Where it rains in the room

The Seychelles was the only African country on our trip - and one could not have approached it more cautiously (or cowardly), because the island state is the second richest country on the continent, and that without any oil reserves. Furthermore, it is so far away from Africa that it is a world of its own: small, spoiled by tourism, arrogant about its natural beauty, very clean and tidy - and also completely overpriced. Then our journey to the truly exotic began: to Myanmar.

First surprise after landing in Yangon (formerly Rangoon): It was pouring rain. Um, the rainy season should already be over :-( We didn't have any umbrellas, so we arrived at the restaurant for dinner soaked like wet poodles - and were soon overwhelmed by the friendliness and warmth of the people here: After paying the bill, the waitress simply grabbed three umbrellas, handed one to each of us, and escorted us to the hotel, which was a ten-minute walk away. Perhaps it should be mentioned that tipping is not common here - and no tip is expected for such kindness.

The hotel in downtown Yangon, where we had a room, was definitely not suitable for rain. During the night, it started pouring rain, even into our room. We waited until it started dripping into the third bed (so we no longer had a dry place to sleep) and there was already a small lake on the floor. At 2:30 in the morning, the nice guys at the reception found us a dry room in the neighborhood. It would have been funnier if we hadn't spent the previous night (very poorly sleeping) on the plane.

The next morning it was still pouring rain, so we could only take a short walk through the quirky city center of Yangon during a break in the rain. Because in the afternoon we went on to the temple and pagoda paradise of Bagan. But we will come back to Yangon again, hopefully without rain.