Easter weekend, wherein two days is discovered to be a poor excuse for a weekly break.

Perhaps unsurprisingly Myanmar, as a majority Buddhist nation, does not really pay much attention to Easter. The Australian Embassy, on the other hand, pays a more attention, and gives its staff a four day weekend. So we celebrated in the traditional manner – entertaining international guests, brunching, and buying glassware.*

So that was Saturday and Sunday (also not pictured was a great deal of sleeping). On Monday we decided to visit the Nagar Glass Factory, partly because we had intended to since we arrived, and partly because we broke two thirds of our remaining water glasses last week, and we were getting quite thirsty.

Some background on the factory – apparently pre-Cyclone Nargis it was a thriving glass factory, making glassware and supplying it to people who need such things. However Nargis hit and one of the the vast swathes of destruction it wrought passed through. Obviously glassware and highly destructive weather events do not mix, and much of the factory fell down, along with the glass.

Unfortunately it was going to be too expensive to repair the damage and reopen as a glass factory, so at some stage they decided to open as is, allowing people to come in and salvage what they want – kind of like a “pick your own raspberries”, but for glass.

There are the cynics who say that all the good Nargis-surviving glass was scavenged long ago, and this is but cheap knock-offs from a factory in China, artfully buried and awaiting sucker tourists. But even if that’s true, it was a fun day out, and the glasses we chose were the same price as normal glassware from actual shops here, but much more interesting.

And now we finally have some glasses that fit a full can of soda water (you have no idea how happy this makes me).

*Also making tonic syrup from bark. But this was already covered in some depth on facebook, for those non-FBers (yes, Mum and Dad, I’m looking at you) I will put up a quick post shortly.