Devoted Camp, Thaton, Myanmar - Day 2

13th April, Sunday...

Woke up at 7am, went down to have our buffet breakfast at 7.30. We took our time and enjoyed the spread, the omelette is really nice. Saw Thiha picked us up at 8.30am and we headed down to the church. Saturday was the first day of water festival but i didnt get wet yesterday, only Priscilla and Jeremy. But today the inevitable happened, most of us got wet. The driver of our taxi was really cool, he took a bucket of water on his face but he did not even flinch, just continued driving and proceeded to wipe the water off his face with his hands. I spoke at the pre service bible study at 9am, Lavonne, Tongneng and Fabian discussed the games for the camp with Joseph and the camp comm while Priscilla, Alina, Pearl and Jeremy helped out at their Sunday School. After that we had lunch at the church, Ps San Min and the leaders da-bao for us cos we had to leave immediately after that to take a 7 hour bus ride to Thaton, a city in Mon State, southeast of Yangon. The bus ride is real fun, its a crowded, non air con bus, many times we had to close the windows cos people were trying to splash water into the bus so it was really sauna. Many funny stories along the bus trip, cheesy Burmese music videos and a drunk monk who was eventually thrown off the bus. There was a picture of buddha on the front of the bus and a line that says, "lord buddha, the unrivalled one", tongneng was really amused by this. Reached Thaton at about 9.30pm. Pastor Agoh from Thaton took us to our "1000 star hotel" in his "mercedes benz", thats what Yangon funnyman no 1 Saw Thiha said about the hotel and the jeep. Well, it wasn't really a hotel, sort of like a motel. Tongneng and Fabian were praying on the way that there will be soccer on the tv at the hotel. They were elated to realise there really is, so they watched Man U vs Arsenal at the main hall. 3 policemen were acutally there waiting for us to arrive, Saw Thiha handed over photocopies of our passports and they left after that. Guessed its sensitive cos we are foreigners. The hotel is not too bad except for the power that keeps tripping. Had a debrief in Lavonne and Pearl's room cos theirs is the biggest then we slept. Our first night in Thaton....