My flight was slightly delayed so it meant that we could all meet up in Bangkok Airport as soon as Ant and David landed from London via Zurich, which was fab! But we were soon separated again as we take different flights to Burma or Myanmar, you decide according to your political persuasion! Gill on budget Air Asia with not a drop of alcohol to be seen and Ant and David four glasses of wine to the good on Thai.... Rangoon or Yangon Airport (again, use whichever you are comfortable with...) was surprisingly modern and progress through immigration and customs really smooth. And whilst our mobile phones won't work here, plenty of local ones do judging by the number at the airport, so we are not sure that the stories of them costing up to £1000 each, a huge amount in this economy, can be right. There were lots of monks who seemed to be waiting for someone of their fraternity with lots of welcoming flowers, one of whom was using his iPad. So no, we are not so far, seeing evidence of this "backward" country, brought low by sanctions.
We have booked the Winner Inn, a small local place just outside of downtown, but well located for Shwedagon Pagoda.
It seemed to be a throwback from the 30's, a bit art deco, and a lot art wrecko! Spectacular wiring in the rooms and a shower that looked like it was designed for colonic irrigation.
The roads to the hotel, also the main route to the city, were quiet tree lined streets - with not a motorbike to be seen. Apparently, many moons ago, one of the Generals' cars was dented by a careless biker, so it was then mandated that henceforth there would be no more motorbikes in the city. Apocryphal? Not sure...
Everyone was tired, but never too tired for a first taste of Mandalay beer and as no why why was available the secret water had its first outing with a lime soda, requiring big dodging of the over attentive waiters. And so to comfy bed. The hotel breakfast can perhaps be best described as "adequate" with the milk a bit strange (sweetened condensed we decided) and the " butter" described by David as "I can't believe that is butter!"
The next morning we soon realised that we were going to struggle in this country due to our lack of Burmese. Trying to find stop one on the Lonely Planet walking tour created an Ant taxi tantrum as the non English speaking driver had not heard of the beautiful Starbucks type coffee shop we were headed for. When we got there we realised why - anything less like Starbucks we have yet to see, particularly in the hygiene dept. It was a blackened hole in in the wall with tiny plastic midget chairs. Ant had a bright orange drink, David had a bright pink one - and Gill drank the water she had brought from the hotel.... There were no brands in sight, no Coe Lye, but lots of ecoli.....
We spent the morning in the baking heat walking the wide streets of Yangon, down to the banks of the Irrawaddy (or as above, Arryawddy if that's your bag) reminiscent of a bygone Imperial era and found ourselves strangely drawn to the best Imperial era building, the local LHW, The Strand. We left £30 lighter after three coffees and three very small muffins. Whilst there were lots of old Imperial buildings, the infrastructure of the city is fairly grim. The shopping streets are lined with stalls selling bits and bobs, but mainly remote controls for tv's... And those strange pictures of naked babies you see all over China. Big holes in the pavement, the odd drain smell and plenty of stray dogs, basking in the shade, all of this was forgotten in the ready smiles of everyone we came across. At first glance it is a down trodden, flyblown, faded glory sort of a place, but was so welcoming. Were those ready smiles genuine pleasure to see us or did we look really funny.....
By this time lunch was beckoning, we ate lunch (i.e. Ant and David, not Gill who was inhaling Gill gel, aka antiseptic hand wash ) at a typical open fronted restaurant, the Danu Phyu Daw Saw Yee Myanma restaurant. We were taken to make our choice from a range of oily burmese curries displayed in their tepid metal bowls, these were served with some green vegetable soup, Ant and David loved it. The street life passing by, monks and nuns collecting alms from the dining patrons and staff. We were approached by a man asking where we were from and where we were going. Looking around guiltily he told us that so few people come here now because of the trouble. We asked if the upcoming elections and the recent visits from Clinton and Hague were a sign of better times to come. He said some people thought so but he didn't. He said "they will give with one hand and take away with another", and he felt that the outlook wasn't good. He said "it will be long and we will struggle". When we told him our next stop was Nay Pyi Taw he laughed and said it was a joke, all that money spent on nothing. We were to find out the truth of this a couple of days later. But so sad to see such despair on his face for the future of his country.
Crossing the road, even with the absence of motorbikes was a challenge. But we found a way. The city is full of dark red robed monks and Barbie pink robed nuns who hunted in packs. We realised that we could use a group of nuns as a human shield (women and children worked well too...) to dodge the traffic that stops for no one, but we reckoned it wasn't good karma to run over a nun....
Before coming here we had planned an outline route but decided to freewheel a bit and book as and when we wanted to move on. Our next stop was to be Nay Pyi Taw (more on that later) so we decided to take a train which you need to book ahead. We managed to track down the booking office, which is not at the station.
Tucked down a dark alley, which opens out into a semi open air dark booking hall with a dirt floor and with sleeping dogs, sleeping men and chickens. The clerks sit behind metal grills fronting the dark, dusty offices piled high with papers, carbon paper and all signs in the squiqqly unintelligable language. But by the usual pidgin English Ant managed to procure us the necessary tickets. But the effort that it had entailed required respite at the nearby Trader's Hotel, it was just a coincidence really that wifi was only available in the bar.... It might be called wifi here, but it is not as we know it. Everywhere, it takes ages (fair enough...) but there is no rhyme nor reason to which sites would work. Not many as we discovered, especially email, which we managed to connect to on only a couple of occasions the whole time we were in the country. Strangely Facebook was the only consistent site.
Dinner was to be at another Lonely Planet best recommended restaurant, the Aung Thukha. Situated down a side road at first glance it was a bit of a disaster, well for Gill at least. Fairly grubby looking, semi open air, tiny chairs at oil cloth covered tables. The same rules as at lunch applied, where you approached the "buffet" chose what you wanted and it was brought to you with rice, various condiments, soup and a salad. We didn't touch the salad for obvious reasons but the rest was actually very good. Unusually all the staff were women and one of them had the longest hair we have ever seen, right down to her knees.
We also discover that our hotel is in a trendy up and coming sort of an area and on the way to the restaurant had noticed a few nice looking places to stop on the way back for a why why or two. Coffee Circles was our choice, yes it did serve decent coffee but was more a trendy bar and eaterie. It also had free wifi. So we sat outside listening to a small band play, with a drink and trying to be patient with the painfully slow and erratic connection. It was here we think we spotted our first "watcher". All the books say that as a foreigner in this regime you will probably be "watched" at least once. A woman was sitting on her own all the time we were there, her laptop open but she wasn't doing anything at all with it, and didn't once glance in our direction even when we joined in with the band's rendition of Country Road's. Everyone else did...... We obviously didn't say anything too damaging as we are still at large... It was also really interesting to see the other people in there. Mainly locals all dressed in very expensive and very trendy gear, the girls in tottering high shoes all clutching their large designer handbags. We had seen only local dress for both men and women virtually everywhere so this was a real difference. And the prices charged were at London levels, not something here people on the low average salary could ever afford. We think they must be "General" related...
On Day two, we were "Stupa-fied" by our time at the Shwedagon Paya, which blew us away. This place dominates the city and can be seen from almost anywhere, it looks especially good at night.
We are not natural temple viewers, but as this was Yangon's No 1 site, we thought we should make the effort. We were within walking distance, so headed off in the hot sun in a clear deep blue sky. Shoes off of course, and up the steps through the myriad covered walkways to the hilltop temple platform. We resisted the shops that lined the steps, we decided we could all live without the garish temple regalia and offerings. It was clear that this is very much a working temple, as the Sunday crowds of families climbed alongside us.
The main platform was the size of a few football pitches and in the centre was an enormous golden stupa 322 ft high and 2500 years old. Various precious stones an a huge diamond adorn it. But it wasn't this that took our breath away, it was the hundreds of lesser temples, each with a Buddha or ten that filled the space. Praying and playing amongst these were thousand's of people, burning incense, making offerings of scented flowers, bathing their birthday cardinal Buddah with water. It was fantastic, the joy was palpable and we soon found ourselves grinning and smiling along with the ever so friendly locals. It was also blissfully empty of other tourists.
We were of course approached by a couple of monks who took us under their wings. Yes we know we had to walk around the stupa in a clockwise direction, but no we didn't know about the cardinal points for praying in accordance with your day of birth.
So, guided by the monks, we were taken to Monday, Gill, a tiger, where she completed the ritual and bathed the Buddha with a pattern of nine, seven, then five bowls of water, Sunday, David, a Garuda, likewise, then Thursday, Ant, a MOUSE!!
We were also blessed and sprinkled with Buudha's foot water. All very silly but fun. Of course there's no such thing as a free monk, so we taken to a quiet corner and for the surreptitious passing of a few kyats. A thoroughly good value experience.
After our spiritual experience we find another, a local shopping mall for lunch, then get a taxi to take us to the museum. We get a bit of a fright as on the way we are pulled over by the military. Luckily it was just a check on the driver's licence and not something political we had inadverently said the night before..... Then another cab to change money in a place recommended by the young taxi driver where we came away with several "bricks" of local notes, kyats (pronounced "chats") You can change money the official way at the bank instead of the local money changer, but there you get 7 kyats to the US dollar, on the street you get 850....
Dinner was in another Lonely Planet recommended place the Sabai @DMZ, and hooray, it looked clean, nice and civilised. And it was. We had a great meal and washed it down with a bottle of surprisingly good local wine. A Sauvignon Blanc, made in the Shan Hills was really good and with a bit of luck we will be able to make a visit to their vineyards when we get to Inle Lake. And hope we lift sanctions soon so we can buy it in the UK!
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