I've just arrived in Ngapali beach and it's been a long and wet day. Originally the plan was to go to Tonggook and from there catch a boat to Sittwe or Mrauk-U but unfortunately the boat leaves on Wed and I arrived thursday morning. Next time of departure is Saturday morning. Instead of doing nothing in the small town of Tonggook I decided to head south to the "famous" beaches of Ngapali. Even though it's rainy season I thought that the weather may still be ok for the beach.
The bus left Yangon at 2:30pm and arrived at 5am in Tonggook. It whirled up and down mountains and may have tried to purposely hit every hole in the road. Add in the blaring Burmese music videos or horrible burmese soap operas (possible the worst I've seen in Asia yet. Yes, worse than Thai soaps) blasting through the night and you can guess that I didn't get too much sleep. But that's all part of the fun… After arriving at Tonggook and finding the info about the boat I quickly got back on my bus and left for Tandwe. Tandwe is the town that is closest to Ngapali. Burma tourism hasn't figured the whole transport thing out, or maybe they have and they have this mechanism to make more money for the locals. Almost every big tourism town doesn't have a bus station in the town. It's either a town away and you need to taxi or tuk-tuk in or the station is in the town but 2 miles or more away from the town center. This means that no matter where you go by bus, you're never where you want to be and then need to travel more. So from Thandwe I got a tuk-tuk to Ngapali. Ngapali is actually much more expensive than the towns I've been to. The cheapest guesthouses being around $30 to start with, where I usually pay $7 -$10. I was able to negotiate the price at a recommend place down to $20 as they had no guests, it was low season, and they were renovating so it looked ugly as shit. Though more than I usually pay, it was well worth it as my room was almost right on the water. To see waves crashing down again brought tears to my eyes. My heart swelled up and I realized how much I missed being in the water and on a surf board. Sadly, with the heavy storm system in process and the rocky water I wouldn't be able to even go for a swim. That's ok though as just being near it made me happy. And tonight I'll sleep to the sound of crashing waves which is one of my favorite sounds to sleep to.
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