Wandering Scotsman

I’ve uploaded some Myanmar pictures from October. No captions yet but may get round to it tomorrow.

More monks than tourists, more water than I’ve ever seen (some people call them floods), more like a 1950’s film set than a country, the most blatent locals’s versus foreigners travel pricing I’ve seen, the hardest travelling I’ve done yet (we opted not to fly except once) and the friendliest people in South East Asia.

Some pics in the meantime – text to follow – been sitting in this cafe for too long and I can’t be bothered buying another coffee! Pictures alone (especially these ones, don’t do the place justice) :

A traditional ‘canoeist’ on Inle Lake. These guys row with their legs (and not only when tourists are looking!) :

A young girl who sold me a bracelet made of watermelon seeds (currently loosing a seed a day!) with her traditional make up on :

A traditional fisherman on Inle Lake :
Friendly monks commuting on Inle Lake :

Our stop off for our rented pickup. With only 2 gallons of rations a day, they are forced to buy on the black market at twice the price :

The flood that caused us to rent the pickup – two stuck trucks, but amazing what they’ll do to get ice (not the contents of the pickup – ice blocks!) :

Anyone for a ‘chee root’? Local cigarettes with tobacco in leaves :

Despite what the guidebooks say you can get your digital memory cards copied onto CD here. Erm, I chose not to… :
Great lighting at 7am at our roadside stop between Bagan and Inle Lake :
Locals crossing the teak bridge at Mandalay:

A scene through the walls in Bagan :
Me hanging off the back of a local pickup as we left the bus to wait for the stuck trucks to be cleared.

More monks than tourists, more water than I’ve ever seen (some people call them floods), more like a 1950’s film set than a country, the most blatent locals’s versus foreigners travel pricing I’ve seen, the ‘hardest’ travelling I’ve done yet (we opted not to fly except once) and the friendliest people in South East Asia.

For those of you that can’t be bothered to read the detail (if I get round to posting it) I’ll attempt to ‘summarise’ Myanmar, or Burma as it is still more widely recognised as. Knowing my summaries, you’d be as well grabbing a coffee.

As you enter the city, it looks like a fairly normal city in this part of the world, but as you get closer to the centre, you seem to be transformed into more of a timewarp, which is quite bizarre. The buses are from the 50’s, there are kids ‘selling’ birds in a cage (which is really just paying to set them free to gain karma points with Buddha), people selling all kinds of goods layed out on the pavement (like used radio controls, hifi parts and cables), and a line of people fixing things with old sewing machines, right next to the bustling traffic. In the central area some streets seem to be dedicated with shopfronts selling the same goods – like the paper street, the hardware street, the fabric street etc. All of them are characterful with mass batches of all kinds of paper stacked high to the ceiling, with kids playing badminton in the street as the traffic squeezes past. What never stopped to amaze me is what kind of stuff some of them were selling. Some men had a small stand selling various types of copper wire, there were used cellphone batteries and cellphones from yesteryear, and all sorts of street food vendors. It was a total assualt on your senses, but without quite being the ‘vision of hell’ that is Delhi (that’s one of the guy we met’s quote as I’ve never been to India). It was as close to what I imagined some of the capitals of India would be like, but without the down and out sqaulor I’ve heard stories about.

Like Sabah in Borneo though, you have so switch off your western thoughts that everyone is out to scam you as people will say hello all the time, some just wanting to spend time and practice their English. I was walking with one guy for five minutes, just waiting for him to ask if I wanted to change money, but it never happened. When I said I had to go and meet my friends, all he said was ‘Thank you very much, I won’t keep you, have a nice day’. In saying that, the first thing I did when arriving was change money on the black market just for the curiosity factor (more in another post).

The only easy way to travel around the country is to fly and pay the tourist prices – anything from $50 to $90 for a one way flight. That’s not too bad compared to some but it’s easy to get used to rock bottom Air Asia, or Fly Asian Xpress flights for me! If stuck for time, it’s the only way to go, but you’ll miss seeing the real rural Myanmar during the 15-20 hour cross country bus journey (at least that’s their stated times – see other posts for more detail!). And you’ll also miss being woken up at 2am by the squealing local music via the loudspeakers before stopping at the particularly unhealthy looking road side cafes (and that’s not even going near the toilets)…but don’t let that put you off, our journey’s made our trip, where we decided our travel plans on the spot, and met a great bunch of other travellers in a predicament during another flood. If you travel in Myanmar, you earn your tourist points – it’s no Thailand.

I arrived in Myanmar, Tracy heading there a day before me to grab some independent adventure. When I arrived we decided to head away the following day, as we had to head back to Yangon (or Rangoon in old speak). We should have decided to follow the travel agent’s advice, but were determined to leave that day.

We wanted to get to Bagan and do the fairly typical Yangon-Bagan-Mandalay-Inle Lake-Yangon circuit (although it’s usually done in the other direction). The travel agent said Mandalay and Inle Lake was flooded so Bagan was a good idea….. unfortunately when we went to to bus station to buy our tickets for that afternoon, all seats to Bagan were sold out, so after changing some money, and being ushered off the street to hide the deal (‘put your dollars away, the Kyat will be here in a minute, you know what I mean?’), we decided sod it – Mandalay is the only place we can go, the bus is running, it must be ok now…… and then the fun began!

We got up at 4am to hope we’d get a seat on the bus at 5am, as we knew there were a few more people leaving from our accommodation. As we were taken a few metres down the road, I hopped off and grabbed a couple of tickets, just before all the locals piled on. There were 7 travellers on the bus this time, and quite a bit more cramped that the Yangon to Myanmar bus. What we didn’t realise was that we had just met our travelling partners for the next few days – Carolin and Claudius, a brother and sister from Germany, Dominic from London, and Luc, a French/Canadian.

We once again passed through some eye opening village by the roadside, and were woken up as the bus stopped at the usual delightful (ahem) roadside stops. The first one was a delight though as the light from the sunrise crept through the trees, illuminating parked bikes, and the sellers by the bus window, trying to sell fruit and snacks from their baskets carefully balanced in their heads. Every time we stopped the bus got fuller, now with people sitting on plastic stools down the aisle, and luggage and more bodies up on the roof.

Around 11.30am, we had our first unscheduled stop of the day as we headed through yet more floodplains on either side of the road, just receded enough, so the road could be made out. Again there was evidence of villages all but washed away in the downpours of recent weeks. Our holdup was not our bus though, it was two trucks stuck in the mud, their heavy loads of watermelon and other fruits weighing them down. The only things that were getting through the gap were motorbikes, pickups, and pushbikes.

We had no idea how long the delay would be. After 90 minutes or so, the driver indicated it may be 2 or 3 hours. In Myanmar, this could be tomorrow. He wasn’t keen to backtrack and take the other road, as we only had 10km to Thazi, around the middle of our journey. We still had 5 to 6 hours to go, so at best, we’d get to Inle Lake in the middle of the night, potentially being dropped at a road junction, having to find transport for our last 12 km.

It was at this time, the seven of us got chatting about where we’d been, our future plans, and generally watching the trouble some cars had getting through, the local boy paddling his sinking traditional canoe by the roadside and other roadside entertainment. The prospect of the delay was starting to get real and we all hatched a plan to offload our luggage, and flag down a passing pickup to get us to the next town. I had a bit of a dilemma here as I felt we were just throwing our western money to solve a problem the locals took in their stride, likely on a daily occurence.

Quite quickly, the large wads of Kyat notes in my pocket won over. They were here going through their daily lives, and I had to see as much of Myanmar as feasible in a mere 12 days. THe bus driver helped us stop a passing pickup. As usual, all the passengers got off, waded through the flood, and at the other side, we onloaded our luggage and us on the roof, and hanging off the back, locals laughing and waving as we passed through. It could have been worse – there were 90 litres of Myanmar beer on the roof, so if we got stranded…..

Before we knew it we were in Thazi and being comandeered by a local, overly keen to help us with our transport problem. We very conveniently got dropped off at his restaurant, and ate while he negotiated a price with a driver to take us to Inle Lake. Starting at $9 each, and finally settling at $12 after bouncing to and from $18, we were on our way to Inle Lake – another 4 hours away.

We were asked to tell all the people from our country about the restaurant by the grandmother, instructed to tell the police about our transport issue incase the driver got stopped and questioned, scoffed down some treats that were brought out to us (no doubt helped by the restaurant owners cut of the $78 deal), and we were on our way to stock up with black market gas to take us to our destination.

This part of the journey was the best. We made 5 instant travelling companions (one was only going half way, and only spoke to odd word), all amused at our journey, and agreeing that despite the problems, and some uncomfort, this is what made a trip. The scenery got more mountainous as we crossed over to Kalaw, and reminded me a great deal of Sabah. Locals laughed and waved as this pickup, with the unusual western passengers passed through towns and villages. As we passed Kalaw, darkness and the temperature fell, and we put on tops and trousers. At around 8.30pm we got closer to Inle Lake, curious by the reflections on the fields next to the road – the Lake wasn’t meant to start yet.

We rolled into town, the place was flooded.

We had all agreed to pitch up at the accommodation booked by the Germans, and weren’t sure whether to laugh or cry as we drove through the water, and had a canoe presented to take us across the driveway. It was cold, we were tired and gasping for a beer. This was our place for the night.

We were bowled over at the reception we got from the family running the Teakwood Guesthouse. Despite thinking we would move accommodation, we decided to stay there, wading in and out of the accommodation, on the worst flooded street in town.

We spent a few days generally chilling around the town. We took one afternoon trip on traditional a traditional canoe around the north of the lake, rowed in the traditional manner of rowing with their legs, while standing on the back of the canoe. We were taken to a realxing village and shown around the local’s making sweets and cakes using soy beans for the local market day. All these were made in a very laborious manner, crushed by hand, stirred, and fried on the most basic fires. We watched two woman making traditional cigarettes, and invited to try our own hand at it. This was really enjoyable, as there was never any hassle to buy anything, and we were free to interact, and take photos, especially of the wee kid who seemed to unravel every batch of cigarettes his mother had just tied together.

The next day we took a full day boat trip where they took us round more villages, and watched families and kids more at home on the water, in their stilt houses carefully balanced on the lake. Unfortunately there was quite a bit of selling as we were dropped into tradtional weavers, silk weavers, blacksmiths and silversmiths. Despite this it was fascinating watching the traditional methods of weaving on looms, and heating up metals on hand pumped fires, kept alive by bellows. The market we were dropped off at was full of ‘you buy, cheap, cheap’ hard sells.

We had a great few days here, all hanging out together, reading books and catching up on journals, with the off rum encouraged night. My nightly bills were generally 12-16000 Kyats, doubling Tracy’s bills that had no alcohol. I had bought a bottle of ‘army rum’ for around 50 pence, but it was more than adequate to spice up a night for all of us. We managed to dodge the water most of the time, despite wading in and out of our accommodation. As we were contemplating the end of the world here together (we thought we saw a bright star that could only be considered a meteor), Tracy was lead to alternative, non flooded toilet facilities by the waitress…. at one point, she thought she was being taken to the waitresses house, only to be pointed to the dark flooded field across the road. One night Dominic and I stayed out a bit later, caught up in a conversation with Israelis he had met, but we overstayed the town’s welcome and had to make our way back in complete darkness as a powercut hit, illuminated only occassionally by my camera flash and our mojito induced alcohol vision.

As the Germans departed on a two day trek, we Dominic, Tracy and I decided on another day here and delayed our flight back to Yangon (or Rangoon in old speak). Yes, we were flying as it the only alternative was a 20 hour bus trip, dodging the floods.

More Myanmar stories will come when I have a moment. I’m off down to check out the Chiang Rai night market and break my slave to technology mantra. It’s a lot more chilled out here than Chiang Mai.
Myanmar stories to follow…. the sleepy 8 hour boat journey to Bagan, the 1000’sof stupas there, all to ourselves. Getting pissed with the locals (cheap Rum again – like the Perhentians!) and a free Myanmar language class. Bus to Inle Lake – Darren follows more floods as earthquakes hit Chiang Rai (my next destination)…two trucks stuck, only pickups getting through, and 7 travellers with a shitload of Kyats in their wallets….paid out only to get to our destination in ‘locals-style’ in the dark…to our……da da daaaa….flooded hotel. Inle Lake chills and boat trips. Israeli politics discussions in Yangon, and more exotic stories………….

As soon as the boat stopped at Bagan, we knew we were in for a bit of R&R here. Despite the landing area (note, not a pier, a landing area) having a couple of motorised modes of transport for the more plush hotels, it was just a collection of shacks selling stuff, and a load of horses and carts waiting to get as much as they could for taking us to a guesthouse. Two woman, an Italian, and Australian travelling together and rescued Tracy and I’s lack of hardened haggling, and we were off on our bumpy ride up the road for arond $0.50. Splashing out, we decided to have our own rooms, at around $3 each per night…with private bathroom.

Like Cambodia, you usually pay for flights, boats and accommodation in dollars, and everything else in Kyats (although most will happily take dollars for stuff). We didn’t do too much the first day except have a stroll around the main streets, bewildered by another step back in time – the main transport being horse, carts and pushbikes, the rest being made up of motos and large trucks.

At night we were joined by the two woman for a pizza and more travel and life chat. I love meeting different folk when travelling as you tend to have pretty interesting chats about local and internation travel, and anything else that crops up. We finished the first night with a beer in the ‘local’ having a brief chat with an artist. Of course, we had been sucked into buying the ‘hand painted’, sand based buddha paintings on the first temple we visited. The local artist said they were genuine, but we still had our ‘I reckon they were screen printed’ doubts, as everone seemed to be selling them. Despite me paying $34 for two, and the two woman finding them for $7 each, we put it down to experience. At least we gave the seller a bit of entertainment with a ten minute game of paper, scissors and stones to find out which of us would be able to buy the one we both liked. Of course after I parted with my cash, he popped round to a mate’s to find a similar one in different colours for Tracy, happily taking $20 for hers.

The second day here were hired a horseman for the day to be taken around some of the stupas around the area. Like a lot of these things, the general setting was pretty amazing, but once I had seen a few of them, anymore would have been too much. After spending a pretty trivial sunset on our own a the top of the stupa, with thousands more spreading as far as the eye could see, we made a call to leave the following morning to get to Inle Lake, bypassing a couple of other local attractions.

To end up, we were back in the local ‘bar’ chatting to our artist friend, and his mates, having a right good laugh for a couple of hours. They told us some local lingo (largely around telling women whether you liked them, or loved them), we looked at their English lessons, and we tried the local ‘Chee Root’ cigarettes – Myanmar tobacco wrapped in some kind of leaf – all totally above board, but what most men smoked here. We took a couple of group photos, laughed a lot, then retired too late, knowing we were up at 4am to hope we got a space on the 5am bus to Inle Lake.

As we were pretty much surrounded by waterin Mandalay, we didn’t stay around for long, leaving there after only one full day. We took the 8 hour boat trip south to Bagan to see the stupas and temples there, which Lonely Planet compared to Angkor Watt. The journey was pertty uneventful, and you were often too far away from the bank to really see life on the riverbanks. The best thing about the trip was that you were forced to sit and do nothing for a whole day, except eat, write….or drink the bottle of Rum you bought the night before.

The one thing that stood out at me was the boat had 95% tourists on it and it felt like I had left the Myanmar we had grown to enjoy. When the boat temporarily docked at a couple of towns, several locals stood on the pier trying to sell you crafts or bananas, and asking for money. I found it quite hard from our elevated position on the boat, looking down on them, cameras poking around. At least when we travelled by bus, we were the only tourists on it, and you never felt you were throwing your money at things just to make life easy for yourself. One travelling partner put it in a pretty realistic manner a few days later though – we’re here for different reasons, some travelling, and some living, with different purposes, and different backgrounds. I guess sometimes you just have to make yourself as aware as you can of the surroundings, and get on with your travel plans. Despite this, you still have to laugh with the happieness of the locals like one of the kids diving underwater as soon as he saw your camera. then creeping up slowly. I know some people don’t want photographed, but this guy was just having a laugh with us.

We bought bus tickets to Mandalay, against the travel agent’s advice. It was all going well until we got to the outskirts and woke up to grade 1 currents running under our bus. It was quite depressing to see as whole communities had washed away, all heading towards the main road. The floods in some areas were well above the start of the roof of some of the shacks we saw, and the flood plains extended as far as the eye could see. Yesterday buses weren’t getting through so this must have been the floods receded a bit.

Amazingly the bus made it through to Mandalay which wasn’t flooded in the city. It has pretty much been cut off for a few days though, and any of our planned day trips outside the city were well off the agenda. We subsequently heard that at least 100 people lost their homes, and several died but I’d have to verify that. The airport had been closed off as first it was under water, and then you couldn’t get to the city. We spoke to one guy later who had flown to Mandalay, but it took him over 4 hours to get ferried from the airport to the city, and the army were helping out at times.

We managed to take in a day trip out and around some of the usual sites – yet another pagoda, yet another stupa,yet another buddha, and an amazing old teak bridge – the longest apparently amazing one in the world.

We decided to hot foot it to Bagan the next day on the boat. I had heard Mandalay wasn’t too exciting on it’s own, and we weren’t too impressed compared to Yangon, especially without the day trips around.

One thing we had to see was a show from the Moustache Brothers before we left so we went there in the evening. These guys are in their 50’s now, but previously spoke out about the government regime here and promptly got arrested, and thrown in jail for 7 years. They finally got out after some famous comedians spoke out about it, and they featured in a Hugh Grant film as he comments on them while answering a call in a call centre (‘Love Actually’ maybe?). After that they kidded on their performance wasn’t a performance as they didn’t wear costumes. Now it is so well known about they are tolerated.

To be honest I don’t know what the fuss is about. Apparently the show has been the same for years – we sat there and wandered what the hell we were watching – everyone bemused in the audience. It was manic, with a lot of mention of how many government organisations are apparently watching them, some traditional dances from their partners, and other random stuff. Quite an experience, but it wasn’t quite the comedy we expected!