Yangon to Mandalay

I said to Huyen before we got to our bus to Mandalay that I would be happy as long as there wasn't 13 hours of Myanmar karaoke on the TV screen. Obnoxiously loud karaoke on buses has been my experience on every long haul trip in Southeast Asia. Well, I almost got my wish.

When Huyen and I boarded our bus I noticed two things right away:

1. We were the only foreigners.

2. There was some really skinny guy on the TV wearing a red robe and occasionally saying words in English. I of course took out my camera too late but the guy on the screen -- who I still have no idea who he is -- kept repeating, "Declaration of Human Rights" after a whole bunch of words I didn't understand. I finally took out the camera after he said, "Carter, Bush (and maybe Clinton)" in one of his long soliloquies.

He was on the TV for the first hour or so of the trip and then karaoke started to BLAST through the speakers. After about eight hours of fruitlessly attempting to sleep as my ear-drums suffered permanent damage I finally passed out. A couple of hours later I awoke to the man in the red robe speaking again. I'm pretty sure I was the only person on the bus who was awake besides the driver (I can't actually vouch that the driver was awake because not to long after our bus came to a screeching halt and swerved into the shoulder as we nearly collided with another bus. As the only person up, I'm pretty sure I'm the only one who nearly crapped his pants...again besides maybe the drive). I watched the guy in the red robe and found something very strange; the camera on him kept zooming out and would reveal a Mac Book Pro in front of him. It was the ONLY Mac I saw in Myanmar. After the Mac was in the shot, the camera would jerkily zoom in again as if we weren't supposed to see it.

Anyway, if anyone has any clue who the guy in the video is I would love to know. Thanks!

Yangon Odds And Ends

There's just too many things to blog about so here's a few little things grouped together:

I always think it is interesting to see the embassies for countries, especially those that used to run a country as a colony. Britain was in Myanmar/Burma for quite a long time. The embassy is all they have left. It happens to be the nicest embassy in the city.

(PICTURE: The British Embassy.)

The nicest cars in Yangon by far were VW Beetles.

(PICTURE: Herbie yellow, Dad.)


There were many trucks carrying huge tree trunks. I know the British exported teak from Myanmar but I'm not sure if these trees are teak. Deforestation is obviously a big problem there. What I found strange though was why the trees were being brought into the city. I've seen things like this in the countryside in Vietnam but never in a downtown area.

Huyen and I passed quite a few movie theaters and they were all playing movies that had to be at least thirty years old. We took this picture and were about to take another when a security guard waved us away.

(PICTURE: It was past 11 when we took this picture but the place was shut. Odd.)

There were a few doctors' offices that had signs claiming the doctors trained in the USA. I'm curious if they actually did or if its false advertising. Regardless, this isn't where I'd like to go if I'm having heart problems.

(PICTURE: Can someone check if Dr./Professor Cho Lay Mar trained in the USA.)



It's not odd that I'm sweating in this picture. What is odd is this is probably the least sweaty I ever was. Myanmar was hot!

(PICTURE: I love this shirt if you haven't noticed in a hundred other pictures. My sweat is slowly destroying it though.)

A Taste Of Myanmar Traffic

Myanmar traffic doesn't compare to Vietnam. Everything moves slower and there is exponentially less vehicles on the streets. The one big difference though between Vietnam and Myanmar is that there are almost no motorbikes in Myanmar cities. The roads are basically filled with bicycles, old old old cars and pick up trucks that serve as buses.

From what I'm told, Myanmar's inner city traffic is a lot like Hanoi was seven or eight years ago. There are very few traffic lights in the city and the roads often have huge potholes. I recorded a minute or so of some typical traffic:

Yangon Food

(PICTURE: Those red specks are chili. Basically all the broth in this picture ended up on my shirt moments later as I sweated it out.)

One of the things I did like in Yangon was the food. Lonely Planet describes it as the culinary capital of Myanmar. However, as you may recall from earlier blogs, I think LP has horrible picks for restaurants. Huyen and I went to two LP places while in Myanmar and they were the two worst meals we ate and the second and third priciest. Generally I like LP except for the food picks. If you don't believe me, I suggest finding the Lonely Planet edition for your city and seeing what they recommend. I once read over the Los Angeles book and the food picks were places I would never eat at.

I digress. The food in Yangon was really good. I was a little worried that my stomach would react badly to eating curry on the street but apparently my belly has been well trained from my time in 'Nam.
(PICTURE: Eating Mynmar corn. Notice Huyen's eating red corn or as some people call it in the USA "Indian Corn".)



Because of Myanmar's diverse culture there are varied cuisines. The majority of the food is Indian or Chinese. The food is also very spicy. This lead to me sweating A LOT.

One thing that I found very interesting was the soda. Because of the international boycot on Myanmar, Coke and Pepsi don't do business with the country. Myanmar has basically ripped off famous American sodas and renamed them other things. For example Coke = Star. If you did a blind taste taste you'd have a hard time telling them apart. The one difference between them in Myanmar is that a Star costs about a quarter. A coke will run you over $3 because it has been smuggled into the country through the black markets.

Shwedagon Pagoda

(PICTURE: Shwedagon at night.)

As you might have figured out, I was not very impressed with Yangon. However, there was one saving grace to the city -- Shwedagon Pagoda. In a country where there are probably hundreds of thousands of pagodas, Shwedagon surely stands out.

Supposedly the stupa was build 2500 years ago, although that is up for debate. Regardless of when it was actually built, it was definitely rebuilt many times in its recent history. Apparently Myanmar is a hot spot for earthquakes and it seems that every stupa throughout the country has been affected/destroyed by them. No matter where you go in Myanmar it is always the same story: "This ___ was built ____ and rebuilt in 19_ _. "

I was told that the coolest time of day to head to Shwedagon is around sunset. Huyen and I went up to the pagoda and were told that it cost $5 per foreigner. I had ten dollars with me but only six of them were flawless enough for the ticket office. I paid for one ticket with American dollars and the other with Kyat. The ticket office blatantly rips off anyone using Kyat and charged us 8,000 Kyat. The standard exchange rate is $1 = 1,000 Kyat. They basically charged us an extra three dollars because we were using their crappy currency.

The pagoda and the surrounding area did not disappoint. The cool thing about the pagoda is that it is almost smack in the middle of the city. You can basically see it from wherever you are in Yangon. The uncool thing about the pagoda is how many unofficial tourists approach you offering their services for $5. Actually they're not that blunt about it. Basically it goes like this:
A random man casually approaches...
Random Man: "You know there is a 75 carat diamond on top of the stupa."
Me: "That's interesting." (I said that the first time. After I said, "So I've been told.")
Random Man: "The big stupid is called little brother. The one over there is called big brother. That is little brother. That is big brother. Little brother. Big brother."
Me: "That's intersting." (Again, I said that the first time. After I said, "So I've been told.")
Random Man: "I can tell you more for $5."
Me: "No thanks. We're just gonna walk around on our own."
Random Man: "There are no tourists this season. I need money."
Me: "I'm sorry to hear that."
Random Man: "I have a wife and five children and 11 grandchildren."
Me: "Wow, that's a lot. I'm sorry though, we're just gonna walk around on our own."

This conversation basically happened four times. I've come to the realization in my travels that I'm pretty content just learning the history through my guide book. I often don't understand things when locals try to explain them. Guidebooks like Lonely Planet do a good job of telling you the essentials while keeping things interesting.

(PICTURE: Me and my favorite tour guide.)

Anyway, here's some cool pictures of the stupa:
(PICTURE: People praying at sunset.)

(PICTURE: Men doing construction.)

Myanmar: Freedom of speech? Freedom of the press?

No surprise, there's little freedom of speech in Myanmar. Huyen and I arrived the day after Suu Kyi was sentenced and you wouldn't have even known she existed. Nobody once mentioned her name. Her face did not appear on television and as far as I could tell there was no newspaper reports about her either. I'm guessing about the newspaper because I never once saw anyone reading a newspaper. In fact, Huyen and I passed a newspaper office in the heart of Yangon on a weekday and this is what it looked like:
(PICTURE: The New Light Of Myanmar...which looks like it hasn't had any lights on inside for years.)

As far as television goes, there was little to no news on the TV. There were only a few channels on the TV in our hotel room and from what I could tell it wasn't hard journalism.

Only one time did a local say anything at all political to us. A taxi driver said one morning, "A big American general is meeting our government today." The big general turned out to be Senator Webb (a highly decorated Vietnam War vet and Reagan's former Secretary of the Navy...and one of my favorite senators). Perhaps to all Myanmar people all politicians must be generals.

Furthermore almost every website I regularly check was blocked in Myanmar. There was a sign at one internet cafe that said, "No Political or Adult Websites." As if politicals and porn deserve to be equally banned. Thank goodness for the First Amendment.

The Golden Land

Myanmar might call itself "The Golden Land" but it is by far the poorest country I have ever visited. I'm not trying to knock the economic state of the country. Poverty is no laughing matter. Sadly, because of the oppressive military junta ruling that country the majority of the world won't do business with Myanmar which means the economic conditions there are not going to improve any time soon.

Yagon, the capital, was the poorest city we visited. You could see how poor the people were by just walking down the streets. Immediately you notice how many people aren't working or are selling items that couldn't bring in more than a couple of dollars a week. For example, Huyen and I passed a shop that was dying rubber bands. That can't be that lucrative of a business.

(PICTURE: Drying rubber bands on the street.)

Just walking down the street can be quite a challenge. The sidewalks are completely in disrepair. Sometimes there's giant holes in the sidewalk and other times all the concrete slates on the sidewalk are loose. I sprained my ankle once when I stepped on a slate and the whole floor tilted underneath me.
(PICTURE: This is a typical sidewalk...minus the few feet of good sidewalk on the other side of the hole.)

Despite the poverty in Yangon, you could tell that the city used to be really nice. There are beautiful buildings that are fenced in, covered with moss and gutted from the inside. There are gorgeous churches and houses that with a fresh coat of paint could look nice. You get the feeling from walking around that the city has done little to better itself in the last fifty year. To make my point, look at this picture:

If you can't read the words, it says, "Shanka Mansion 1960." One can easily imagine that 49 years ago this was a beautiful house. Now, not so much.