Fu****g ants

I have never seen so many ants of my life. Their shape is very different, small, very small, biting or not. They are everywhere and it is getting annoying. I have to take off the sheet of my bed every night to take them off. They crawl on my legs and arms as soon as i am touching a hard surface, they eat breakfast, lunch and diner with me. As I am writing this blog, I keep squishing them on the screen of the laptop. They have invaded the inside of the computer! When I start the computer, it heats a bit and they start coming out but there are always more next time. I am scared that I am getting ants in all openings of my body while I sleep! They get into my sweets and snacks in every bags I used to protect them! They are evil!

Let’s go fishing!

I am on Bunaken island, a small island of Sulawasi, Indonesia. There are two main line of work on the island: fishing and scuba diving. I had explore the scuba diving already and thought that I should look into the fishing scene while I was here and I had finally some time. I am staying in a homestay and as it happens, the man of the house, Barto, is a fisherman. The plan was to spend a day on his boat with 11 men.

It is not that I am a fan of fishing really. No thrill for me in catching a fish. It is a living animal and I prefer not to be responsible for its death. I will eat fish though… I went fishing already in a rowing boat and it was easy for me to sit there reading, hoping to make enough noise on the bottom of the boat so that my boyfriend will not catch anything. Maybe he was just not very good at it, but we never caught anything!

It is 3:30 am and we have to get up. Of course I slept like crap since I was somewhat excited to do some thing like this and I did not want Barto to wait for me. We walk through dark streets towards the beach and it is strange because there are plenty of people on the street since they are also going fishing. We sat on the beach for quite a while. Some of the fisherman are late and there is one of them that went to drag the boat closer to shore. Not that close though, I had to wet my pants pretty much all the way to get in. Hein, it is a rainy morning anyway so I know I will be getting wet no matter what. And hop we go!

The day is divided in two activities. The first task is to get enough small fishes that will be used as bait for the bigger fish. We got into a shallow area and we waited a little bit. Suddenly the men are screaming like little kids, really excited, pointing in one direction. The boat turns around and one side of the net is dropped in the water with one man. As the net gets unwrapped, more men jump in the water to hold it down so the small fishes do not slip under it. They wear snorkeling mask and keep looking in the water, still excited. Once the net is all in the water, the boat has circled around so the two ends meet at the boat. Two men starts pulling on the net while others make sure that the two sides stay closely together. The small fishes are put in water at the bottom of the boat that I will call the basement since I don’t know what it is in English. You want them alive! That is when I saw the first murders of the day. A trumpet fish, 2 catfishes and a calamari got caught in the net as well and the men decided they would keep them. The amount of small fishes is disappointing. They have to release the net about twelve times before they are satisfied with the quantity in the boat. They are wet are shivering. They change and get dried before eating breakfast and moving toward the deeper ocean to catch bigger fishes.

The second task is to locate the bigger fishes which is not easy at all. For the first two or three hours, it was the dolphins that we followed. The tunas were always closed buy and they were all following groups of small fishes.  There are one driver, one who throws the small fishers over the heads of the eight fishermen and one man who keeps on cleaning the deck so that nobody slips on fishes.

It is traditional fishing using bamboo poles. There is still a fishing line that runs all along them and they use homemade colorful bait. When there is no dolphins hanging around the tunas, it becomes more difficult to find them. They jump above the water when they feed on small fishes and when you look at the ocean, there are a lot of areas where they could be. When you see whitish water, you get there as soon as you can and start throwing more small fishes in the water to try to get them to follow the boat. When you hear the fishermen screaming, the chase is on! Or the fishing is on! They lower their poles and move it up and down. They are eight there on the end of the boat so their lines get tangled together sometimes. When a fish bites, the bamboo pole flesh and the fisherman bends backward. It looks pretty exhausting.

The first tuna to hit the floor was impressive. It is much bigger that your regular fish and even if you see them in markets, these ones are moving like crazy! Lots of blood and so I am sure they get hurt. They can not not feel anything, ouch, it is hard to look. I keep on telling myself that that’s their living and they don’t cheat. It was a bit worse when one of the guy started hitting some with a stick so that he could put them in the basement where they died.

They caught 63 tunas that day and everyone was a bit depressed. The whole month of May had been like that. The small fishes are harder to catch and so they bait the tunas a little less. In March and April they used to catch up to 400 tunas. It makes a difference in their wages. We ended the day at the market as the sun was going down. They got 50000 rupias per tuna which is about 7$.

Overall the day was really good. Some awkward moments when all the men kept talking I assumed about me since they kept looking in my direction. I wish I would have understand what they were saying. None of them spoke enough English to translate if there was a joke being told. There is also the time I asked if  I could jump in the water, I wanted to pee so bad! They were looking pretty hard at my bikini and my white skin let me tell you. Even the guys on the next fishing boat stared. I did not realized that it would be such a show! I was exhausted, a little sun and wind burned.

Taking some time off in Indonesia

I left Myanmar already, Snif! Snif! It was a love story really but before giving too much money to the government in overstaying fees, I had to move on. It was not without shedding some tears on the way to the airport though!

I had a bad flight schedule because it is quite difficult to plan a trip with connections leaving from Yangon. The number of airlines deserving that city are limited. So I booked a flight to Bankok and then I book a flight from Bangkok to Manado in the Northeast corner of Indonesia with a stopover in Singapore. So far, the Singapore airport is the best. I got there at 1h in the morning and many stores and restaurants were still open. It felt like I was too tired to sleep right away so I went shopping. Life is really good to me I believe…. When I got to the electronic section of a store, I saw what I’ve been shopping for for a year now. There was a 400$ reduction compare to what I would have paid home and no taxes, so I bought a Nikon camera. It’s been few days now and I still haven’t done much pictures with it though, it’s too new and I have no time to read the instructions carefully and actually no time to take the time to use it and learn how to take the best pictures. I have to find something to do during my summer holidays after all! The second reason why I think it’s the best airport, is that I had to find a corner to sleep and they have longing chairs in some areas. Of course when I got there they were all occupied. I laid down on the floor instead and it is carpeted so it was not that bad. I believe I have slept on harder mattress than that in India. A woman actually came around as I was setting up my pillow to give blankets! Isn’t great?

Anyhow, when I got to Manado I was exhausted and dealing with a new country demands energy. I knew I was looking for microlet taxis which are little blue vans that can sit maybe 7-8 people. They are the cheapest way to get around and I had changed just enough money at the airport to cover that cost since the exchange rate was crap. As soon as you get out of the airport 15 people offer you a ride at various prices and when you say I want to take the microlets, they say they don’t come to the airport. Not more than 1 minute after you get onto the street, you see a microlet passing by. Of course, seeing a tourist fresh from the airport, they tell you an outrageous price like 60000 rupias. I had friends giving me very clear instructions about microlets and I knew that it should not be more than 3000 rupias. I showed the driver the 3000 I had in my hand, he shakes his head no, I take my bags out of the car, he says that since I will occupy 2 seats with my bag, I have to pay double, fair enough! Let’s go!

My final destination was the island of Bunaken so I had a ferry to get on to at 14h. I realized that I could not make it so I spent the night in Manado at the Celebes hotel. I will tell you in a minute why I am mentioning the name of the hotel. It was a good stop since I got a 2 hours massage for 20$ which was much better that anything I experienced in India. They need to work on the atmosphere though and not allow kids having a fit in the area where they give the massages! After that, I was a bit wobbly on my legs and I was showered and in bed before 21h. I also had a shower the next morning and when I got out of my room (shower outside my room), I noticed 2 of the employees sitting on the railing looking through the window. Slackers I thought. When I walk back into my room though, a flashback ran through my head and I bent over to look at a crack between the door and the frame. As I am bending to look out, I am thinking: what a paranoid you are!! Believe me or not, as I was to stand back up again, I saw an orange T-shirt and He was going to look at me changing!!!!!!!! I slapped my hand on the door and opened it so fast saying all bad things. They were fast the fuckers!!! I was so pumped up! Then I raised my head and saw that there was also a small window in the right top corner of the room that looked out on a staircase. I was so amazed because there was no way that I could change inside the room without being seen from one of the 2 spots. I told the girl when I checked out but she did not seem impressed. Do not stay in room 303!

One event like that gives you a bad impression of a city or a country when it happens so early in your stay. I was saved though because I walked through the market to reach the ferry and lots of smile reconciled me with the whole world. People on the ferry shared their fruits and led me to my guesthouse once on the island. Since then, everything as been wonderful and I am enjoying my stay.

The reason I came to Bunaken is to do my scuba diving certification. I started 2 days ago and I love it so far. A beautiful world down there! There is still a problem with American bills though! They don’t accept bills older than 2006 and they still need to be crisp.

My guesthouse is in the village and it is a home stay. The price of the room includes breakfast, lunch and dinner and the cooking is absolutely delicious. The fishes come daily and I was promised a barracuda meal soon.

Exploring the west coast of Myanmar

I wanted to spend time on the west coast since I got to Myanmar. I was looking at the days going by a bit fast and wondered if I could get there before my visa expired. It became obvious that I would have to overstay the visa and since the fee is only of 3$ /day, the choice was easy since I wanted to get to Mrauk U so bad.  The day my visa expired, I was flying from Inle Lake to Sittway.  I had to think about this trip carefully and here is why.

As I was mentioning in the previous blogs, the amount of money available to us is limited because of the boycott by western banks, and the government is really good at tracing a path for tourist to follow. The west coast is lined with a chain of small mountains that separates it from the central part of the country and has numerous rivers that isolates some parts of it.

There is no road that cut across those mountains that are used by buses and especially not by tourists. It means that we have to go around the mountains and the only possibility for tourists is to go back down towards Yangon.  There is also no direct flight except from Yangon. Since I was in the eastern part of the country in Inle Lake, I had to buy 2 plane tickets, one from Inle to Yangon and the other from Yangon to Sittway. It starts to get expensive right there because the prices of plane tickets are fixed and there is no reduction even if you have connecting flights.  I spent 165$ on plane tickets. I had evaluated if I could afford it but I had also looked at other options. Using buses, you also have to go back towards Yangon  (16-20 hrs according to the guidebook from Inle and the price was of about 12$) and go back up towards Thandwe. This is where they lost me. You have to take a bus from Yangon to Thandwe  (18 hrs, 15$ and a mention that this bit of roads is the worst in the country). We then take a bus or a pick-up truck to Taunggok (5-6 hrs, 4$) where you have to get on a boat to reach  Sittway. They give you a choice though. You can get a fastboat (8 hrs, 40$) or the government ferry (3 days, 9$ and a lounge chair 4$ if you want to sleep on the boat). From Sittway to Mrauk U, You have to hop on another boat and again there is a choice. You can get a fastboat (3 hrs,  20-30$) or the government ferry (6hrs, 4$). When you calculate the time and the money to be spent, you become very tempted by taking a plane.

I spent 3 nights in Sittway since the or the government ferry is only twice a week. These 3 nights were very long!!! First of all, the electricity there is on from 7pm to 11pm. That means that you sleep without a fan at 40 degrees. I was dripping and had to take a shower more than once. The next night, I went to bed earlier to fall asleep before the power was cut. A cockroach woke me up, it was playing into one of the plastic bag and I realized that it had snacked on my banana. They fly those big things! I had to chase it around to finally flush it down the toilet.  The third night, the police showed up around 1am and did a check on everybody that was sleeping there except me. They knocked on doors and screamed to get people out of their room asking for the identity papers. It’s exciting don’t you think?

Now, the government ferry. The guy who was selling the tickets was a pain in the butt with no smile whatsoever and since it was pretty early, I lost my smile very quickly as well. He wants me to pay with US dollars but the smallest bill I have is a 20$. There is no way to obtain change in US of course and so he starts talking very loud and looks at me as if I was the problem. I am sorry but if you want US dollars, you should be able to give change. He keeps selling tickets to other passengers and still makes some gestures towards me from time to time. He ignored me for 45 minutes and when the clock read 6:55, I got a little excited and asked him to take my kyats if he could not get me change, I was going to be on the ferry!! Somebody shows up at that point with some autority I guess since he agreed right away but it did cost me a little extra for using kyats…in Myanmar!

The boat is full and we stopped 3 more times on the way with more people getting in at each stop. We are treated like kings and queens as tourist since there is always chairs for us. I suspect that they actually asked somebody to sit somewhere else… Everybody else is sitting on the ground with chickens, dried fish, babies without diapers. There is no space where you can see the floor among that see of people. We have to ask people to stand up to go to the toilets. People looked at me the wrong way for a good part of the trip and I suspect it’s because of my backpack that laid against my chair and was taking up floor space. I believe that they expected my space to be limited to the chair only and when I had my feet on the ground, I had bad stares.  Very good thing that I had brought candies and cakes to buy off some of them anyway.

Finally Mrauk U, prononced Mraw oo. It is divided in small islands by the arms of the river extending further inland. The landscapes are extraordinaire with small green hills all around. On top on some of those hills, you can see stupas which makes it even more picture perfect. I went around town for 2 days exploring those hills in the morning and when the sun was lower at the end of the day. I enjoyed a little nap at midday while the sun was unbearable. I spent my last day there on the Lemro River to visit Chin villages. These villages were appealing to me because they are further away and  you can meet the last generation of women with tattooed faces.

You will have to look at the pictures on  Facebook or Flickr when I will take the time to upload these. The boat trip also allowed me to do some good. I took a little family with me and we stopped  to swim for a part of the afternoon. They loved it! The water was so warm, too hot to get refresh at all.   

The way back to Sittway was without problems. I saw prisoners being escorted by the military police. He was not a killer I assumed since he seemed free to walk around the boat. He stopped quickly though since his ankles were attached together with shackles. The only part that bug me was the control they did when we got into Sittway. They looked at my passport for 30 minutes, reading all the visas infos with dates of entry and exit. They tried to ask a few questions but the language barrier did not make it easy. They let it go at the end.

I am going back to Yangon tomorrow and will be flying to Indonesia where I should spend 2-3 weeks. I am coming back soon now!!!

A question of money in Myanmar

The currency used in Myanmar is the Kyat, pronounced tchiatte. They have 5, 10, 20, 50, 100, 200, 500 et 1000 bills. The Canadian dollar is worth about 1000 kyats. The bills that will then encountered the most are bills of 100 and more. It shows when you look at the bills. I still got to take a picture of the worst bill yet although I missed my chance a few times already. The worst I have seen so far were 200 bills with big holes, scotch tape at few places and a texture that arise your imagination. The bills become very thick with dirt, sweat and what else? We have difficulty to tell what’s the number on them! As I was explaining in a previous blog, the international banks left the country in the early 2000 years. We do not have access to our bank account in any way. There is also no companies like Western Union to transfer money but there is now a private shipping company, DHL, that have an office in Yangon.  In more prestigious hotels, Visa is accepted to get cash advance but you must pay between 10 and 25% service charge. However, somebody was telling me that these hotels do not offer this service anymore if your are not sleeping there. They stopped the service right after the bombs in Yangon at this year Water Festival. Your only choice is to arrive in the country with money in your pocket, enough money for the duration of your trip. I had  2500$ from Quebec delivered to me in Kathmandu by a lovely person that was coming in for a trek. When I arrived in , I quickly realized that I had less money than I thought!  You need US dollars. Some places will accept Euros but it is rare and the rate will be bad. They mentioned in the guide that the money should be fairly new if you want to use it in this country.  It is difficult for them to exchange American money in banks so restaurants et hotels spend a lot of time checking your bills before accepting them. What I would consider clean for money bills has nothing to do with what they consider clean. The bills need to be new!! They will refuse bills that were folded in two at one point, there is a line left in the centre! The people that will accept them, if the line is minor, will give a lower exchange rate for it.  The bills that have a stamp on them, from banks usually are not accepted. It does happen often enough. I had never taken the time to look at my bills much before!  If there is anything hand written on them, forget it. If the serial number starts with CB, it will be refused some places or you will get a lower exchange rate. After all that, I had about 1500$ That I could use in  Myanmar!! The exchange counters are useless in this country and the people behind the counter might even tell you to go elsewhere. They are link to the government first of all and their exchange rate is the lowest of all, they take more than they give. The guide talks about an exchange rate of 450 kyats for 1$ but I haven’t checked on that.  Of course, there is the black market. This black market is well known and the government is aware of it, it almost seems legal. Since I am a good girl, hearing about black market scared me a bit. What I imagined was close to what you see in gangster movies so I was a little stressed out for the first exchange.  The few things to know before hand is that the exchange rate is much better in Yangon and is also better if you exchange 100$ bills. They usually exchange that money in banks or use it to buy merchandise coming from China. It is actually pretty easy. Some hotels will exchange your dollars with an exchange rate of about 930-950 kyats to 1$. The guidebook proposed a popular place to exchange money which is the market place. We set out to get there and we looked for a stall advertising money exchange. A guy walked up to us and asked us if we nneded to exchange money. Yeah, we do! That’s easy enough. He takes us to a stall in a busy area of the market and the guy is sitting with stacks of money in front of him. No alarm button or protecting window or counter…I decide to exchange 500$ and look at how much I will be spending for the first few days. I take the time to count the money and the guy encourage us to do so.  Once the money is accounted for, we give our money and he examine it for few minutes. That’s when I understood that I could not use all the money I had with me. The exchange rate we got was of  990 kyats to 1$. We spent the first few days south of Myanmar and stopped in Yangon on our way back. I had a good idea of my spending and decided I would need to exchange an extra 600$ before going to explore the rest of Myanmar. This time though, I ran into problems. We get to the market to realize that it was closed. Crap! Where do we go? We decide to try one of the hotel. Even if their exchange rate is lower, it’s better than the rate that will be given in other cities. Again, a guy walks up to us on the street and after few minutes of general conversation, he asked us if we wanted to exchange money.  Yeah! We ended up this time right in front of the train station in a ministore that sold bus tickets. We get an exchange rate of  1020 kyats to 1$. Wow! Better than the first time, good negotiation skills. We waited 30 minutes in the back of an empty store. They needed to get the money from somewhere else, The waiting is long and I bacame a bit nervous. It is hot and my belly is cramping. When they bring the money, I counted it and placed it in piles of 100$ but there is no elastic bands arounf the piles, the bills are loose.  Rob is with me exchanging money too. The guys are talking, asking questions, bla, bla, bla… At some point, I turned mu head back to my money and saw one of the guy putting my piles one on top of the other. I got mad since it is a lot of money and he is not supposed to touch it. They want us to leave so they try to pressure us I guess.  This atmosphere is one of stress. I would like to recount the money to be sure and have my piles so that it is easy to know how much money I have left afterwards. I told myself that I was paranoid and we spent already so much time in a stuffy room. So I put the money in my bag without recounting before getting to my hotel. That is when I realized that I was missing 200$. I felt so stupid to have believe in their honesty and not my sixth sense. I replayed the scene in my head and could see how it could have had happened. Grrrrr! The problem is that there are so many bills that 200$ worth less was not that easy to miss just looking at it for somebody that is inexperienced. I’ve learned my lessons that’s for sure! Bring rubber bands next time! I am now in the West of the country where the travelling is the most expensive and I have to count my money and plan very well to be sure that I would have enough. It adds some stress to the trip that I did not need. There were some souvenirs that I would have liked to get but it would be for next time!

Going to Myanmar

Myanmar, formally Burma, is a destination that needs some thinking about. There are many different views on the way tourists affect the country. Is it good or are we encouraging the present government? It depends on how you see it and who you ask to. It is impossible to obtain all the infos we would need to get the real picture. Let me give you a very quick history of Myanmar. Again, I am not an expert in those matters and there are so many events that took place that it will really be a summary to attempt to explain the present situation.

Britain conquered Mandalay in 1885 and they took controlled of the teak , gem, rice and petroleum exports. During their reign they encouraged Indian and Chinese to immigrate in Myanmar and because they were more experienced in business, they succeeded to stimulate the economy. They were so good that Burmese people had difficulties to compete.

Myanmar finally achieves independence from the British in 1948. They had a promising young leader talking about democratic election but he was killed, some say by the military. They had many problems following that. The country inhabited by many different ethnic groups that do not trust the new government started fighting and rebel groups formed. The Chinese also tried to invade border regions. The government took control in the mid 50s finally but the economy was not doing so good. There was a military coup in 1962 and the army took control of the country. They started closing off the outside world and the foreigner’s visa was of 24 hours. In the mid 60s, they made a list of items that would be allowed to be sold only in certain shops. That gave rise to a vigorous black market but many shops owners did not have enough business to survive. Those shop owners were in majority Indians and Chinese… They were thrown out of the country and could not get their money out with them!

It continued to get worst for the economy and the people got fed up in the late 80s. Riots started and at least 3000 deaths were reported. A new political party for democracy was formed and led by a woman, Aung San Suu Kyi. The government got scared and tried to divert the attention of the populace by building new roads and painting buildings, interfering with the election process and postponing the election. All of it did not work. Aung San Suu Kyi was put under house arrest in 1989 before the election. The democratic party took 392 of the 485 seats anyway but around 100 of those leaders were arrested, exiled or killed. Those events had the effect of raising the attention of the media and the world.

Under the build up created by all the publicity, Aung San Suu Kyi was released in 1995 and gave few speeches for the democratic political party. As she tried to meet with supporters in 2000, she was again put under house arrest, released for a short time and arrested for a third time after a manifestation in 2003. She is still under house arrest today and it is still forbidden to hang a picture of her in your house! Around the same time, the USA banned new investment of American companies in Myanmar. Other countries followed. Foreign banks packed up and left the country as well. In 1999, there were sanctions to the country for the used of forced labor and because they used civilians as … landmine detectors.

In 2007, the price of gas went up 200% and the people protested. Even the monks marched to support the populace. Guns were fired by the army and one monk was beaten to death. 100 more monks were arrested. The Monks association refused to give alms to military officials after those events! A soldier also shot a Japanese photographer and it was caught on tape. Two days later, the protest had stopped and internet was not accessible anymore.

In 2008, the first election in two decades are to be held. Unfortunately, a cyclone hit Myanmar and 2 millions people are left without shelter and food. Myanmar actually refused some of the international assistance! It will take more than a week before some external aid is able to reach the people in needs. In the meantime, the government still held the election, even after the cyclone, and it was determined that the majority of the voters wanted to keep a military government.

There are few reasons not to come. They used forced labor to build some site to attract tourists. They also relocated thousands of families to be able to built hotels, many of those families being the poor ones. There is a fee to some of the sights to visit and most of the money goes directly to the government. The routes for the foreigners are pretty much determined. They make it easy to travel in one direction and not in the other direction so that the tourist who has not much time will choose the easy route. Some areas require a permit from the government. There are also many regions that are not accessible at all for foreigners, and i am not just talking about transport. They will block the road so that you won’t go there. The reasons behind those restrictions are numerous. In the south, you still have some rebel groups fighting. In the north east region, you have lots of gems that can be dig up by the people owning the land. The government do not want tourists buying gems at low price when he can get a cut. There also some talks about spies going around to ask you where you are going in some smaller villages…

Now, there seems to be more reason to go for me. When I look around the streets, I get the impression that most of the people here are happy to see us. They stop us on the street to shake our hands and they thank us. They want us to like their country, they are proud of it. If they spoke a little more English or if I spoke a little more Burmese, the exchange would be great for their knowledge of the world outside their border. However, we still have to be careful about the subjects we ask about. They could get in trouble if they talk against the government and if we provide outside sources of knowledge like magazines that can put their country in a bad light. We are trying to avoid all hotels that are run by the government so that we contribute to local economy. We try to travel by pick up trucks and buses (private) instead of train (the government takes more than 90% on the fare). We vary our place for food to spread the money around as much as we can. Lastly, the regions that are accessible are beautiful!

How does this type of government affect my travelling in Myanmar? First of all, let me tell you that the visa was not a problem. We applied March 1st in Kathmandu and the visa was ready the next day! They did not even asked for an itinerary and we were in for 28 days of travelling in Myanmar. Since we only have 28 days (with a non-official possibility to overstay for 3$ a day…) we are OK with some regions being restricted, we do not have the time to do it all anyway.

The boycott by many international countries is the main problem really. Imagine being in a country for 28 days without an ATM being available! We had to get money before getting in the country and if your money get stolen, you have to get out of the country my friend! I am pretty nervous about carrying that much money on me knowing especially that I can not easily get more. I will actually write about the money in a shorter story…

The guidebook is absolutely necessary to travel here. There are a limited numbers of guesthouses that can accept tourists. Some town do not have such hotels and you need to move on! It is a little more expensive because of that monopole.

Internet access has also been troublesome. Most internet places have installed programs to unlock the major sites used by locals and tourists. However, some sites are not accessible, they are locked. You need to go through a website that will give your computer an IP address that is outside the country. That makes the process very long and the success rate is about 50%. If it fails, you keep trying and eventually it might go through. It took me 2 hours to check my mails and upload 3 blogs last night! Any download is actually blocked in most internet places.

During the water festival, 3 bombs (or grenades according to rumors) went off in Yangon killing 9 persons. I am not sure if it is related but 2 days later, the internet access was cut off. The official story was that a submarine destroyed the cable!! I haven’t verified that yet…but if some people really believe that, the government has more power than I thought. Anyway, just so that it is clear that, what is supposed to be a half hour business in the smoking room of internet cafes, becomes a 2 hours sit down with lots of patience.

There is overall much more good things than bad things in this country. So far, it’s been great and I would recommend a stop in this beautiful country and to take the time to mingle with the locals. Even as a girl, I would travel in this country with no fear of something happening to me. I know that I have been saying that people were the nicest in every country I visited so far but, it’s true, they are really the nicest!!

When toilets become important