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Published: August 26th 2007
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Me in Burma
This is me, just on the other side of the border. I wish I'd taken photos a little further in... oh well. Despite the deep moral dillemas attached with going to Burma (i.e. tourism helping to fund a corrupt goverment which among other things bans the Internet among its citizens, and has child soldiers), I decided that it worth a few hours of a look-around, as long as I was careful in what I did.
While most of the group decided to go to visit the long-neck karen tribe (the ones with rings around their necks, placed from a young age to elongate the neck and supposedly protect them from tigers...), Janneka and I didn't go because after inquiring, we found out that half of the money it costs to enter the village goes directly to the Government. I thought it would just be subtle funding, through taxes on hotels and stuff, but it seems that every tourist attraction or tour is Government approved and a source of Government revenue.
So Janeka and I just wandered around the border. The people there are sooo poor. Beyond a lot of what I've seen so far. It wasn't that there was a lot of beggars on the street or anything (though there were quite a lot of children as you cross over literally
Some statue
No idea what it is a statue of. This photo was taken from behind a gate. The gate was open, but there were security guards and we weren't allowed in. crying for money or food), but just walking around the sidestreets and seeing the one-room excuses for houses which are meant to house whole families. It was truly tragic.
Meanwhile, the technology when crossing the border is better than any other country that I've been to: they have webcams that take your photo there and then, and instead of filling out an arrival card, it is done digitally, with the photo taken of you printed on top. I guess that's what the Burmese government took the term 'social security' funding to mean.
And now for my 'how I almost got rabies' story:
Well, coming back onto the main road from one of the side streets, we stumbled across a couple of dogs. Now, this isn't much news, because there are dogs EVERYWHERE in south east asia. Even the fact that they were sorted into two groups barking at each other wasn't ultra uncommon. What was scary, was being right behind one of the packs, with a dog coming over from the other pack with it's teeth beared and growling in an incredibly menacing fashion. It was the first time that one of these street dogs looked like it could bite me.
So, finding it very hard to ignore the instinct to run, Janneka and I calmly speed-walked away, and after a couple of steps the dogs seemed to turn their attention back to the qualms they had with each other. Anyway, after having this dog bearing down on us, we were justifiably wary of any dog that came near us after that point, and thus took to walking from shop to shop, rather than on the actual road. We must have looked pretty weird though, because a westerner on a motorcycle (one of very little traffic) pulled over and asked us what was wrong. After explaining our story, and I think taking the time to chuckle a little at our girliness, he told us to just collect some rocks and chuck them at dogs if they came near us.
Yes, that's right, apparently provoking dogs with rocks is the best way NOT to get rabies. I kind of pointed this out to him in not exactly those words, but he assured us that rocks chase the dogs away. He was well travelled and riding a motorbike in Burma- there's just some people you can't argue with in a situation like that.
So, fully aware of what idiots we looked like, Janneka and I collected some rocks from the side of the road, and held them in our hands as we walked along, until we reached the safety of the market by the border. I spent most of that walk laughing at how stupid I must look to all these Burmes people.
Anyway, after that very little happened. The markets were selling things like knock-off pearls, sunnies, nintendo games etc., but the people seemed even more desperate than in Thailand to sell to you. It's ashame that none of the stuff was actually good. And then we got lost for about an hour after crossing back from Thailand trying to find our hotel.
So in short, Burma was quite a depressing place to go- because while it's quite easy to see the poverty of the people, the knowledge that something much more sinister is lying just beneath the surface is chilling. And unfortunately, every bit of culture seems to have been stripped by the government for their revenue raising. According to the people that went to the long-neck karen tribe, it was a real disappointment. It's just all such a shame.
P.S. I know that 'I almost got rabies' might be a slight overstatement. But you try being in the situation at the time and see if your heart doesn't beat a little faster... plus, you've got to admit, it's not a half-bad story.
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