Mr. Anthony

The Breeze Guesthouse in Mawlamyine had such horrible reviews online but was the only guesthouse online that was in my price range. Cheyenne and I decided to take the tuktuk from the bus station to the center of town and try to find alternatives. We figured we would be able to bargain with one of the hotels that's not online, but the tuktuk driver took us straight to the Breeze Guesthouse. The rooms were cheap, small and bug free (as far as we could tell). Apparently we were lucky. Some of the other rooms had bugs. The horrible bitey kind that lives in the mattress.

But then we met Mr. Anthony. And he makes up for ANY bad review at the guesthouse. He talked pretty quietly in good but accented English, and he reminded Cheyenne of her grandmother. He dithered around and worried about all of his guests. He sat down and told us lots of great info about his town and about philosophy in general. Mr. Anthony is an international name, he explained. Tony (USA). Anthony (Britain). Antonio (Italy). Anton (Russia).You get the picture. He was our tour guide the next day (he runs tours on his off day). Qe found out that hes 73 and really excited for his daughter to graduate university and get a job so he can retire. He had a large bag he called his Mary Poppins bag. After watching him try to find something in it, I truly think he was prepared for anything. He even had little gifts for us at the end of the tour. He handed them out and then took a nap for the last half our of our boat ride up the river.

One of the beautiful brides

Tiny grandmother of the bride

The next day our tour went across to an island in the river. Mr. Tony kept talking about some sort of religious festival and while he never clearly explained what was being celebrated at the festival, it was a good day for weddings. We hadn't even been on the island for two hours and we had already had snacks and taken pictures at two weddings. We were stuffed to the gills. Mr. Tony was very concerned for Cheyenne and the other vegetarians. He kept double and triple checking that they weren't hungry.

The little kids loved looking at the pics of themselves on my camera

We were bouncing about in the tuktuk and this group of ladies adamantly stopped us. It was so urgent I thought they needed help with something. Nope. They wanted to share a coconut milk drink with us. After we each had a cup, they took the cups back, waved at us and sent us on our way. It was truly an island full of smiles and generosity.

They stopped us to feed us coconut milk.

We also got to see how rubber bands and a variety of wooden crafts were made.

Big sticks dipped in rubber

Hanging out to dry before getting cut into bands.

We spent the rest of our time in Mawlamyine wandering around. This is a sleepy town on the river where George Orwell was a police man. We watched sunset from a pagoda after getting to step inside a beautiful mosque (only one step inside), wandering around a Christian church, and touring a Hindu temple. The diversity of these areas continues to amaze me. I have been asked what my religion is several times, and people seem incredibly concerned when I say I don't have one. It's not that they are particularly interested in making me join their religion, they just seem very concerned that I don't have some sort of religion for my belief system.The concern was quite heartwarming.

Bike skeletons

He gave us a tour around the Hindu temple and called us his sisters many times.

Sunni Mosque from the outside.