Ngwe Saung
April 2
We took a taxi to the bus station and then waited for an hour for our bus to arrive. It was a local bus so we were worries it would be really shitty, but it was actually the nicest we had yet. It had a fair amount of leg room and nice air conditioning. Oh the little things… After six hours on the road, we arrived at Ngwe Saung Beach. The beach was nothing ten years ago. In December of 2013, Myanmar opened up to the rest of Asia for the first time and hosted the Southeasy Asia Games. It is like the Olympics for southeast Asian countries (because none of these countries win in the real Olympics…Zing!) ten years ago, they started to develop this area to host events like volleyball, so resorts were built and now that the games are over, they are all completely empty. We arrived without a place booked because they were all $100 a night or more online. Matt and I got on motorbike taxis and the drivers took us from resort to resort. We went to four resorts in total, and every single one was completely dead. I mean we were literally the only people who would be staying there. It was so strange. We finally asked our drivers in desperation where everyone is. They said that they were all empty except one that was fully booked. The fully booked one was just as nice as the rest but was half the price, and was featured in Lonely Planet. It’s crazy how much that book makes or breaks places in this area of the world, where there are few other reliable sources to get informed. We asked our drivers to take us to the fully booked place, and they didn’t want to because they wouldn’t get a commission, but took us anyway. We arrived and luckily, there was one room that was available for three nights. It was the $55 more expensive bungalow but it was nicer and was literally beachfront. We were so thankful and took it without much thought. We dropped our stuff off in the room, ate some basic lunch at the hotel restaurant and then chilled at the beach all day. There were maybe 30 people at our resort in total. We got our choice of beach chairs and bamboo umbrellas. We swam and rested on and off until sunset. Waves were really good here and bodyboarding conditions were prime. At dinner we met these two 60 year old German hippies who we hung out with on and off for our entire three day stay here. We drank a couple of beers and called it an early night. We finally get to sleep in tomorrow!
April 3
We slept in and it felt great. We went to the complimentary breakfast and then went for a run on the beach. It was hot and sand wasn’t took compact so it was difficult to run for more than 10 minutes. We walked back down the beach to our resort and then laid out for a while. We swam in the warm, 85 degree water, and then we got lunch at another resort down the beach because we needed wifi to book a place in Yangon in two days. We found a place about one mile from our resort that had wifi so we ate there. For the rest of the day, we just chilled on the beach all day. Once water levels dropped during low tide, we walked to this small island off the shore on a narrow strip of sand. We walked around the Island, which took give minutes to hike from one side to the other through the center. It was a cool little place. After sunset, we ate dinner at our resort and had some beers again, before calling it a night. It was nice to have nothing to do and no wifi to distract us. We were truly disconnected and it was nice.
April 4
Today was our last day at the beach. We slept in again and went to breakfast. We then laid out on beach chairs and swam on and off all day until sunset, only stopping to eat lunch. It was a great last beach day of our trip on a secluded beach that will be very popular in a couple of years once the rest of the world finds out about Myanmar beaches and Myanmar opens up to tourism more. We ate dinner at our resort restaurant, drank some Myanmar beers, and headed off to bed. Myanmar beer and BeerLao are my two favorite form the trip so far, both if which were very unexpectedly good. We bus back to Yangon tomorrow to hang out for one day before flying out to Macau!
