Rygsækrejsen 2015-2016: Mawlamyine fish market, grand opening of the mall

We left the hotel early this morning. Not at dawn, but relatively early. The local market - and fish market was just a short walk down the road and we wanted to visit it. It was busy at 8 AM with lots of business going on. At first we found the fruit and vegetable sections, then the live poultry section and then the fish market. Quite big, busy and full of noise and smells.

Just walking around and looking at chickens having their heads chopped off, a short boil in hot water, rip the feathers off and then ready for the butcher knife before being sold to the customers. Its not something we are used to in the Western part of the world but maybe it would benefit if more people knew and experienced that this is how they get food on the table. Like it or not.

Catching a local bus to go to the other end of town turned out to be easy. 15 minutes ride and 200 Kyat later and we were at the other end of town ready to walk back to the hotel and looking for a place to have breakfast.

Be coincidence we walked past one of the traditional tea houses in the main street, got a table and had tea. Ordering food didn't turn out to be a problem since they just started to fill our table up with plates with various dumplings and steamed buns. And a small pizza. And some bread. And some cake. We just told then to take away the food we didn't like and enjoyed dumplings, buns, a cake and the mini-pizza for breakfast. Then we walked back to the hotel and on the way we just walked past the mall to see if they really did have grand opening today.

They did! It was the grand opening day. In this town where everything seems to be very local they suddenly had a brand new mall - a small one but it was still there with a few small shops, a couple of cafe's and a giant supermarket. And it was quite popular it seemed judging from the number of people visiting this morning.

We headed for the supermarket to shop for a few necessities like deodorant and hand sanitiser and in there we bumped into another Danish couple. Of all places in the world. They were also quite happy to have the supermarket since it now meant that they didn't have to do a 12 hour shopping trip to Yangon every month any more. We chatted with them about life in Myanmar and Mawlamyine and how it was to be an expat in a big city with only 15 or so other western expats.

Done with the shopping we headed back to the hotel, packed our bags, got a tuk tuk to the bus station, found the local bus to Hpa-an waited for it to depart, then spent the next 45 minutes going around town to pick up some more people and the following two hours going some 60 kilometres to Hpa-an. Local transport is slow and hot - and a bit smelly.

We were dropped off in the town centre, haggled for the price of the tuk tuk to take us to Angels hotel, had our room and relaxed for a while. Walking around in town later in the evening we realised that this place seemed to be even more local than Mawlamyine. The one restaurant that is mentioned everywhere - San Ma Tau Myanmar Restaurant - is a local place serving curries with a lot of side dishes. We went there and realised that all the other back packers in town also went there, tried the food and we weren't too impressed. It was good but nothing special from all the other local meals we've had in Myanmar. Then back to the hotel to get some sleep after another long day.