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.

The Great Railway Bazaar

 Just under 48 hours until our departure for Myanmar. Camera battery is charged, laundry is almost done, sunscreen and sunglasses are packed.

We originally had a rather ambitious travel plan that involved stops in Kalaw and Inle (a small mountain village and large, picturesque lake) but after a recent plane crash with our preferred airline (out of Myanmar's several dubious domestic airlines) I decided I just couldn't cope with the stress of internal flights.  It would take serious anti-anxiety medication just to get me on the plane - not how I want to spend my 30th birthday.

We investigated bus options, but they were almost more off-putting - 12 hours to cover 200 miles through mountain roads on a cramped bus.  Pass.

Stories of the bus route are the stuff of travel legend.  Imagine a 30 year-old mini-bus with plastic chairs stuffed down the main aisle to make room for more passengers, slowly winding it's way through curvy roads with multiple people vomiting from travel sickness (myself likely to be one of them) at any one time. Can't do it, just can't.

It is (predictably) illegal for foreigners to hire cars or motorbikes in Myanmar.

With not enough time to travel by ferry, the words of Paul Theroux's 1972 travel memoir The Great Railway Bazaar in which he journeys from the UK to Japan by train came to mind:

"The train can reassure you in awful places - a far cry from the anxious sweats of doom aeroplanes inspire, or the nauseating gas-sickness of long-distance bus . . . If a train is large and comfortable you don't even need a destination."

 In The Great Railway Bazaar, Mr Theroux takes a phenomenal journey through then Burma all the way north to Lashio (sadly, we won't make it that far).  A part of me is hoping that Burmese rail travel hasn't improved much since 1972 (a hunch tell me it probably hasn't) and am hoping to experience all the same frustration, delight and faded colonial grandeur that Mr. Theroux encountered.

Our journey will be but a miniature version, 17 hours overnight straight north from Rangoon to Bagan.  I've got George Orwell's Burmese Days on my Kindle (a battered paperback would be more 1972, but whatever) I'm looking forward to it.

An embassy row

As with most third-world countries, it is necessary to get a visa prior to entering Myanmar.  Fine.  I've been through visa processes of all types - students visas, residency visas, dependent visas, working visas, tourist visas - not to mention renewing visas and transferring visas between passports. First world or third world, visa procedures are rarely pleasant, straight forward or efficient. So with a fully loaded travel schedule between now and our late January departure for Myanmar, we thought we better get the Burmese visas over and done with.

We found out what we could beforehand and got some advice from friends who had previously been through the process - it didn't seem so bad.  The application form is the most unofficial document you've ever seen - it's a document with absolutely no headings, seals, or insignias that would signal it is in any way an official government document.  It's so basic your average first grader could create it in Microsoft Word.

The drop-off process went smoothly and Ian was delighted when they said our visas would be ready for us on Monday. Splendid.

The best way I can describe the Burmese Embassy is to say that it resembles a small refugee camp.  Dozens and dozens of Burmese citizens, mostly young men, loiter around the front of the embassy and inside - and by inside, I refer to a courtyard surrounded by a corrugated iron fence with a few tents set up to provide shelter from the sun and rain - and there, dozens more people sit on filthy plastic chairs smoking and chatting - there are no tablets, smartphones, kindles or ipods here.  Everyone looks like they have been there for a very, very long time.

The contrasts between the Burmese embassy and the surrounding embassies are stark - even the Senegalese embassy a few doors down looks palatial by comparison.  The Irish embassy and ambassadors residence is just opposite - it is a modest mansion with a lovely pool - where the huddled masses from the Burmese embassy can just about peer over the spiked fence while the Irish ambassador relaxes poolside.

We left work early and arrived 15 minutes before pick-up time - which is strictly between 4:00-5:00pm.  There was already a queue with roughly 20 people in front of us and a rapidly expanding line behind us. 4:00 came and went. At 4:15 an employee appeared, sat down at the window and commenced eating a sandwich.  Another employee appeared.  Things began happening.  A few happy people came away with passports, a few travel agents waited on the side and a few people came away looking disappointed or frustrated. Uh oh.

Word began to circulate that passports were only being returned to people who had applied on November 29th (not the 30th like us - despite the fact that our receipt very clearly said that our passports would be ready that day).

No need to panic, we had requested the expedited service. We got to the window, put forward our receipt and the man flipped it over, shoved it back in my face, shook his head and said 'no' (and by the way, the expedited service doesn't exist!)

Time out.

Not only can I not be leaving work three hours early to queue at the embassy during my last four working days of the year - but I've got a flight to catch to the UK at the end of the week.  I need my passport.

Panic was rising and time ticking.  I've been through enough visa drop-offs and collections to know that the possibility that the window would be slammed shut at 5:00 regardless of how many people were still in line was a very, very real possibility.

I also know that this was probably about the last situation in which one should shout.  Shouting about third-world bureaucracy rarely achieves anything.  In fact, it can be downright counter-productive. Nevermind. Frustrated, stressed and wet (the heavens had opened) I  let loose.  'I MUST have my passport. I am flying to the UK tomorrow' (white lie, but given the circumstances . . . ) Repeat several times.  Man at the window shouts back.  After several unproductive minutes of trying to shout above the noise of the now torrential rain, he says, 'you wait, wait' and disappears into a dilapidated building.

Minutes tick by.  He re-emerges to applause - he is carrying a basket of passports, escorted by a man holding a giant pink umbrella over the basket. Ian's photo is poking out of the top of the basket.

A few more minutes and we are safely away with our passports.  Drenched and back at the car we notice the stamps have been slightly smeared by the rain (but all remains legible).  I dried them in front of the air conditioning vent.  I hope we don't have to bribe a border agent when we arrive.

Nickeled & dimed

My number one rule of international travel is that with a credit card and a passport you can get yourself out of (or into) virtually anything.  My second rule is the old Douglas Adams maxim, 'have towel will travel.'  After that, everything pretty much boils down to common sense and a bit of luck.

I turn 30 this January and we've decided it's time to take the plunge and visit Myanmar (Burma).  My travel philosophy is going to need a bit of reworking.  While rule number two will likely continue to serve me well, rule number one  is out the window.

Incredible changes have been sweeping through Myanmar over the last year (hence our decision to go), but one thing that hasn't changed is that it is a truly 100% cash economy.

The Burmese currency - the kyat - cannot be exchanged outside of the country and once in Myanmar  there is literally one hotel in Yangon (Rangoon) that will give cash on a credit card (at a whopping rate of 12%) and there is not a single ATM in the entire country that will take an international credit or debit card.

 This means we not only need to budget carefully and bring all the currency that we want to exchange into Myanmar with us, but they are also rather fussy about what you bring along to exchange.

We will need to bring - brand spanking new - completely flawless- no wrinkles, folds, tears, or spots US dollars.  These pristine dollars will also need to be post-2006 (the bills with colour on them) and not begin with the serial numbers CB (rumour has it they don't take the other US currency because the North Koreans successfully counterfeited the older bills - many of which found their way into Myanmar.)

On top of that - we will get the joy of haggling to exchange on the black market as the black market rate is actually much, much better than the 'official' rate which is roughly 1/10 of what it should be!

I think the money situation will probably be the most challenging part of our trip - I can survive power cuts, no internet, bad roads, slow travel and bureaucracy.

We've got until January to learn all we can and get visas, but this is one trip where we are really going to need to do our homework.  If anyone reading this has been to Myanmar - any travel tips and advice are extremely welcome!