Burma roundup

It's taken a long time for me to gather my thoughts on Burma. I spent a big chunk of the trip on the bathroom floor reading Orwell's Burmese Days, listening squealing children and squawking chickens filter through the open window.

Burma is is much like India - or rather, I imagine, much like India was before it had millionaires or even a modern middle class. Like India, Burma has a the same recognisable British colonial legacy and is full to bursting with blinding colours and grinding poverty in a landscape composed of steep mountains, flat dusty plains and tropical bush.

It's much like India, but also much like Laos and northern Thailand; the Burmese have the same gentleness that characterizes the Laotians and Thais and the same remarkably unperturbed indifference to foreigners.

So maybe what Kipling wrote in 1898 remains true, 'This is Burma, and it is unlike any land you know about.'

Burma is more than just the collective attributes of its neighbours; but it's hard not to draw comparisons. The people are beautiful and subtle shifts in ethnicity are revealed as you travel up and down the country - some look almost Indian, others thoroughly Chinese - and everything in between. 

A universal feature amongst the Burmese seems to be the application of Thanaka, a cream coloured paste worn decoratively as make-up, but also as protection against the sun and is said to have cooling properties. It seems to most often be worn in a thick smear beneath the eyes, not unlike a tobacco-chewing American baseball player.

Burma is perhaps less reliant on modern technology than anywhere I have ever been.  Power cuts were constant, but unsurprising.  What did surprise me was the almost complete absence of cell phones.  I think of cell phones as a fairly democratic piece of technology these days, you can pick up a cheap Nokia for $10 just about anywhere. I suspect in Burma, the issue is not the cost of the phone but that phone networks barely exist and there is, almost literally, no one to call.

I suspect landlines in the home are also fairly uncommon.  The typical Burmese phone booth looks something like this:

An attendant sits in a dingy stall on the side of a road with a range of phones (that have probably not been manufactured in the developed world for about 15 years) - and people come along and pay to use them. 

Users battle the noise of passing pedestrians and traffic and of course every word you say is over heard - not an ideal setting for an intimate conversation or conducting business.

With the exception of Coca-Cola and a few car and electronics companies - and Singapore is making a big play with Tiger beer - there are virtually no international brands.  Everything in Burma, is made in Burma - making most goods cheap - in both meanings of the word.  Mastercard is the first (and this is within the last year or so) and only credit card that has any presence, in the entire country. International banks are non-existent.

Burma is like stepping back in time in a way that is utterly refreshing, yet also makes you wince. Even our fairly modest trip, on a modest budget made me feel a bit like a modern-day Marie Antoinette.

Myanmar Arrival

Our journey to Myanmar complete, it is debatable as to whether or not it was a success.  I got sick - really, really sick. At the low point, I didn't leave the hotel room for a 60 hours. In fact, it's been pushing two weeks since I fell ill and although the vomiting has long since ceased - not everything is quite back in working order (we'll leave it at that).

Needless to say, being sick on holiday is a lot like going on a fabulous beach vacation and then it rains the whole time. It was a pretty big bummer. Fortunately, I had Ian to take care of me and in his infinite wisdom had packed a fairly substantial supply of meds for just such an occasion 

Arrival at the airport went more smoothly than anticipated.  I had been holding my breath as our visa stamps had a bit of rain on them and were slightly smeared - rejecting a visa for an ink smear is what I imagine to be the greatest ambition of every immigration stooge of a totalitarian regime. Fortunately, we were granted entry without delay.

We were also delighted to discover that since the government  floated the local currency (the kyat) last year, that exchange rate had stabilized and you no longer need to exchange money on the black market but could do so at the airport for a fairly good rate (about 885 kyat to 1 USD) - previously the 'official' exchange rate was converting USD at about 1/6 of actual value.

We loaded our things into the hotel van and survived a hectic but interesting ride through rush hour Rangoon.  Despite the fairly inadequate (but not terrible) roads and complete disregard for driving lanes, the driving wasn't much worse than elsewhere in Asia. Rangoon is a city of 4.5 million people - the vast majority of which cannot afford a car - which does do wonders for the traffic congestion.

Even better, Rangoon lacks that most common Asian urban pestilence - motorcycles. That's right, motorbikes are completely banned in the city - and it is a wonderful thing.  The story goes that years ago a motorbike crashed into the back of a car belonging to a government official and he then saw to it that all motorbikes were banned.

After food and beer our first mission was to get train tickets up to Bagan. The railway station in Rangoon, dates from the early 1950s (the British built a station in the late 1800's but destroyed it as they beat a path out of town when the Japanese invaded).  Now it's an attractive white-washed building built in typical Burmese style that smacks of tropical wear and tear and general neglect.

Purchasing our tickets was an experience in itself, we found the ticket counter - an ornate window-booth that looked into a large office.  The office was completely bare except for the three men in attendance, a rickety wooden table, two filthy plastic chairs, a single inadequate ceiling fan, one light bulb dangling from a string and piles of ledgers in which tickets are written out neatly by hand - completely by hand.

At the appointed hour we boarded our train, and I am pleased to say it was pretty much exactly as I had imagined it.  Rickety, but comfortable with large windows that opened wide - giving a completely uninterrupted view of the slums, villages, huts, paddies, markets and countryside that we rolled - more like wobbled, really - past.

All too soon it was dark and after a dinner of Pringles and warm Beer Lao it was time for bed.  It was a bumpy but enjoyable overnight ride, but I think everyone (we shared our cabin with two lovely young men, one German, one Slovakian) managed a few hours sleep.

We arrived in Bagan, bang on time at 9:30am and were greated by the most ambitious taxi driver I've encountered yet.

We were still a few minutes out from Bagan - we really hadn't even begun slowing down, but a handful of taxi drivers line the stretch of grass well before the platform - eyes peeled for meme sahibs aboard the train. Well into middle-age, dressed in full longyi (a sort of floor-length sarong worn by virtually everyone in Myanmar) this man took an impressive running start, pulled himself on to the train and panting used his only two words of English, 'Hello, taxi?'

There was no way we could deny a man as enterprising as that.  He delivered us safely at our hotel - and a few hours later, that's when everything went wrong.