Burmese days

Well I havent managed to update my blog over the past few weeks as i have been in Myanmar and the government blocks this particular blog site..

anyhow have had such an amazing time in Myanmar. First we arrived in Yangon to find a contrast between the nice new air conditioned thailand taxi's to 1980's taxi's in Myanmar. i never managed to find a taxi with a working speedo or one that would come anywhere near passing a warrant. most of them were rust buckets that belched smoke and threatened to (and often did) break down at any time. unfortunately Japan stopped sending them imports and also stopped sending spare parts so not only do they have old cars they also have cars they cant fix!!

Yangon was so run down it was a real shock. lots of opulent large buildings from the colonial era that were covered in moss and dirt and hadnt been painted for 30 years. many of the buildings were literally crumbling but people still lived in them. the footpaths were in even worse condition, old concrete slabs that had caved in. In Mandalay they had concrete slabs covering drains, but most of the slabs were either loose, gone completely or half collapsed, meaning most of the footpath was unusable! lining the footpaths were hundreds of stalls selling all sorts of things (though if you dared stop and look you would be hassled to buy something). and everywhere we went men came up to us offering to exchange money!! They love US$ over there (though only crisp new notes, even a slight tear makes a note unusable). it turns out the government increases in flation so much that money is worth less and less there (making it impossible for people to save) so they all want US$ as its more stable.

the first day we arrived we wandered into a temple and were pretty quickly adopted by a monk (who turned out to be someone dressed as a monk or a very bad monk, as he asked for money which we later found out they arent meant to do!). anyway he was quite useful and took us to some of the big temples in the area and explained all about them.

the next day we had enough of Yangon so we headed on a bus towards Inle lake. somehow i read the wrong part of the lonely planet and thought the bus ride was 8 hours... 22 hours later and one very uncomfortable sleep on a bus we arrived in Inle lake! seems they dont have sleeper trains here in myanmar so you just get a bus with reclining seats.

Inle lake was really beautiful. We spent the first day doing absolutely nothing as i developed bronchitis from everyone coughing and spitting on the street in yangon, and a cold uncomfortable night bus ride... but the second day we hired a boat and guide and they took us around Inle lake. the lake was beautiful with fishermen rowing their boats along (using their leg hooked around the oar). there were also villages built on the lake, and we went and saw a jewellery maker (that gets the dregs of silver from big places, melts it down and carves it into jewellery), a cigarette maker, a sword maker and a cloth maker.

everywhere we went we were remined that since the monk demonstrations and cyclone nargis they have had almost no tourists. it was unusual to eat in a restaurant and find other people there, and some shop owners talked about the fact that they had no customers for a week! It was eery to see so many taxi drivers, or boat drivers in Inle, as well as restaurants and shops just waiting around for the tourists who hardly ever came. this of coruse meant everywhere we did go they really hassled us, literally shoving necklaces and shirts in our faces, following us as we walked, and asking us to justify why we did not need thier services! sometimes we ran into the temples for shelter, as they cant come into the temples (they just follow you round the building waiting for you to come out..)

after a few more relaxing days at Inle we hopped on a bus to Mandalay. Now i would never have imagined it, but they managed to build a bus small enough to squish MY legs against the seat in front. we were put in a seat on top of the engine so the floor was raised as well, and there was no space to put a bag so it had to sit on my lap the whole time. Owen got the isle seat so he could at least put his legs out there. 10.5 hours of shere uncomfort, broken every 2 hours or so , so that they could throw water on the brakes to cool them down. by the time we got to Mandalay my body was well and truly aching from head to toe!.

the next day we took up an offer from a tri-shaw driver outside our hotel with good english, to take us on a tour of Mandalay. A tri-shaw is a bycicle with a seat on the side, that seats one person forward and one person backward. The drivers name was Starsky and he turned out to be a real legend (i particularly liked him as he treated me like a person, which was quite the opposite to most men in Myanmar who treated me like someone with the social standing of a rat, to quote george orwell in Burmese days). He took us to a few temples including Mandalay hill (which had 1755 steps up and down, and lots of buddahs, pagodas and temples along the way). Mandalay hill did provide an awesome view of the city! He also took us to a gold leaf making store, and out for 'local' food, and explained many things along the way, along with why he hates the government. not hard to see why when he had to pedal us over some appalling roads as the government refuses to fix them, leaving people to sort themselves out!

the next day it was my birthday and Starsky offered to have a friend take us in a taxi to a nearby town to see a few things. first we went to a wooden teak bridge which was 120 years old. quite an amazing feat for being that old and still standing in the water. of course along the way we had children trying to sell us bracelets and be our tour guides... on the opposite side we checked out another temple (which amazingly looked the same as all the other temples we'd seen..) and then headed back. next was a stop to a monestary where we saw hundreds of monks walking past in file having rice placed i their bowls as they went in to eat. Starsky explained to us about how they had riots here last year, and the police had come with tear gas and forced him to run away. tear gas on peaceful protestors...

next we went to a festival which was a Nat celebration (Nat is the spiritual belief they hold alongside buddism). there were tons of stalls and Owen bought me some flowers so i offered it to a Nat statue for good luck. as it was a special holiday women were allowed to put gold leaf on buddah (normally we're allowed nowhere near him) so i did that, and a she-male dancer gave me 1000 kyat so i donated that to another Nat statue. lots of good luck for the day!

after all this Owen and i were pretty tired and hot so Starsky dropped us off at a local flash hotel where we paid to use the swimming pool. was so nice and relaxing... and after dinner at the hotel Starsky picked us up on his tri-shaw and took us to a show for the 'moustach brothers', who are the only open voice of dissent in Myanmar. the brothers (and their wives) used to perform to the local public but after one too many comments about the government two of the brothers were sentenced to 5 back breaking labour years in prison. after they came out a group of tourists came to see them so they put on a show and when the police came along (as they were banned from performing) they simply said they were 'demonstrating' their show to the toursts, and it wasnt a real one as they didnt have costumes or anything on. this seemed to fool the police and they have been largely left alone ever since, touch wood. they even bought out the full costumes for us!

a few days later we decided to head to Bagan, which was a recommended place to visit. 8.5 hours later in a bus with slightly more leg room (though filled with as many peple as you could possibly squeeze into a bus, with a few more on teh roof) we got to Bagan. I should comment about the roads along the way. to save money the government came up with quite a clever idea to only seal one lanes worth of road, there is then dirt on either side. everybody drives on the sealed patch and when you drive towards each other a sort of chicken game gets played until one person turns to the side at the last minute (usually the smallest one). the landscape was beautiful though, changing between rocky dry landscapes (with all the rocks beign removed by people on the roadside with pick axes, to be sent to china), to large open dry fields and then to grassy rice-paddy fields with lucious green landscape.

Bagan turned out to be a gorgeous city, one of the highlights of my trip (helped by the fact that Starsky talked us into taking a hotel at $18 a night with a swimming pool..as the temperature there seemed to be 40 degrees at least every day). there are over 4000 temples in this little city alone, some are grand old ones, and some are brand new ones. they are all made of red brick too which makes them much more interesting than the gold ones we have seen everywhere else! After a day at the hotel poolside we hired the worlds most uncomfortable bikes from the hotel and cycled along the roadside, looking at temples every which direction you could turn. after about 30 minutes there were quite a few in one area so Owen suggested we stop. We were looking around for a while when i found a secret stair case in one of the temples which allowed us to get to the top of the temple and have a view from above! was really spectacular. after a while we cycled back to have lunch and a swim (and were repeatedly followed by men on bikes trying to sell us paitings as we biked along! there were about 8 people that did that in one day! although really by us i mean Owen, they ignored me.. one time sexism worked to my advantage..). after our swim we headed to one of teh big temples close by (and regretted it as were followed by 8 people trying to sell us stuff the whole time!), but then cycled on further until we found another bunch of temples where we found one with a staircase. we sat there to watch an anti-climatic sunset. but got up before the sun the next morning, cycled back to the temple and watched the sun rise over 4000 temples around us. was so beautiful! like nothing else in the world it was really magical.

later that day we prepared ourselves for another night bus trip, but discovered a few hours into the trip that after some heavy rains they had flash flooding on the main highway! there was about 1km of road flooded out with what looked to be quite fast water. some brave tractors could make it across but our bus (which had already made its mandatory one break down for teh trip) had no chance. So for 2 hours we sat around eating rice and drinking tea at some stalls that happened to be right there (probably made for this exact situation..) and headed on our way. fortunately the bus wasnt full and the back seat of the bus had boxes in the foot area and one box plus my bag on the seats. so i removed my bag and could stretch myself out almost totally along the seat! actually had quite a good sleep.. and 5 hours after our 6am 'arrival time' we arrived back in Yangon. Managed to find my hotel and some hotel guests had enough US$ to change my money back (thank goodness!), spent a night in a room which had the sun streaming in (read feels like a sauna) that had windows right next to someones yard filled with rubbish (read wafting rubbish smells).. as the government came up with the clever plan of not having a rubbish management system, to keep some more money for themselves...

anyway i am now back in Bangkok for the night thoroughly enjoying computers that work, ATM's and variety of food, as well as other tourists to talk to! Really Myanmar is a beautiful country with such friendly and honest people, and its such a shame they are being made so poor by such an oppressive regime that even drives away the tourits. its very easy to travel the country and hardly give any money to the government, while giving lots to the locals where it is most needed. in the words of the moustach brothers ' we need tourists. tourists are the trojan horse that can get the message of our plight out to the world'. Its not a dangerous place to travel so long as you stick to where you are meant to be , and there are many things well worth seeing.

I will now head off as this blog is well long enough for anyone who has read it to this point! Tomorrow morning Owen and I head off to Cambodia to see Siem Riep (Ankor Wat), which i have heard is amazing. after that we will head to Vietnam for a few weeks which i am very excited about.

I have also just added heaps of photos onto www.bebo.com/ingridjones if you wanna check them out!

much love to all,

Ingrid