The day was largely uneventful. Had an 11am bus back to Toungup (toungook, toungap… I've heard numerous names and spellings for this town) where I would sleep for the night while waiting to board a boat to Sittwe the following morning. The bus ride was pretty relaxed and not too exciting. I've heard numerous stories of Burmese people getting sick on busses and throwing up the whole time and I had yet to see this, but today the girl behind and other side of the bus from me was hacking something nasty for the duration of the ride. Good on you, girl. Luckily I couldn't smell it, though I did see it was red. Maybe from all the betel? Also at one point we drove by at least 50 maybe 100 armed troops walking on the road. I don't know if they were here for the riots up north or if it was just training as we seemed to pass a lot of army camps in the area. Maybe it's the stationed area for it. Dunno. We'd also have to get off the bus when it would go over some small bridges. We'd get on and off and on a few times.
I walked around the town when I got here and I'm guessing not too many white people stay here as the whole town was a buzz from me. Numerous pointing fingers, dropped jaws and also lots of "hello!!!!" with waved hands. Today was a day I just didn't want this. Traveling alone can be very tiresome and this is one of the times. you feel like a spectacle and have no one to talk to about it. It's annoying and makes me aggravated. Throw in humid warm weather and annoying mosquitos and you got for a touchy and sensitive andy. What did make it a little easier was when I went for dinner. The man working there liked practicing his english with me and then gave me a few dishes for "free" (he kept saying, this dish free.) so I got to try some more of the local cuisine than planned for. Score, and it wiped away all the other annoyances of the day.
I'm heading off to bed now as I'm getting super tired. Praying for the next time I can sleep in a room that doesn't smell of mold (don't think that this has happened in Burma yet.)
an update. I didn't go to bed. instead as I was about to I noticed something moving in the sheets. It looked like a tick and when I killed it there was blood. So I moved rooms only I saw in the next room a similar tick. and then the next room. It wasn't ticks but bed bugs. They were infested with them. They moved me upstairs to a room that looked cleaner but I wasn't sure. I finally said ok as I couldn't see anything but as I sat down on the bed, I noticed one in the corner of the wall. Shit! So I went to the lobby and planned to sleep on a wooden seat. I ended up sleeping on the tiled floor as there was no furniture or walls nearby and I though I would be safe. Well I was safe from bedbugs but not from mozzies. I got a shit load of bites in the night. Luckily I didn't have to sleep so long as I had a planned boat trip leaving my guesthouse at 6am.
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