Cheney For President!

I need to interrupt the final Myanmar posts for a moment. If Myanmar taught me anything it's that we can't have a repressive junta for a government in America. We need to have a true patriot in office. A true lover of freedom. Frankly, we need Dick Cheney! Check out Dick's new fantastic website and join Dick's twitter page.

8 years was not enough!

The Internet

I mentioned before how dreadfully slow the internet was in Myanmar. Besides the fact that my blog was inaccessible at internet cafes, it would have taken hours to write one blog entry. Be thankful for your connection wherever you are that you're able to watch this:

Tanaka

They took my sunscreen at the Bangkok airport because it was too big (don't worry, mom, not the one I bought in America. One I had bought in Bangkok.). This was unfortunate because Huyen's little bottle of sunscreen ran out after a few days and in case I haven't made this clear, Myanmar is HOT. We went to every pharmacy in Bagan and nobody had sunscreen. It was okay though, we decided to become locals and put on tanaka.

One thing you notice right away in Myanmar is that 99% of the women and probably 60% of the men wear mud-like cream on their face. We were told that it is called "tanaka" and that it: a) works as sunscreen b) makes your skin lighter c) cools your body d) makes you look younger. To the people of Myanmar it is the all-in-one cream.

Huyen and I decided to give the cream a shot. Huyen put it all over her face and looked like the Wicked Witch of The West.

I put on the cream and just looked idiotic. Luckily I sweated off the cream in a couple of hours.


Unluckily by sweating it off I got FRIED:

Perhaps the cream does work.

Bagan

(PICTURE: Bagan at sunset.)

Without a doubt, Bagan was my favorite place in Myanmar. The place was awesome and ranks up with my favorite sites in the world. Scattered over 42 square kilometers are thousands of temples, pagodas and stupas. Supposedly there were over 4,000 structures but due to earthquakes there are now only 3,000+. Regardless, everywhere you look you see temples.

Huyen and I arrived in Bagan around 2pm, rented bikes and headed out to get a taste of the area. We almost immiedately came upon a few empty pagodas and started to climb them. Here's me on my first pagoda:

Once I climbed to the top of that pagoda I realized that it was perhaps the smallest and most pathetic of all the 3,000+ pagodas. In the distance I could see so many more impressive ones.

The thing to do in Bagan is to find a temple and watch sunset. The first evening we were there it started to rain and the fast approaching lightning seemed like it would be a bad mix with climbing tall pointed structures. On the second night we went to the most popular sunset pagoda. Huyen and I made friends with some local kids who we bought sunflower seeds for. Befriending them allowed us to be the only tourists not harrassed to buy postcards. (PICTURE: Huyen and the local kids. Ignore the stuff on Huyen's face. That is tomorrow's blog!):

On the third night in Bagan, Huyen and I found our own pagoda and watch sunset by ourselves. It was pretty spectacular. We tried to capture the coolness of the moment by taking reflective sunglass picture shots. I think Huyen's is pretty cool.

Some other memorable things were riding through a local village and finding the spot in the river the locals played/bathed in:

In the morning, the female novices collected alms along the main street near our guest house.


On the first night we asked a local where the locals eat and he told us about a Myanmar salad shop. We ended up eating there three times in the next 72 hours. It was amazing. Here's the before and after shot from a meal where we ordered enough for four people...and finished it all (no need to post a comment about wondering why I didn't lose weight on the trip).

Mandalay Odds and Ends

Here's a few odds and ends from Mandalay:

The menu screen for our television in our hotel room was set for Vietnamese. It was the only Vietnamese person/place/thing we saw in Myanmar.

My absolute favorite street food was in Mandalay. I happen to love Indian breads so what could be better than hot naan being made in front of you? We soaked up some delicious curries with the bread...more evidence that my stomach is becoming a rock in southeast Asia. Who can eat street curry without becoming sick (yeah, yeah, yeah...we'll all have a good laugh when I have a gigantic parasite extracted from me in a few months)?

Nearly every restaurant/hotel/building had a generator in it for the constant black outs. I don't know much about generators but perhaps the power would go out less in the country if there weren't millions of generators soaking up energy. But again, I know nothing about generators so perhaps that is an idiotic thing to say.

Here's a picture of my favorite road-side toilet. Trust me there is no irony in that statement. That said, I'm pretty sure the porcelain urinal serves no purpose and I could have just peed in the hole behind it.

One afternoon Huyen and I went to a market and bought a bunch of fruit. We bought a grapefruit from a lady who jokingly put the skin on her head. I took the skin from her and put it on Huyen's head which caused all the vendors to laugh hysterically. One of the vendors then called for her daughter to come outside to see the amazing joke I had done. The daughter -- six years old tops -- walked out and immediately started to cry when she saw me. She then took off her sandal and THREW IT AT ME. I think having a sandal thrown at me is officially the first thing that George Bush and I have in common besides our nationality.

Die Hard In Myanmar

(PICTURE: Road trip in construction worker helmets.)

It's all the little things that stand out from Myanmar. On the day that Huyen and I rented a motorbike, we went pretty far away from Mandalay. We ended up on some very small, very primitive dirt roads. Eventually we found some ancient ruins we were looking for which turned out to be pretty unimpressive. Regardless, the road trip was great and took us through lots of villages that I'm sure don't get a heavy flow or tourists...or any tourists ever.

On the way home we stopped to eat in road side tea shop. When we sat down, everyone turned to look at us. I've had this experience before but it was definitely Huyen's first time. She looked at me and said, "Everyone is staring at me." Not letting her steal all the glory, I chimed in, "I think they're staring at both of us." The whole tea shop went silent. You could hear the figurative pin drop. The only noise was a familiar voice coming from near the kitchen. The voice said, "Yippie-kay-yah." The words weren't in Burmese. It was English. Bruce Willis English. Let me just set the scene a little clearer:
This was a weekday.
It was 2pm.
Nobody was working.
We were in a tea shop.
In the middle of the countryside.
Somewhere between 1,000+ year old ruins.
In Myanmar.

Man, Myanmar is sooooo weird!:

You want a picture with me?!!!!

When my sister Hannah and I traveled together last year, we constantly tried to get cool pictures of monks. Perhaps the coolest picture we ended up taking was this one of the novice (a monk in training) who scammed us in Luang Prabang:

There's just something about monks that make you want to take pictures of them. However, it's weird to ask them to take pictures so one has to try and take snap shots of them in the background (or while walking without a flash if you're Hannah).

While riding motorbikes, Huyen and I went to the world's largest teak bridge.
(PICTURE: That's the bridge in the background.)

We quickly lost interest in the bridge though when we caught site of a bunch of monks ahead of us. Quickly I told Huyen to pretend like she was posing so I could zoom over her shoulder at the monks. After a few seconds of doing this the monks started to look at us. Clearly they were on to our game. We tried to play it cool as if we really just wanted weird posing shots on a wooden bridge. They didn't buy it and they started to walk up to us.
(PICTURE: My fake pose to get the monks in a shot.)

(PICTURE: Huyen's typical Vietnamese girl pose. I think she was trying to get the monks in the shot too.)

I was all prepared for the monks to come up to us and say, "No pictures please" when one bashfully asked, "Can we take a picture of you?"

"You want a picture of us," I asked confusedly.

The monk nodded yes. I tried to bottle my excitement but could hardly contain myself. After they took their picture of us I asked if I could have one too. They agreed and walla...I've got pictures with monks!!! Be jealous, Hannah!: