(Note before starting: Apparently Burma is the right way to call this complex country, because the name Myanmar was given to the country by the junta without their consent)
(Another note: All these bits are excerpts from my diary, but not the full story, which took 25 pages, three receipts and two paper scraps to partially complete)
Day 1:
There was confusion over visas and immigration tickets, but finally finally we stumbled through and arrived in Myanmar.Walking along the streets, we passed stores with bags and t shirts of Aung San Suu kyi, batik bagstrousersdresses, holographic pictures and printed posters (including one that said 'Food not to eat together'; one combination was vomit and watermelon, which I thought obviously no one would try anyway), as well as all manner of fermenting things and fruit. The fruit here is incredible: avocados as big as my outstretched hand, and bananas that are engorged and convex, almost mango shaped. We didn't buy anything, but kept-going, battling through the near 40 degree heat, past a shop selling little puppies -tiny balls of fur crammed into 3 cages, as well as numerous betel leaf shops - a kind of drug the locals chew comprising of betel nut, spices, limestone paste and nicotine, which stains their teeth red and leaves a blood coloured stain wherever it is (frequently) spat out.
Interesting things today:
-Croissant Ice Cream (!!!???) for dessert
-Name games with the family - Tim concocted ridiculous names like Xevacitzy and Yorikoky, who apparently originate from the planet Camarotz. When asked where Camarotz was in space, he cleverly said: It's moving!!!
- Everyone wears this thing called Thanaka, a clay coloured paste made from tree bark that protects them from the sun
-Most of the men wear a Longyi: a circular sarong that they tie in a knot at their belly and frequently untie and retie during the day
Day 2:
Power cut in Yangon (Apparently they are very frequent), but the hotel had its own generator which meant warm water was still available for the morning shower. The rest of the day was a long bus ride (filled mostly with sleep and Lord of the Rings) to Mandalay.
Interesting things today:
-deep fried crickets as road sides snacks
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| You can see our disgust at the BUGS |
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| John 14:6 |
Day 3:
Breakfast was a veritable FEAST served by Nambui and her girls - pancakes with syrup, toast and home made Jam, Bananas, Omelette, Apples and Watermelon and Hot chocolate. The girl who served our table was so gentle and said "My pleasuah" whenever we thanked her.
We were to take a taxi around Mandalay today, and our first stop was a Gold pounding workshop. It was spectacular, a real traditional business. First they use a machine to transform a gold ingot into gold ribbons, which they then POUND AND POUND AND POUND for about 90 hours. The man pounding the gold was very camera oriented when we went to see his work - he asked his friend to move out of the camera frame so that his labour could be well captured. They measure time in a peculiar way - they float a coconut shell with a tiny hole in it in a basin of water, and when the coconut shell sinks completes 20 minutes has passed. After 3 sinkings they change man so that the previous pounder can get some well - needed rest. Our guide was called Nguyen, which means climber, and she ground up some Thanaka and put it on the faces of Mum, Dad and I.
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| Thanaka-ed |
After that, we went to the Mahamudin Temple. a buddhist temple where the main attraction was supposed to be the huge gold statue of Buddha, with men (Not women), allowed to paste gold leaves onto his figure, although I was most enamored with the gongs in the courtyard which i rang and caused discordance. In the courtyard, sparrows played hide and seek in the carvings and pigeons swooped through the prayer hall, irreverent to the mass of devotees murmuring prayers.
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| Mahamudin Temple |
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Last stop before lunch was Shwenandaw Monastery, a monastery made entirely of teak wood. (reminded me of Shenandoah - a river which we sang about in the SC choir) Apart from a curious cat, the highlight of the visit was an accidental conversation with a monk (Who had participated in the saffron revolution!!!) who told us that his precepts ordered him to suppress anger, which was the secret to his youthful looks. According to him we were 'in heaven' because the monastery was built with 6 levels, and ours was heaven.
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| Welcome to heaven |
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| The view from the tower in the Mandalay Royal Palace |
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| The view from the tower in the Mandalay Royal Palace |
After that we headed to a pagoda which housed the 'largest book in the world'. Walking in, a little girl with 2 side buns ran up breathlessly to Hannah and I and asked if we wanted to buy flowers for Buddha. After declining, she tagged along, giggling and pointing to my wrist. I realised she was looking at my bracelets/friendship bands, so I slipped one off and gave it to her. So now I have a friend in Burma. (This same little girl later came back when my mum was bargaining for post cards and helped us get a lower price, a true friend indeed!)
Day 4:
After breakfast, we began our new day's adventure with our trusty taxi driver Zaw. He told us about his car - it cos US$8000 down from $16000 in 2008 under governemtn tax. SIM cards used to cost US$250, and now after deregulation they are about $2. So despite the gripes we had heard from other Burmese people it seems they are at least doing something for the material living standards of the people. He also told us that his previous job as a supermarket worker, a 9 to 9 job, earned hima free lunch and a grand total day's wage of less that a dollar, although after a year of working there one's pay could rise to more respectable levels. Degree holders that (commonly) work in supermarkets earn about $2 a day in the first year, His wife, a LAW degree holder, worked in an electronics shops after graduating, and stopped working two years later because of her child. Underemployment is rife here - many degree holders hod aspirations of professional or technical jobs but end up as farmers.
Driving out of Mandalay, we enter more pastoral landscapes - bullock carts amble pass and a goatherd gathers his flock, protecting them from traffic. Another thing Zaw told us was that of the three telecom companies here, orendoo is shunned because it is Muslim owned...
Our first stop was Sagaing Hill, a steep climb and a fun gallop down (!!!). A top the hill was another pagoda and 45 subtly different Buddha statues. After lunch we took a boat over to Inwa, and got two horse carts to take us round the pagodas there. The horse cart ride was bumpyyyy one literally levitated off one's seat a couple of times I loved it. We passed by gorgeous paddy fields and tall palm trees...every thing was surreally postcard-ish. Honestly all the pagodas began to look the same after a while, but their beautiful architecture got me thinking about ho wonderful a legacy Burma had, and yet how unfortunate that it's present paled in comparison to its past...where have all her golden days gone? We also saw two peekaboo children who got into a fistfight among the stupas, ending with the smaller lollipop-clutching boy crying while the victor (Presumably his older brother) leap frogged over the crumbling stones laughing. Our betel-stained toothy driver also let us drive the horse cart for a while, which we attempted to with much less deft skill than he possessed.
Our final stop for the day was U Bein Bridge, the longest teak bridge in the world, to catch a sunset.
Interesting things today:
-Burmese singing 'Just give me a Reason'(Pink) and 'Steal my girl' (OneDirection) spotted
-Dinner at a steamboat restaurant (you'll find out why this is interesting later on...)
-Typical conversation with a Burmese bracelet seller
'You want bracelet? Bangle?'
'No, thank you."
'Very cheap very beautiful, beautiful bracelet for you.'
'No thanks.'
'Make me happy,'
'But it will make me unhappy.'
'You remember me?"
'No.'
'I remember you.'
(HELP!!!)
Day 5:
I had food poisoning all last night, with three tear streaked, painful trips to the toilet to throw up all the steamboat dinner oh joy. So i stayed at the guesthouse with Mum while Hannah, Tim and Dad went to PyinOoLwin. I was really glad of the day to just lie in bed and rest actually. Mum was a lovely nurse , putting socks on my cold feet and holding my hair as a threw up again and telling me stories of her childhood. Her stories lulled me to sleep, my general state for most of the day. I woke up halfway out of a dream about spaghetti and told Mum I could still eat the spaghetti, leading Mum to think I was delirious and delusional and ask me if I knew who she was and where we were and who I was even. I was still sane though. Nam Bui lovingly made some rice porridge for my lunch and Mum made me drink lots of re hydrating salts, and I feel very loved. But I don't know how on earth I will go on a 9 hour boat ride to Bagan tomorrow - I'll be the sea-sickest person ever and I really don't want to throw up again.
Day 6:
We did go on the boat to Bagan and I felt so much better, the river air probably cured me even more! On the boat, at a brief bank side stop, women waded through the water to sell bananas to us, first at 200 kyat, then 1500 kyat, then 500 kyat, the price getting lower and lower as the boat pulled away from the shore, until one woman threw a free bunch on deck, laughing.
Tim unfortunately is now down with a funny tummy, but that didn't stop him from giving us the quote of the day (and probably the holiday) "Socialism...the way we socialise."
Day 7:
We headed out to temple hop again, also on horse cart. The first temple we went to I call the SHOE STEALER temple. As we went in, a few women rushed up to us, pinned brightly coloured butterfly brooches onto our t shirts and chattered to us as we walked through an alley of stalls. After walking through the pagoda (you take your shoes off before going into any pagoda or monastery), we came back to find our shoes neatly parked in front of individual stalls, whose owners literally pulled you down to look at their wares. As we were leaving that temple, a man on a motorcycle tried selling aladdin pants to us, speaking at first in Chinese, then English (Versatility!) as he offered us 5000 kyat and then 3000 kyat. When he realised we weren't buying, he said sadly "Good think you don't buy from me, I sell very expensive. You buy from me very expensive, other pagoda you buy 1000 kyat." When asked why he told us that, he grinned and said he wanted to "Make big money." Alas, at the other temples we could not find any Aladdin pants for 1000 kyat...
At another temple owned by UNESCO, we (finally) had a guide who explained to us that the damage done to the murals on the walls of the temple was because of a 1975 earthquake in Burma which caused Buddha's face to fall down at one part (reminding me about the bible story about Dagon), as well as because during world war II, civilians would take refuge in the temples, and cook in them causing smoke stains, as well as vandalise the walls (we saw some interesting graffiti!)
He also told us there are 13 different Buddha poses (which we later mercilessly copied in another temple, as well as did grande jetes...boredom breeds irreverence). We also climbed to the top of the temple, and got to see the breath taking view of the vast Bagan plains - with temples and pagodas dotting them as far as the eye could see (apparently there are about 2000 pagodas/temples, and there were more than 4000 before the 1975 earthquake!!!)
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| werk |
At yet another pagoda, my day was made when I spotted three adorable babies. They were playing at thanaka and hair cutting by daubing the dusty sand from the ground onto each other's faces, and using finger scissors to roughly chop at each other's feathery wisps of hair. I took a few pictures of them, and as I crawled closer to get a better shot, one of them toddled up to me and sat in my lap, and I was in heaven.
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| HULLO!!!!!!!!! (He took the selfie himself) |
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| Gah |
Lunch was at BEKINDTOANIMALS the moon, a vegetarina restaurant which had a lovely vibe - birds flying to and fro from nests hanging from the ceiling, kind waiters (including a Justin Beiber lookalike!!!), colourful umbrellas and a roof of foliage shading us from the hot midday sun... Oh and the food was great too!
I realise I forgot to tell you about our driver, Chien Chien. His parents originate from India, and so he is darker than most of the Burmese we've seen so far. He chews betel nut too, and has ghastly red gums. His family has 9 children including him. His reply when asked why he isn't married was 'No money no honey' (!!!). His horse is called Minnie (he has 2 others - Gemma and Romeo), she eats peanuts and grass and wears a red flower in her hair. A really nice guy.
We ended the day a top a monastery watching the sunset - I love how every day here ends with a sun set. In Singapore somehow you glance up from your computer and the sky has become dark already.
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| Help we have succumbed to technology |
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| Or not |
Interesting thing today:
-We saw a German Man who had also stayed at YoeYoeLay, who has completely tanned nut brown from the Burmese sun EXCEPT for blinding white feet
Day 8:
Not such a great day. We climbed the monkey-poop covered steps up Mt Popa (barefoot!!!! because there was a pagoda a top the hill) to encounter a not so spectacular view... On the way up, we were stopped by a girl who showed us some beautiful views and chattered to us about nothing in particular - we bought a Mt Popa stone from her (a stone that makes a rattling sound when you shake it) and a shard of petrified wood. The highlight of the day was supposed to be seeing a huge tamarind tree from the 11th Century, but I was so tired and heat-drained that I couldn't fully appreicate it... Still I had my favorite dish this holiday today - a completely delicious cucumber salad!!!!
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| Mt Popa girl |
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| The tree. |
Day 9:
A bone shattering night bus journey (not JJ express this time, but YY). My head was flung every which way by the lumps and bumps in the windy mountain roads. But I got to see more stars than I have every seen in my life (Light pollution...) and I was amazed and I put Coldplay's 'A sky full of stars' on to complete the mood. We arrived at Inle Lake at about 5 in the morning - it was very cold, about 8 degrees, and the waiting cabbies all had thick blankets slung over their shoulder...We wished we could have been so lucky! Unprepared for the cold weather after the 30 degree roasting heat in Bagan we had worn normal clothes and thus had a very shivery taxi ride to Joy Hotel. Once there, all five of use collapsed into one double bed and slept late into the morning.
Brunch (we slept past breakfast) was some very yummy pan-crepes at a pancake house, whose owner had gotten the recipe from a helpful Australian tourist. After that, we headed to the hot springs near the lake, where Hannah Dad and I soaked for about 2 hours in divine peace and warm - hot waters while Mum and Tim climbed the neighboring hill with 2 old British ladies we met on the way there.
Day 10:
We are on a boat trip around Inle lake itself today. Our boat is long and low, like a sampan, but with a (very loud ) motor attached as well so that we could fly through the lake water with ease. The spray from either side and the back of the boat made rainbows with the early morning sun. The lake is peaceful, its vast blue waters disturbed only by patches of floating hyacinth or little grass islands. On either side are marshy grass wetlands that are startlingly green. Eagles soar on wind drifts overhead, while less majestic seagulls perch on poles in the lake, float like little white boats on the lake or fly above - one swooped less than a metre above me!
In the distance the Shan mountains can be seen, and above them a sky brilliantly blue. Feathery plants tower along the banks, as well as houses on stilts, whose friendly occupants wave as we pass.
Our boater is the brother of the Joy Hotel receptionist. He speaks little English, but grins generously, revealing betel stained teeth! He is as brown as a nut from all the boating he does, and has become so very deft at his craft, using both his arm and leg to paddle and navigate.
He brought us first to see a lake fisherman, who proudly did acrobatics with his fishing net and paddle, and then dipped the net in the water and came up with...nothing! But, undeterred, he promptly grabbed a fish from the hull of his boat, popped it into the net, and grinned at us brandishing the 'successful' catch.
After that we went to the floating gardens, aptly described by the guide book as 'bucolic'. We saw gourds as long as my calf, peas, tomatoes, flowers... I thought of Niki and her farming life ideal...she should move to Inle! We continued boating, passing through more populated straits. I saw littel children on boats with their parents, mimicking rowing with little sticks which they slapped and sliced the water with.
After that, we saw three handiccraft indistries: lotus and silk weaving, metal shaping (They hung a tea kettle over the black smith's fire!!! I knocked down a pole here but thankfully it was not broken... 3 people used different sized hammers to pound at the hot metall, creating a rhythmic cacophony of different percussion pitches) and silver smithing.
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After lunch, we visited the Paduing women - the long necked women. I felt uncomfortable, like we were viewing zoo animals, as the women explained how they began at 9 with 13 rings weighing 4 kg, and ad rings until they are 25 when in total they wear 8 kg of rings!!! I felt less uneasy when the women asked us to take a picture with them, and talked and laughed with us, telling us about how they could run and move easily with the rings...but they cannot swim because the weight of the rings would drown them. On the boat after that, Dad bought Mum a bunch of lilies and she smiled
As we go along, I realise that the silhouettes of the river boats with their paddlers resemble the ducks/gulls that sometimes bob along the water...
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Our boat driver gave us a special treat then, he brought us back to his floating village (lin kin village). We got to see his family and paddle around with them while he had a rest in his house. We saw the village, which had a shop and lots of houses with their inhabitants sometimes bathing at their doorstep as we passed. We also saw a floating monastery, with a few novice monks frolicking in the water. After paddling round the village once with his niece and his little son, we stopped in his house for some tea and chips, while they explained their complicated family tree (i think 3 families live under one roof!) and laughed when Dad asked embarrassing questions like What happens when someone needs to give birth? (Apparently they boat to the nearest hospital in a nearby city)
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| His niece |
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| His Son - a complete rascal |
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| The family! |
I woke up today at 5.0 am (Oh! The ungodly hour!) to see the morning market. Stupidly, I decided to wear a dress that showed my legs, forgetting that the early morning in Inle is c-c-c-old, and also that legs are a rare sight in Burma (Especially female legs! Oh! Uncultured tourist!) As a result i got both goosebumps and lots of stares, although the former was temporarily assuaged when Dad and I gathered with a group of locals around one of the fires they temporarily construct by the road side. We got the the morning market just as it was being set up - fruit, dried goods, CDs and DVDs, flowers, clothes, electronics, everything you could possibly imagine was sold there. I saw a saffron robed monk buying a bunch of flowers (a kodak moment)
Dad Hannah and I went for a cycle after that, through fields of towering feathery plants. I wondered if there was ever a time when humans were small and all of nature towered over us - ant, flowers, blades of grass were mountains...
We stopped at a winery where we tasted 4 kinds of wine - and I broke a wineglass. We also stopped by a school, where the children crowded to the gate and said "An nyoung ha seh yo" (Korena for hello) We cycled on very bumpy roads ( not even roads actually, more like collections of rocks) nad by the time we reached the lake, tired out, we decided to take a boat home. Our boater was called Echo (spelled differently but pronounced that way) and he wants to study Economics in University.
I spent that last boat ride lying down and seeing the sky speeding past, before i remembered that this was possibly the last time ever I would see Inle Lake and I sat up and took in the world again.
The next day we flew home.
Good bye Burma, I miss your lake, your sunsets and your people most of all.
Hehehe youre making me wanna go to burma too:")
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