Zoom through the rainy season, Part 2 - Myanmar



Shwedagon Paya



As my traveling frequently is, I decided to go to Myanmar at the last minute, about a week before I left. Work was closed for the Queen's birthday and the Thai government (and the US embassy) decided to close business on the following day, giving me a four day weekend. Luckily, a friend of mine had already planned most of the travel in Myanmar and had several contacts there. So, I just hopped along for the ride.

To begin, I want to say that I've had some serious reservations about going to Myanmar. Top on my list was the fact that the country is controlled by a military dictatorship that has suppressed human rights and freedoms for the past 20 years or so. Entering the country and traveling around as a foreigner are strictly controlled and facilitated by the government. While I have gone to countries where corruption is rampant, there usually was at least a semblance of democracy and people had some hope of change. In Myanmar, there seems to be little hope. When elections were announced the day after my arrival, there seemed to be little open discussion (as expected... you never know who is an informant and even when you do know, you don't necessarily want them to know what you think). When it was discussed, people seemed to have little hope of it being a free or fair election. Many had seen the military junta finagle rules, moving military leaders into "civilian" posts, jigging election monitors and effectively destroying an opposition party's chances at winning.

A psychedelic halo

I went because a friend of mine was going who had connections and Burmese friends who could help us avoid some of the "tourist traps." Of course, we did see many touristy sites, but we tried to stay and eat at local venues and supported tours and tour guides who were not government-run. And, I am very glad I went. Not only did I see a beautiful country and learn about the history of the country, I met some wonderful, kind, generous, welcoming people. So now, my trip to Myanmar!

1 of 4 enormous gold-leafed, teak

Buddha statues in Ananda Pahto

We flew into Yangon (Rangoon) and met up with my friend's farang friends. They helped us exchange money (Note: The official, government-controlled exchange rate is 1 USD to about 6 kyat. The street value is approximately 1 USD to 1000 kyat.) Our first stop was the Shwedagon Paya. I really can't describe it to do it justice. It glitters day and night (beat that Eiffel Tower) and doesn't tarnish (you too, Statue of Liberty) and is really just gorgeous. There are numerous Buddha statues and temples surrounding the main stupa. In a slight difference from Thai Buddha's, many of the Buddhas had psychedelic lights glowing behind their heads (almost like halos!). 

Our transportation in Bagan

After a (rather sleepless night) in Yangon, we went to Bagan, an ancient capital of Burma. Bagan has roughly 2,000+ temples (there is no exact count... mainly because the junta seems to control things and prevents an accurate count). It is remarkable. As you approach the city, the ground glitters with gold-leafed stupas and more pagodas than you can count. If you know my picture-taking tendencies (and my slight obsession with religious buildings), I went a little crazy with all the temples. As in Thailand, there was a strong Hindu influence on Buddhism in Myanmar. We climbed and saw as many temples as we could in about 8 hours of intense temple seeing :) Luckily, my travel companion has an equal obsession with history, so we traveled well together.

Shwendandaw Kyaung

Our next stop was Mandalay, the capital of Burma when the British took control. We were lucky enough to have some good connections there and upon arriving, we met our friend's friends, the owners of Mandalay's puppet theater and proprietors of the Spoken English school. We were told that if we asked at our guesthouse (pre-booked by friends) that people at the guesthouse would know who we were talking about. That's how famous they are in Mandalay!

We had a delicious lunch and then they gave us suggestions of places to visit in the afternoon. So, we headed out into Mandalay, armed with our faithful Lonely Planet Guide. Unfortunately our guidebook failed us... but led to some fun (in retrospect) adventures. Our friends dropped us at the Shwedandaw Kyaung (the Golden Monastery), with recommendations to see the marble Buddha and Mandalay Hill before heading downtown to the puppet theater. So, the kyaung was our point-of-reference on the map. Turned out to be in the wrong place on the map, so we wandered (quite a bit) to get to Mandalay Hill and completely missed the marble Buddha. When we finally reached the spotless white lions at the foot of Mandalay Hill, we were quite proud of ourselves (and extremely thankful for the kindness of Mandalay's residents).

Me, finally reaching Mandalay Hill

They wanted to take a picture with us... so I took a picture with them!

Buddha, who predicted the formation of Mandalay

The 9ft circumference

Later in the evening, we joined our friends for a Spoken English class and then were guests of honor at the puppet show. The following day, we headed on a tour of the area surrounding Mandalay, visiting another 3 previous capitals of Myanmar. (The whole, moving the capital from Yangon to Naypyidaw makes more sense given the history of moving capitals.)

We went to Bagaya Monastery, which (according to Lonely Planet) was built in 1834 during the reign of King Bagyidaw. The monastery has 267 gigantic teak wood posts and is made entirely of teak wood. Here, Olesya and I are standing next to the largest post, with a circumference of more than 9 feet (determined, quite scientifically, by me wrapping my arms around several posts to see which one I could not wrap myself half-way around... because everyone knows that the length of your arm-span is equal to your height, right?).

Resting along the bridge

We finished our day watching the sun set on U Bein's Bridge, Amarapura. The bridge is... guess what? Made of teak wood! And, guess what? It's the largest teak wood bridge in the world, at 1.2 km long. It has many rest-stops along the way, with people fishing, young people wandering, and boats trying to lure tourists to take scenic tours on Lake Taungthaman. We found it more fun to walk across the bridge and stop along the way to people watch. And, we finally got to see our sunset (the first, planned in Bagan, was rained out).

Monks at a rest stop

Our last stop in Mandalay was to get Olesya an experience in a Mandalay teahouse (she has a bit of an obsession with tea and coffee). We headed back to our guesthouse, thoroughly exhausted. The next day, we headed back to Yangon. After all our site-seeing, we headed with our farang friends for lunch, gift buying in the market, and a nice pedicure.

Then I headed to the airport for my flight back to Bangkok. I had a slight challenge in the airport when I was trying to leave. (Apparently I tend to underestimate my challenges... according to my dad, when I said I had a slight challenge, he was expecting something a little more dramatic. In retrospect, as usual, it's a bit amusing and a familiar experience.) As in many countries were the currency is overinflated and US dollars become the defacto currency, many places in Myanmar only accepted specific kinds of US currency. Where we (as Americans) might see one 1-dollar bill as equally valuable as another 1-dollar bill, people in Myanmar don't (see Zimbabwe). Since I don't use US dollars here, my supply was a bit more limited than the average traveler's might have otherwise been. I brought enough money, but didn't count on a quarter of it being unacceptable due to marks, serial numbers, or something else mysterious being wrong with it. So my challenge came when I needed to pay the $10 departure fee. I had 10 USD but apparently they were not acceptable. I tried Thai baht - I had a beautiful, new 500 baht note (worth about $15). Luckily they accepted (at a slighly poor exchange rate) and I was able to leave as planned!

Our guides and friends :)

I will definitely have to go back to Myanmar some day soon. I really enjoyed my time there and I'd like to go back and see some of the friends I made. I just hope that one day they will be able to have free, fair elections and a peaceful government. If you would like to see more pictures from my trip, I posted them on Facebook.