A Month In Myanmar

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I arrived in Yangon on a wet and blustery evening. So much for my plan to miss the end of the rainy season.

On the first morning I walked into the city centre with the aim of finding a money changer.

Myanmar is the first country I have been to that does not sport a single ATM so you have to guesstimate the number of dollars you will need for the trip.

Around the market I was approached by someone offering an advantageous rate. We sat down, I counted out the 88 one thousand Kyat notes, put them in my bag and handed over a 100 dollar bill. At this point there was a bit of gesticulation amongst the clan of moneychanger mates who had materialised but I threatened to reverse the transaction and it soon died down. I departed, confident of a clean deal.

'You were lucky', said an old woman in the street, 'They normally rip people off.'

I'm too sharp for that, I thought.

Back at the hotel I was somewhat miffed to find my wad 30 dollars light. I don't know how they did it, but I resolved to change my cash in the hotel receptions from then on.

Sometimes a run down and decrepit city can be redeemed by a rustic charm that develops over time, but Yangon was just run down and decrepit.

The current incarnation of the city centre was built under British rule in the late 1800's and appears not to have been touched since. The pavements have migrated to become a randomised collection of slabs, to be navigated with care.

I later discovered a certain degree of liveliness, but when I first arrived it was just rain, rain, rain and , having just been ripped off, I could not find any redeeming features.

Actually, there is one sight not to be missed.

The Shwedagon Paya Pagoda sits atop a hill a couple of km from the city centre. In a land bursting with awe-inspiring Buddhist temples, this one inspires more awe than most.

I was there for about 5 hours. Two hours looking around, an hour helping some Monks practise their English, and two hours waiting for an inconveniently timed downpour to finish.

After the rains the polished tiled flooring becomes like an ice rink. I am sure there must be a disproportionate amount of broken hips amongst aging Buddhists.

Anyway, I had soon had enough of Yangon. I took the night bus to Mandalay.

There was no need to worry about getting into town from the Mandalay bus station (aka muddy wasteground) as the bus was met by a handful of motorbike boys with hotel namecards.

The ride into town seemed a tad expensive to me, but who's going to argue at 5am.

My driver, Toe-toe, seemed like a nice chap and it soon became clear that they hoped that the effort of the early start would be rewarded by persuading the tourist to sign up for a day trip. (It worked).

After Yangon I found Mandalay to be a blessed relief, and probably liked it disproportionately.

Looking back I'm not sure why I was so enamoured. It is a large city of wide boulevards bustling with commercial activity.

I found it very easy to get talking to locals. If I sat in a local cafe someone would appear with good English and strike up a conversation.

I learnt a lot about luxury car prices, payback time for buying taxi's, how the Government influences the exchange rate and why there are so many gold shops.

If all else fails, there is probably not a Burmese national who will not respond to the words 'Wayne Rooney' or 'David Beckham'.


I went out for a day trip on the back of Toe-toe's bike.

We started off with a variety of artisan type places. In one area the whole community seems to be engaged in the carving of Buddha statues from various materials.

We then went to a monastery for the monks feeding time. They are not supposed to eat after mid-day, so rise early for breakfast and have dinner around 11.30 am.

The food is provided by Buddhist supporters as a way to obtain merit in the Buddhist tradition.

In this case a family from a distant town had purchased enough rice, curry and cake to feed about 500 monks.

They stand by the large vats of rice and help to dish it out as the monks queue silently up the street waiting for their turn. Amazingly (it seemed to me), the last monk in the queue got the last available plateful of cooked rice.

Around the corner from the monastery is the famous U Bein bridge which stretches 1200 metres to a village on an island in a lake.

This is the worlds longest teak bridge and is very photogenic, particularly in the early mornings and evenings when the villagers are crossing it for their daily activities.

I was there in the middle of the day so there was not much traffic as I ambled along its length.

Interestingly, there were a few lepers begging at strategic points along the causeway, displaying their auto-amputated stumps. I realised that it is years since I last saw any lepers on my travels (I expect there are still plenty in India and Nepal).

For lunch I had a Myanmar buffet. This is a pleasant dining experience in which they bring the buffet to you. An array of dishes are laid out on the table in front of you and you just take what you like. In this case anything I finished was refilled, although in subsequent establishments I wasn't so fortunate.

Apart from the soup, it is all cold and pre-prepared, so I was a bit worried about getting an upset stomach but in the event I never had any food issues throughout my time in Myanmar.

In the afternoon Toe-toe took me to a collection of temples in striking locations. On the top of hills or on turns of the Ayeyarwady River. Every strategically beautiful location has its own temple or, if not, you can be sure that someone is thinking about it.

The countryside around Mandalay is outstandingly beautiful. The reflections from untold numbers of golden temples shine through chinks in the verdant countryside as far as the eye can see in every direction.

Another day I took the tourist boat (unfortunately) upriver to Mingun. This is another area of ruins and temples with a couple of local villages feuding over touristic territory.

The main temple is just a huge square pile of bricks, as it was never finished. It was subsequently cracked open by an earthquake. There are stairs to the top for the view but on a sunny day hot bricks and bare feet are not a good combination.

A few steps away from this is the Mingun Bell. Cast in 1808, weighing 90 tonnes, the bell is claimed to be the largest hung, uncracked bell in the world.

It is big enough to slip under the rim and stand inside. I rang it a few times using the implements provided.

The downside at Mingun is that there is a lot of hassle from sellers. The upside is that all of these vendors are winsome young ladies in their late teens or early twenties so I didn't find their attentions too arduous.

As you walk through the site you cross from one villages territory to the next. The girl you are with will drop away and a new one from the other village will soon find you. They are very persistent and one will latch onto you for the entire time you are in their territory.

I developed a nightly routine in Mandalay city centre.

First I would go to the local chapatti stand where I would watch them sell chapattis as fast as they could make them. I always had mine with a beef or mutton curry which was always delicious - and cheap.

Then I would head over to the night market a few streets away which, unfortunately, was a meagre affair. The dimly lit stalls outnumbered the potential customers by a considerable margin.

I sought to help out by purchasing a pair of Manchester United underpants.

Between the chapatti stand and the night market was a dimly lit street inhabited solely, it seemed, by a handful of stalls selling nothing but condoms.

I was not surprised by the answer to the obvious question: 'Sex ladies, inside building'. More of a no-light than a red light district.


Another overnight bus took me to Nyaungshwe, the main town to stay near Lake Inle.

I went to a hotel recommended by another traveller and got a satisfying combination of cheap price, nice room and good breakfast. There was an internet cafe with wifi down the road, so I felt that things were looking good.

I found Nyaungshwe to be a pleasing town. Enough tourists for all the necessary facilities to be provided but not so many to be annoying.

There are numerous boatmen hoping to persuade you to rent a motorised longboat for a day trip around the lake. The price is per boat, not per person so I hung around for a couple of days waiting for an opportunity to arrange a boat share, and eventually met an extremely affable (and extremely rich) Chinese guy who was also travelling alone.

There is pretty much a set route that the boats follow, including a market, a pagoda or two, some artisanal industries (silversmith, weaver, cigar rolling) and some tribal ladies who have spent years extending their necks with brass rings and who may or may not be exploited depending on if you believe the commentators or the ladies themselves.

There is also a monastery has become famous for training cats to jump through hoops (with a bit of coaxing) in return for food.

The iconic picture of Lake Inle always includes a fisherman rowing his canoe with his leg wrapped around the paddle while he stands on one leg at the back and has both hands free to work the nets. This was much in evidence and even quite small kids can row like this, presumably developing an outstanding sense of balance and leg strength.

A few days later there was a local festival and I was invited by a lady guide to join her group to make up the numbers and decease the cost.

Every year four Buddha statues which live in a temple in one lakeside town are sent on a tour to various temples to other towns. They are followed around by devotees and people come down from the villages in the surrounding hill to join the party.

So I made up the numbers in a group going to a fairly distant lakeside town to witness the Buddhas visiting their temple and all the brouhahah that accompanied it.

It turned out that the grounds of the temple and the surrounding streets were packed to overflowing with monks, locals and camera wielding tourists. We soon abandoned any hope of actually getting anywhere as we were subject more to the tidal movements of the crowd rather than any chosen routes.

Things were a bit more sane inside the temple, where the Buddha statues had already been esconced upon their plinth.

Our lady guide was a bit more devout than average and prostrated herself at the base of the steps to the stupa where they were situated and banged a gong she had brought with her.

Females are not allowed upon the stupa itself, so she asked me to go up and spray some expensive perfume on the statues in a predetermined order, which I did.

Then she bought some patches of gold leaf and asked me to go and press the gold into the sacred statues.

I had been wondering why the venerated statues were more like shapeless mounds until I suddenly realised that the original statues were encased under the many years worth of gold leaf that had been applied.

I climbed onto the planks that gave access to the Buddhas and opened each sachet of gold leaf.

Inside is a 2cm square of gold (labelled 99% pure) that is so thin it almost disintegrates on touch. I carefully picked it up and smeared it onto the statue where it quickly merged in with the rest.

There was a stall in the corner selling gold leaf for this purpose. It's not often I get the opportunity to get hold of some (99%) pure gold, so I bought a quids worth.

A few days later the travelling Buddhas arrived in Nyaungshwe, where they were paraded around the town before being settled into the main temple.

This was a cause for celebration for the residents and much festivities and fireworks were in evidence.

The streets around the temple were so packed it became a little scary, so I retired to the sanctuary of the tourist restaurants.

To get from Nyaungshwe to Bagan means getting up at 3.30am to catch a bus in the adjacent town at 5.30am. To avoid this I went to a town further along the route so I could catch the bus at 7.30 am.

To get to Kalaw I boarded a local pick-up truck.

It appeared that all the women sit on the bences in the bed of the truck and all the men sit on the roof. I clambered up and thankfully it was pretty secure and did not rain for the 2 hour journey.

The other 11 guys on the roof were all pretty friendly and I quite enjoyed the journey although when I arrived I found that quite a lot of the red betel nut residue they had been spitting over the edge had ended up on my jeans and trainers.

Kalaw itself was like a one horse town without the horse, although one nearby temple built over a cave provided a bit of a diversion.

A town-wide power cut from 7.30pm until the next day did not add to the places charms.

Most foreigners arrive here to join a 3 day trek through the countryside to Lake Inle. By all accounts it is a very enjoyable experience that I had failed to consider.



Bagan was the last stop and easily the highlight of the trip. The access town of Nyaung U was pleasant and easy-going, although none of the internet cafes could offer a decent service.

About a thousand years ago Bagan was a thriving metropolis. They built their temples of stone and everthing else of wood. So, when the city was abandoned (for uncertain reasons) everything non-templar decayed leaving a landscape relief of hundreds of temples.

The area was considered unlucky and so was not resettled until comparatively recently.

A few decent quality roads have been built between Nyaung U, Old Bagan (where the population originally resettled) and New Bagan (to where the population were forcibly removed).

These roads handily pass near to many of the most interesting temples so one should hire a bicycle for a few days and mosy around a bit.

Much of the time I had the roads and temples to myself (apart from the resident vendors, of course) although an occasional tour group would overtake me at some of the main places.

The 'Thing-To-Do' in Bagan is to witness the sunset from the elevated vantage point provided by the Shwesandaw Paya, which provides stunning views across the surrounding temple studded plain.

Towards sunset time it seems as though everyone in the area converges here.

About 20 tour buses materialised out of nowhere and a few hundred people were manoeuvering around each other on the temples high platforms.

At the base, the regions vendors appear in a similar ritual. I decided to leave them all to it.

I returned at 10am one morning and had the temples peaceful splendour all to myself for an hour.

I found the combination of a leisurely cycle ride and investigating ancient temples to be a gently uplifting experience.

This was not the case on the only day when I went out with someone else.

That day I had similtaneous punctures in both tyres, accompanied by the suspiciously convenient appearance of the village puncture repair man in the middle of nowhere. Later it transpired that I had had to pay him 10 times the local rate for the repair.


So, to finish with a few general impressions about Myanmar.

For a start, it is not as poor as I expected.
It is not as cheap as I expected.
There is plenty of everything in the shops.
Being a monk is an ordinary rite of passage.
Everyone's ultimate dream is to be rich enough to build another temple.
People are purposely disinterested in politics for the time being.
Some are confident that change is underway, others think it is all superficial.
Despite remaining a quasi-military dictatorship I did not see any soldiers except near some barracks.
Posters of 'The Lady' are openly on sale.
Cultural attitudes are extremely staid (especially towards women).

On this trip I just did the easiest and most trodden path. Next time I will be a bit more adventurous and try to get to some of more outlying areas.

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Photos

Mandalay
Personal buffet