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Published: November 22nd 2011
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Yangon
Colonial buildings along Strand Road They all can be found in Myanmar! Myanmar that beautiful land, the country that has been on my mind for a long time. I have finally made it here and it is like stepping back in time. Some say Myanmar is like S.E. Asia used to be 75 years ago, I don't know about that, but certainly I would say it harkens back to how it was 30 or 40 years ago in this region.
So does it live up to my expectations? Yep, it certainly does! I loved it on arrival, it somehow reminds me of my youth in Thailand. Even though I think already at the beginning of the eighties Thailand was more advanced then Myanmar is now. Still it approximates it quite well. Strange how I found what I was looking for in Thailand (recognition of past times) in its neighbouring country.
Now Myanmar is old fashioned for sure and that is probably where part of its appeal lies. But being old fashioned and festooned in some earlier time, also has its drawbacks. If time has stood still here for the last 40 odd years, so has everything else, including road maintenance. Myanmar has some of
Yangon
More colonnaded buildings the most creaking infrastructure I have seen, with roads that resemble Swiss cheese more than anything else. This has its charm of course, with the traffic along even major highways consisting mainly off ox-drawn carts and bicycles. And Yangon with its dilapidated colonial center, golden stupa's, and surprisingly light traffic for a city of 5 million is the perfect anti-dote for Bangkok's ultra modern hustle and bustle.
Another thing one has to get used to in this country is that information on bus schedules or boat schedules can be hard to come by, especially to some of the destinations that are less well trodden by the tourist mass. The boats in particular caused me some head-aches. This despite the fact that I had a head-start due to the fact I had a friend who is currently living in Yangon and working for a French NGO. Matt is his name, and I met him in Georgia about 5 years ago (if you go back to those blogs you should see him with a big smile on his face as he downs a bottle of Georgian wine!). Matt helped me out a great deal by finding those elusive boat schedules, as
Yangon
And yet more colonial charm well as helping with my first bus-ticket to Taunggok, and supplying me with ample of beer and food. On top of that he put me in contact with his team in Sittwe in case things went awry. So a big thanks to Matt!
So it was Sittwe I was heading to, the gate-way to Mrauk-U. And if you want to get there on a budget and can't afford to fly like all those tour groups and other travellers with big wallets, it means taking a 15 hour bus, stuffed with boxes and rice bags, over those Swiss cheese roads, to Taunggok and then taking a boat to Sittwe. And it is this boat to Sittwe where the first problems arose. Because while Matt had found out the schedule and I arrived the day the slow and thus cheap boat to Sittwe was supposed to leave, upon arrival I was told by the agency that was selling the tickets for the slow boat that there was no slow boat leaving that day, only in another two days. And I was subsequently send to the express boat agency who sold me a 40 dollar ticket to Sittwe leaving the next day!
Yangon
Sule Paya Now normally I wouldn't have done this, I would have waited till the next slow boat left, but Myanmar only issue's 28 day visa's, and getting around to those hard to get to places takes a week travelling up and down as it is, so I couldn't wait this one out.
So the quick boat to Sittwe, costing me an arm and a leg it was. And what do I discover upon arrival in Sittwe? The slow boat did actually leave the day I had arrived in Taunggok!! My first lesson in Myanmar: don't trust anybody, locals and even agents don't actually know schedules, in this case even the slow boat agent in town clearly had its facts wrong. I should have gone to the jetty and bought the ticket directly at the boat! Ah well, now I know better for next time.
Next surprise, the day I took the boat to Mrauk-U was apparently the only day in the week there wasn't an early morning 10 dollar boat, but just the 20 dollar afternoon boat. Great! Things were really working out for me as you can see. Again took the boat, due to lack of time.
Yangon
Pilgrims and tourists walking around Shwedagon But it was all worth the effort, because Mrauk-U is lovely. A village amongst about 700 or so ancient pagoda's and stupa's. Mrauk-U once was the capital of a powerful kingdom, known as Arrakan, which terrorised the bay of Bengal with its fleet of ships and got a lot of booty. Enough booty in any case to build a hell of a lot of temples. And while tour groups do make it out here, and I was told all hotels were more or less full with those groups, this doesn't mean that much. There are only a few hotels and really the whole time I was there I didn't see that many tourists at all. Individual backpackers/budgeteers like me, are rarer in these parts due to the logistics of coming here. In fact I had every pagoda, temple and stupa all to myself, including the major sights! Apparently Mrauk-U only gets about 4000 or so tourists a year, which I must say I don't really mind.
It was in Mrauk-U where I met the self-proclaimed 'crazy man', as I was watching the video-store/showroom burn down. This was a big event, a huge fire on the second night I was
Yangon
Praying at a temple at Shwedagon in Mrauk-U, with people running out on the streets in panic and guesthouses ushering their patrons out of their room. You see Mrauk-U consists mainly of wooden houses with thatched roofs, so a fire can easily spread, but luckily there was no wind and only the one building burnt down. Anyway, as I was standing watching this blaze a man comes up to me and says: " Hello, my name is crazy man." Now crazy man is not a name anybody would self-apply where I come from, as a slightly altered quote from the Big Lebowski would put it.
Crazy man, told me he had got his degree in medicine in Yangon in '84, and was now planning on getting a degree in Political Science. Apart from that he also talked a lot of other gibberish which I mainly didn't understand, so our conversations was a little short and the above part was the only thing I actually understood. So, that was my short meeting with crazy man in Mrauk-U.
A much longer and more interesting meeting was with Wanko, a blacksmith who joined me on a little bicycle ride around the town and eventually invited me back
Yangon
Shwedagon at dusk to his house for lunch and a halting conversation. Wanko, was the oldest of five, taking over the business from his father who had died. He thought it would be a great idea if I put up a blacksmith in Holland. Why? After hearing we had none in my country, he thought I could make a lot of money if I would put one up. I am not sure how much demand there is for blacksmiths in Holland these days, but maybe he is onto something.
I also managed to amuse the rest of the extended family and the neighbours when I was being taught Arrakanese by Wanko. I now know how to count and say dog and cat, those are the only things I actually can still recall from the impromptu lessons.
Well, this blog is getting a bit long, and I haven't even told about the prawn-bus! The prawn-bus was the bus I took when returning back to the tourist trail of Myanmar, from Taunggok to Pyay. After I bought the ticket at the bus station the ticket-seller told me: "You will be on the prawn-bus, but don't worry it won't smell that much." This was
before I saw that the whole back compartment of my rickety bus was stuffed with boxes of prawn! But he was right it didn't smell that much, or I might not have noticed it, as I struggled to keep my seat, which had not been fastened properly to the bottom of the bus, from bouncing around.
And with that and a faint trace of prawn coming from my clothes I will end this blog. It is time for something else besides being stuck in an internet cafe updating my blog.
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