Yangon is the capital of Myanmar (Burma) and the country’s largest city. We arrived around 9PM and the city was already dark. I arranged for the hostel to pick us up from the airport because I didn’t want to worry about bartering for a taxi ride. I wasn’t sure what a fair fare would be and I was concerned they wouldn’t understand the address I had, which was written in English.

The culture shock was immediate. I went to the airport bathroom and in the first stall was a little girl that looked like she was 9, on her hands and knees in flip-flops scrubbing the squatty potty hole. Seeing someone on the ground that close to one of those portals to hell, without gloves or a mask or her hair tied back, made me forget that I even had to go and I 180-d the hell out of there.

The employee picking us up from the airport was a polite and soft-spoken kid named Gosu, he told us he was 24 but I would have guessed 17. As we drove home from the airport on barely lit streets, I stared out the window and began to get kind of nervous about my surroundings. Everything was really dark, but the storefronts that were lit were dusty and ramshackle.

As we approached downtown Yangon, Gosu’s car was stopped by a handful of soldiers standing in the street. Without a word, one of them opened the front two car doors, examined Gosu and the front passenger’s seat with a flashlight, shut the doors and waved us on. As painless as it was, I was incredibly unnerved. Gosu apologized and said that they just started doing that, due recent changes in government. (Read more about that here)

Once we arrived at our hostel, I was relieved to see groups of tourists sitting on the patio drinking and chatting. A boy that looked younger than Gosu grabbed my bag and schlepped it up to our room. The official working age in Myanmar is 12 but the people look 30% younger than they really are, so at first glance it looked like the place was being run by a bunch of 8-12 year olds.

I sat on the bed and wondered what the hell I had gotten us into, thankfully Aleksiy interrupted my downward spiral and suggested that we go downstairs to get a drink.

We joined a table of Germans and Indians chatting in English, sharing a bottle of Johnny Walker. All of the Germans (except for 1, Jeremiah (?)) had to leave in the morning so they cleared out early. What ensued was a really fun night of incredible conversation spanning family, religion, politics, Myanmar, and cultural differences.

I’ll tell you about the Indians because they were my fave, although I can’t remember their names. They were 2 brothers from Punjab, one was ~55, the other ~60+. They were the bookends of 6 siblings, the only 2 still living. The younger one did most of the talking (great jokes!), and it was fascinating getting to know both them. The younger is a general practice doc, went to med school in England and lives there now with his English wife and daughter nearby (who recently birthed his first grandchild!) The older still lives in India, is a psychiatrist and a practicing Sikh, with lots of adult kids and grandchildren. He has a snow white beard that looked awesome with his dark skin, black turban, and huge smile. Towards the end of the night he was kind enough to take off his turban so I could see what was under there. To my delight he was sporting a the cutest snow-white top knot! We all laughed and I told him how stylish his hairstyle was.

We ended up polishing off the bottle of whiskey, and I fell asleep happy, grateful, and excited to be in Myanmar.