We started our last day in Kalaw at the Kalaw Market. Our guide divided our travel group up into teams. He gave each team a list of food items to buy and some money to make the purchases. We had one major problem. He wrote all the food items to be purchased in Burmese. So we set out to buy five or six items but we didn’t know what they were. Our task was to communicate with the vendors to see what we were supposed to be buying, find the items, and purchase them. Our guide further put out the challenge that this was a contest and that the first team to arrive back at the bus with all the items on their list would win a prize.

Vicky, Pete, and I were designated as the Green Team. We had five items on our list and away we went.

1. Pete (Vicky’s brother) and I may not be the two sharpest tools in the shed, but we were smart enough to put Vicky in charge of our shopping spree, as you can see in the first photo. We gave her the list and money and tried to keep up with her.

2. The vegetables, fruits, flowers, and spices in the Kalaw Market were fantastic. You can see one vendor in the second photo.

3. As you can see in the third photo, I’m collecting our purchases and Pete is taking photos – while Vicky was doing the “heavy lifting”.

4. We were glad that there was no Chicken on our list as we wouldn’t have been too anxious to make that purchase.

5. Only about 25% of the Burmese have electricity. That means that most people do not have refrigerators. I don’t know if that’s why we saw so many peppers for sale or not – to spice the food – but you can see some of the many peppers for sale in the last photo.

Our team won the prize. We had our five items purchased with money left over and we were back on the bus in about six or seven minutes. Our guide was shocked by our speed to accomplish the task. He carefully checked our purchases over because he didn’t think we could have done it all that fast. But we did and we won. Vicky deserves the credit. She started us off by picking a vendor with a huge variety of goods. That person ended up having three of our items and took us to someone nearby who had the other two. Like I said, Pete and I made one smart decision….