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.

Time Zone

Whenever people ask me about Myanmar my response is, "It is the strangest/weirdest place I've ever been." Naturally they say, "Why?" and then I try to explain. I think one reason the country is so weird is that it is stuck in the twighlight zone. By twighlight zone I mean its time zone is a half hour different then the majority of the rest of the world. I've never been somewhere that is a half hour behind or a half hour ahead of other time zones. I'm not even sure I knew that time zones like that existed.

Myanmar: Money

(PICTURE: Which of these bills do you think is too old to be accepted in Myanmar?)

A day before leaving for Myanmar I learned that one had to arrive with American dollars in hand. ATM cards and credit cards don't work in Myanmar. You need cold hard American dollars. Huyen and I went to my bank in Hanoi and exchanged Dong for dollars. In order to get non black market dollars in Vietnam you need to:

a) Be a member of the bank you want dollars from.

b) Show an outgoing flight ticket from Vietnam.

Huyen and I got exactly $500 from ANZ in Hanoi. It turns out that you're only allowed to bring in a max of $2,000 into Myanmar. I found this sort of strange since visas are good for a month. You would think the government would set the dollar amount higher so people would spend more money.

In my last minute research I read that one should exchance money on the black market. Hotels will exchange money but to get the highest rate you need to do it with shady strangers who approach you. This made me nervous to say the least. But something else made me even more nervous -- people/hotels/etc. would only take PERFECT American dollars. All the stuff I read about money in Myanmar failed to mention this. The first time I tried to exchange dollars I handed the hotel worker a crisp, new bill. The bill though had a little smudge on the top of it. The worker handed back the bill and said, "I'm sorry, this is no good." I looked at him and said, "Really? It's brand new." He pointed at the smudge and said, "It's dirty. The bank won't take it." This made me really nervous because only about half my money didn't have wrinkles, smudges, creases, etc. This meant that half my money was basically no good in the country.

What made this extra frustrating is that Myanmar Kyat are pieces of crap. Okay, they're not actually crap but they are in pieces. Finding an unmarked, non scratched, non folded, non torn Myanmar Kyat is next to impossible. Literally I was handed kyat wripped in half and put back together sloppily with tape. I kid you not, I even once saw a person going through a pile of garbage who pulled out a Myanmar Kyat that was almost completely shredded. I have no doubt the Kyat would have been accepted somewhere.

In a slight state of panic that I would run out of money, I went to a hotel that Lonely Planet assured had a good exchange policy and gave them my "marked" Ben Franklin. The hotel worker there shook her head and asked if I had any other bills. I lied and said no. She looked disappointed and told me I would have to pay a $2 fee. I paid it. In the end it didn't matter. In nine days Huyen and I only spent $250.

Myanmar: First Impressions

I felt some nervous anxiety leading up to my trip to Myanmar. I've never felt nervous before about traveling so feeling nervous made me extra nervous. There were a few factors that I think lead to this unusual feeling:

Factor 1: Huyen went to the Myanmar embassy the week before I arrived back in Hanoi. While she was there she asked about me getting my visa. She said that the Myanmar embassy worker said, "We don't like Americans." When Huyen told me this over Skype I thought it must have been a mistranslation. Huyen insisted that is what the woman said. Yeah, not such a warm fuzzy feeling.

Factor 2: When I arrived in Hanoi I went to the Myanmar agency to get my visa. The woman behind the desk gave me a very skeptical look and asked me a few questions with a very skeptical look on her face.

Factor 3: Aung Suu Kyi's verdict was pushed back to the day before I arrived. I wasn't sure if there would be protests and/or if I would get turned back at the border for some reason.

Huyen and I flew Air Asia from Bangkok to Yangon (formerly Rangoon). Two things immediately struck me as I walked down the steps of the airplane onto the tarmac. Firstly, the International Airport was a dump. Clearly not too many planes were coming in and out of Myanmar. It looked like half the airport was actually not in use since there was an old mold covered building attached to a newer looking building. The second thing that I noticed was a smiling/waving airport worker. I smiled back at the worker and it helped ease my nervousness. Like I've said before, a smile can be really disarming. Seeing his random worker made me think that people were happy to see tourists.

Huyen and I went through immigration without a problem (although I had to fill out more forms to get into the country then I've ever filled in my life). Our hotel in Yangon had arranged a free ride for us and we were greeted by a man wearing a longyi (AKA a long man skirt).

(PICTURE: Men wearing longyis.)

The man told us to wait a few minutes for another passenger. We ended up waiting about twenty minutes for a passenger who never showed up. A few strange things happened while we waited. First, I noticed that Myanmar people had to go through metal detectors just to walk into the airport. One woman came in with an old camera and the security person took out the batteries. I've never seen security just to walk into an airport to greet people coming off of flights.

The second strange thing that happened is that there was a power failure. All of a sudden the lights and metal detector turned off. After a few moments they turned back on...and then went off again. I couldn't help thinking, "Please tell me the control tower has its own generator."

The third weird thing is that Huyen went to the bathroom and came back a minute later saying there was no toilet paper. We then both glanced up at a security guard who happened to be walking by us with one roll of toilet paper. He was headed towards the bathroom. This struck me as strange that they'd only replenish one roll at a time.

Finally after giving up on the last passenger we went out to the parking lot. Waiting for us was an old gutted out van. On the window was this sticker:
(PICTURE: Smiles aren't the only disarming thing in Myanmar.)

That was the first picture I took in Myanmar. Talk about first impressions...