanmar office. I remember when he first called to tell me about the job and I honestly had never heard of Myanmar. Thats because in the US its mainly referred to as Burma. That I had heard of. And not in a good way. I won't get into it here but there is a long, complicated, ongoing ethnic and political tension which gets a lot of bad press. There has been marked improvement over the last few years but there is definitely a long way to go before Myanmar joins the developed world. 

So the company usually puts people with Jonathan's job in Thailand vs Myanmar, which unfortunately means he travels constantly, which is really hard in this season of life. For various reasons, I hadn't accompanied him on a trip to Myanmar since moving here last January, but when we were invited to a wedding the first weekend of March we decided to take the whole clan. Our nanny is a citizen of Myanmar (which she exclusively calls 'Burma'- it's SUPER confusing and I never know the PC thing to say) so it was easy enough to bring her along and she got to see her daughter that she hadn't seen in years. 

My first impression of Yangon was that it was much preferable to Bangkok! I don't think its a secret that Bangkok is not my favorite. It's so chaotic and busy and congested and hard to get around. Yangon had a lot better infrastructure and the sidewalks were actually walkable which you're hard pressed to find in Bangkok as well. There were lots of beautiful parks and open spaces which just made everything feel a bit slower and more manageable. We were only there for a quick weekend trip but we hope to go back to explore more. 

Our big outing while there was the Schwetigone Pagoda, a massive golden Buddhist temple in the city, surrounded by city parks. Forest was not too enthused for a cultural outing so we made the rounds and photo ops pretty quickly. 

Speaking of photo ops, everyone asked for a picture with Forest. He was in an ornery mood and said no so instead they asked if I'd take a picture with them. I'm a brunette with a fairly Asian style frame so I was a bit caught off guard by this, but it shows how closed off and off the beaten track Myanmar is. Any westerner is a rare sight, but a blonde headed child is definitely still the cream of the crop (our copper headed baby was at the resort with the nanny...and that's the most expat parentheses note I've ever written). 

After the pagoda we headed to a nearby park for Swan boats. Again, we got lots of attention and requests for photos. 

So. Many. Soi dogs.

We cut it short because we had an afternoon wedding to go to and I forgot my concealer in Bangkok so still had to dash around town trying to find a concealer that matched my skin tone. At the mall we discovered that Myanmar doesn't charge 50% import tax so we loaded up on LEGO sets too which Forest was very happy about! Also, their airport has a LEGO store so no more trekking through Bangkok traffic to get to the one measly LEGO store with astronomical prices. Jon can just pick up sets on his frequent (well normally) trips to Myanmar. Woohoo! 

That night was the wedding, which Jonathan and I were actually honored to be a part of. We got to perform the flower ceremony to kick off the wedding and had traditional garments made for the occasion. 

For sleeping arrangements, we had two very small hotel rooms with 2 full-size beds for the 5 of us. We paid for a rollaway bed for Forest to sleep in the room with us and Juliet slept in her pack n play in the room with Nanu. 

Here's a chance for me to put in a plug for the miraculous Slumberpod. 

pic from Amazon bc I forgot to take one

easily fits in suitcase

If you have an infant/toddler and you travel a fair amount, you need this in your arsenal. It's a tent that goes over the pack n play/portacrib/toddler blow up bed and blocks out light and noise so it's much easier to sleep in the same room as your baby. When Forest was a baby/toddler, I would just camp out in the bathroom until he fell asleep and then sneak into my bed because there was no way he'd fall asleep with me in there and then if he spotted me at 5 am he was up for the day. It was always awful and we avoided standard hotel rooms like the plague. 

This was the porta-crib the hotel provided. Not safe! Luckily we brought our pack n play along as backup!

We've only used the slumberpod on two trips so far (and who knows when we'll get to travel again) but I am sold! Juliet actually slept better in this thing than she normally does, I think because it's so dark and cozy. She's been having early morning waking issues so I'm considering just switching her to the pack n play with this thing over it to see if that helps at all (or at least let's us know if it's a darkness issue). Anyway- it's amazing! One of those products that makes you think- how did we survive the first baby without this thing?