A Full Day In Mandalay

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thanks for the comments, ma! save me LOTS of hot chilis! can't wait for your cooking!

We had all bought longyis by this point, and we actually wore them to the airport the next day (we were running out of clean clothes anyways). the boys were hilarious, brian wore the longyi as though he's been wearing skirts his entire life but tom just couldn't really get used to it...in fact, he couldn't bring himself to NOT wear a full pair of shorts underneath the longyi, which is where he kept his wallet...so everytime he needed money, etc, he'd pull the skirt ALL the way up and reach in his pockets, it was definitely one of the funniest things ever to watch the locals react to that. The security at the airport was tighter today - no, they didn't ask for our ID but they DID ask what nationality we were before they let us through - why? no idea. maybe hte tourism depts is keeping track. there are no announcements or anything electronic, when it's time to board some guy just holds up a sign. i love it.

at the airport we hired a taxi to take us wherever we wanted for the day. Hui and I, being the expert bargainers we were by this point, got the guy down to $20. Note that we handle all the bargaining because the guys just go along with whatever we do, in fact they seem to be afraid of making decisions! Unfortunately, maybe because we got a good rate, the car broke down in the middle of the city on the way to mandalay hill. it was REALLY hot out, but we had to pull over on teh side of hte road and the guy lifts up the passenger seat, because the engine is under it - very old school. he called another dude, who started heading the wrong way and basically, to make a long story short, pawned us off on someone else because he wouldn't do it for $20...he said his van was too nice (yeah right) which told us we got a good deal!

Remember the $10 bagan entry fee? well...they have a similar thing in mandalay to get into all the "sites" here...like the fact reconstructed palace, where they have the 4 pillars of the country posted outside (they post everywhere). my favorite one (they have them written in english as well) says..."we will crush all those opposing the union." The Union of Myanmar, that is. Well, i guess i'm a supporter as long as i'm on the INSIDE of hte border! We headed up mandalay hill for a great site over teh city, the river, etc. there was a camera fee for the gov't that we just avoided paying (boy were we proud of ourselves). Next our taxi driver took us to a stupa which has what is called "the longest book inthe world" - all these religious things written on stones that would take one person, eight hours a day, 360 days to read. so, we walked in and started strolling around, and we saw the table for the $10 gov't fee. brian, in his longyi, walked straight in and noone stopped him. all the "longest book" stones were on teh outside of the stupa, so we were wandering taking pictures and then finally they started to approach hui, etc. for this $10 fee which we told them we left our ticket in the hotel room. Long story short, we just refused to pay and they started getting really mad until eventually we left.

at this point it was about 11am, so we went to find a hotel. the first place we stopped was ghetto, for sure. tom and i were delegated to check it out - a bad combo, since we both have pretty low standards. but we figured everyone else might not liek it...(no names) plus it seemed expensive for such a crappy room. we decided to try one more place and found a GREAT hotel for $18/night for a double (which hui and i bargained from $20 of course!) AND it included satellite TV, they had HBO! we seriously planned to scheduel that in to the evening. while we were checking in, tom and i were standing with about 6 people from teh hotel, who worked there. tom was talking animatedly about something to the staff who were listening intently...when suddenly i noticed his longyi slipping! I interuppted him and said, "tom, your longyi is falling off," and the staff starts CRACKING UP, and tom was really embarressed. it was great.

next we had to deal with the monkey bite situation. hui had had her sister call the embassy to find out the deal. we checked online and the us embassy website didn't even list a single dr or hospital in mandalay! and we were a plane flight from yangoon. The first internet place was down. the second one we found used an application called "Your freedom" to get around the myanmar telecom blocks so that you can access yahoo mail, etc. it's very interesting - so hui was about to log on, text based only though. the embassy was AMAZING! the embassy doctor had emailed her with all this info and 2 hospitals in mandalay and said to call her. the phone at the internet cafe was broken, so hui used the traditional "pay phones" here which are women sitting on the street in a chair. (see pic). Hui decided she should get the bite checked out, so we had our taxi driver - who was amazing btw and didn't speak a word of english, take us to the hospital. the embassy doctor had said "city hospital". and this one was called "mandalay city hospital" - same? we weren't sure, but we went into teh ER type room, hui was freaking out about the standards there - she's like, what do you think? i said, looks good! it was definitely a local place though... noone spoke english really, though we were able to deduce that this was NOT one of the recommended ones. we got the address and showed it to our driver, who probably thought we were SO crazy...every ten min we were like..."ok, we go here?" and we had also stopped at the market, and after the market, we had said "hospital"! and he looked really confused, and we were like, "monkey bite!" actually we know the word for monkey in burmese...so the poor guy was probably wondering how hui managed to get a monkey bite in the market.... okay this is getting a little wordy so to the point - we found the hospital which was basically deserted, very very strange, and found a nice dr who spoke english and knew dr. molly at the embassy, and basically told hui to get the shots (5 in total!) and wait until bangkok so that she gets the same brand. we all felt much relieved to have that sorted. the woman gave her an antibiotic for the bleeding under the skin, which cost $4 (amoxicillin) and didn't even charge her for the visit!

A side comment on the deserted hospital thing, this is a funny thing i've noticed a lot in burma. There seems to be a lot of physical labor going on, always fixing stuff and building stuff here. I mean we'll drive down the road and there will be like 50 women out there, moving rocks with their HANDS to build new roads and stuff. There is a crazy, crazy "if you build it they will come" mentality...like this deserted hospital where noone goes (maybe the gov't keeps it open for military generals?) or the mandalay airport...the only "international" airport in addition to yangoon, which services, um, ONE flight per week from northern Thailand. yet they have this new, sparkling, modern airport up there which is EMPTY, it's very disquieting and strange feeling. I mean, they have 15 counters that say "immigration" and it's just deserted because everyone's on domestic flights. i mean, at the hospital and the airport, most of it they don't even have the LIGHTS on, to save energy, that's how empty it is. the funniest part about it is that in other countries the economics of these situations just wouldn't work...yet somehow here they do?

moving swiftly on to the afternoon, i found this "off the beaten path" wooden monastery in the lonely planet, so we headed there. it is really really old, i do'nt know the dates. it was so quiet...we coudln't even find other monks at first, but finally we found our way in and it was SO lovely and peaceful. amazing wooden carvings everywhere, and a few very friendly monks who chatted with us in VERY limited english. they aren't really used to visitors. this place was particularly nice in relation to all the modern, tacky temples, etc. we've seen with flashing lights, etc. this was all wood and very classic style - and just exuded peace with the afternoon sun slanting in through the wood carvings. i could have just laid right down on the floor and taken a nap.

we were going to skip the main, biggest temple because of the $10 fee but our driver took us there and let us in a side path so we didnt have to pay! perfect. i was actually glad we ended up going because the place was packed with locals and it was fun to watch them engaged in their various activities, including putting the gold pieces onthe budha, which is now 15cm thick. BUT only men were allowed to go up there and do it...i did not appreciate that.

next, we went to the longest teak bridge in the world (apparently they're very proud of their bridges here). i forget how long across - at least a half mile. this was definitely a highlight of hte day, i mean besides learning every detail possible about rabies vaccinations. the bridge was built in 1849 and leads to an ancient city that used to be the capital back in the day. it's located in a residential area and next to a huge monastery/school. SO many monks, way more than jsut local people. and few foreigners, mostly "commuters" - literally ppl commuting back and forth across the bridge. because it is rainy season the bridge was ALMOST underwater, and definitely very wet at some parts. we had a slow stroll across (and took a little boat ride back), enraptured by teh activities going on! tons of young monks (like between 20-25) swimming and having fun - they tried to get me to come swimming, too - are monks allowed to do that? I coudln't stop snapping pictures of the beautiful colors - deep blue water, the dark maroon monk robes, and the green trees behind them. i mean, dont' monks just make the best pictures ever?

after watching the sunset behind the bridge, we went to a chapati stand on the street for dinner. i love chapatis. they were frying them up right there, grabbing them with their hands. we hadn't eaten lunch this today, so we were starving...and you could tell by the amount of food we ate! chapatis with curries, briyani, it was probably my best meal in burma yet and of course i enjoyed eating with all the locasl onteh street..and we had the CUTEST little waiter, maybe 8 years old, who was running around like crazy. it cost us about $1.10 per head including bottled water and loads of food.

to end an eventful and packed day, we went to see the famous "moustache brothers". this could be a blog entry in and of itself, it's a pretty interesting story. so the moustache brothers are a comedy group who got arrested in 1996 for criticizing the gov't. they were sentenced to 7 years prison, the majority of which was spent in a labor camp where their health became very very bad. a massive int'l campaign was launched, led my amnesty international and even US comics such as bill maher writing to the myanmar gov't petitioning for their release, and after 6 years, they were let off their sentence. They are now allowed to perform ONLY for foreigners, i.e. in english - i think the gov't knows that foreigners all know the real story anyways! they aren't allowed to perform oustide, so the performances are literally inside their house. so we saw a show, it was kinda funny but not too funny and the english was difficult, but it's definitely a must-see since these guys are so famous and have been through so much, plus it's refreshing to hear some jokes about hte gov't! since we were in this residential area, we coudln't find taxis so we hoped in these little trikshaws, bicylces with seats on teh side, and were about 10 feet away from a serious accident but we made it safely home...exhausted. we were so excited to fall aslepp to HBO, but sure enough satellite tv was down for the "entire mandalay region." tom called hui and i's room to see if our tv was working...and to tell me that brian was about to cry that there was to be no HBO! clearly we've been out of the US for a while!!

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Photos

Monks
I just LOVE the color of hte robes here!

Stolen Pictures...
of the world's longest book. housed in each stone thing is a stone tab with the inscriptions.

Funny ad
english!!

Phone call
here hui is making a phone call at the "public" phone

Market Picture
Notice the thanaka

Cold Drink?
check out how they sell cold water in the market...they let the ice drip into this cup! of course we stick to bottled water :)

A mini car!
we were checking this out at the local hospital while we waited for hui to see if it was sanitary

Local Nurse
cute longyi outfits

Thanaka for Sale
this is what it looks like

Activity on the Teak Bridge
busy afternoon on the bridge!

Comments

[Mom]

Another exciting day. Glad that Hui got that bite looked at. Please stay out of prison!!

[Justin]

I hope they're bringing their longyi - those could come in handy at a costume party.