We left Yangon this morning VERY early (up at 4am), also leaving our spoiled expat life.
The latter was the result of staying at some friends' place, friends who are truly expats, having lived in Yangon for the past 2 years, and being westerners. "Expat", in fact, is the word westerners have invented to avoid having to call themselves "immigrant", which sounds too immigrant.
We are left with mixed feelings about the expat life, especially having children.
Expats, as we all know, are white people who live (either temporarily or permanently) somewhere in Asia, and who have maids, drivers, nannies, masseuses etc. who do for them all the things that I, and most others like me, have to do every single day for themselves. Most of all, dealing with my two children (more on this below).The latter is a major factor in expat life: maids can do anything child wise, you can possibly offload all your parenting duties to them. I have seen families boarding on a plane, and once at the door, mum and dad go left, to 1st class, and children +maid go right, 2nd class.
It's nice, it's very nice to have a maid. We've had her for 5days all for us (friends were not in Yangon, that's why we stayed at their place;)), and I and Woman have never been so happy and relaxed and in love with each other. But this 'maidness' can't be right. Expats say they need maids & co because driving in Jakarta/Yangon etc. is such a nightmare it's impossible to get home in time to cook dinner and do kids stuff. But is that true? How many after-work drinks are expats having, compared to full time parents? Also, the maid plays such a big role in the life of the family, she gets often emotionally attached to the kids and the kids to her; but when 'the posting' finishes and the family moves to another country, she just gets dumped. End of the contract.
That said, we have had 5 very happy days in Yangon, but they were enough. No one has got sick yet: on the downside, I did not manage to go for a run. Turns out all you people who write on the Internet that you have been jogging in Yangon, you're all mad. It's impossible to have a pleasant run in Yangon, pavements are all cracked, there are holes, there is dust everywhere. Plus, it's frigging hot, unless you go at 6am, while the maid deals with the kids, who at that time are already up in arms.
We're now in Bagan. Turns out all you people who write on the Internet that Bagan is OK if traveling with children, you're all mad. There's nothing here for children, at least not for my little crazy horse. I'm in a hotel room right now, nice hotel don't get me wrong, it's 8.30 pm, all around us people are getting in and out of their rooms, someone can be heard having sex: but we are here, like prisoners, like Anne Frank, trying not to breath too much for fear of waking up Child n. 1 or n. 2, who have eventually fallen asleep, thus finally shutting the f* up. In fact, I and Woman are not even looking at each other, after spending the entire day blaming each other for things, while child n.1 bullied the shit out of us, and poured watermelon juice on all our clothes. We're just sitting at the two extremes of the room, writing on our respective devices how much we hate the other.
We've got two more days here. Tomorrow is N.1's birthday, he turns five. Darling little bandit. The hopes are, in order: a) that none gets sick b) that we don't kill each other c)I manage to go for a run around Bagan's temples.
PS I'd like to add some photos to these posts, but don't know how to upload pics on blogger using the IPad, which I'm using while traveling. Probably that is making me even crankier.
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