(Note: This is the SECOND TIME I have written this long ass blog entry. Some asshole deleted everything off of the public network the other day, including the original 5 page Myanmar blog. If I find the kid who did it, it’s gonna be ugly.)
OK, back from Myanmar. The next thought you just had was Myanmar? Where the fuck is that? I had the same thought. Myanmar is a country in southeast Asia, right to the west of Thailand and right across the Bay of Bengal from India. It used to be called Burma, and is in fact still called that by the US state department, but the official name for the country is Myanmar. We had only one day between India and Myanmar, so this was a pretty intense two weeks. No sooner than I had gotten back on the boat, showered and started catching up on sleep, we were back in port and ready for more adventures. Let me tell you what I did in the 6 days I had in Myanmar, and then give you my overall impressions of the country.
Day 1 in Myanmar was actually a bonus. We were originally supposed to have two days at sea between India and Myanmar, but we had to come in port earlier. The port we were docked at, Thilawa Port, was about 40 miles up the Ayeyarwady River, the biggest river in the country and the main route of commerce. Because we had come in the winter season, the river was pretty shallow, so we needed to go up the river at high tide to avoid scraping the bottom of our ship. I had an SAS trip planned for what were supposed to be the first 4 days, but had nothing planned for this extra early day, so I planned to just go into Yangon and explore on my own.
The first day started out pretty slow. Again, because of the tides, we didn’t pull up to the dock until about 10 AM, at which point we had to go through the long process of clearing immigration and customs. During this time, we had our diplomatic briefing by the US Vice Consul and a contingent of officers. This was actually one of the more interesting and relevant diplomatic briefings. Let me give you a bit of background on the country. Since 1962, Myanmar (or Burma) has been run by a military dictatorship. Prior to this, Burma had been one of the most prosperous Asian nations, but when the government seized control of the economy, things took a turn for the worse. With the arrival of SAS, we actually tripled the American presence in the country and were the largest group of Americans to be in the country at the same time since 1962. Relations between the US and Burma were never good, but got a lot worse in 1988, when the current dictator seized power. This was when the name of the country was changed to Myanmar, but because we didn’t officially recognize the government, the US still officially calls the country Burma. The country is rife with problems. The government has little or no respect for human rights; forced labor is common and the government censors every aspect of the media. The Vice Consul told us a disturbing story about 4 Burmese citizens that were tried, convicted, and executed for treason. Their crime? The simple possession of business cards from a UN human rights representative that had visited the country a few weeks prior. Myanmar is also a huge exporter of drugs; it is estimated that 80 of all heroin that comes into New York City comes from Myanmar. Because of these problems and others, the US has imposed harsh economic sanctions on the country and has convinced other countries to do the same. For us, this meant that we were unable to use any ATMs or credit cards in the country, since that technically qualifies as exports of financial services. Also, we were only allowed to buy certain “educational materials” for souvenirs, like books or paintings or certain types of artwork. A big concern for myself and others was how do we live without spending money that will eventually end up in the treasury of this repressive regime? The Vice Consul said that while a small percentage of the money we spent would inevitably reach the government, by staying out of government shops and supporting the smaller private industries, we would be doing more good than harm in supporting the businesses of the average person.
Anyway, back to my trip. We eventually cleared immigration at about noon, and I planned to take one of the shuttle busses into Yangon with my friend Johanna at 2 PM. The port was an hour away from the city in the middle of the countryside, so it was not so easy to get in and out of Yangon. At 2 PM, there were about 300 kids outside trying to get on 4 coach busses. No fucking way. So after standing in the sun for about 30 minutes and getting pretty pissed off, we just decided to head back inside and wait for the 4 PM shuttles that we would actually be able to get a seat on. By the time we eventually reached Yangon, it was already 5 PM, and the last shuttle back to the boat was 9 PM, so we really only had a few hours. We had no real concrete plans, and I knew I was going to be in Yangon for the next 4 days with my SAS trip, so we decided just to wander the streets and see what the city was all about, get some good dinner and head back. As we walked through the city, I was reminded very strongly of Chinatown in San Francisco or New York City, except the sidewalks were much more crowded with vendors just sprawled out on blankets with their goods in front of them. The areas we went to weren’t really tourist markets at all; people were selling mostly items of household necessity like clothes or toiletries or pots and pans or small electronics. There were also lots of food stalls mixed in; you could buy vegetables or pieces of sugar cane or fried snacks that people were cooking in large vats of oil over sterno fires. And on every corner, there was someone selling something that looked like tobacco leaves that lots of people were chewing. I learned this was a plant called Betel leaf, which was sold wrapped around some pieces of Betel nut and calcium liquid. Chewing this turned the teeth a pretty disgusting bright red color, and people were constantly spitting big red spitwads onto the streets. And you thought smoking was a bad habit. Even in these first few hours, I was struck by some pretty extreme contrasts to India. First of all, the people were much less aggressive. Save for one or two occasions where people approached me to change money (which was actually a good thing, because I needed some kyat, the local currency), I was not hassled at all and left to walk around in peace, which was a welcome change. The streets were also much cleaner than in India; there was no mud or big piles of trash on the side of the street, and there was no flea-ridden livestock roaming around everywhere. Something about the city gave off a much more peaceful aura than any of the places I had seen in India; kind of disturbingly ironic, since we had just heard about how repressive and brutal this regime was to its own people. After crisscrossing a bunch of streets in the downtown areas, we went to the Sule Pagoda, a Buddhist temple that was right in the middle of downtown. It wasn’t the largest pagoda in the city, but it was a good first experience with Buddhism. The temple was cool, with lots of statues of the Buddha, people praying, lots of intricate metalwork around the ceiling (well, sort of ceiling, since the temple was actually open-air) and Buddhist monks. At the pagoda and after the markets, it definitely hit me that I was now in East Asia, close to the influence of China and Japan. The people, the culture, the language, and the religion all had a distinctly Asian flavor. After about 20 minutes here, we walked back to the Trader’s Hotel, which was the staging point for all things SAS in downtown Yangon, and took a cab to a Thai restaurant called Sabai Sabai. Dinner here was definitely the highlight of the first day; this was some of the best Thai food I have ever had. I had chicken satay and the hottest beef curry I had ever had; I was literally sweating and crying by the end, it was awesome. And all together, for drinks and appetizer and dinner, my meal at this nice Thai restaurant was 8 bucks. Go dollar go. After dinner, we headed back to the Trader’s Hotel to catch the shuttle back to the ship. I was back on the ship by 10:30 and chilled and watched a movie before bed.
Woke up late on Day 2 because my SAS trip to Yangon didn’t leave until 3 in the afternoon. It was soo good to sleep, as I was still recovering from India. Had lunch on the boat, wrote some emails, packed up, and headed back into Yangon with SAS at 3. The trip I was on was just a 4 day/3 night exploration of Yangon. I didn’t realize we would just be staying in the port city the whole time when I initially signed up for the trip this summer, but because Yangon was the capital and definitely the largest city in the nation, I was sure that there would be more than enough to keep me busy and the opportunity to learn a lot about the country. When we arrived in the city, we did not go straight to the hotel, but started with a brief city orientation of the downtown area. We actually visited the Sule Pagoda again, which was fine with me; this time, I spent some of my time talking to a Buddhist monk that spoke pretty decent English and wanted to know what we were all doing in Myanmar. At the end of our conversation, the monk gave me a small book on Buddhism which I have skimmed through but still need to read completely. Outside the Sule Pagoda, we walked around the old colonial buildings left over from British imperial rule. In a park right next to the pagoda and Town Hall, there was a monument to the liberation of the country which looked shockingly like a miniature Washington Monument. Again, more than a hint of irony here; an echo of a symbol of American democracy in a markedly un-democratic country that was not friendly to America, discuss. We got back on the bus and drove a little ways to the actual Chinatown area of Yangon. I couldn’t really tell the difference between this area and the street market area I had seen the day before, save for slightly more Chinese and slightly less Burmese writing on the storefronts. By the way, Burmese writing is CRAZY, it looks like nothing you have ever seen before. I can show you when I get back, but it I lots of circles and loops and is just really cool.
After walking around Chinatown a bit and just appreciating the opportunity to absorb more of the city and the culture, we headed to the Trader’s Hotel, where we would be staying for the next 3 nights. This was a gorgeous hotel, and stood out like a sore thumb against the skyline of the rest of the city. It was one of the two tallest buildings within viewing distance, and it looked like someone had literally picked up an American luxury hotel and airlifted it halfway around the world. Went up, dropped off my shit, met my roommate Josh for the trip, and went down to the bar to play some darts before dinner. Random note: So in talking to my roommate Josh, I found out that he goes to Tulane. My cousin Nate goes there, so I asked him if he knew him. Turns out, not only does he know Nate, but went to high school in Massachusetts with my other cousin Ben, Nate’s brother, and also rushed Nate for his fraternity. Small fucking world. Anyway, we got on the bus to go to this French restaurant called La Planteur, supposedly one of the best restaurants in Yangon. This place was in the middle of fuck nowhere. We drove outside the city, and down some side streets so small and narrow that one of the tour guides had to climb on the top of the bus and hold up some telephone lines so we could get through. Even with all that, we still had to walk about a quarter mile to the restaurant because the road just got too narrow for our bus to go any further. All of a sudden, the road opens on to the lawn of the restaurant with tables set up for us outside and a bonfire already going. Dinner was fun; it was good to be outside in the cooler night air. The food wasn’t spectacular, but I think that was just because we weren’t allowed to order off of the menu; instead, everyone had the same fixed menu meal where we got to try a little bit of everything. Just as we were about to leave, we had a practical lesson in tropical monsoons. The night went from clear to torrential downpour in about 8 seconds. Because I was only wearing my Rainbows, I ended up booking it back to the bus barefoot, which was pretty fricken sweet. After getting back to the hotel and drying off a little bit, I spent a couple hours at the hotel bar before heading up to my room. I got a nice surprise before bed; on TV, ESPN was showing the World Series. The World Series in Myanmar; if that is not damn good proof of globalization, I don’t know what is.
Got up around 8 AM to start off day three. Showered, breakfast, and we were back on the bus for another day around Yangon. To start the day off, we went to a local market in a different part of Yangon. This was definitely a market for locals. All of the outdoor stalls were selling produce of various types. There was one central building to the market; this was a combination of small shops and living areas. Out back, there was a fresh fish market/butchery that was very active; it was cool to watch people preparing and buying the meat, but there were definitely points where the smell got to be pretty overpowering. Before we left, I bought a longi, a part of traditional Burmese dress. It is essentially a man skirt made from one big piece of fabric that you wrap around your waist. It looked damn comfortable and for 2 bucks, I had to get one. After the market, we went over to a local harbor on the banks of the Ayeyarwady River where private farmers could sell their products for domestic consumption. The government controlled all imports and exports, but there was still a substantial domestic market for produce, especially rice. The harbor was teeming with people, most of who were unloading huge sacks of rice. Our tour guide told us that for moving one sack of rice, each of which were about 30-40 pounds, a worker was paid the equivalent of 20 cents. 8 dollars was considered pretty good pay for one day’s work, which definitely brought the economic problems of the country into sharp focus.
The next stop after the local harbor was a traditional Burmese tea shop. Nothing really special here, it was just a pretty basic outdoor café where they served us green tea and some little snacks, but it was nice to just chill out and enjoy the environment without necessarily doing any sight-seeing. After tea, we went to the Myanmar National Museum. This was one of the cooler museums I have seen during the whole SAS voyage. They had a lot of remnants of ancient Buddhist texts from thousands of years ago, all written in Burmese on dried palm leaves, which were very cool. They also had some cool models of ancient Burmese palaces. These palaces were HUGE; they easily put the traditional European castle to shame. Seriously, the smallest one of these had something like 100 separate buildings. There was also the Lion Throne, a full-size replica of the throne of the Burmese rulers before the monarchy ended with the start of British colonialism. But maybe the coolest part of the whole museum was the natural history section. They had fossils of many different kinds of animals that dated back up to 5 million years. And these were just out in the open for people to touch! One especially cool fossil was a complete jawbone of something that resembled a woolly mammoth, but not exactly. I had to laugh here as I was reminded of Louis Black and his amazing rant on creationism—FOSSILS FOSSILS FOSSILS FOSSILS I WIN. Good shit.
After the museum, we went to lunch at a Burmese restaurant called the Green Elephant. There were no green elephants. Food was pretty good, pork and prawn curry, and I discovered that Coke in Myanmar tastes exactly like Coke in the US, but comes in a cooler can. After lunch, we went back to the hotel for a couple hours of chill time, and then went out to Scott Market, a big, touristy market about two blocks from the hotel. Some pretty cool artwork and carvings of Buddha here, but overall similar to any of the markets I had seen in earlier countries. Did a bit of souvenir shopping, and then got back on the bus to head to the Reclining Buddha. We were actually supposed to go to the famous Shwedagon Pagoda that night, but since it was kind of drizzly, our guide decided to change the itinerary since the Buddha was in a covered building. The Reclining Buddha is this massive painted statue of Buddha in a (surprise) reclining position. It was pretty fricken huge; I think the dimensions were something like 60 feet tall and 200 feet long. It is the largest reclining Buddha in the world, and one of the largest Buddha statues overall. This was a good visit, took some pictures with the Buddha, saw some monks, and got a good panoramic view of Yangon at dusk. Our guide also told us a lot about Buddhism, since he had lived in a monastery at some point in his life. After the Buddha, we went to Sabai Sabai for dinner, the same Thai restaurant I had gone to the first night. The food wasn’t as good this time because of the large group style of the meal, but it was still pretty good Thai food and a good time. The one exception to the food was the dessert they served us. I swear to god, the stuff looked like someone had splooged in a bowl and thrown in some pieces of rice. Ug, even recalling it right now makes my stomach turn over. There was one girl down at the other end of the table who seemed to be really enjoying the dessert though, drizzling it all over her face and gargling with it and swallowing it in big gulps.
Anyway, went back to the hotel, changed out of my longi, and went out with a group of SASers to a local pub called the ABC Pub. This was a pretty divey local place, with 70 cent beers and no tourists in the entire place before like 15 of us descended on the bar. There was a cover band playing American songs that was actually pretty decent. It was funny though, because they had learned the American lyrics but had absolutely no idea what they meant and on occasion they would muddle up the words pretty badly. They definitely played a damn good rendition of Hotel California, and a couple of kids went up and did a fantastically terrible job of singing Achy Breaky Heart with the band as background. This was a sweet night, got pretty smashed, and when the bar closed at 1, went back to the hotel to have a couple more at the hotel bar before passing out. Note: Darts while extremely wasted can be extremely dangerous. You have been warned.
Day 4 started with a solidly hungover breakfast before getting on the bus to go visit a Buddhist monastery. We all thought we were just going to go and interact with the monks and see how they lived, but no sooner than we had arrived at the monastery, we were escorted into a classroom with about 200 young monks and nuns sitting in rows. We had been brought into their English class to help them practice their English. It was pretty cute; one student would stand up with a small handheld microphone and they would give the other one to one of us and there would be a little dialogue between the monk or nun and the SASer. Their English was basic, but quite good for young kids. After the one-on-one dialogues in front of the bug group, we got to split up and just go talked to the kids face to face. I talked to a few 14 year old monks and had a really good time. I happened to have my iPod on me, and I let them listen to it, which pretty much blew their minds. They liked The Beatles and Sergeant Pepper’s, but I think Foo Fighters was a bit much for young Buddhist monks. We left the English class and explored the monastery on our own for a bit before participating a food donation ceremony. Monks only eat two meals a day, breakfast and lunch, and all of the food they receive has to be donated. On this day SAS had donated the food for lunch, and we all helped serve the monks and nuns—I think there were about 1300 total—their lunch. I served a lot of vegetable curry, and saw the biggest rice cookers I have ever seen; I could have literally bathed in one of these things. After some tea and snacks for us, we went to a local glass-blowing factory. On the walk in, we saw piles and piles of broken glass that was going to be melted and reformed; even in Myanmar, they recycle. We got a demonstration by one of the artisans. In about 5 minutes, he whipped out a beer mug and a vase shaped like a fish; this man had SKILLS. WARNING HUGE DORK ALERT: While I was watching this, I definitely was thinking materials science and silicon dioxide and phase transition and was like “Ah ha, I know how that works.” Still doesn’t mean I could have done this glass-blowing to save my life. We walked through the rest of the small factory, and I saw a lady polishing a finished piece of glassware on a polishing wheel, which again reminded me of materials science and a failed attempt on my part to polish away my fingerprints back in sophomore year. Oh, Evan, you moron. The only bad part of this visit is that they had no pipes or any stuff like that for sale. Too bad, how cool would it be to have a piece from Myanmar.
After the glass factory, we went to another Burmese restaurant called Sandi Myanmar. It was right on the central lake in the middle of Yangon, and we sat a table with a very scenic view of the water. Food was pretty similar as before, curry and rice, which was good with me. We went back to the hotel, where I passed out for a couple hours, and then went to the Shwedagon Pagoda for a sunset visit. The Shwedagon Pagoda is the largest pagoda in Myanmar. The entrance to the pagoda was up a massive staircase. When they make Rocky 17 where Stallone fights a nasty Burmese dude, the training scene will totally be on these stairs. The pagoda itself was really impressive, much more so that I had initially imagined. The golden dome in the middle was enormous, and I was definitely reminded of the grandeur of the Taj Majal. After walking a bit of the way around the dome, I ran into two Buddhist monks that really wanted to talk to an American and practice English. I had a really good conversation with these monks, about Buddhism and the US and what SAS was all about. I could have stayed and talked to them for the whole hour and a half we had there, but after about an hour, I got up because I hadn’t yet seen the entire pagoda. By this time, the sun was really setting and the dome looked absolutely amazing reflecting light—it was almost as if it were on fire. After the sun went down, lights came on around the dome, making for another cool spectacle as the dome stood out against the black night sky. It was a really good sight-seeing experience overall. On my way out, I found the two monks I had been talking to earlier, and we exchanged email information, so now I can keep talking to these Buddhist monks from Myanmar. Too awesome.
We went back to the hotel for a traditional Burmese performance and a farewell dinner, both which were sort of lackluster. Afterwards, I wasn’t really in the partying mood, so I went to a movie theater across the street from our hotel with some people. They were showing Batman Begins, and tickets for the upper balcony were all of 80 cents. 80 cents! The movie was in English, without even Burmese subtitles, so I think most of the audience was pretty confused, but we had a good time. There was a 50’s style newsreel before the beginning of the movie, complete with cheesy marching music, which was pretty awesome. Went back to the hotel, watched the White Sox win the World Series on satellite TV, and went to bed.
Day 5 began with a trip to the suburbs of Yangon to see how the average Burmese citizen lived. We took the bus about an hour outside of the city, and we each got in our own bicycle rickshaws for a tour of the town. It reminded me a lot of images of Vietnam I had seen movies. The streets were all lined with tropical vegetation, and people lived in small houses that had a lot of outdoor areas. People in little cafes all would wave to us and say hello, which I think was the only English word they knew, and I smiled and waved back. After about 20 minutes in the rickshaws, we walked around with our guide on some more side streets and saw a small local pagoda. We took the bus back to the hotel and had one final lunch before checking out and leaving the hotel. At this point, I left the SAS trip to do my own thing in the afternoon. The first thing we did was go to a local kickboxing match. We went at 2 PM, but when we got there, found out that it didn’t start until 3, so we went back to Scott market for a bit before cabbing it back to the arena. The kickboxing was pretty intense, but not quite as exciting I had hoped for. It was more of an endurance challenge than anything else. These guys were tough as nails, small ripped Burmese dudes flailing around and occasionally landing a good kick or punch. I stayed for 3 matches before heading out; I’ll admit, I was a little bored. At this point, I had some time to kill before a soccer match I was going to that evening, so we hit up another movie theater, this time paying 50 cents to get in, and saw War of the World, which was alright. Basically, it was nice to just be chilling in an air conditioned theater; I swear, it was 100 degrees AT LEAST with 100% humidity, and I was dying outside and in the hot kickboxing arena.
After the movie, we took a cab to the Myanmar soccer stadium, where Myanmar was playing Bangladesh. For 5 bucks, we got decked out in Myanmar soccer gear and went inside. The soccer game was awesome; it was my first profession soccer game and really fun to watch. It was also fun to go the crazy cheering section and cheer with the locals. They loved that we were right in the middle of them going nuts and trying our best to learn the Burmese cheers. Some SASers even took the Burmese flags and started running round the stadium, which was awesome. Apparently, we made the newspapers the next day. But yeah, the soccer game was amazing, and Myanmar won, which made it even more fun. After the game, we took a cab back to the ship. I was so exhausted from the 4 days in Yangon that I just showered, watched a movie, and passed out.
Day 5 I did nothing. That’s right, nothing. Really, the only option I had was to go back into Yangon for the day, and in the past 4 days I really felt that I had seen everything that Yangon had to offer. So, I was lame and just stayed on the ship and slept in and wrote some emails and hung out. An interesting note: because we were unable to take on any clean water in India or Myanmar, we had to ration water on the ship. The water was turned on from 6-9 AM and 6-9 PM only. Fortunately, I only had to deal with that for one day.
WHEW. That is a damn long blog entry. Myanmar was awesome. Yangon was a very peaceful city, especially after just coming from India, and I liked that the country really wasn’t yet a tourist destination. Part of me wishes I did a trip to another part of the country, like Mandalay or Bagan, but I enjoyed my time in Yangon and felt like I saw a lot more of the city than most people. Myanmar was also fricken HOT, definitely the hottest country we have been in yet. Doesn’t sound like a big deal, but wow, some days I thought I was going to actually pass out from the heat. Myanmar was my first real experience with Buddhism, which I think is a very cool religion. It seems a lot more rational than other religions I have learned about and much more accepting; I haven’t ever heard of Buddhist monks prosecuting others or starting wars. My friend Alan actually has a brother that lives in a Zen Buddhist monastery in San Francisco which I am definitely going to check out when I get back to school.
Alright, I think that is all I have to say. I am currently on the boat going from Vietnam to Hong Kong, and I’ll try to get Vietnam chronicled before I get to China, but no promises.
Would you pass the tacos? WOULD YOU PASS THE TACOS?
