rohingya

the rohingya are back in the news and people often ask me about it.  about the shaming of Aung San Suu Kyi over her lack of action on the horrible human rights violations taking place.

when i see reports that some country or organization is going to pull an award Aung San Suu Kyi has been given [but probably never asked for] it shocks me that they understand so little about the country and its politics.  

here's what i wish people knew - there are effectively three centers of political power in Myanmar.  first, the military retains enormous power [economic control and 25% of the parliment seats]; second, the democratically elected NLD [National League for Democray] of which Aung San Suu Kyi is a leader; and third, the MONKS.

it is not a secret that the 'buddhist' MONKS are responsible for poisoning the Myanmar citizens against the rohingya and are the root cause of the genocide.  so, Aung San Suu Kyi has few and perhaps even no options when it comes to the rohingya.  

this article on cnn gets it right 
http://edition.cnn.com/2017/11/25/asia/myanmar-buddhist-nationalism-mabatha/index.html

the situation has been bad, is bad and is unlikely to get any better or to have a happy ending.  the rohingya are basically illegal immigrants but before anyone vocalizes opinions on this it would be prudent for them to look at how their country treats illegal immigrants.

my previous post in 2015 about the rohingya.  

another more happy post can be done about Zimbabwe!

Myanmar elections

the elections in Myanmar are finished and thankfully without bloodshed or violence.  in another landslide victory the NLD [National League for Democracy led by Aung San Suu Kyi] won 77% of the seats in parliament vs 10% for the military regime.  unlike the last election the military regime says it will hand over political power to those elected.  this in itself is progress, most probably made so that the military elite [who reserve for themselves 25% of the seats which means they still hold control over any constitutional changes] can continue to open it's doors to the west and exploit this resource rich country for their own gain.

still, this was a powerful moment for the people of Myanmar and one filled with emotion as a people who had never been able to vote in a 'free and fair' election lined the streets and waited for hours to cast votes.  voter turnout was over 70% and there was very few reports of fraud.  still this victory is just the first step in what will take generations to start providing basic infrastructure for the people.

now, the world will watch as Aung San Suu Kyi chooses a president and builds a government that is representative of the people.  i was asked recently about the Rohinga situation  and criticism of Aung San Suu Kyi for not speaking out about it.  it made me think about the challenge she faces now as at the age of 70 she starts to build a democratic government.

sure, the military is ceding political power but what is she inheriting?  she gets a country with no infrastructure - no roads [except in Naw Pyi Taw shown below], no clean water, no sewage system, no education system and no healthcare.  the challenges are overwhelming and i hope the people will be patient as progress will be slow.

when the military elite abandoned the city of Yangon they built a new capital where the roads are six lane highways made of concrete and empty of traffic while in Yangon it can take 30 minutes to travel 1 mile [2KM].

 

roads of Yangon

roads of Naw Pyi Taw

elevators aka lifts - scary stuff

my dad was a civil engineer and whenever i find myself navigating a poorly designed parking lot in the USA i find myself smiling at the memory of him in the same situation cursing the city engineer who would approve such a design.  god forbid it was planed incorrectly to drain after a rainstorm.

so i wish he was still around to explain what is going on with the elevators [lifts] in Asia - they are a nightmare for anyone with disabilities who is actually the group that most needs to use elevators.  for a reason unfathomable to me the elevator access is never on the ground level - it's always up a half flight of stairs.  then you get into the elevators which were clearly built for hobbits and travel at the speed of turtles.... okay...  i'll admit that i have mild claustrophobia but still .... i'm holding my breath every time i step into one of them.  karma must be on my side because i've yet to get stuck in one.  on the plus side there always seems to be an elevator attendant so maybe it's his job to pry open the doors if the elevators get stuck.

the big P

mostly i think to keep the tourists from noticing the mold and decay of the rest of the city, Yangon promotes the Shwedagon Pagoda as it's biggest attraction.  and it is impressive, with jewels and leaves of gold, built to stand out for miles in every direction.  it's a sacred place, so sacred that you can't wear footwear and you must be covered from elbows to knees.  unlike most sacred spaces, they provide companies the opportunity to advertise wireless internet access and charge a FEE if you are not a local.  you'll also run the gauntlet of vendors selling worthless trinkets lining the approach which is about half a kilometer.

take the time and go ride the circular train instead. 

at one time as an expat with properly stamped resident papers you could get in without a fee but now they just shake their heads and point at the fee board.  most people i know take their guest up to one of the bars/restaurants overlooking the pagoda towards evening as it is impressive to watch the sunset and moon rise and the lights come up at the pagoda.  unless you're a practicing Buddhist there's nothing to really see inside the perimeter [you can't go inside the actual stupa unlike a temple where the religious practice is inside] and it's voyeuristic to stand and watch those who are in the moment practicing.

Myanmar mulls left-hand drive car law

there's a lot of stuff that's different in Myanmar.  there is the fact that most cars [90%] have the steering wheel/driver on the right side of the car we call that right hand drive or RHD.  what makes it different from other countries with this car orientation is they also drive on the right hand side of the road.  again, superstition ... one of the generals switched the driving from left to right on the advice of a wizard.

well, now there gonna change that..... can't wait to see when that law hits.


http://www.nationmultimedia.com/breakingnews/Myanmar-mulls-left-hand-drive-car-law-30269172.html

Myanmar mulls left-hand drive car law

YANGON (AFP) - Myanmar plans to make left-hand drive cars compulsory, state media reported Sunday, causing concern in a country where the vast majority of vehicles remain right-hand drive despite cars driving on the right.

The law is an attempt to correct one of the more unusual legacies of decades of junta rule.

More than four decades ago Myanmar’s paranoid and notoriously superstitious dictator Ne Win ordered all citizens to drive on the right.

The reasons were never stated, but many said the change was either made following advice from an astrologer or was a rebuke to Myanmar’s former colonial master Britain, where vehicles are driven on the left.

After junta rule gave way to a quasi-civilian reformist government in 2011 and the lifting of most Western sanctions, the car market exploded.

But an estimated 90 percent of the vehicles remain right-hand drive -- primarily because most of the affordable cars available and brought in by importers are second-hand vehicles from Japan.

The strange quirk creates daily havoc on Myanmar’s increasingly congested roads, with drivers often having no clear line of sight before overtaking and buses regularly disgorging passengers into the middle of a road rather than onto a pavement.

The government now aims to correct that anomaly.

According to a report in the Global New Light of Myanmar a new law was given initial approval last week that will make left-hand drive vehicles compulsory.

The report made no mention of when the law would come into effect or whether citizens would receive any help from the government to initiate the change.

"The new law drawn by the Road Transport Administration Department pointed out that use of right-hand drive cars is incompatible with the existing drive-on-the-right traffic system from the standpoint of ensuring road safety in Myanmar," the report said, adding that drivers would have 90 days to make the change.

The same state media report voiced rare official criticism of the proposals, saying many were hoping the government would give drivers more time to make the switch.

"People will suffer losses if they are asked to abandon their right-hand drive cars during a short period of time," U Nyan Tun Oo, Yangon Region Minister for Electricity and Industry, was quoted as saying, adding that taxis and buses should be switched first.

The report added that over 50,000 right-hand drive vehicles are currently on showroom floors waiting to be sold, according to Dr Soe Tun, president of Myanmar Automobile Manufacturers and Dealers Association.

In recent years Myanmar’s roads -- particularly in cities like Yangon and Mandalay -- have become choked by the influx of cars that accompanied the country’s opening to the world after decades of military rule.

And the gridlock looks set to get worse.

Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), which is working with Myanmar on several nationwide transport projects, predicts the number of cars clogging Yangon’s pot-holed roads will quadruple to around one million.

nat worship

no discussion of Buddhism or religion in Myanmar would be complete without a mention of the nats.  it's something else that is singular to the country, although the manifestation of evil spirits is common to all religions.  there's a specific list of nats like there are saints.  usually a nat is a human that has met a violent death and they are worshiped in much the way a saint would be venerated.  

ask a national about the nats and you'll get something similar to a 'ghost story' with the same passion and creepiness that goes along with the western tradition.

mt. popa is the largest of the shrine sites and hosts a festival on the full moon in December.  i did not visit mt. popa ... it's a day trip from Bagan because the other travelers i knew were a bit disappointed with the experience.  it is more actively practiced in the rural than the urban areas but they are everywhere and i saw the box below on a tree along the river in Yangon.  there is also an easy to find and quite impressive Nat Shrine in Hsipaw, to the north.

monks and nuns in myanmar

begging nuns - scotts market in yangon

the tradition of monks and nuns in Myanmar goes back to the 10th century and has remained for the most part, completely unchanged in the country. monasteries take in the unwanted children and they end up begging on the streets for offerings.  my heart breaks for the little girls with heads shaved following the older girls with no idea what they are doing.  

they go from store to store, house to house, restaurant to tea shop looking for whatever might be given.  in a lot of places there is a rice bowl with a scoop and each child who begs gets one spoonful of rice.

the little beggar girls from the Buddhist monastery on my street know me and will cross the street when they see me because they know i will empty my wallet. 

merit making

previously i'd mentioned the Buddhists persecution of the Rohingya in the Rahkine State of Myanmar and there's more that differs between the Buddhists of Burma and Buddhists in other countries.  there's a lot of them...  people from around the world have long flocked to Burma to study Buddhism and an overwhelming 85% or more of the population identify as Buddhists.  most are not conservative Buddhists, they eat animals, drink alcohol, beat muslims, etc.

street facade for 'merit making' week

strangely, unlike most military dictatorships, there was no effort in Myanmar to shut down religion after they took control.  in fact, they promoted and embraced it as a way of 'merit making'.  the military elite pours money into the building of pagodas [pagodas you walk around - temples you can walk into].

which leads me to the one of the annoying things about buddhists in burma which i have not encountered elsewhere.  merit making is the practice of good deeds and charity in order to obtain a favorable rebirth.  see that picture of the facade that is erected over the street?  that roughly translates to 'you are f#ck3d for the next week' and 'you will get no sleep'.  

preaching platform

on the street which they close down at dusk they build these 'altars' on which at some point in the night the head monk will come out and start preaching.  it's a really, really small area - like 1000 sq feet [sorry Europeans you do the math] but they use loudspeakers projected outwards to the community so non one misses out.  then, because the monks need to collect their food before sunrise, they loudly call all the monks to come around 4AM.  i know normally rational expats who, having lost sleep for days, will curse the monks who do this.

even more annoying is they ongoing list of merit makers that is read over a loudspeaker, sometimes starting at 6AM, and this goes on as long as it takes to collect the money needed to support the local monastery.

in the rural area i visited the presence and influence of the monks varies widely from village to village.  in some it was very passive and in others quite dominant.  see my post on a really sacred moment. in one village where we sat through an evening ceremony the most interesting to me were the bats flying around but i'm sure anyone in the village who was absent was noted by the monks.

not a secret

i was walking with a fellow american after a yoga class.  we were talking about nothing and she started asking me questions about Myanmar.  just the usual stuff, then she asked how big the country was and i said about a 2 hour plane ride from border to border.  next she asked how many people and i said, 'the government census last year said there were 50 million but they don't count the people in the concentration camps.'  she thought that i was kidding.  it was just another one of thosse moments when i realize how crazy the country is and how little people know about it.

WAKE UP WORLD - there are concentration camps in Myanmar and it is not a secret.  in fact it's been quite widely reported.  and yes, someone should tell Obama.  he didn't mention it when he visited last November.

even Aung San Su Kyi doesn't talk about it and she's the poster child for human rights violations in the country.  i pray that behind the scenes people are working on this issue because it's not getting the attention it deserves.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/06/16/opinion/nicholas-kristof-myanmar-documentary.html?_r=0

http://time.com/2888864/rohingya-myanmar-burma-camps-sittwe/

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/116241/burma-2014-countryside-concentration-camps

just running errands around town

before i'm off for the trip to Bali i have a bunch of errands that have piled up and there is no putting them off.  i've mapped out the trip around town and leave early in the morning to get as much as possible done before it gets really, really hot.  

i haven't driven anything except the scooter i had in Chiang Mai since i left the US and it's such a luxury for me to be driven everywhere.  westerners think that Asians drive really badly because we are so used to different road rules.  of course when they are in a western country they need to adapt to our rules but i don't think there is a higher accident rate in Asia than in western countries.  

in most of the SE Asian countries where i've been walking across the road is a bit like that game frogger but walking in Yangon is a totally different scenario.  those 'buddhists' will run your ass over in a heartbeat.  about once a month i will be in a taxi that hits a pedestrian. it's horrific.  one time it was a child about 6 years old and he hit him hard.  after the brother/friend picked up the boy the driver just kept going until he got to a traffic jam and then he got out and checked for what?  a dent? blood? 

the roads are packed with taxis because it's just in the last few years that the government has allowed the masses to buy cars - leading to the obvious problems like parking and traffic jams.  it's just a few dollars for a taxi ride but it can take 30 minutes to go 2 miles in some parts of Yangon.  motorbikes are forbidden in the city and there are very few bicycles because there are incomprehensible rules around that as well.  on some streets you are forbidden to ride bicycles and the police will confiscate the bike.  the problem is there's no way to know which roads are forbidden.  there are cyclos [we call them pedicabs] but they mostly operate off the main roads and again the rules seem to be murky.

the staff arranges a car/driver when i have meetings during the day but evenings and weekends i am on my own.  that involves standing on the road, trying not to get hit and flagging down a car.  then you have to negotiate a fair price [westerners get charged more of course] and depending on how hot it is - if they will turn on the ac for you. sometimes it's better to not have ac.  closing the windows and turning on the ac flushes out the mosquitoes [never figured out how there can be so many mosquitoes living in a car] and being paranoid about dengue, well...  also, the cars have tiny engines so the ac only works if the car is actually moving. 80% of the taxis are grimy and disgustingly dirty so it's a good day when you find a clean one.

i remember one day, there was a student protest moving into the city so traffic was especially bad.  i was in a taxi, it was hot and traffic was at a standstill for over 10 minutes.  i had a sinus infection so i felt miserable and the gas fumes from a bus in the next lane were overwhelming.  i looked up in annoyance at the bus and realized, on my worst day, i still had it so much better than most of the people of Myanmar.  imagine whatever horrible bus you've ever been on or seen a picture of it - i promise you it's much worse.

few westerners ever ride the city buses.  i only met one westerner who had done it.  it's a bizarre system where the bus drivers lease the bus by the day.  they are paid based on the number of riders they have so they compete with other buses to get to the stops quickly.  it takes a team of three people to man a bus  - the driver; the fare collector and the door guy whose job is to push people on/off the bus and to shout out the bus route/next stop. it's really chaotic and sometimes i stand on the street watching a busy stop for a few minutes.

but on this day i seem to get all the good taxis with ac and reward myself at the end of the day with a stop at my favorite foot massage place on Nawaday Road.  60 minutes $6US.

the visa run

visas are the bane of travelers.  some countries have more complex rules than others.  Thailand, for example, doesn't charge for visas and it's quite easy to get a 60 day stay with an extension.  you just show up and they stamp your passport.  

MYANMAR FLAG

a visa is just a stamp in your passport that grants you the right to be in the
country. some countries penalize severly for overstaying and will prevent you from rentry if you are a repeat offender.  others like Myanmar just charge you $3 a day for every day you overstay.

in most SE Asian countries, there's a really complex set of rules around when you apply, where you apply, how long the visa is valid, how many entries are allowed on one visa, when you want to visit and of course the type of visa [tourist, buisiness or diplomatic].

for Myanmar, they grant 28 day tourist visas and you can stand in line at the Myanmar Embassy in Bangkok [see my earlier post about that delight] or in late 2014 they launched a VOA [visa on arrival] which can be applied for online and picked up at the airport if you fly in [not available or overland travel].  see, it gets complicated.  

THAILAND FLAG

for a Myanmar Business Visa, with the proper paperwork, you get 70 days in country.  so that's what i came in on.  initially i thought it would be inconveinent and a pain in the ass.  now that my 70 days are up and i need to do a visa run i am thrilled to be getting kicked out.  i am going to Thailand.  i am going to find the fat westerner beach, sit at a luxury resort and imbibe fancy drinks for three days.  then it's back to Myanmar.

quiz night at the pub

food in Myanmar is not really special.  after being in Thailand where the food is filled with spices and everything is healthy this is a bit of a  change.  they cook with a lot of oil here.  everything is drenched in oil and not the olive oil that is used in the west but peanut and palm oil which as byproducts of crops here so are super cheap.  

unlike Thailand where you can safely eat at street food stalls for very little money, it's just not possible here.  all the street food is deep fried in oil but it's more than fried somehow instead of a crisp coating the food is saturated with oil.  the water here would be toxic to westerners so eating at a lot of local restaurants is also not a good idea.  

there are not a of restaurants with healthy options available that are safe to eat.  one places expats hang out in Yangon is the 50th Street Cafe.  it is popular for thier very western like burgers and good pizza.  on Monday nights they have a quiz night which moves a bit slowly but is a good chance to see westerners.  unlike Thailand i can go days without seeing another westerner with the exception of my boss.


i'm talking to one of the girls who has been in country for about a year.  we are playing that game called 'crazy stuff about Yangon' and surprisingly she doesn't mention internet access.  when i ask her about it she says, 'i'm happy when i have both electricity and water, you get used to not having the internet'.

when you can get to a western style restaurant for a meal it's quite expensive by Asian standards.  a sandwich or pizza and a cocktail is usually around $20US.  few expats have the budget to eat at these places every day.

there are a few traditional Myanmar foods that are really good.  one of those is tea leaf salad. it is an eclectic mix of flavors and textures that includes pickled tea leaves, roasted peanuts and other crunchy beans, toasted sesame seeds, fried garlic and chopped tomato. It’s meant to be served with all the ingredients in separate piles so that you can pick out a combination with every forkful.  

if i'm in the office for lunch usually i order this or a tomato salad which is always good along with some steamed.  when i say order i mean the staff orders for me... the restuarants we order from are used to my orders now as i insist they be made with no oil.  cost $1.30 for rice/tomato salad and $1.40 for the teal leaf salad and rice.

moghina is a popular breakfast food.  it's Shan rice noodles in a fish broth.  as a vegetarian i can sometimes get someone to make this with a vegatable broth and it's very good.  the Shan rice noodles are one of the most popular foods here and are used in a lot of different combinations.  

so, people don't come here for the food.  you'd think i would be losing weight but there is little chance to excercise but more about that later.

there are a couple of things that are striking when you first arrive in Myanmar. 

the first is what the men wear.  about half of the men wear the traditional dress.  it's called the longi.  patterns and styling reflect different ethnic groups and are worn for both formal and casual occasions.  after a while it seems normal because you see this everyday. 

the second thing that pops out at you is the paste the women wear on their faces. thanaka is a yellowish white paste made from grinding the bark of a tree.  the women of Myanmar are as vain as the western women and value a clear complexion.  the thanaka is a natural sunscreen.  it's common to see the young girls wearing it as well as the older women.  i see it everywhere on the streets, markets and shops but not in the office or other professional settings.

the third thing is the betel chewing.  areca nuts are chewed inside a betel leaf and are a mild stimulant like drinking a cup of coffee.  like chewing tobacco the saliva is not ingested.  instead they spit out the red juice from the nuts and the streets are covered with disgusting patches of red spit.

  

besides being carciongenic the effects on the teeth are also quite brutal.   a lot of places post notices prohibitting it.

inle lake

sunrise on inle lake

just wow, my expectations weren't really high but the lake is incredibly beautiful and quiet.  perhaps just the quiet is what is so shocking in the country filled with chaos.  i ended up staying in the same place as the swiss guys and shared an afternoon boat tour of the lake with them.

they were read up enough to tell the boat driver which spots they wanted to hit.  i ran into the swiss girls from the yangon - bagan train and we make plans to meet up for dinner.  we ended the tour parked on a floating pile of plants and watched the sunset from the middle of the lake.


being on the water felt fantastic and the swiss girls and i book a boat to go back out for a sunrise.  it's just magical and there isn't another boat around.  the guest house i stayed at packed breakfast for me so we shared that out and headed to the south side of the lake to the local market which moves between five locations on the lake.

we were the only foreigners around and the market wasn't so impressive so i even wondered if we hadn't explained which market we wanted to go to.  near the market is the Hpaung Daw U Pagoda.  the pagoda houses images of Buddha that have been covered in gold leaf to the point that their original forms can't be seen.  although the monastery is open to all for veneration, only men are permitted to place gold leaf on the images.  that's why in this photo the women can only sit and watch and pray.


as we headed back out to the middle of the lake in the boat i realized why we were the only ones at the market.  boat after boat after boat filled with tourists were headed in as we headed out.  perfect timing!  

i didn't enjoy the monastery where only men can put gold on the buddhas but was surprised after a hike up to Indein to find an amazing complex of pagoda and memorials.  it was worth running the gauntlet of vendors selling junk that line the temple grounds.

in Nyaung Shwe there is a place called the French Touch and they run documentaries about Burma in the evenings.  

the third day i rented a bike [they had good off road bikes] and did a tour around part of the lake taking the ferry across to the winery.  yep, i found the one place in SE Asia where there is a winery.  it's called Red Mountain.  the wine isn't going to win any international awards but it is certainly drinkable.  more about wine in Myanmar another time.


there is plenty of touristy stuff to do and buy on the lake but easy enough to avoid.  in so many of the villages i traveled through it felt like the priority was survival and here i found a community that was thriving.  there are floating gardens with rows and rows of tomatoes and other vegetables which make their way to the local market.




there is also a 2 - 3 day trek from Kalaw to Nuang Shwe which is hugely popular.  there are home stays along the way as it's travels overland through some villages.  everyone i spoke with had a very positive experience doing this.  i was still recovering from some of the blisters from the Hsipaw trek so i did not do it.

flight to inle lake

i'm tired of the slow trains and sad buses so i've decided to fly.  once again, i have not planned far enough ahead so after i get into Mandalay i jump on the internet to see if I can book a flight for the next morning to Inle Lake.  let's just say that didn't happen so i don't have to detail again how anything involving the internet, airlines and credit cards don't work in Myanmar at the moment.   in the morning i taxi out to the airport hoping to find a seat on a flight.  it was a bit of a gamble as the airport is an hour outside the city.  in the middle of nowhere.  when i get to the airport i find the airline i think will be safest.  i'm out of khat so I need to pay with US dollars.  what ensues is comical.  it's a $60 flight and i'm down to my last dollars which have previously been rejected by other vendors so I know this is going to be a bit dicey.  there are three airline agents crowded around the ticket counter inspecting every one of my dollars and asking for more, conferring about a tiny fold in the corner on one and a possible stain on another - holding each bill up to the light for whatever reason i don't even know.  soon there is about $250 in cash spread across the counter as they continue to debate which dollars are the best.  some other guy who i think is a porter starts to handle some money and I ask him politely not to touch my money.  it's surreal.  fifteen minutes later they eventually take the most acceptable bills and give me a ticket and the rest of my cash back.

ticket in hand I head off to find an ATM so i don't run into this problem again and tucked away in the corner I find a cafe.  with an espresso machine, air conditioning and fresh croissants.  it is quiet and there are clean comfortable chairs.  it is so vastly different from the raw hot sweaty loud dirty world that is myanmar.  it isn't until i am sitting quietly in the stillness of the cafe that i realize how overwhelming the sights and sounds and chaos of this country can be.  the moment ends too quickly as i must go to catch my flight.  

tagged with an orange circle marked HEHO i'm rounded up and sent out to a plane.  SE Asia is the only place in the world where flights routinely take off BEFORE they are scheduled and in this case we leave 15 minutes early.  crazy.

the plane isn't as scary as i've read about.  just a twenty minute flight and then i'm down at HEHO.  whatever, that's the code for the inle lake airport.   it's still another 30 minute ride to get into Nyang Shwe which is on the north side of the lake i share it with two swiss guys who are mega travelers and just arrived to Myanmar.

hsipaw to mandalay

i leave Hsipaw on the train heading down to Mandalay and some vague plan to get myself to Inle Lake.  according to the guide books, this is an 'epic train ride'.  seriously?  i already did the Yangon to Bagan train which in my humble opinion is the ride required to earn a I SURVIVED MYANMAR RAILWAYS badge.  there is however, along this ride a very beautiful gorge with a very, very scary train bridge.  it's so old and crappy and rickety that the train has to go really slow as not to deteriorate the bridge further.  why not just go really fast and get as many carriages as possible across before the bridge collapses?  or how about you just pony up the money to replace the bridge?  note on the ticket stub i've purchased .... THERE IS AN ACTUAL ALLOCATION FROM MY FARE FOR LIFE INSURANCE!!! what am i doing??  the total cost of this ticket is 2750 Kyats which is $2.75US so i'm not sure how much the insurance payment would be anyway.

it's a big moment for all the foreigners [the locals sleep through it].  we are excited before, during and after crossing the gorge/bridge.  we even ask for seat assignments to have the best view of the bridge.  we take hundreds of photos and hang out the windows.

afterwards someone says to me, 'i have like 100 photos of a bridge'.  yah, i know you are dying to see it... so here it is.

perhaps as important as the safety issues around replacing the carriages and bridges and other railway infrastructure is reinventing the logo for Myanmar Railways.  i get the MR but what's up with the symbols underneath?  time to rebrand i think.

anyways, it's a 6 hour train ride and costs $2.75US.  when we hit Pyin U Lwin we bail on the train and take a $2US/2 Hour pick up for the ride back to Mandalay.  i make a feeble suggestion to get a shared taxi as that would be inside a vehicle but i go along with the fellow travelers who want to take the pick up.  even though it is raining.  the ride is surreal but not uncomfortable.  the pickup is covered so we aren't wet or cold.  i put on my earphones and just soak it up.  the smoke from a cigarette, the rain on the canvas covering our heads, the guy who is sleeping on the floor between our feet, the bundles and bags that the locals carry, the lights from passing cycles, cars and trucks.  this is Burma.  raw, unfiltered, dirty and noisy.  i've been traveling all day and i should be exhausted but i am so alive.

tea with guerrillas

Hsipaw is a great spot to jump off into well, what i call the villages.  it's the grey zone between where the government is comfortable having foreigners and the restricted area.  i didn't have proper footwear for what would turn out to be a very long trek.  the first day was spent clawing my way up a downward stream of mud.  not a lot of photo opportunities since it was raining all day.  we are tired when get into the village where we sill be staying.

as we pack up to leave the village this little guy comes down the village path to see the foreigners.  the woman at the home we were staying told the little boy that we were taking away children in our packs!  he turned and ran away very quickly - i thought that was really mean.  i didn't bring along anything for the children and we were in areas where we were still a curiosity and children were interested but wary of us.  and no wonder if the mean spirited grannys were telling children we were kidnappers!

the time in the villages were a real window into the lives of ordinary Burmese people.  we passed through Shan and Palaung villages.  we stayed in homes where dinner is still cooked over an open flame in the living room.  we met women trapped in the cycle of poverty.
we saw the power the budhist monks weld in some of the villages.  we played with kids during recess at a school.  we crossed paths with the shan and palaung armies which was a bit confusing at the time.  there are all these armies that fight each other and sometimes band together to fight the Myanmar Army and there are more three letters acronyms for these groups than exist in the whole of washington d.c. afterwards to me it seemed that it is a bunch of narco warlords fighting for control of the resource rich areas.  they were however, quite polite to us, posing for photos [which we were later advised not to publish anywhere public] and sharing a cup of tea.  i can share the photo of this jumbo red snail that was crossing our path.

in one village we stayed at the home of these lovely ladies where the meals are cooked over open flame inside the house.  we knew there were multiple sisters in the family and there was one woman who sat apart from us, in an asian squat, smoking her cheroot, but wasn't participating in the preparation of the meal.  someone asked if that was also a sister and they said, 'no, she's a villager who has come to see the foreigners'.

there is no internet.  there are no cell phones.  they have some solar panels that have been provided by the government but electricity is used sparingly.  they have water courtesy of USAID in most of the villages.  they grow their own food stuff in private gardens.  this is a primitive life.