Myanmar (Burma) a mix of India and SE Asia with no electricity and lots of heat
We finally made it to Myanmar, after all the visa problems and detours and it was well worth the wait. Our first stop was Yangon.
After flying into Bangkok from Taiwan we got together for dinner with our French friend Roman whom we really enjoyed meeting in Laos and kept in touch with over email. We succumbed to our cravings for Western food and he took us to a neat open air pizza place with his Thai girlfriend and an American friend. Roman is quite a character, full of joie de vivre and more knowledge of the NBA than anyone I have ever met. He’s a walking, talking, French version of Sports Center. We’re really hoping to see him again on his home turf in France in July and again in Peru in October if he can make it for the Inca Trail hike to Machu Picchu with my cousin and friends from the US.
The next morning it was back to the Bangkok airport yet again, this time for our flight to Yangon, Myanmar, formerly Rangoon, Burma, and formerly the capital until very very recently the brutal and oppressive military junta in charge of the country built a new capital in a remote location 320km north of Yangon because of well…. because that’s just how they roll. We had a bit of shock and a good laugh when we landed at the airport and for the first time looked thoroughly at the Myanmar visa Shan had gotten in Laos in mid January. Because we paid for a travel agency to get the visa they had apparently not asked us for all the information needed for the application and therefore they creatively filled in some of the information themselves. Next time we go to Myanmar we’ll have to remember that Shan’s father’s name is George, she was born in Iowa, and recently worked as a schoolteacher. It could have been worse though, if it said she was a reporter or human rights observer we most likely wouldn’t have been let in.
We paid $4 for a taxi driver in a really beat up car to take us almost 30 minutes to get to our guest house in the center of Yangon, a really beat up city. You can tell that at one time it was a well-off city of importance to the British Empire as there are many large buildings and streets that could have looked good in their day. But now most of what we saw was run-down and very dirty. It reminded me a lot of my travels in India 8 years ago and you really feel the country being at the crossroads of South Asia and SE Asia as there is an intriguing unique mix of Indian, Chinese, and Burmese people and culture. It was interesting to see street vendors selling cold water made the old-fashioned way – a block of ice dripping water into a glass with the help of the intense sun and heat. Less interesting was the electricity that never works 24 hrs/day as an afternoon there without air-conditioning can be rough even in the shade.
We visited the famous and stunning Shwedagon Paya, the most sacred Buddhist temple in all of Myanmar, just before sunset and were treated to a spectacular view of the city as the night crept in. We were also treated to a fun conversation with a local young Buddhist monk who goes to the temple each evening to try to meet tourists with whom to practice English. He explained many things about the temple including the 7 different places where people pray based on what day of the week they were born and also about his spiritual journey as a monk in general. He invited us to visit him the next day at his temple so see where he lives and learn more about what he does but unfortunately we had already booked bus tickets to take us north and we were very sad to have to turn him down.
Our next stop was the home of a friend of a friend who is working for Doctors Without Borders in Myanmar. His housekeeper cooked us a really nice Burmese meal and we were fascinated by his stories of working under the watchful eye of the military government. After dinner he drove us around the city a bit, including getting as close as is possible to the police roadblock near the house of “The Lady,” the generic name people use to refer to Aung San Suu Kyi so that they don’t get into trouble with any secret police who might be listening to their conversation about the people’s hero and Nobel Peace Prize winner currently under house arrest. FYI, people do the same thing in Cuba as they refer to Fidel Castro as ‘barba rosa’ loosely translated as “the bearded guy” so as not to get into trouble with secret police there. In many ways Yangon looks a lot like Havana in that they’re both in the same state of crumbling buildings and broken dirt roads. Coincedence, I think not. Our friend took us to a “tea café” which consisted of some kid-sized plastic chairs and tables in the middle of a dark street where he shared more stories including one about a foreign NGO worker who had secret police come to her apartment in the middle of the night as they had reason to believe she had a guest sleeping in her apartment that night, which is illegal under the current junta. Not a fun place to live these days but a country full of incredibly friendly and helpful people who treat travelers as if they were long-time friends, not just someone who they can make some money from like in other parts of SE Asia.
For pics:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/shanlovesphotos/sets/72057594095650552/
Anthony
Tags: Myanmar, SE Asia, Southeast Asia, Travel, Yangon
Shan