A three-hour tour. A three-hour tour.

The cheap tourist thing to do in Rangoon is to take this local train around the city and its environs. I am cheap. The train ride encompasses a three-hour circular tour and shows you all of Rangoon: the good, the bad and the ugly. It’s a bargain at 400 whatever-the-Burmese-currency. (Starts with a “k.”) Or maybe 800. I got two different prices when I asked, but in the end, I forked over a 1000-currency note and got no change. Since that’s the equivalent of a buck, I let it go.

My train

Anyhow, part of the reason I opted for the train was that it’s monsoon season and I expected the rains to come down for a good part of the day. I kind of pictured looking at Gilligan from the safe, enclosed space of an air-conditioned train. I swear something I read on the train said air-conditioned. It lied, although I suppose you can call chugging slowly along in a car with no closing windows or doors “air conditioning,” at least in a developing world.

Never seen these before

But it was fine, because it didn’t even rain. Quite stupidly, I was a little disappointed because I’d lugged my raincoat with me and it’s kinda bulky, although an awesome raincoat. (Purchased before service at Eddie Bauer in Delaware – probably the best pre-State splurge I’ve made.) It did rain the day before and the day after, but that day was fairly nice as far as weather goes. I mean yeah, I was sweating through everything, but still.

Guangzhou seems to be about the same weather as Rangoon, but for whatever reason, Rangoon just seemed so much worse. It was just so hot.

Reminded me of the Haunted Mansion

The train was really fun. Even though it’s not tourist season, there were four other tourists on the train. Randomly, I talked to a woman from Taiwan who was staying at my very same hotel. That woman was the most well-traveled I’ve ever met. She was wearing a Delta shirt the next morning, and I asked if she worked there. She said she had. In talking to her then, she mentioned working in Africa for a year at orphanages (Malawi, Mozambique and Namibia), suggested Peru as the place to start exploring South America, gave me some good New Zealand suggestions and mentioned Mongolia and Kyrgyzstan as having the best starry night views. And none of that in a bragging way. In fact, on the train, I took her as a 30-something backpacker. The next day – we ran into each other at breakfast – I realized she was probably a 50-something woman.

Back to the train. It was really a lot of fun. At one point, when we were at the furthest point from the city center, we pulled up and suddenly, people started throwing these mega- bushel bags of veggies and greens in through the windows and other assorted activity. That five-minute stop saw more action than the other combined.

The scenery was fun, very Southeastern Asian. Greenery everywhere, drying laundry everywhere, and garbage everywhere. Everyone was nice and, unlike when I’m on trains in China, no one really gaped at me like they tend to do.

The first day I arrived, I met up with a pre-arranged tour guide and saw the highlights of Rangoon. The first, on paper, was a “cave.” The tour guide told me it was a “man-made” cave and I took this to mean one of the China-like things that are so fake. It turns out it was actually a temple thing built out of jade pieces. Jade’s big here. It really was cool, but I was thinking caves like bats and this really was a temple-ish thing with stadium seating. It was kind of a basketball-court sized thing where apparently monks gathered for some training or something. Anyway, it was nice and I think I can honestly say that I haven’t seen anything quite like it.

Vendor at the busy market train stop

The big thing in Rangoon is the Shewedagon Pagoda, which is this 45-acre ostentatious Budda thing that dates back 2000 years, they said. It was so gaudy it amused me greatly. People think Christianity is out for money – good grief, they should see this. A 75-carat diamond topping a 100-meter-high tower that no one could see anyway. There was some Buddha that was gold and people could pay for this condom-size package with some gold flakes and smear it onto the statue. The pagoda itself originally was 20 meters tall and has been added on yearly, it seems. People also pay for “jewels” (this is what it said in the description) to buy prayers or something. There were all kinds of those. The place was just insane. I couldn’t believe the money people just handed over to build that thing.

The "cave"

But it was nice to see and really is the thing to do while in Rangoon, also known as Yangon. (I don’t know all the politics, but the U.S. federal government doesn’t refer to it as “Myanmar” and “Yangon.” It’s “Burma” and “Rangoon.”

There was also a nice garden (Kandawgyi Lake), another big, reclining Buddha – my third, I think – and a cool market. Markets are really nice to wander around in, but I’m not at all into buying stuff so it got old after awhile.

On Monday, I visited a friend whom I’d met in Ft. Lauderdale. It was a wonderful visit. I got visit her, meet her husband, eat a nice meal, get a massage and a haircut.

The prices in Burma are fantastic, but tough to predict. After my day with the guide, I wandered around in the area of my hotel – Chinatown – and had a fabulous street meal. It came to 80 cents. A Coke, purchased after dinner, cost double that. The taxi ride was cheap in comparison to the U.S. but seemed out of proportion to some other things.

That’s one tough thing I find about traveling. I go to a lot of places and countries where it’s expected to bargain, but it makes it really difficult if you have absolutely no idea what the going rate is for X product. I might know what X product sells for in the U.S., China, Morocco and even Indonesia, but if I’m in No Man’s Land, that’s useless. I have no idea of its value to begin negotiating.

So I tend to just tend to skip that part and either pay what they’re asking or – and this is far more common for me – just walk away. I figure I’ve lived without whatever it is for this long, it’s clearly not something I need.

The pagoda

My next trip is undetermined. As I mentioned, I’m not going to be going to Katmandu – Rona came through and AmEx already credited my refund – but I haven’t come up with a location. I mean, I have some options, but the flights are either too much for four days, have bad connections or I’ve already been there.

Today, I am “packing out” a colleague. This means I go through all his and his wife’s stuff and get it all ready to be shipped out. It’s really been an ordeal. It’s also really uncomfortable. I mean, I’m way in their business, knowing what foods they have, what booze they have (I had to unload all of that because none of it can be packed out), what kind of birth control they use, etc. But there’s no way around it. Early on, another person had to get packed out, though not by me. I offered to help at the time but the other person had it under control. The big boss said that at some point in this kind of career, you have to do it for a friend. I really hope this is my turn and I don’t get another time at the plate.

If I ever get out of here, I don’t think I’m going to Katmandu

About three months ago, Katmandu sounded like a good place to go, and it was on my bucket list. I thought I’d take advantage of a three-day weekend next month, add a day and cross another item off.

The list is dwindling, and I really do want to go. But the earthquake sort of deterred that, and when the airline changed my flight drastically, I decided to cancel it. I’d arranged to leave on a Friday morning, and the airline changed it to leave on Saturday night.  And that just didn’t jive with my time off.

So I called to try to cancel. This was on a Friday, a holiday here, and the Expedia guy, who was really nice but kept parroting my words back to me (“I understand that you cannot make your flight on 6/19”) made it sound like it would be no problem to do since it was an “involuntary change,” but couldn’t do anything until the airline’s offices were open and they had to call them.

The next morning, thinking the office would be open, I called again and got a different, nice parroting person who said the same thing. Ditto for two calls the rest of that weekend until I thought to ask when the airline was open. Turns out the office, which is a U.S. office of a Chinese airline, is closed on weekends. So I called back on Tuesday, when I was pretty sure it would be open.

And keep in mind that I do not have a phone. I do this from Skype, which for me is attached to my computer. The Expedia calls go through an automated “let me look up the number from which you are calling,” which invariably turns into “I cannot find that number. Using your keypad…” There is no option to hit “O” for an operator or anything. I just have to sit there and wait for it to cycle through to get to a point where a person might come on the line.

And sometimes at that point, I find out that I have a bad Skype connection and the person can’t hear me. On that day, I wound up trying from home 3-4 times, going through that “enter your phone number” crap and finally getting to a real person before finding out that the person couldn’t hear me.

So that day, I called about four times, trying to get someone who could hear me. Didn’t work. I finally cashed in my chips and went to call from work. That was call No. 9, and it was pretty miserable. The eventual gist of it was that someone would get on the problem, but they would have to email the airline and not call them. I was like, if that’s what you were going to do, how come you couldn’t do it after my first phone call?

And that’s when I’d experience the bad customer service, except that it’s good. That sounds wishy-washy, I know, but you’re talking to these people – clearly not U.S. nationals – and they are being so polite, but they’re not hearing what you’re saying, and definitely not paying attention, even though they are repeating it. And that part was incredibly frustrating, because I don’t need it repeated. I know what the problem is Making me stay on the line and listen to you go over and over it isn’t solving the problem.

Anyway, they were going to send an email on May 5. On or about May 13, I called back. I asked if there was any progress and got an “oh, we sent an email to the airline.” When I pointed out that it was over a week later and perhaps something might be wrong, they just parroted back my words again. “I understand that you are frustrated about the change in your flight…” AARGH.

So in all, they somewhat agreed that they would email again. Then, during the course of my day, I wound up working late so I decided to call the airline myself, since it was in China.

It wasn’t an overly happy phone call, so the next morning, I called the U.S. office of the airline and learned from a genuinely friendly operator who told me the email address Expedia used was not monitored and that they must call.

I thanked the person and hung up and called Expedia again. It took about five minutes to get to a supervisor (learned from experience I had to do this) and then, in the first  five minutes, reported that I had just spoken to the airline and that the email address wasn’t monitored and Expedia had to call and gave them the number, and that the airline was open NOW.

Forty minutes after that, I was still on the phone. My head was about to explode. The operator, like the others, kept putting me on hold randomly I never knew what they were doing or how long they’d take. When the person came back, I was like, um, why is this taking so long? Can you just call?

And more “sympathy training.” Please. The “sympathy” training is brutal, too. Parroting my own words back to me doesn’t mean you’re listening. You’ve proven that by saying, “I understand you talked to the airline and the airline said I should call them to cancel your ticket. I will now email the airline and ask them to cancel the ticket.”

I’m not sure where these places learn their customer service lessons , but after several calls, it gets tiring to hear them say, “I understand that you are frustrated because your flight on June 19 has been canceled. Let me summarize the problem.” It’s like, please, don’t summarize it again, please solve it. I just told you what the airline said for you to do; please don’t tell me for the 76th time what happened. I’m clear on that, thanks. Just please call them and fix it.

It was just horrible. The person would not do what I asked them to do. Eventually – the call lasted 50 minutes total – she said she was going to call (she said she’d “decided to call them.” I wanted to scream.) She put me on hold again, where I sat for a long time and then I just had to go because I was late to work. I’d been pulling the Skype headphones out of the computer and running to the kitchen, etc., trying to do morning stuff. I mean, seriously, I thought that phone call would last 15 minutes. All that was required was for them to get the message to call instead of email and then do it. I mean, the airline was open right then, so it should have been done.

So at lunch, I called again. I honestly thought the operator had fixed the problem because she said she would. But after being on forever, I came to light that she hadn’t.

It was so frustrating. Again, they’re as nice as they can be on the surface, but they don’t do anything. I just finally cut them off. She’d try to summarize it and I was just like, “Look, I don’t have time for this. I know the problem, I need the solution. I’ve told you what to do, so will you do it?” I swear I wasn’t rude, but I’d just had it.

And she tried. God as my witness, she came back and said she tried to call the airline then, but that it was closed. Ballistic, I was. I repeated that I had told the other operator that in the morning and had she simply done what I’d asked, it would have been done because the airline was open then – and I’d told them that.

She swore me she was going to do it and I started naming names. I said, “Look, Rona, I want to believe you, but that’s what Adrian told me this morning, and she didn’t do it. I was on the phone for 50 minutes with Adrian and in the first 10, I gave her the solution to the problem. After 50 minutes, she said she was going to fix it, but she didn’t. I want to believe you Rona, but Adrian didn’t do what she said she was going to do. Will you?”

And I think she did, so thank you, Rona. I now have an email saying my flight’s been canceled but a note that the refund can take up to 10 weeks. At this point, I’ll take that.

Now I have a blank weekend. No idea yet. I might wind up canceling the spare day off and going to Hong Kong.

This past weekend, I went on a furniture trip and bought a little table. It’s made out of reclaimed ship wood. I’d seen it last year when I went (but didn’t buy anything) and snagged it this year. I love it. Right now, it’s in the closest because I have nowhere to put it, but I love it.

Rain, migraine, go away

Beyond 60 minutes (down from a regular day) on the elliptical, my workout today included heading down 11 flights of stairs. I’d taken the stairs to save an elevator trip, buy my original plan had only been one floor, not 11. Silly me.

I’d had a rough day – more on that in a minute – and wrote an apologetic note to my flower trip companion for bailing on her, with the intent to slide it under her door. She’s on floor 17 and I’m on 16, albeit in different buildings. To get there, I simply cross this bridge thing and then go up one floor, then find the right apartment. I’ve done it before and it’s simple enough.

Well, this time, I figured since the elevators are always busy, why not just walk up a flight of stairs? I mean, how lazy can you be, right? It’s one flight. We have to use an elevator to go from floor two to one at work because of construction and it’s a PITA. You have to wait forever for an elevator, and we only have 4-5 floors at work. My apartment building has around 30 floors; it’s got to be so much quicker to just go up the one flight, right?

Well, in theory, sure. Of course, in theory, communism works. I clicked the thingie to open the door to the stairs and went up a floor. Waved my card at the red light and it turned green. Confidently, I pulled the door handle. It didn’t open. I tried several times, with no success, and then I tried knocking at the door to see if someone heard me. I wasn’t too far from the apartment of another couple I know, and heard the man’s voice. I called his name, but he didn’t hear me. Then I heard someone else’s voice and I called him, too, but I think what I overheard was probably the one guy welcoming the other guy over for dinner. Either way, I was still stuck. I kept waving and getting the green light but it didn’t work. Neither did waving my hands in front of the camera monitor.

 

I was there for several minutes and no one came to my rescue, so I figured what the heck, and started down the stairs. I went from floor 17 to 6 before I found a door that would open. That’s kind of the lobby-ish floor, where the gym, tea and cookie room, movie theater and the like are. I figured what the heck and went for some cookies before going up, back to floor 17, cramming the apology note under the door and going back to my apartment.

Really, I love my apartment building, but how weird. You’d think stairs would not be a one-way thing. And the reason I’d written the note in the first place was that I couldn’t call the room. I tried twice. A different person I know answered the phone. Of the four digits in her room number, exactly two are in common with the other. It wasn’t like I punched it in wrong. I even tried twice, and got her again. I could see in the little phone readout thing I’d hit the right numbers. I’ve no idea it rang something like 1386 when I’d dialed 1789.

Sort of icing on the cake for a terrible day. It started out kind of bad, and I forgot to head it off at the pass. I got up and did the abbreviated workout routine because I was going to the flower market today. I had no intentions of buying flowers (although I wound up doing so) and just wanted to get out and take some pictures.  I met my companion in the lobby and we made the 25-minute walk to another apartment complex, where the field trips always originate from. There were only nine of us going on this one, and the trip itself was great. No problems, although we did learn that to get the best of the fresh-cut flowers, you have to go first thing in the morning or at 3 p.m. Our trip was around 9:30 to 11:30.

 

When I woke up, I’d had a slight headache and remember thinking, “Wow, you should take an Advil so fend that sucker off.” But I forgot, and wow, that was stupid

Our trip to the market was really nice. It was hot as heck and muggy as all get-out, but this is Guangzhou. It happens. I’d also been really dumb (sensing a trend?) in wearing my FSU baseball jersey. That proved to be a bit toasty too. I was pretty miserable, but distracted enough by the pretty flowers. My companion and I split some.

The place is a huge, huge market that sells flowers to florists. Essentially, you buy in bulk. We paid about $10 and split a couple things. My share came to – wait, let me go count – three dozen purple roses,  dozen of these yellow flowers I am not sure what are and about 50 – I lost track – of some kind of two-color carnation. Ten bucks.

They had potted plants, too, which I hadn’t expected. Bamboo trees, tiny little things, cacti, lotus flowers and all kinds of paraphernalia. You could have made multiple bouquets with the piles of trash that had been discarded. Really, had we gotten there “on time,” I think I would have been overwhelmed.

As it was, I could not believe the mums. There were parade floats worth of them, in both yellow and white.

Right near when we were headed to leave, we had a sudden downpour, but the driver came on time and between showers.

“Showers” isn’t the right word. “Deluge” would be more appropriate. Once we were in the little van, maybe five minutes into a 20-minute drive, the sky opened. It just rained and rained. From the bus, I could see people on bicycles, and the bottom of their tires were underwater.

 

Fortunately, my companion and I were going to have lunch near where the bus stopped – that apartment complex has a TON of food places nearby – and I’d brought an umbrella. We ran in, called her husband (who was meeting us, although he ducked into a bank to wait out the storm. Usually you can do this.) and ordered.

And as soon as I sat down, the migraine came on, fully loaded. It was pretty awful. I don’t get them often, really, and the last time I had one that bad was when I wound up christening Karen’s new F-150 in an unholy way.

So, despite ordering lunch, I did not eat it and just sat in total, vise-like misery as my companion and her husband ate. I threw back water – dehydration is a trigger for me – but it was too late. I would have liked to have left, but unfortunately, the deluge continued. (Husband had left his place of refuge between downpours but arrived in the middle of another.) I was coherent but decided after eating the broccoli that came with my dish that I would save the rest for later and not risk it.

We thought we might catch a cab on the way out but, as many apartments and restaurants in the complex, there just aren’t cabs. So we walked – quickly – back, with me just concentrating on not tossing my cookies. Or broccoli.

Husband slid into the metro station halfway there, but at that point we were halfway anyway, so Companion and I kept walking. I didn’t think I needed to endanger people anyway; I really thought I was going to puke. We got to the park thing that I have to cross and it was really like a river. The water was about ankle deep. At that point, I could see my building. I’d stopped near a trash can, thinking I’d have to use it, and Companion, who was a bit behind me, thought I was contemplating where to cross. She went down further and I said I had to cross there and get home, so I just completely bailed. (Hence the apology, although I know she understood.) I just dived right in and across.

Fortunately, I made it home, popped an Excedrin migraine, shed the soaking wet clothes and took a short nap. I’m not entirely sure what time I got back, but at 4:30 I felt like a human again.

At that point, I had another one of those excursions that make you want to roll your eyes. Everything is hard, you know? I went to pick up my glasses and had a really, really rough time determining which store I’d gotten them from. They all look alike, and the receipts were all written in Chinese. I’d go into one store and show them both receipts and they’d point me one way, and a store in that direction would point me in another.

Fortunately, everyone’s friendly and I did get both pairs with minimal trouble, although it’s just enough to make you shake your head. I even got one of the receipts stamped to where I can get my VAT back. The other guy told me to come back in 3-4 days to pick it up, and I think that I will. (It’s probably $5 or so.)  I tried that pair on again when I got home and it fits a little weird, so I’ll ask him to size it a little better, too. I’m totally happy with them, though.

A three-day in town

My freezer holds at least 48 boxes of Junior Mints. Well, actually, the bottom drawer of my freezer (which is more than a third of the whole freezer), holds 48 boxes of Junior Mints. I have more in the top drawer, which is smaller than the bottom drawer.

This past three-day weekend wasn’t that productive, and about all I did was unpack two cases of Junior Mints and load them up into the freezer.

That’s my post-dinner treat on a nightly basis – half a box – and I’ve placed my last order of them from Amazon for the summer. If I order them now, they’re going to be way too melty to eat. And I keep them in the freezer to prolong their little lives. I hope they last through summer, but I don’t think they will.

And since I’ve decided I have no willpower for LifeSavers, I don’t know what I’ll do after I run out.

Anyway, that was my three-day weekend. I did barely anything. There’s really no excuse why I couldn’t crank out a blog post, either. I was mostly bored. Seriously, I was in the gym SEVEN times.

It was International Labor Day on Friday, and the first three-day weekend I’ve spent in Guangzhou. I had high hopes of going to the in-town safari park, but that didn’t work out. My two would-be companions canceled on me because we had a 90 percent chance of rain. (It did rain, but only for about 10 minutes.)  I thought we'd reschedule for Saturday or today, but they had kiddie stuff to do.

So was largely bored, but did do things in spurts. My left hip is hurting badly from over-use of the gym and pool. On Sunday, I didn't last on the elliptical, which I usually do for 75 minutes before moving on. I got to 45 minutes and had to quit and move to the bike. I'd been in the pool at 9 p.m. the night before and I just couldn't go at 7 a.m.

Friday, I opted to have breakfast in the apartment's restaurant -- they're offering it to us now -- and ran into a bunch of colleagues who live here. I was probably there for two hours, all told. The group just kept growing. Three of us decided to go to the glasses market. I bought two pairs of glasses for about $70 total. The one person got a pair of trifocals for $120 or so. We were supposed to go back this weekend to get them, but now the one person is going to Hong Kong instead. The third in the party went back the next day with her husband to pick hers up and get more.

Saturday, I did the grocery shopping and veggie market, then cooked. Between that, Die Hard and the gym, that was it. I wound up watching all three Die Hards. (Like Indy, I disavow any knowledge of a fourth.)

Sunday I wandered out to go to the bar and watch the fight, but I realized I didn't know where the bar was and came back. Upon returning, I called someone to whom I'd told I was going there and said I didn't go, what was he doing. He said he was back at the apartment and was going to watch the fight at the same place, so I met him and he took me. Turns out I went the right way but it was a block further than I thought it was.

Anyway, the crowd (and it was PACKED) seemed to think Pacaquano -- or whatever his name is - got hosed, and then my friend (the dentist in the building; he is from the same map dot that Mary Lynn is from.) got a burger and went back home. Another colleague had reserved the movie room at 7 p.m., so I wound up finishing the long, boring weekend with 1961’s “The Absent-Minded Professor.”

And now I just can’t do another three-day here. I still want to go to the safari park but not enough to hang out here for it. (Incidentally, it costs more on holiday weekends anyway, so we’re going to aim for a regular weekend for it.)

My next three-day is up in the air, though. I have a flight to Katmandu and fortunately, China Southern changed the flight time, giving me a possible out. I think I can cancel it without a penalty, but since I got it through Expedia, this is turning out to be more involved that I thought. Still, I am hopeful, and if I get it canceled, I have absolutely no idea what I will do.

I do not want to stay home again.