"What Goes With A Black Abaya?"

Thus spake Debb early this morning as we get ready for a day of sightseeing in the capital of the Kingdom. As you might know, men & women are segregated here, and women are not allowed to do many things, like voting, holding office or even driving a car. Thus, all the women on our trip must abide by the local customs and laws, such as wearing the black robe known as the abaya at all times when outside our hotel room. Debb figures it's not such a big deal for a couple of days, and it's actually somewhat cool outside (high 60s) so it'll be fine.

I think she looks cute.

 

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The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

After a full day of travel we finally land in Riyadh. On approach there was nothing but sand as far as the eye could see, but then we saw Riyadh, literally an oasis of light in the center of the vast desert. Driving from the airport to our hotel, I thought it looked a lot like Dallas. Spotted two Starbucks and a McDonalds on our way.

 

We're staying at the Four Seasons downtown. I'm typing this from my room on the 30th floor of the landmark Kingdom Tower on the right in the pic above. Very, very nice place to spend the next 3 nights. Below is a closeup of the tower as we drove in the entrance. According to Wikipedia it's the third tallest tower in the world that has a hole in it (!?!).

 

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Hyderabad, India

Finally on our way from Yangon to Riyadh, but first a refueling stop in Hyderabad India. That's me with India in the background. I know a few of you who will still say I've never been to India, but I'm just sayin' ... that's India right behind me!

 

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Boats, Coaches & Planes

Finally leaving Inle Lake. What a beautiful place with the nicest people. And, I forgot to mention ... despite heavy use of mosquito repellent (malaria, dengue fever) we saw nary a skeeter. Thank goodness.

Anyway, we took an early morning hour-long boat ride up the lake (brrrr cold) to our waiting coach for an hour bus ride to Heho Airport, and an hour plane flight back to Yangon. Strange; when I checked the departure board there was no flight to Riyadh! <grin>

 

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Rockin' the Longyi

Last evening at Inle Lake and Debb and I attended the farewell dinner in our traditional Burmese shirts and longyis. I got a staff member to help me knot the thing and got through the evening without mooning anyone, which I consider a success. Debb looked gorgeous in hers; I think I looked like an American tourist who was trying too hard.

 

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Myanmar script

An example of Myanmar script. Has its origins in Sanskrit, and looks a lot like Thai. Wonder what it means? There's probably an app somewhere that could translate it for me.

 

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Inle Lake, part 2

Villagers that live on Inle Lake travel on these small flat bottomed boats, and they row them standing up using one leg to push the oar. They fish the lake like this -- the lake was dotted with fishermen.

They live in huts built over the lake on stilts. We are here during the dry season. I guess the lake can rise much higher in the monsoon season, from the looks of these huts.

Local crafts are available. This building that we passed housed a silversmith.

The beast of burden is the water buffalo ... Just cooling off here, I suppose.

Doing the laundry...

And, of course, more pagodas!

 

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