Yangon again!

Joey and I got back to Yangon on Feb 6th because we wanted to have a day to spend with our monk friend. We had told him that we would be back on the 4th but weren't able to make that deadline. Apparently he was quite worried and had called our guesthouse looking for us. He was worried that we were hurt.

We went over to his monastery to find him but he wasn't there. So we hung out in a tea shop from across the street hoping we could see him walking there before his polyscript class in the afternoon. We finally found out from another monk that he was sleeping! So we waited a bit more and then decided to brave the monastery. We accidentally interrupted a prayer class trying to get to his room. Joey and I decided not to go any further because we didn't want to disturb anyone. Next thing we know our monk friend is running after us!

He invited us into his room and we showed him all the pictures we took of Myanmar. We also showed him pictures of our travels in Cambodia and Vietnam. He was especially interested in the temple pictures. Burmese people can have no dreams of traveling because most of them are either not allowed to leave the country, or don't have the money to do so. Joey and I decided we would show him what we had seen, and even some pictures of Canada. He was very happy. By the end we even had an audience of novice monks who came to look at the pictures. It was really fun.

We said goodbye to monk friend because we had to get ready for our flight the next day and he had to go to prayer. It was quite sad because we truly felt like we made a friend in a foreign country. We also felt sad because we wanted to show him the world and what else is out there. It felt silly to say "Any time when you're in Canada give us a call." It's just not simple like that with the Burmese which is sad.

That night Joey and I got ready to leave Myanmar. Both of us felt like we could have spent more time there, but with Joey's work 2 weeks was all it could be. Maybe one day we will visit this country again and come see our monk friend in his old age. I hope so.