Return to Yangon

We arrive at Mandalay airport just after 7.30am and I say goodbye to Srs’ Geraldine, Bernadette and Peter the driver. I suppose that we all wonder when we will see each other again. I know that I will not be over for at least eighteen months soit is a bit sorrowful. Though I have only been in Mandalay for a few days I feel as though I have been there a lt longer.

After going through the checkout I learn that my flight has been changed and rather than getting a direct flight to Yangon we are now going via Bagan. Last time I was here a group of us went to Bagan on a boat which took about eight hours going down the river very slowly. A lovely trip, but one that only has to be done once. The plane took just over half an hour to get to Bagan. Bagan is a holy place for the Buddhist and there are thousands of Beghodhas These are ancient monuments that were built in honour of the Buddha usually by a dead person’s family so that they may be spared a couple of lives as they journey to Nivarna. Flying in to Bagan you see the whole landscape covered with these mainly brick built begoddhas. Some of them are over two thousand years old.

A quick stop in Bagan and then off to Yangon which is only a short trip. Sister Ann and Sister Ann Marie are there to meet me but it is raining and I mean raining. All through this trip I have been lucky with the weather so I cannot complain. After parking my bag in the convent and having a bite to eat we go to the Scott market. I kept calling it the stock market and it is certainly not that. Its the place to go when you wanted prescious stones and gold. I went there to get some oil paintings which were really cheap or so I thought only to find out later that I could have got them cheaper.

The 7th October is the feast of the Holy Rosary so the parish priest of St Theresa’s was throwing a party for Sister Rosary who was the superior in the convent there. So all the sisters piled into car/van to go to the festivities in the evening. It must have looked quite strange all these sisters in the back with all their veils flying around. Yet no one seemed to take any notice. We arrive there and the party begins. Not your usually party I must admit. There was no wine and the only spirit floating around here, was the Holy Spirit. Yet for all that everyone was happy and enough to eat and after that people got up and sang songs. Had a great chat with two seminarians and the parish priests then at eight thirty we all went home.