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
April 29, 2015
April 28, 2015
Echo Beach
i flew in and spent a couple of days in the southern part of Bali because i wanted to shop before i moved into more rural parts or the islands. i'd been told not to linger in Kuta/Seminyak and that was good advice. it's unimpressive and in some areas the touts are more than just annoying - i don't care that they are selling viagra on the beach but some of them are obnoxious.
Echo Beach is far enough up the coast to discourage the touts and it's a popular surf spot so lots of everything that goes along with that culture. it's still strange for me to see so many westerners. some days in Myanmar i go all day without speaking to a westerner. then you show up at an expat event and there will be 150 and everyone is like 'where did all these westerners come from?'. yeah, i know it's crazy.
Tanah Lot is one of the more spectacular shrines and it just north of Echo Beach so a few of us from yoga go for sunset one evening. the days here are busy, wake up, yoga, eat, beach, massage, nap, pool, cocktails, sunset. i'll be moving up to Ubud next which is in the middle of the island.
April 20, 2015
my first trip to Bali
after all the time i have spent in SE Asia it seems a bit strange that i never made it to Bali. the transit section of the KL aiport is especially boring. wouldn't want to get trapped there for too long. there wasn't even a major airline club room which seemed odd. so i arrived in Bali tired and hungry. i'd been up for an early flight from Yangon, connecting in KL and getting to Bali took a little longer than expected. i was immediately struck by how clean everything was and how nice the taxi drivers were. the roads were good and traffic wasn't bad. the hotel staff at Akmani were pleasant and helpful. there were so many westerners everywhere.
when i woke up on my first day i knew i needed to sort out my plans and i did, kind of, i knew i wanted to sit on the beach for a few days then head inland to Ubud and then out to Lombok. i booked a hotel on Echo Beach just north of Seminyak. it should be less touristy and the beaches cleaner. then i headed to the rooftop pool for a swim. i met an Australian and we walked down to the beach for what turned out to be a spectacular sunset. it felt so good to walk in the sand and i discovered something called Smirnoff Ice.
it's an amazing feeling to see so many places where it's safe to eat and they have good fresh food. in Myanmar a jaunt to a clean restaurant where the food is fresh and prepared without an excess of oil requires a 30+ minute taxi ride which i've already described.
when i woke up on my first day i knew i needed to sort out my plans and i did, kind of, i knew i wanted to sit on the beach for a few days then head inland to Ubud and then out to Lombok. i booked a hotel on Echo Beach just north of Seminyak. it should be less touristy and the beaches cleaner. then i headed to the rooftop pool for a swim. i met an Australian and we walked down to the beach for what turned out to be a spectacular sunset. it felt so good to walk in the sand and i discovered something called Smirnoff Ice. it's an amazing feeling to see so many places where it's safe to eat and they have good fresh food. in Myanmar a jaunt to a clean restaurant where the food is fresh and prepared without an excess of oil requires a 30+ minute taxi ride which i've already described.
April 17, 2015
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.
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.
April 15, 2015
Thingyan - the Water Festival
the burmese new year called Thingyan falls in April. it's a four day holiday that somehow gets stretched out to two weeks. it's the hotest month before the rainy season begins and so not much gets done in April in Myanmar. kind of like August in Europe or the US. during the holiday, the tradition of sprinkling of water to cleanse the sins of the last year has transitioned into buckets and hoses of water drenching anyone in the street.
this of course is fun for the first five minutes but carrying around your mobile phone in a ziplock to make sure it doesn't get drenched gets old really quickly.
so, everything shuts down. in anticipation of the profits to be made during the festival they pull all the western products off the shelves so whie the warehouses are full the shelves remain empty. Because of the sanctions and internal laws about foreign ownership there are not a lot of western brands in Myanmar anyway. the expats further contribute to the problem by hoarding product [there just was a tonic shortage] when it's available. every shopping trip is different because there you absolutely don't know what will be on the shelves.
during the there's a lot of drinking by the locals, roads are closed and some of the expats have been moved closer to housing closer to their offices. i've decided it would be a good time to combine a visa run with a few weeks in Bali.
some things seem so crazy it's hard to explain well, here's an article from the paper that explain how the police intend to decrease sexual violence during the holiday.
http://www.mmtimes.com/index.php/national-news/14036-birth-control-pulled-from-shelves-on-police-orders.html
during the there's a lot of drinking by the locals, roads are closed and some of the expats have been moved closer to housing closer to their offices. i've decided it would be a good time to combine a visa run with a few weeks in Bali.
some things seem so crazy it's hard to explain well, here's an article from the paper that explain how the police intend to decrease sexual violence during the holiday.
http://www.mmtimes.com/index.php/national-news/14036-birth-control-pulled-from-shelves-on-police-orders.html
April 13, 2015
education & critical thinking
my first month on the project here i was working very independently as i put together the market analysis and strategic sales and marketing plan. in that time i heard a lot of frustration from expats about the local staff they worked with. an assistant had been hired for me before i even started but she quit after one day because the HR guy introduced her around as an assistant instead of a deputy. then as i started building staff to implement the project i began to understand what the other expats were talking about.
all the nationals have bunches of certificates and 'degrees' which seems like it would be impressive. but the certifications for the most part are worthless. i met with the HR Director of a multinational oil and gas company and he said he can't justify hiring nationals with engineering degrees because they can't do the same work as engineers trained outside the country. i had a westerner tell me he wouldn't hire anyone under the age of 30.
under the British rule [pre 1950] the education system was quite good. so it is very common to meet 60 year old men who speak perfect english and can debate philosophy. the staff i have is not like that. they are not stupid but they have no critical thinking skills or any practical business skills at all. most American teenagers have better computer skills than the 20ish college graduates here. it's going to be a problem for the country for at least another generation.
teachers are one of the most highly respected professions but even at the university level some are paid only $90 month.
under the British rule [pre 1950] the education system was quite good. so it is very common to meet 60 year old men who speak perfect english and can debate philosophy. the staff i have is not like that. they are not stupid but they have no critical thinking skills or any practical business skills at all. most American teenagers have better computer skills than the 20ish college graduates here. it's going to be a problem for the country for at least another generation.
teachers are one of the most highly respected professions but even at the university level some are paid only $90 month.
this card says it all. here's a woman with a bunch of degrees including one on Intellectual Property. she misspelled Intellectual as Intelletual.
March 27, 2015
money in Myanmar
perhaps one of the stranger things in Myanmar is the paper money
back in 1972 there were bank notes for 1, 5, 10, 25, 50 and 100 kyats [yeah it looks like you could say cats but the right way to say it is 'chat' but i thought they were saying 'jot' so that's how i say it]. in 1985, the 25-, 50-, and 100-kyat notes were demonetized [that means worthless] without warning, though the public was allowed to exchange limited amounts of the old notes for new notes. the same year 75-kyat notes were introduced, the odd denomination chosen because of dictator Ne Win's predilection for numerology and was followed by the introduction of 15- and 35- kyat notes.
two years later, the government demonetized the 25-, 35-, and 75-kyat notes without warning or compensation, rendering some 75% of the country's currency worthless. seriously? this is an all cash economy. it's 2015 and i can't use a credit card except a few locations and less than 5% of the country has bank accounts. can you imagine if all your paper money suddenly became worthless? then on September 22, 1987, banknotes for 45 and 90 kyat were introduced, both of which incorporated Ne Win's favorite number, nine. WTF?
american dollars have always been in demand here. but only some american dollars.
i've never had a good explanation of why other than 'the governement insists' as to the acceptance or refusal of dollars but they insist dollar must be pristine. all of the below american dollars, which i brought with me from the states, were rejected. any stain, crease, fold in the corner or GOD FORBID a pen mark is reason to reject dollars. it's pretty common to see foreigners [not just americans] screaming at a vendor in the market or some other tourist site about their american dollars being refused.
i've never seen such pristine american dollars as i see here. seems like they must get them directly from the Federal Reserve. they are such fresh notes that you'd never get them in the US. i speak from experience. knowing the dollars are an issue before i left the US i went to six banks before i found a cache of fresh $1 bills. try it next time you are standing in front a teller. if your bank can give you fresh $1 bills, i'll bank there.
what you can expect in return are these. disgustingly dirty, dingy, crumpled kyat notes.
american dollars have always been in demand here. but only some american dollars.
i've never had a good explanation of why other than 'the governement insists' as to the acceptance or refusal of dollars but they insist dollar must be pristine. all of the below american dollars, which i brought with me from the states, were rejected. any stain, crease, fold in the corner or GOD FORBID a pen mark is reason to reject dollars. it's pretty common to see foreigners [not just americans] screaming at a vendor in the market or some other tourist site about their american dollars being refused.
i've never seen such pristine american dollars as i see here. seems like they must get them directly from the Federal Reserve. they are such fresh notes that you'd never get them in the US. i speak from experience. knowing the dollars are an issue before i left the US i went to six banks before i found a cache of fresh $1 bills. try it next time you are standing in front a teller. if your bank can give you fresh $1 bills, i'll bank there.
what you can expect in return are these. disgustingly dirty, dingy, crumpled kyat notes.
February 11, 2015
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.
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| 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.
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.
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| 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.
February 9, 2015
check for ants
so, i had a friend over for a cocktail before we went to dinner. i poured some dinks and then offerred the ice tray so they could decide how much ice they wanted in the drink. then i said, 'check for ants'.
there is a bit of a problem with the tiny ants in my apartment and sometimes i'm too tired when i'm filling the ice tray so there may be one or two tiny ants in the tray. i just throw out the ice cubes with frozen ants.
yeah, CHECK FOR ANTS, is what i said. it's a new low for me when i offer up iced ants to my friends.
February 6, 2015
housing in Yangon
it's quite grim at the moment. the sanctions have isolated Myanmar from the rest of the world for so long finding housing either temporarily or longer term is a mess. there just aren't enough hotel rooms or apartments available to accommodate the influx of visitors and expats coming to support development.
i know housing costs are relative to location and Southeast Asia has some of the lowest housing costs in the world. in Thailand i paid $350US for a very clean and contemporary condo.
another $40 or so a month for water, electric and cable. there was 24 hour security and key card access. the doorman would drop whatever he was doing when he saw me coming on my scooter so he could park it for me. it is quite comfortable there.
so my first trip to Yangon was a bit of a shock. the least expensive clean hotel room with ac, internet and hot water was $70US per night. payable in cash - clean US notes accepted only.
i know housing costs are relative to location and Southeast Asia has some of the lowest housing costs in the world. in Thailand i paid $350US for a very clean and contemporary condo. another $40 or so a month for water, electric and cable. there was 24 hour security and key card access. the doorman would drop whatever he was doing when he saw me coming on my scooter so he could park it for me. it is quite comfortable there.so my first trip to Yangon was a bit of a shock. the least expensive clean hotel room with ac, internet and hot water was $70US per night. payable in cash - clean US notes accepted only.
when I was negotiating my contract i knew housing was going to be an issue. the HR director at my company was tasked with helping me find accommodations. being that he is a national I thought surely he would come up with some good options for me. with a couple of friends for support I went with him to look at apartments that were available. the first was a 3 bed 2 bath apartment on the ground floor. Partially furnished with one horrible sofa. One western toilet and one Asian toilet (google it if you don't know what that is). the shower was just a hose coming out of the wall in one of the toilets. no hot water. the second toilet - the one with the Asian toilet had a bucket shower. let me elaborate although it's pretty self descriptive. a bucket shower is a 50 gallon drum in the toilet room filled with tap water. a bucket is supplied and the shower part happens when you scoop the water with the bucket and pour it over your head. in the hallway outside the door was a stack of car tires and several bikes chained to a stairwell. all were covered in a thick, thick layer of dirt. my HR Director fearlessly went to battle for me against the landlord agent (that just so happened to be his sister) to negotiate that they add a hot water unit in the price of $1200 per month. oh, and he wanted me to pay the agent a commission of $1200 to secure the rental. let me do the math for you. that 48,000 we smiled and i said we'd need to keep looking. as we are in the car getting ready to leave the 'agent' says there is another apartment in the same complex we could look at - because it was furnished it would be $1400. we walk over to take a look. the bizzare pink color of the walls and dirty uphostered furniture were a turn off and i was able to turn that one down really quickly.
three days later i saw the same apartment easily identifiable by the wall color and furniture advertised on the expat connection site for $1000/month. let's just say the HR guy wasn't helping me. i've gotten to know him a little better since then and turns out he's what we would call an 'asshole'.
oh, and lease terms are very unflexible. landlords expect one year of rent plus deposit paid in advance in cash. crisp, clean US bills only. if something happens during the lease, a water pipe bursts or electrical problems, the landlord will say 'that is your business'. it's pretty fucking crazy. to get housing comparable in comfort and style to the condo in Thailand or my house in the US it would cost $3500US a month in Yangon.
in the end, the company i'm working for came up with a workable solution. they own multiple properties on the same street. they have a villa that has been used for training classes. they are transitioning the classes into a new building that was being built so they converted one the rooms in the villa into an apartment for me. i am a bit spoiled because i walk to work, have 24 hour security, generator and reliable high speed internet. it's not fancy but i have tons of storage. the cleaning staff comes in to clean and iron for me three times a week.
three days later i saw the same apartment easily identifiable by the wall color and furniture advertised on the expat connection site for $1000/month. let's just say the HR guy wasn't helping me. i've gotten to know him a little better since then and turns out he's what we would call an 'asshole'.
oh, and lease terms are very unflexible. landlords expect one year of rent plus deposit paid in advance in cash. crisp, clean US bills only. if something happens during the lease, a water pipe bursts or electrical problems, the landlord will say 'that is your business'. it's pretty fucking crazy. to get housing comparable in comfort and style to the condo in Thailand or my house in the US it would cost $3500US a month in Yangon.
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| BIG ASS GENERATOR |
in the end, the company i'm working for came up with a workable solution. they own multiple properties on the same street. they have a villa that has been used for training classes. they are transitioning the classes into a new building that was being built so they converted one the rooms in the villa into an apartment for me. i am a bit spoiled because i walk to work, have 24 hour security, generator and reliable high speed internet. it's not fancy but i have tons of storage. the cleaning staff comes in to clean and iron for me three times a week.
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| THE VILLA |
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