Category: RTW Trip

3/26/05

as usual, i have to wake up early today to get to a new city. it seems like half my time here is spent waking up early, rushing to catch boats, buses, rickshaws etc. it’s starting to get exhausting and i’d love a decent night’s sleep. but i only have a measily 18 days in this country. gotta make the most of it.

this girl megan had written me *6 pages* of advice on what to see in myanmar, and one of the places she highly reccomended checking out was this small town called Monywa. it wasn’t much hyped in lonely planet, so i most definitely wouldnt have ended up going there if it hadn’t been for the suggestion, so i was lucky to get a chance to see it. by the way, if anybody wants to read an interesting blog w/ *great* photos (not like the crappy blurry stuff i shoot), you should check out Megan’s blog.

the first part of the trip was by boat, and we trudged along the now familiar ayerwady river. after several hours by boat, i had to change to a bus. the guy tried to charge me for 2 seats, saying that i can put my pack on one seat and sit on the other. are you kidding me? we argued back and forth for almost 10 minutes until he finally let me buy just one seat. i think this guy was too much liking ripping off foreigners. i asked to use the toilet. as he showed me the way, he muttered something about me having to pay 200 kyat for it! WHAT? to use an outhouse?? i’ve never heard of such a thing in myanmar, but i had to go so i decided to pay. when i came out, he now said i had to pay 500 kyat instead of the 200. i was gonna argue, but then i just decided to pay up. 500 kyat aint much, just 50 cents, but it’s the principle of the matter.. especially when my bus ticket only cost 600 kyat.

the bus ride wasn’t too eventful, but the bus was completely packed, and my back was hurting like crazy. i ended up being really glad that i had talked the bus guy into only selling me one seat. the bus was completely full, so full that people were sitting on the floor. i woud have felt like a total loser, chilling there taking up two seats while people sat on the floor. i got to town, totally exhausted. it had been a long last several days and i hadnt had a good night’s rest in a while. i decided to not see anything till the following day. all i wanted tonight was to post some stuff online and then go back to my hotel room. i even paid extra to get a room w/ a tv. internet, shower, tv.. that’s all i could think of.

after eating, i set out to find a internet place. an old man said he knew where one was. he walked w/ me down a road for what seemed like forever. oops, that place didnt exist anymore. we walked back through town for a long time in the other direction. just another reminder of how nice people here are. this old man, with absolutely nothing to gain, spent a bunch of his time, and a lot of walking, just to show me where this place was. i was very appreciative. just my luck though, the place was supposed to close at 9, but closed early today, so no net for me. i was really frustrated. i hadnt been able to get online for days, and now i would have to wait more. oh well.. at least i could go back and watch tv, right? wrong. the tv received only 3 channels. 2 of them were blurry. all of them were in burmese and boring as hell. if i had known that, there is no way i would have gotten the room. i went to bed frustrated at how the day had turned out.

3/27/05

the main thing to see in monywa was thanboddhay paya. it’s a huge temple just a little out of town. the design of this temple is totally crazy, way different than anything i’ve seen here. all the colors are really bright and flourescent, and there are tons of random little statues of people etc all over. it almost made me feel like i was in disneyland on the “its a small world” ride. but it gets even more interesting the whole place, inside and out, is filled w/ tiny little buddha sculptures. these things are really small, only like an inch or two high, and they’re *everywhere*. the pillars have the tiny statues all along them, the walls do too, all the way up to the ceiling. it was so trippy walking through the place being surrounded by a miniature army of buddhas.

the bright colored outside of the pagoda… all those little white dots are buddha statues

funny statues

inside.. see all the statues in this room and the next?

closeup

after that, i went to this other place nearby where yet another army of buddhas was waiting for me. this army was life-sized, and there were rows and rows and rows of these life-sized sitting buddha figures. the figures came in different styles, some looked like they were frozen in stone while others looked more realistic. in the middle of all this, there stands a huge tower. you go inside and take this winding staircase up to the top. from the top you can look down on the field of buddhas below. it’s quite a sight! also, if you look out in the distance, you see the biggest reclining buddha you could ever imagine. this thing is ginormous. the book says it’s *90 meters* long. 90! basically, this buddha is the length of a football field. amazing.

there were other small pagodas etc around that i walked around to. the sun was scorching, and it was painful to walk on the blazing cement (you cant wear shoes at the pagodas). as i walked, i acquired a small army of children who started following me. first there was one, then two, and the numbers slowly grew. their initial intent was to sell me some postcards, but when i said no, they spent the rest of the time just walking around w/ me and pointing out stuff. little kids are so funny here. i’m not normally a big fan of little kids, but i can deal w/ these ones!

the army of buddha statues

90 meter buddha!

eventually, it was time for me to leave monywa. in the end, i only had like half a day to see stuff there. i took the bus to mandalay. i had decided to cut mandalay out of my trip since i just didnt have enough time for it. but there was no direct way from monywa to where i wanted to go, so i would have to spend the night there.

when i got there i was starving. i thought about giving burmese food a shot, but just couldnt bring myself to do it. i knew i would have to get western food. my trishaw driver reommended a place but warned it might be quite expensive. i couldnt care less. i just wanted something tasty and not too weird. the “expensive” prices were like 3 or 4 bucks an entree.. heh, wouldnt break the bank. they had “steak n’ mushrooms” on the menu, which to my surprise had steak, mushrooms, and even a little letter “N” cut out of toast. it was so gooooood. i had been dying for some nice food, and this tasted like the best steak i’ve ever eaten (i’m sure it wasn’t). even though the restaurant wasn’t too pricey, it had a pricey vibe. the waiters pulled out your chair. they put a napking in your lap. etc etc. i looked around the room and noticed that a lot of people there were well dressed. a couple even had cellphones. this must be where the elite hang out. as i walked out of the place, i noticed lexus and mercedes parked out front. so bizarre. what an alternate reality to everythng i had seen in this country. people are living in bamboo $200 dollar houses and can barely afford gas for their tiny scooters, while some fat cats here drive a lexus and chat on their cellphones (i later found out a cellphone here costs 1,200$!). it just seems so grossly unfair that some people have it so good while others barely have enough to live. i guess that’s the way it is everywhere, but the differences between the haves and have-nots here seem much more pronounced.

3/28/05

i had barely half a day to spend in mandalay. i was feelling lazy though, so i didnt bother to see any of the sights. instead, i grabbed a rickshaw and headed for the Moustache brothers. they are a performance troup that is highly reccomended by LP and i was hoping to see them perform. of course, they only perform at night, so going there in the middle of the day was a waste of time. but, i met the youngest brother, who oddly enough has no moustache. he was so nice!! just seemed like the freindliest guy. after talking for a bit, i ended up buying a cd of theirs, so looks like i’ll eventually see their performance after all. he urged me to come back to mandalay later to see them perform, but i doubted it would happen.

riding around mandalay, i finally came to terms w/ this whole trishaw thing. a trishaw is basically a bike rickshaw, but instead of in india where you sit behind the driver, here there is a side car. ever since i’ve know about these rickshaws, i’ve loathed taking them. i just feel horrible. how could i let some dude haul me along on his bike? it just seemed so shitty for him to be straining and biking in the million degree weather while i sat there. for that reason, i’ve always tried to avoid these things, but as of today, i dont care. driving a trishaw is his job. that’s how he earns a living. if he sees no problem w/ it, why should i?? who am i to decide that his job is undesirable, and how would i really be helping him by not giving him business? rickshaws are an accepted form of transport here, and there’s nothng demeaning about driving one, so why should i impose my own perceptions on it?

that night i took a bus to inle lake. it was a long exhausting 13 hour bus ride. the bus had AC, but for reasons unknow, they had it turned off the whole way. so it was painfully hot. i was in the back row, w/ no window. my seat didnt recline. the guy next to me slept the whole way w/ his head on my shoulder. the deepness of his sleep was astounding. i would elbow him, shove him, push *really* hard.. but he just wouldnt wake up!! eventually i gave up. ugh.

*v

i woke up early the next morning, still sleepy, but feeling a bit better. the two brothers greeted me at the door of my hotel. naing naing had evenutally made it back home late the previous night. we rented some bikes and went out to go look at temples. even though i had thought i had seen enough of temples, i ended up really enjoying the tour. instead of just staring at the temples and not knowing what i was looking at, i had everything explained to me by lwin. he took me to a bunch of really cool temples, showed me which temples you could hike up to the top of, and showed me a bunch of stuff that i would never have found on my own. he showed me all of these old drawings and murals inside the temples that were so dark you could barely see them. he showed me secret passages. i saw a lot of really cool stuff.

but the best parts of the day i think were spent just chilling in teashops chatting about life. we kept surprising each other w/ facts about our countries. for instance, he asked me if i had a phone. of course, i assumed he meant cellphone and said yes, but he actually just meant an ordinary plug into the wall phone. most people in myanmar dont have one! and as for cell phones, he hardly even knew what one was. he said he thinks he saw one japanese person one day talking on one, but that’s about all the experience he’s had w/ them. it’s weird cause i dont know of any other country w/ no cell phones. even india, in the most rural areas where people had practically nothing, i still saw cell phones. but not here. he told me other stuff like how here school is only *2* days a week! no wonder education isn’t all that good! he told me that the thatch and bamboo houses that people live in cost about 200$. it was really interesting to talk about just how different life was in the two countries.

lwin and his girlfriend

eventually, we headed back to his house and had lunch that his mother had made. the food was really good. maybe the home cooking here is better than the restaurant fare? as usual, his family was ridiculously nice to me. offering snacks while i waited for lunch. buying me bottled water since i couldnt drink their water. everyone was just too nice!!

lwin’s mother, father, niece, and sister

eventually we headed out to go see more temples. we had been biking around all day, and my legs were getting tired, but we had been incredibly lucky cause this happened to be the one and only day when it wasn’t hot. there was cloud cover and for just one day i actually was comfortable. at one of the temples we went to, i was bombarded by a bunch of little girls all asking me where i was from and what my name was. after i told them and walked towards the temple, they said in unison “after.. you come to my shop!!!” uh-oh. as soon as i left the temple, the girls were on me, dragging me to their parent’s booths. although it’s sad to see little kids this age having to work, it was still hillarious watching these kids try to mimic their parents. everything the parents said, the kids would squeek too. “what you buy? i give you special price! good discount!” followed by a chipmunk voice w/ garbled english “you buy! give special price!! discount!!”. too funny. in the end, i couldnt say no to the little kids and bought some lacquerware.

special price!!

eventually, sightseeing was over and we went back to the brothers’ house for dinner. everyone sat down on the floor and ate at the tiny table. once again, the food was good. and once again, everyone was ridiculously nice… too nice in fact. fish curry was the main course and when they noticed i was having issues w/ the bones in the fish, lwin’s sister took it upon herself to remove all the bones from my fish. she took hunks of fish, one at a time, and after meticulously removing any bones, she would put tiny deboned pieces of fish on my plate for me to eat. sheez.. i really felt pathetic having someone manage my food for me, but despite me saying over and over that i didnt need help, she wouldnt listen. dinner was a lot of fun though. the mom kept encouraging me to eat more and more and would laugh heartily when i kept trying to say i was full. the little kids in the family would peek around corners or peek in from outside and giggle at me. heh.

in the end, i was pretty much time for me to go, and upcoming was a moment i had been dreading. the thing is, everyone had been so nice to me, helped me so much, taken me on the boat trip, given me food, and spent all day showing me temples, that i really wanted to give something back to show my appreciation. but what to give?? i’d feel awkward just offering them cash. would that be rude? would that be an insult, if they had been calling me their dear freind, and i instead paid them like a guide? maybe i should offer to buy them something? would that be better? i didnt know how to bring it up. part of me was hoping they would just ask for some money. but then, the other part worried that if they asked for a bunch of cash, that i’d feel like everything they had done for me was just for money. what to do. what to do!

luckily, i had the decision made for me. naing naing pulled me to the side and opened up his set of paintings. he said that in a few days, there was this big donation ceremony, and that if i bought a painting from them, they could give the money to their mother. they seemed very distressed about the whole thing and kept repeating that i was totally not obligated to buy anything, and that i shouldnt buy if i dont want to and kept appologizing for even asking, but i kept saying it was no problem, and that i really wanted to help them out. eventually i chose a painting. he seemed very appologetic, but eventually said he wanted 20$ for it… much less than the actuall selling price he had told me days earlier. when i gave him the money, he even gave me a second painting as a gift. i couldnt believe that after everything they had done for me, they had only asked for 20 bucks. not to mention, that over the weekend, they hadn’t let me pay for *anything*. they bought me all my beer, water, food, ribbons, everything. i’m sure they must have spent at least 10 bucks on all of that stuff.

like i said, they were just too nice. but it didnt end there. when it was time for me to leave, one of their friends had come over. why? to drive my bike home. naing naing and his friend took *both* of the bicycles back to the hotel for me, while his brother gave me a lift on his scooter. i kept begging for them not to bother. why shoud they have to take the bikes back while i rode a cush scooter? but they just kept repeating that i was a dear friend and that i had been biking all day and must be tired, so they wouldnt let me bike back. i just couldnt believe these people!!

eventually, we got back to the hotel and i said goodbye to everyone. they said i definitely need to come back some day. i would really like to.. really really. i feel so lucky to have met and become friends w/ such nice people…

*v

me on the roof of the boat

front of the boat

offerings to the nat

i woke up the next morning and my back was killing me from sleeping on a tiny wooden bench that i didnt really fit on. i had a crapload of bizarre insect bites. plus, i was tired as hell since everyone on the boat decided to get up around 6 am. i groggily walked across the plank, and then we headed back into the village.

after a breakfast of these fried egg pastry things, it was time to visit the nat again. yes, the nat is all about drinking and card playing, but he also has a softer side… he happens to like colorful tissues and ribbons.. go figure. so we go buy some ribbons and then walk to the spirit shrine again. there is some kind of weird procession going on where people walk around a column while keeping one hand on the column at all times. we walk up to the nat and hand over our ribbons to a guy who touches them to the nat and hands them back. our ribbons are now blessed and i’m told that i should tie the ribbon to my pack or somewhere else so that i will always have it w/ me. i guess lots of people attach these ribbons to their motorbikes to keep themselves safe.

??, lwin, and naing naing

we sit down for a few drinks, even though it’s still like 9am. once again, beer w/ shots of rum in it. despite everyone’s urging that i should be sure to drink “slowly slowly”, everyone else proceeds to get quite wasted. it turns out, that most of these guys aren’t really allowed to drink when there isn’t a festival. they only drink a couple of times a year, so when it’s time to drink, they dont go light! after wandering around more, we head back to the boat.

on the way, Lwin asks me if i was interested in trying some toddy. toddy is this weird alcoholic beverage made from the sap of a palm tree. the sap is left to ferment and then becomes mildly alcoholic, like a weak beer. i say, why not, and we head off to go find a toddy salesman who fills up 2 liter bottles and a huge plastic bag. we walk back, with the toddy sloshing this way and that out of the sack. i dont know who decided it would be a good idea to sell beverages in plastic bags… it was just begging for trouble, and only 5 minutes after returning to the boat, the sack fell and all the toddy inside spilled all over the deck. oops! in the end, it turns out that it was for the better. when i tried the toddy that we still had left in the bottles, i was not pleased. it kinda had a nice sour taste, a little like cider, but at the same time had this funky smell and aftertaste that, although described as “nutty”, kind of smelled like a gross fart. after a few gulps, i couldnt drink anymore. in fact, for the next several hours, i couldnt shake remembering that nasty smell. ugh.

after a bit, we play cards. blackjack. it’s pretty fun, and we play for negligible amounts, like 10 cents a hand. after playing for a bit, everyone stops, and then naing naing gets up to walk away, thinks better of it, turns around and grabs the whole pile of cards. he throws the whole pile overboard into the river. huh? before the last of the 52 cards flutters into the water, one of the players jumps up and starts screaming at naing naing, and seconds later punches are being thrown. madness ensues. people start trying to hold the two guys back, but then other people are screaming at each other and then they start fighting too. everyone is falling into the mix. the people next to me, herd me to the back of the boat. people are still getting crazy, one guy is bawling like mad w/ tears streaming down his face, while being held back by two other dudees. as the fight slows down, some of them get down off the roof, and by this point the older people on deck have had enough. the older women are screaming at the top of their lungs at the fighters, and then start pounding them as hard as they can as the boys just cower, obviously not going to hit back.

i was utterly confused. what the hell had happened? what had caused all the chaos. i asked one of the guys who responded “it is your friend who is the bullshit man!”. other people seemed to agree. it was naing naing’s temper tantrum of throwing the cards that had started the fight. everyone was still pretty pissed, and he spent the rest of the morning sulking by himself on the front of the boat. at this time, i remember, only hours earlier before the fight, seeing a full deck of cards fly off the roof of the boat. i had assumed they just accidentally blew away, but now i wonder if naing naing had thrown that one too, and maybe the fight started because he had now thrown 2 decks of cards overboard.

the plan initially was to stop at one more village before we went back to bagan. a bit later, we pulled ashore, but then, it didnt seem people were really getting off and in a bit we started moving again, really slowly. someone from the boat got on the mgaphone and was broadcasting something very loudly to the shore. i asked someone what was going on, and it turned out that naing naing had stormed off the boat. he was gone. the megaphone guy was broadcasting that he better get back on the boat quick cause we werent waiting for long, and would leave w/out him. as we cruised downstream a bit, all of a sudden, a large light fixture from the roof of the boat came crashing down on deck. someone from up there had torn it off and thrown it. looks like there was trouble up above again. i couldnt believe the direction everything was taking.

by this point, the boat owner had had enough. he screamed at everyone for a long time. eventually, we pulled ashore, and lwin told me to come w/ him, but the boat owner got up and told me to stay put. he told me not to go anywhere off the boat and to ignore lwin cause “he has no brain. he’s stupid”. i felt really bad having him talk shit about my friend, but i really didnt know what to do. i couldnt go against the boat owners will, so i sat down and then lwin sat down too. minutes later the boat took off. naing naing was just left behind… hours from home. i hadn’t realized it, since i had no clue what was going on, but when lwin was telling me to come w/ him off the boat, it was to end up being left behind too, and the reason the owner didnt let me off was that he wanted me to come back to bagan by boat. phew.. good thing i didnt get off! i kind of started feeling like i was in an awkward position. my two friends on the boat had been a big part in the cause of the problems, and i kind of felt like i was in a weird jam between them and the owner. he was of course, really nice to me, but it was still weird.

soon it was time to eat lunch, and everyone made sure i was well fed. the people on board (and everyone else in myanmar) eat *so* much rice! it’s insane. they’ll fill up a their plate w/ what in america would be about 3 people’s worth of rice, eat it all, and then get about the same amount again, all in one sitting! everyone kept being shocked that i ate so little. eventually, people settle down and started playing cards again, and the tension on board seemed to have dissipated except that the owner was still pissed at lwin. when lwin asked me if i wanted to have one of the two beers i bought, i said ok, and he went to get it for me. when the owner saw him w/ a beer in his hand, he gave lwin this look that could easily have killed someone, until he realized the beer was for me. he told me that under no circumstances can i give my beer to anyone else; they’re too drunk already and too stupid to have anymore. i just nodded sheepishly.

soon, we came in sight of bagan. they put on this tape that had a song about the nat, and then everyone started dancing like crazy on the boat. all of a sudden everyone was very happy again. we then caught a bus to lwin’s house to pick up my pack. for a while i hung out there and met his family. while lwin was out back, naing naing’s wife asked me where he was. errrr. umm. i muttered that i didnt know. i certainly wasn’t going to be the one to tell her that her husband had been left behind hours away after getting into a fight. at this point, all i wanted to do was go back to the hotel. i was exhausted. i was dirty. i was sweaty. i was hungry. i just wanted to go back and sleep. all of a sudden, they bring out this small plate of dried fish.. w/ heads still on. ugh. the last thing i needed at that moment. but i couldnt say no, so ate some, and they actually turned out to be pretty good. my bag had gotten ripped earlier (lwin was holding it when the fight broke out). lwin’s dad pulled out some thread and fixed it up in no time flat, and handed it back to me w/ a huge smile. his dad is the epitome of the proud silent fisherman type. doesnt say much, but when you catch his eye, he always gives a very warm and sincere smile. his mom is rail thin, and seems to always be in the back cooking something. both of them, although they spoke no english, seemed incredibly friendly.

eventually, it was time to go and we got on a scooter to leave. lwin asked me what my plans were for the next day and i said i’d be leaving. he said that i should stay one more day. he’d spend the day giving me a tour of the temples, showing me around town, and then i’d come over to his house for dinner. to be honest, my first reaction was that i really didnt want to. first of all, i didnt want him to have to go throug any trouble. second i didnt want his family to have to cook for me etc. plus, i had already spent two days seeing temples in bagan and didnt need to see more. but no matter how many times i said no, he was insistant. he said i was a dear friend, and he really wanted to show me around town etc. so i said ok. after a terrifying motorbike ride across sandy roads where the bike fishtailed at least 3 times, we arrived back at the hotel, and i finally got some sleep.

in, the end, i still have no idea why anyone thought that the village we went to was in chin state. some people on the boat thought it was chin state, others did not. looking on a map later, i dont think we were even anywhere near chin state. i never got to the place i really wanted to go… but still, i had a crazy adventure nonetheless. i met a bunch of great people (despite some fights!), made some friends, experienced a real family holiday trip, spent some time on the river, went to a crazy festival.. and really had a once in a lifetime experience. looks like i would never get to see chin state, but you know what, that’s fine by me.

*v

here are some photos of myanmar i’ve finally managed to upload:

buddha at sulye paya in yangon

sulye paya

buddhas w/ LEDs sulye paya

sulye paya

temple guardian

flying horse for donations

ogre

shwedagon paya

golden buddha

sweeping the pagoda

mopping the pagoda

shwedagon paya

pagoda in pyay

10 story buddha

10 story buddha

thanaka

temple in bagan

*v

two hours after falling asleep, i get woken up to leave. i’m totally groggy, and even though it’s the middle of the night, it’s still hot. as we walk to the boat owner’s house, i find out that the rest of naing naing’s family isn’t going on the trip, it’s just the two brothers but about 30 other people will be on our boat. all 30 or so of us are piled in a huge truck that can barely accelerate under the weight, and we make our way to the docks. we board the boat, and in a very short time i fall back asleep for a few hours.

by the time i wake up, the party is well under way. they are blasting this insane myanmar music at about a billion decibels. the music is completely nuts. sound like a bunch of people banging away on xylophones and yelling, and everybody is out of synch. people on deck are laughing and dancing and having a blast. i can tell this is going to be a fun trip. after a bit, i climb up onto the roof of the boat where the rest of the people are. everyone up there is *completely* obliterated. so absolutely drunk. people are stumbling all over the place, yelling, everyone is spilling drinks everywhich way, various containers of liquids are being dropped and knocked over…. total chaos! i feel like a really late arrival to the party and start doing some drinking myself. people keep stumbling up to me and repeating the same things over and over, but i cant tell if it’s because they’re really drunk or if, due to the language barrier, they dont know what else to say. everything is so crazy and so totally fun!

i find out that the festival we are going to is a nat festival. the burmese people, although buddhist, also believe in and worship nats which are spirits. this festival is to honor the nat named Ko Gyi Kyaw who is a spirit that loves: drinking, playing cards, and fried chicken. so, in honor of the spirit, everyone drinks like crazy. also, there are offerings to the nat on board the ship… in the front there are several large plates of fried chicken, complete w/ chicken head (which i was relieved that we wouldnt be eating), beers, and coconut offerings.

out of the people on board, i’d say about half were young men (from 18 to late twenties) and the other half was split betwen older people and little kids. everyone on board was related to each other in some way. everyone was someone’s brother, uncle, in law, parent, teacher, best friend, neighbor, etc. i felt really priveledged to be able to be a part of the group. everyone there was just so friendly.. it was incredible feeling to be able to take part in the festivities. everyone there went so far out of there way to make sure that i was well taken care of and to be sure that i was having a good time. one of the most common things i would hear from people was “are you happy? good! if you happy, i am happy!” and people were *constantly* making sure that i was well fed and bringing me food.

the food on board was kept in huge pots and used communally by everyone. people here eat w/ their hands instead of utensils, so everytime someone would go get food to put on their plate, they would just shove their hand right into the communal pot… so all the food you ate was most proabbly touched by every other person on board. plus, there were some infants on board. these kids would just walk up to the communal pots, and dig in, shoveling food w/ their increasingly slobery hands. i thought back to the time that caryn had complained about an indian waiter bringing out our forks while holding the tines instead of the handles…. ahh, if only she could be here now and see this! the food though, was actually really tasty. lots of rice, this weird fried fish mash that looked scary but was really delicious, the tea leaf salad, and some other random things. for drinking, i was the only one wussy enough to actually drink bottled water, everyone else just dipped their cups into the murky brown river. surprisingly, after the cups settled a bit, the water actually cleared a bit to only a lightish cloudy grey.

in some ways, after a while, the doting of everyone became a little bit too much. people were constantly telling to watch my step on the boat, or be careful while doing things. in fact, i cant even tell how many times i would hear the words “slowly, slowly!”. every time i would climb on the boat, or off the boat, or on the roof of the boat, or up the hill, or pretty much anything, people told me “slowly slowly!” and reached out to give me a hand. i felt like a little kid in some ways! yeah, i was definitely less agile around the boat then some others, but that doesnt mean i can’t handle myself… err, well, except for the first time i tried to fling myself up to the roof of the boat and ended up getting tangled in my bag then slipping down and crashing on the ground bruising the shit out of my leg. all of this was responded to w/ hearty laughter from everyone around. smooth.

i spent the rest of the next 12 hours on the boat getting to know everybody. everyone there was from this small neighborhood in new bagan. for many generations, everyone in that village was a fishernman, catching fish from the ayerwaddy river, but now times are changing. these days, about 70% of the people in town are either a “painter man” or a “businees man”. the former paint small prints (mostly copies of artwork they’ve seen in temples) and sell them to tourists, and the latter have small souvenier stalls set up near pagodas where they sell lacquerware and other crafts. obviously, tourism has affected bagan in a very big way. one particularly odd way that tourism has affected people here is their clothing. a lot of the people here try to sell stuff to tourists, and if the toursist wont buy stuff, the local will often volunteer to trade their souveniers for stuff.. usually t-shirts and whatnot. so, a lot of the people on the boat have this random assortment of clothing that they’ve gotten from westerners.. t-shirts w/ logos for Legoland, sean john collection, and even KGO radio. quite odd.

eventually, after 12 hours, we arrived at the village where the nat festival would take place. we got off the boat and went into town. true to everyone’s word, there wasn’t a single foreigner in sight. we wandered around a bit and checked out what goods people were selling. then, it was time to make offerings to the nat. the main offering that people give to the nat is flowers. you buy flowers and then bring it up to this little shrine where there is a statue of Ko Gyi Kyaw. people everywhere are on their knees muttering prayers etc. you bring the flowers up to the front, and a guy up there takes them and touches them to the nat statue, then hands them back. your flowers are now blessed. you’re supposed to take them home and they will bring good luck to your house.

after making an offering to the nat, and checking stuff out a bit more, we grabbed some dinner and then sat down to have drinks. everyone all over was in a very festive mood. the drink of choice for the evening was “rum and coke”, except that instead of coke, it was beer.. not that bad of a concoction! people at the stall next to us were singing karaoke. we spent a bunch of time chatting about differences between myanmar and america.. when all of a sudden, this crazy fight broke out in front of us. all of a sudden, these people were hella yelling, throwing punches.. others were trying to hold people back. crazy. no sooner had the fight started when everyone at my table jumped up and hurried me to the back of the restauyrant. once again, god forbid i get hurt. the people fighting broke apart for a bit then some people ran off, then i saw a bunch of people come running by w/ huge sticks. uh-oh!! i was worried that all hell was gonna break loose, when the restaurant i was at virtually shut down. they put up all these posterboard walls up in front, and within minutes we were closed off inside, and then were snuck outside the back.

as we scurried away, one of the people from the boat came up to me appologizing profusely. “sorry. so sorry we have to leave!! but police come! they will ask, ‘who fighting!’ it is us who is fighting!” and then i understood. part of the people from our group were involved in the fight. they needed to make a getaway from the scene. it turned out later that they are friends w/ the restaurant owners, who closed up shop in order to let them escape quietly out the back. we quickly darted through the village and back to the boat. apparently, it was really important for us not to be spotted. the people could get into some trouble for fighting… but if they got in trouble for fighting and somehow a foreigner was involved, they would be in serious deep shit. jail time probably. luckily, it was dark and we made it back to the boat without incident.

we spent the next few hours siting on the riverbank. Lwin and Naing Naing seemed really bummed that the fighting had taken place and that now we couldnt go back to the festival until morning. another of their friends spent forever telling me how much he despised fighting and that even though the fighters were his friends, he thinks they’re stupid for fighting. everyone kept appologizing to me, but i didnt really care too much. despite the fight, i had a really good time. anyways, i was much more interested in just kicking it w/ everyone than the festival itself. after a few hours, it was time to board the boat and go to sleep. they had set up this tiny little plank that you had to walk across to get back on the boat. it was a really skinny plank that was difficult to walk across, and the fact that everyone had been drinking all night, wouldnt make it any easier. earlier, i had heard someone fall of the plank into the water. i hoped that wouldnt be my fate, and inched across the plank “slowly, slowly”.. but i made it ok.

sleeping on a hardwood bench on the boat was definitely not the most comfortable thing. waking up in the middle of night having to piss, and therefore walk across the plank of death twice while sleepy, wasn’t the greatest. waking up the next morning w/ about a hundred bites from some kind of insect wasn’t nice either. ahhh, the perils of boatliving!

-more tomorrow..

*v

most adventures that people go on while traveling these days are.. well, not all that adveturous. pretty much everything anyone does and any place anybody goes is based on information they read in a guidebook. people follow well trodden paths, and even when you try to go “off the beaten track”, there’s probably been tons of tourists that have done the same thing before you. during this trip, i’ve really been hoping to do something a bit adventurous, something that millions of others hadn’t done, but i could never figure out just what i could do, nor how i’d find out about it.

in myanmar things are a bit different. because of the government’s carzy rules, foreigners are totally forbidden to all sorts of random areas of the country. there are pockets all over where not a single tourist has gone before. one of the places i was particularly interested in was Chin state, which is in the west of myanmar. foreigners are only allowed to visit one tiny little area in the state, and this even only on a very short half day guide-led trip. i decided that i really wanted to go there. although bagan (where i was now) is not all that far from chin state, there are no roads going there that are open to foreigners at all. the only way to get there for a tourist would be to do this huge loop that would take days and days and days of travel… but there were roads that burmese people could take.

after thinking about it for a while, i decided that this would be my chance to do some adventuring. i was going to chin state no matter what. i was going to ask around and try to find a local who could sneak me in somehow. part of me though this plan was ridiculous, and really sketchy… but hell, people have done crazier things than that, and you only live once. what’s the worst that could happen, right? the government here has deported people for doing things it had forbidden, but being deported wouldnt be the end of the world. the main question i had was how i would find someone to bring me… and that’s where the two brothers walk into the scene.

on my second day of sightseeing in bagan, i was walking away from a temple when two burmese guys walked up to me and told me that they wanted to show me something inside the temple. i was a bit weary, but i went back inside anyways. turns out, they are artists and they spent the next 20 minutes showing me their art and pressuring me to buy something. and then, believe it or not, i find out that the reason they are anxious to get money, is that they are going to a festival in chin state the following day and were hoping to earn some extra cash by then. i couldnt believe it. all of a sudden it looked like my opportunity had fallen right into my lap. so, diverting the conversation from the paintings, i started asking about the festival, and then basically told them that i wanted to come with them. they were a bit surprised at this, and told me that they were traveling by boat and that traveling would be rough… sleeping on deck, no western food, no tourists anywhere, uncomfotable, etc etc. they tell me i probably wouldnt be into traveling like that, and then try to diverge the conversation back to selling their art.

but i’m insistant. they tell me that they could probably take me, but they’d have to talk it over w/ the boat owner. they ask me one more time to “help them” by buying a painting, and i mention that if they can help me get to chin state, i’d help them w/ 10 bucks. with that they said they’d go talk to the boat owner and stop by my hotel later. as soon as they left, i started worrying a bit. was this such a good idea? going off, god knows where, w/ two random brothers and their friends? the other though that kept nagging me in the back of my head was, what if i got these people in trouble? i wouldnt want my stupidity to affect others, and who knows what kind of punsihment would face them for taking foreigners into restricted areas. all of these thoughts rolled around in my head as i biked back.. but then i comforted myself w/ the thought that the brothers may have been lying and probably wouldnt even show up at the hotel.

precisely on time, i got a knock at the hotel door. uh-oh. the brothers had talked to the boat owner and he had agreed to take me. the cost of fuel etc for the boat was expensive, so he would need 40 bucks compensation. also, part of that money would be used to bribe authorities along the way if there is any trouble. was i down? if so, i’d have to grab my stuff and check out of the hotel immediately. i thought about it all, realizing that if i decided not to go, i’d probably regret it.. and so i agreed. the brothers (Naing Naing – 25 and Lwin -19) also told me not to worry about the 10 bucks i had promissed them, they thought it’d be fun to have me come along, and didnt want any money from me. they went on to say that they’ve been to this festival 3 times now, and that there has never been a single foreigner there. i was to be in for a real treat.

i rushed back to my room and gathered my stuff. when i told the hotel that i was taking off right away, and forgoing my night’s lodging, they were really shocked, but said ok. they asked me where i was going, and after i told them, they started arguing loudly w/ each other in burmese. uh-oh. it was an awkward situation. on one hand, i didnt want to give anything away, in case the hotel tried to stop me, but on the other hand, i kind of wanted to know if the hotel seemed to think that this was really unsafe. all of a sudden, the argument stopped, and they let me leave. hrm.

the brothers lived in new bagan, a village about 9km from where i was staying. we took a scooter there, and the ride was absolutely terrifying. 3 people on a scooter is one thing, but 3 people and a *huge* backpack is quite sketchy. add to this lots of gravel in the roads. and bumps. ugh. when we finally arrived, i was extremely relieved. we pulled up to their house and i met their family. their father was a fisherman and their mother sold the fish in the village. the house they lived in was tiny. made out of bamboo and thatch, it didnt have much in the way of walls and the floor felt like it would give way beneath you any second. no furniture of any kind.. no bed, table, chairs, anything. the family slept at night out on the porch. the bathroom was an outhouse in the back of the yard. it really is a surprise to me that people live like this, although i guess in myanmar it’s the way life goes.

we had a few hours to kill, so we walked around and lwin showed me some pagodas near his home. eventually we wandered over to the boat owner’s house where people were cooking *huge* vats of food for the trip. the boat owner was a really cheerful guy who seemed excited by the fact i was going on the trip and assured me i’d have a great time. he also told me that if i had any problems w/ anyone or anything, i should bring that to his attention immediately. the atmosphere at his house was great and full of anticipation. everyone just couldnt wait to get going!

eventually we wandered back to the brothers’ home and it was time to get 2 hours of sleep before our 2 am departure time. w/ no fan and no aircon, it was near impossible to fall asleep, but eventually i drifted off.

more on the trip later!

*v

i arrived in bagan at 6am, completely exhausted, and all i wanted to do is sleep. luckily, i was able to find a hotel immediately.. only 5$ for a room w/ a hot shower, air-con, breakfast, and towels included. not bad!

the guidebook describes bagan as “the most wondrous sight in myanmar, if not southeast asia”. that’s a pretty strong claim as southeast asia is full of some incredible places. the thing that bagan is famous for is, surprise surprise, temples… but the sheer quantity of temples here makes it stand apart from any other place in the world. around a thousand years ago, people started building temples in bagan. and they kept building and building. they didnt stop building for a couple hundred years by when they had built around 4,000 temples. as you move around town, there are temples everwhere you look. small temples, large temples, crumbling temples, dark temples, light temples.. it’s really crazy. also, these temples are really different than the other temples i’ve seen around the country. unlike the typical burmese temples which have the large golden bell shaped stupas, these temples are mostly made out of brick and stone, giving them this old historic mythical appearance.

the temples are spread out all over town, so the best way of seeing them is by bike. pretty much every guesthouse here rents bikes for a buck a day, and you just go off to wherever you want. it’s a bit hot riding a bike around town in the billion degree heat, but i was determined to go see stuff, so i set out. i was a bit nervous about biking around in my longyi. i could picture any second now, my longyi getting chewed up in the chain or gears or whatever and me crashing headfirst… luckily it didnt happen. oh, two things i’ve forgotten to mention earlier. it’s not only the men here that wear longyi. women wear them too. yup, the whole country wears longyi. the only differences are a) the patterns: men usually wear plaid or checkered longyi while women wear solid colors w/ designs on them and b)the way the longyi are tied: men and women tie their longyi differently. the other thing i’ve been meaning to mention is thanaka. when i first arrived i noticed that almost all the women on the street have this cream-colored paste on their faces. some of them have it very neatly on each cheek in a perfect square pattern, while other have it just smeared all over the place. it turns out that this is a special cream that is good for the skin and also used as sunblock and conditioner. it’s pretty trippy seeing so many people wearing the stuff.

one of the biggest pagodas in town is shwezigon paya, a paya that is built in the new style and not the old brickwork i mentioned above. as soon as i walked up to the pagoda, i instantly had a bunch of women run up to me and pin little owl penants to my shirt as “presents”. i kept saying over and over that i didnt want any, but they wouldnt listen. i quickly found out the purpose of the owls. as i walked down the corridor to the pagoda, women would jump up from their shop, run up to me saying “remember me! remember me!!” and pointing to the owl they had put on me, “i give you present earlier. come look at my shop!”. it was totally ridiculous, and it was impossible to even walk through since each woman would literally grab you by the arm and pull you to their shop. i was so shocked. i would have expected this tactic in any other country, but myanmar had seemed pretty much tout free so far. i had been so psyched to finally be in a country that was tout-free, but i guess that’s just not possible. it was sad that even myanmar had gone in this direction.

after shwezigon, i biked around and checked out some of the old temples. there’s just so many of them that you dont even know where to begin. you can’t bike down the street for 2 minutes w/out seeing a stupa. i knew i couldnt stop at all of them, but then i also didnt want to pass them up either. eventually i left my bike on the side of the road and wandered deep into the brush checking out temple after temple after temple. it was getting dark , and then the sun started setting. i looked around… not a single tourist in sight. it was kind of a remarkable experience… just me, an ancient pagoda and the setting sun. everything was completely tranquil except for the softly blowing (and much needed) breeze. i sat down and watched the sun set, realizing that i was in a really magical place.

the next day was more of the same. more pagodas, more biking, more heat. this time i watched the sunset from the top of one of the temples, looking down on the town from above. from above, you really got a good impression of just how many payas there were… tons of them scattered over the horizon. at the top, a family of burmese people spotted me in my longyi and got really excited about it, asking to have their photo taken w/ me. heh, i guess it’s not only in india where that happens.

after dark, i went searching for food. i’m ashamed to say that i’ve gotten to be very afraid of burmese food. in fact, i’ve kind of started avoiding it. i feel bad about it because usually i’m all about eating the food of the country i am visiting. i am usually really not down w/ eating western food while traveling. it’s important to experience everything about a country, and the food especially… but 95% of the time that i’ve gotten burmese food, i’ve ended up not being too happy w/ it. who knows, maybe i just need a break from it. over the last 2 days, i’ve had italian and thai for dinner…

*v

it’s tough to get across just how miserably hot it is over here. even after dark, it’s still pretty damn warm, but during the day… sheez, a lot of the time you’re just praying that you can get to somewhere that has either shade or AC. to make maters worse, the people here frown upon it if you wear shorts. it sucks so bad to have to wear pants in this crazy heat! when i was still in yangon, i asked my burmese friend whether foreigners ever wear longyis, and whether the locals would think it weird if a foreigner did so. he said that he has seen some foreigners do it, and that the locals totally wouldnt think it was weird, in fact they would like it. i still wasn’t particularly convinced, but later, at shwedagon paya, we actually did see one white dude w/ a longyi on. one person isn’t exactly a great precentage, but it was still good enough for me… i knew that wearing a longyi would be a hundred times less warm than pants. so we went to a store and i became the proud owner of a longyi.

a couple of days later, when i got to Pyay, i still hadnt put it on, because i had no clue how to tie the thing. the men here often readjust their longyi while walking around town, and they somehow manage to tie it in 3 seconds flat, while walking even.. but i havent managed to get a really good look at exactly how it’s done. so, that morning, i sheepishly asked the hotel manager to help me out. i proceeded to get a hands on demonstration right there in front of the hotel, much to the amusement of curious onlookers. i awkwardly got the hang of tying it (it still doesnt look quite right) and then set off to see town wearing my new skirt.. errr, i mean longyi.

i gotta admit, i felt really really weird. on one hand, it was definitely much much less hot while wearing the longyi. and it was actually really really comfy. but still, despite the fact that i kept telling myself that i was wearing a longyi, i kinda felt like i was basically wandering around town in a skirt which is a bit embarassing. also, i really did wonder what the locals thought of this. it did seem that a lot of them thought it was funny, but i really couldnt tell if they were laughing w/ me or laughing at me. some people said “oh! longyi!! very handsome myanmar style!”, but i gotta wonder if they were just trying to be nice. eventually, as time went on, i started becoming ultra paranoid. everytime anyone was laughing anywhere, i would instantly wonder if it was about my longyi. plus i still dont think i was really tying it correctly. and walking up stairs was really hard without tripping and falling. plus, now i dont have pockets which is an incredible pain in the ass as i have to carry a bag w/ me to keep all my junk (camera, money, etc). so many reasons to ditch the longyi… but for some bizarre reason all the reasons just make me determined to keep wearing it.

anyways, enough about the damn longyi. the town i was in, Pyay, was a tiny little town, about halfway between myanmar’s two most famous cities. it’s got some cool stuff in it, but i get the feeling like people mostly stop here just to break up the long bus ride. one neat thing about it though is that the whole day i did not see one single other tourist until i got on the bus to leave town… not one.

i spent the morning battling it out w/ the damn internet. having issues w/ email and accessing my site. i can tell that being online in myanmar will continue to be a pain. here’s one crazy thing i learned about the city: they only have electricity 24 hours at a time in alternating cycles. in other words, they’ll have electricity from 2pm to 2pm the next day. then, from 2pm to 2pm the third day, no electricty. and so on and so forth, every 24 hours. what kind of a bizzare system is that?? so, every other day, places that can afford it, run on generators.

the most famous thing to see in town is shwedaswan paya (yes, half the temples in myanmar have names that sound almost the same, other than 1 or 2 letters). i went down there and spent some time strolling around. i really enjoy the atmosphere at these pagodas. whether there are a lot of people there or very few, they always have this incredible feeling of calm and tranquility. just being there totally changes your state of mind. somehow, no matter how hot i am, or tired, or frustrated, all of a sudden i feel totally at ease. instant serenity. part of it is the fact that all these pagodas are incredibly beautiful, with large open courtyards, and incredible decore. part of it is the other people there praying quietly. part of it is that almost of all of them have little bells strategically placed in different areas, and as the wind blows in any direction you hear the quiet chiming.

the really cool thing about this pagoda in particular, is that when sitting by it, you get a great view of this huge buddha statue across from it. and by huge, i mean about 10 stories tall. this thing is absolutely gigantic and towers over the trees in front of it. when looking at it, it kind of feels like there is a huge giant peering at you. i found a good spot where you could see the buddha well, and sat down. instead of just walking through and snapping photos, i’ve tried to make it a point to actually sit down and just take it all in at each of the pagodas i’ve seen. after a while, a 14 year old monk came up to me and we chatted for a bit. people here are so friendly, and really seem to enjoy talking to foreigners!

eventually, when i left the pagoda, i managed to get myself totally lost… again. i dont know what my deal is, but somehow over the last several years, i’ve lost all sense of direction. for most of this trip, if i didnt have caryn w/ me telling me which way to turn, i’d be lost daily. no, really. to complicate matters, it’s really difficult to ask for directions. first off, a lof of people here dont speak any english. plus, my pronunciation of their language is so absolutely pathetic, that even when i try to say the names of well know landmarks, they still usually have no clue what the hell i’m talking about. often it’s completely impossible to communicate.

eventually, i took the bus that night for a 10 hour journey that started around 8 at night. there were two other tourists on the bus, and i got seated next to a 45 year old guy from albaquerque. this guy was pretty cool, and had gotten a leave of absence from work to travel around SE asia for a few months. we got to talking about poverty in the world etc, when he told me the most impressive story. he was just in cambodia and, wanting to help the poor somehow, he decided that if he could make a difference in just one person’s life, it would be good enough for him.

to get around, he had hired this cambodian kid to drive him around on a motorbike. it’s really difficult to make a living being a motorbike driver. you can only take one passenger at a time. also, you have to charge less than if you have a real taxi. this kid was obviously struggling to get by, and seemed like a good guy… somehow he stuck out to albequerque man as a really honest, hard working kid. so, albuquerque man bought him a tuk-tuk (an auto rickshaw). i dunno how much a tuk-tuk would cost, but i cant imagine it being under $1,000. i just couldnt believe it! i cant imagine just giving a total stranger that kind of money to help his life. but then, just when i was begining to think that this guy must be the nicest man ever on the planet, he got into this huge altercation w/ the girl in the seat in front of him, just cause she wanted to lean her seat back. he had long legs, and got uncomfortable, but instead of just nicely asking her to tilt forward, he made all these snide remarks until she overheard him, and then got in a huge fight w/ her. it was surprising that someone that had the capacity to be so incrediblly kind to someone and freely give tons of money, would be so stingy w/ his legroom.

oh, btw, if you’re wondering what a longyi is, i was able to find one rather crappy photo online. see it here: http://www3.worldisround.com/photos/1/426/328.jpg

*v

*v

the next morning, i ran into the israeli who i had met on my first day. when i mentioned the burmese guy i had been hanging out with, he said “oh, you mean your guide?”. i told him that the guy wasn’t a guide, just someone who wanted to practice some english etc and hang out, but the israeli was skeptical.. he mentioned that *lots* of people in india for example, say that they are just practicing english, but then hit the person up for money. later while i was at the front desk, the receptionist also asked about my “guide”. i started getting worried.

was this guy really a guide? not that i think there is anything wrong w/ guides. guides can be very useful and hiring one is usually money well spent. *but*, it’s a completely different story when you’re hanging out w/ someone and you feel like this person is your friend. it would be pretty sad if what i thought of as some kind of friendship was actually just based on money. so many thoughts started whirling around in my head. this guy had been really cool, it had been a lot of fun hanging out… but was all of this just a ploy so that he could hit me up for money? was i being used? ugh. but then, at the same time, assuming that this guy really was legit, i started feeling really bad for doubting him. but, i also was dreading that at some point, he would hit me up for money, and then i’d feel like a chump.

a bit later, i met up w/ the guy, still having all sorts of doubts in my mind. when i suggested going to get food, he marched towards the nearest tea shop as usual, but i said i really wanted to finally try some burmese food from a restaurant, so we headed to a place in my guidebook. i was excited to finally try burmese food, but when i got to the place, my excitement vanished immediately. as i looked into the pots of food in front of me, i started getting a feeling of dread. none of it looked good. i cant say that it looked completely disgusting or anything, but it definitely wasn’t appealing. pots of weird goopy stuff, shrimp w/ a million little legs sticking out from them, chicken bones, odd lumps of fish…. none of it looked good.

it was too late to turn around and run. i would have to eat something, so i chose some of the least offensive looking things. some venison and these shrimp balls. the side dishes also didnt look too appealing, but i got some anyways. in the end, the food that i got didnt taste half bad. in fact, the venison was actually quite good… but still i started getting a bit worried about burmese food. is this how it usually is? if so, i was in for a rough time.

this was to be my last day in yangon, and so i needed to arrange my ticket out. making travel plans in myanmar can be quite difficult. first off, there are many places where the government wont allow you to travel. certain roads are off limits which makes figuring out how to get places a bit confusing. for instance, i wanted to go to this cool town called Mrauk U. it seems that you should be easily able to get there, but since only locals and no foreigners are allowed on this one road, instead, i’d have to take: a 5 hour bus ride then 9 hour bus ride, then 12 hour boat ride then 6 hour boat ride. in other words, a total pain in the ass. not everyone who sells tickets is informed about all of these things, so depending on who you talk to, you get different answers which makes things even more confusing. plus, since the country isn’t as tourist oriented as others, certain connections to get places just arent set up right. for instance, to get to one town that i wanted to go to, you had to take a bus somewhere else and then sit at the bus stop in this random town from 1am to 5am until you caught another bus going to where you actually wanted to go. not exactly convenient, right?

in the end, i wasn’t able to get a ticket to where i wanted to go, but caught a bus to a town named Pyay, halfway in between. my burmese friend helped me get my bus ticket and took me to the bus station. in the end, he never asked for any money or anything and i felt like a total dickhead for ever doubting him. he just ended up being a totally nice guy, and kicking it w/ him really made by time spent in Yangon so much better. he totally showed me around town, translated stuff for me and helped me interact w/ shopkeepers etc, explained things to me that i never would have known, and just in general made everythng more fun. i hope that i can kick it w/ him again when i come back to yangon to fly out of myanmar.

the bus ride to pyay was about 5 hours long and in the begining, quite uneventful. when we stopped for a food break, i was once again confronted w/ the long row of pots holding strange burmese delicacies. none of them looked good. finally i decided to go w/ the one that looked least unappealing, the mutton curry. after tasting it, it turned out to be liver which i hadnt expected. *sigh*. maybe i should start sticking to teashops and noodles?

one thing that has taken a bit of getting used to here, is that everyone makes these kissing sounds. that’s how you get someone’s attention. for instance, if you want to call over a waiter, or you are trying to have someone talk to you, you make the sounds. i’ve seen this happen a little bit in other countries, particularly in the middle east, but not nearly as often as i’ve seen it happen here. here you here this constantly. it’s a really bizarre sound to be hearing all around you all the time, since in america no one really does it unless maybe it’s some lewd construction worker trying to get a woman’s attention.

as the bus ride continued, the person next to me, who hadn’t said a word to me during the last 5 hours, all of a sudden said “hello! i am leaving off the bus now. bye bye!” and handed me a small folded piece of paper. i unfolded the paper to see a neatly handwritten receipt from a grocery store. noticing my look of complete confusion, the guy told me to to look at the other side, where i saw written “do you know Aung San Su Kyi? free free Aung San Su Kyi. In Burma Struggle for Democracy!”. and then he got off the bus.

Aung San Su Kyi is the leader of the party for democracy in Myanmar. because of this, she has been put under house arrest at least 3 times. despite the fact that she was elected to lead the country by the peole, the military regime here instead put most of her party in prison and never gave up their own brutal leadership. for the last several decades, there has been a struggle in this country for her to gain her rightful leadership, but each time she is released from house arrest, she is just put back in after a while. in all appearances, it really seems that any struggle against the government is futile here.

i looked down at the note in my hand. it was really crazy that the guy had handed it to me. i’m sure he could get into huge trouble for giving that note to someone, especially a foreigner. yet the people here desperately want to be free, and i think they really want their situation to be known by the outside world. once again, i felt like my life was some kind of crazy movie. here i was on a bus, in a country ruled by a military regime, and being secretly handed pro-democracy notes by locals. so unreal.

it all makes me realize just how lucky i am to be living in america, where we have so much freedom. i know i bitch about my country all the time. i often complain about how much the government infringes on our freedoms… but really, we all have it so good in the states. we dont have to live our lives constantly being in fear that we’ll be arrested for voicing our opinions. we may have a terrible administration in the whitehouse now, but at least we know that in the future that can be changed. all of us living in the US are so lucky to be there. we could just as easily have been born in some oppressive country. in fact, i actually was born in such a country, and if it hadn’t been for my parents giving up everything they had to move to a country where they could give their children and themselves a better future… who knows where i’d be now. things could have turned out so differently.

as i pondered all this, a cop borded the bus and sat down in the seat next to me. uh-oh. just a coincidence? i quickly put the note into my pocket and sat there waiting. on one hand, there was no way the cop could know, since he had just gotten on the bus… but you do hear stories of people being spied on around here. could the guy who handed me the note get into trouble?

i started thinking back to my time in McLeod Ganj. all over the place there were posters that had a stenciled picture of a man’s face and said something like “i am sentenced to die. save Tenzin.” this was regarding a man named tenzin who was sentenced to death by the chinese for “subversive activities”… which he allegedly did not commit. the posters urged people to campaign for his freedom. i promised myself to check out the website until i noticed his execution date… december 2004. seeing the date was so chilling. this man, who’s face i had seen staring back from posters daily, was now dead. dead for no reason. eventually, after looking it up online, i found out that he in the end was pradoned from being killed. “luckily” now he only had a lifetime in prison to look forward to.

as i sat on the bus, i wondered how many people here in myanmar had suffered the same fate as Tenzin. *sigh*. anyways, eventually we arrived in Pyay, and everyone got off the bus. the cop hadn’t said anything, and i had worried for nothing.

*v

sheez, i’m starting to really fall behind. it’s my fifth day here, and i’m still writing about day 2!

woke up in the morning and only had about an hour to get some breakfast before i was supposed to meet up w/ my burmese friend. i wanted to go to a real burmese restaurant, but the guidebook didnt show any nearby. when i asked the reception desk, they told me to try New Delhi restaurant which, despite its name, serves both indian and burmese food as well. i walked down there in the stifling heat and got a table. the menu looked like it was mostly indian but had some weird stuff i’ve never heard of that i assumed must be burmese. i called over the waiter to clarify:

“i would like to eat burmese food. which of these are burmese?”

“yes!”

“no, no.. i’m asking… *which ones* are burmese. i want burmese food, not indian”

” we have chapati, samosa, curry!”

“ahh. but those are indian?”

“Yes!”

“i dont want indian, i want *burmese*

“ok! what would you like?”

it became very clear that there was no way i’d get any info on what kind of food is on the menu. the language barrier can be so frustrating some times! i ended up ordering something called “chicken toeshay” only to find out later that Toeshay was just a weird way of spelling dosa, a very typipcal indian food. the chicken didnt even come inside the dosa, instead there was a sad looking drumstick in sauce on a different plate. oh well, looks like i’d have to wait before really trying burmese food.

after eating, i scramled back to the hotel to meet up w/ the burmese guy from the day before. we spent some time walking around town, and he showed me several small pagodas and a chinese temple too. once again we talked a bunch about life in burma, what people here do for fun, how life is, etc. i began to realize that i was really lucky to have met this guy to get a good insight into the burmese way of life.

as i mentioned before, myanmar is run by an oppressive military regime, and life here is hard on the people. you cant say anything negative about the government without being locked into prison. whenever he would tell me anything about the government, he would cautiously look around first to see if anyone was in earshot. everyone has to be careful here because they can be thrown into prison for the smallest of offenses. all newspapers etc are censored by the government. the internet is censored by the government. furthermore, economic sanctions imposed by outside countries (to punish the regime) often limit what can be brought into myanmar. schools here dont have computers… even in the universities. as we talked, i mentioned that in america, people can say whatever they want, and they can even say “bush is an idiot” and the government can’t do anything about it. he was very shocked to hear such a thing. talking like that in his country would be unthinkable.

another thing that i found very interesting was just how religious the people are here. for burmese, religion isn’t just a sidenote to their lives, it’s something that touches all aspects of their life and is thought about and practiced daily. one of the things that can bring merit to a buddhist is to donate money to a pagoda. this money is used for the pagodas upkeep and often to add more gold ornamentation to it. people visit these pagodas very frequently and often donate money.

we were sitting inside a pagoda (partially to see what’s inside, but also to get out of the heat!) when an old lady started talking to me very quickly in burmese and was gesticulating wildly. she kept talking and talking though i didnt understand a word she was saying. my burmese friend translated that she was asking me to donate to the pagoda. she said that she lived in a small village far far away from yangon. she sells flowers and earns about 500 kyat a day (50 cents). out of those 500 kyat, she saves about 100 kyat daily. after a year of saving, she travels through burma to a new pagoda that she has never been to yet and donates all the money that she has been setting aside for the whole year. after doing this, she goes back home and starts the process over again, reapeating it year after year. it was such a touching story. i couldnt believe that a lady that only makes about 180$ a *year* still manages to contibute about 30 of it to buddhism.

it was very inspiring and i told my friend that i would like to donate some money too, since the lady suggested it. it turns out that other than just dropping money into a donation box, there’s a very interesting way of donating. you pay someone at this desk, and after giving you a receipt, they put a copy of the receipt ina small box, and then put this box into a statue of a winged horse. they play all this music and jingle a bunch of bells, and then using pulleys, the horse “flies” up to the top of the pagoda with your donation.

as we walked away, my friend told me that donating money to the pagoda will bring me good luck and help ease my mind… and then told me a story about his friend. his friend woke up one morning, with a huge desire to donate to a pagoda. because of some urge, he got together all of his money, to the last kyat, and went and donated it all. when he left the pagoda, he felt really good and wasn’t worried about having just given away all of his money… and then on the way home, he found a gold pot weighing about 4 pounds in the bushes. i found this story a bit hard to swallow, but my friend says that he didnt believe it either until his friend showed him the pot as proof!

eventually, we came up to Shwedagon Paya, the most famous pagoda in all of myanmar. this place encompasses a *huge* area filled with tons of small ornamental structures of many different shapes and sizes. everywhere around you there are glittering golden stupas, intricately colored pagodas, and buddha statues of every shape and size. it took us a lot of time to just walk around the whole thing. i really wish i could put some photos up to show everyone what it looked like, but i cant really upload pictures here.

at most of the big pagodas there are 8 posts arround the pagoda, one for each day of the week (wednesday has two, one for wed morning and one for wed night). each post usually has a small buddha image, something for storing water, and a small statue of the astrological sign for that day. you’re supposed to go to the post that corresponds to the day you were born and pour water on the buddha… one cup of water for each year of your life. my friend showed me where the station was for friday, and i poured 28 cups of water on the buddha image. apparently, now that i not only donated money to a pagoda, but also poured water of the buddha, my luck will *definitely* be much better!

as we continued walking around the pagoda, all of a sudden i saw a huge line of women coming towards us armed w/ sticks! upon closer inspection, it turned out that they weren’t sticks, but brooms and this army of women was sweeping the pagoda. these people weren’t being paid, and they didnt work there… they were just women who had come by the pagoda and volunteered to help sweep. my friend told me that he also often comes by here to help sweep up. so crazy. i couldnt imagine anyone in america just going somewhere to help clean up. it’s unheard of. just another example of how devoted these people are to their religion. also, following the broom ladies, was a huge army of mop ladies who all lined up in a single file. a guy would stand in front of them and then once he shouted some commands and sprinkled the ground w/ some water, all the ladies would rush forward, still in a completely straight line while mopping. too funny! eventually we sat down and watched the sun set over shwedagon paya. during this whole time of walking around myanmar’s most famous site, i still had seen very few tourists. there were some, but very few. it was such a nice change from other countries we’ve been to where toursists are everywhere. i was really overwhelmed by how glad i was to be there and to be in myanmar. it’s such a nice country, luckily still not completely tainted by tourism.

after shwedagon, we went to a tea shop to get some food. i tried this tea leaf salad that is very popular here. it’s a mix of dried tea leaves, peanuts, sesame, and spices and it tastes hella good! the waiter that served us was extremely courteous as all waiters here seem to be. they have this thing here where when they take your money, they take it w/ their right hand and touch their right elbow w/ the palm of their left hand while doing it. i dunno what it is, but there’s something really cool about the way they do it. the one thing that concerned me though was that the waiter was very young. probably no more than 8 years old… and i see a lot of waiters about that age here. it’s sad that the kids here, instead of going to school, spend their youth working at tea shops. apparently, school here is very expensive, so not many parents can afford to send their children there. not only that, but the quality of education is very poor, so even if kids do attend school, they still dont get a good education. the only way to get a really good education here is to hire a tutor to come and teach the kids at home, which is incredibly expensive, especially considering that people here often only make about 2$ per day.

we had spent all day walking and were a bit tired, so we took the bus home. the bus here is pretty hectic. at each stop it kind of slows to a crawl while mobs of people hop on or off. it’s crazy packed inside, and when the ticket collector shouts for money, all of a sudden there are hands everywhere shoving money at him. i dont really understand how the system works. it’s impossible to see which hand belongs to who in the crowd, so there’s really no way of knowing who paid or not. i guess most people here are very honest, so that’s not a problem. actually, i’ve heard that crime here is virtually nonexistant and theft isn’t a problem. because of the way exchanging money works, most toursist are walking around with *huge* stacks of myanmar currency, yet everyone feels pretty much safe.

actually, i think i havent mentioned the money situation yet. there are no atms in myanmar. none. and there are no places that accept credit cards. so basically, you need to bring any money with you that you are going to need while there. this really sucks because no one really wants to carry around a crapload of money, and if you somehow miscalculate how much you’ll need, there’s absolutely no way of fixing it by getting more money. but it gets worse. the official government exchange rate is a ridiculous joke at 450 kyat for 1$.. about half of what the dollar is worth. this is the rate they tell you at the airport, and if you fall for it, you just lost about 50% of your money. at hotels in yangon, you can usually get about 900 kyat for one dollar, a much much better rate. but, the rest of the contry has lower rates than that. so, you may want to be smart and stock up on kyat in yangon to get the best rate *but*, the biggest bill here is 1000 kyat. for one hundred dollars, you get 90 of these… quite a big pile. if you decide to exchange several hundred, where do you plan on storing hundreds and hundreds of bills (which happen to be really large in size as well)?

*v