Blank.
My mind was completely blank when I tried to think of what I could expect in Myanmar.
I knew nothing of the place, other than the fact that it used to be called Burma (which a lot of people still use to call the country). No images popped up, no knowledge of what the cuisine would be like, vaguely know where it is on a world map, but mostly nothing. Oh and also somehow remembered that Coca-cola had just entered the Burmese market. But that's it. I probably wouldn't have gone if E hadn't bought a last minute ticket and dragged me along.
The first thing I saw when I stepped onto Burmese territory at 11:30pm, Yangon was - not surprisingly - a large poster of Coca-Cola, just beyond the immigration desks.
The first night was spent in a hotel near the airport, 4 hours sleep, up before dawn to catch a 6am flight to Bagan. Yangon domestic terminal was not unlike an old run-down indoor bus terminal. Checking in involved showing a man our ticket, he tick our names off a list, another man took our luggage, plopped it behind the desk and handed us our boarding passes.
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| Domestic terminal |
Bagan
Bagan is an hour away on Air Mandalay (surprisingly more comfortable than I expected - it even has its own in-flight magazine!). Bagan airport had these really old decommissioned Japanese public buses (still with the "stop" buttons) that transported us from the plane to the terminal building, and they brought our luggage into the terminal on a separate jeep-drawn cart and handed us our bags. After changing our crisp, pre-ironed USD notes for crumbly wrinkly Burmese Kyats, we paid the Bagan entrance fee, taxied to Bagan proper (rates fixed, haggling not required), checked into the hotel and dumped our bags.
We then found our horse-cart guide man - actually he found us - as we re-emerged out of our hotel, groggy and heat-beat but energized by curiosity. Aung Aung is a kind, patient, soft-spoken Burmese who rents his cart and horse from an owner, takes care of the horse in his backyard, and in return gets a small percentage of the revenue. We didn't know this when we negotiated a "good price" for the day and a half that was to follow. He also spoke pretty good English, for a country-side man in a country that was closed off to the rest of the world only until recently. He knew his way around well, taking us to all the important pagodas, the best photo spots (his favourite word was probably "panorama" since he repeated it about 15 dozen times), and a good vegetarian restaurant.
It was the low season of the year - tourist season is October onwards, and not July when everywhere feels like a giant oven. The quietness further enhanced Bagan's ancient-ness and enchanted-ness. The place felt like it was stuck it time, more than a thousand years ago, and long forgotten by the modern world.
The ancient city of Bagan is an endless sea of temples and pagodas. It used to have as much as 10,000 structures but even after earthquakes and natural weathering, around 2200 still remain to this day. We rode around for ages and ages and all we saw are more temples and more pagodas, with the occasional village popping up here and there.
We were mainly in Old Bagan, a 13 x 8km area designated as the Bagan Archaeological Zone. The government moved a lot of people out of that area as a result of this zoning, and the few that remain are those that are involved in the tourism industry, or the lacquerware trade.
It was a very pleasant surprise just how unexpectedly nice
the hotel was. Lots of greenery and open space, open air dining area, pool, and the rooms are semi-detached bungalows. The rooms were well-equipped, clean and very comfortable. And not to mention the breakfast! Amazing buffet breakfast with lots of bread and fresh fruit and an eggs counter and pancakes counter! Alright I need to stop sounding like an American tourist.
The hotel became our refuge and oasis from the incredibly hot midday sun, and we retreated for naps and showers in the afternoons between tours.
Popa, palm-products and pests
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| Marketplace |
The next day, we found ourselves in a taxi tour to Mount Popa. The stops along the way were actually more enjoyable and interesting than the mountain itself. We first stopped off at a palm production plantation & workshop (it was actually built for tourists) - they showed us palm oil, palm sweets, palm alcohol fermenting processes (and a tasting session), a cow crushing peanuts...they were patient but their patiences didn't really pay off as we left without buying anything, much to their dismay. Onwards, our second stop was at a local market and we walked around, sticking out like super-sore urban thumbs, getting stared at - a lot. I found a lot of joy walking in these markets, the colours, the sound of cooking and haggling, the smells of freshly cut ingredients and things being fried, the randomness of things being sold - a treat for all the senses. Or at least it was enjoyable until we started being followed by what seemed to be a mentally unstable man. At which point we hastily jumped back into the taxi with our unnamed deep-fried snacks and a bag of fruit.
My camera battery died by the time we got to Popa, which wasn't too bad because it turned out there was a mighty climb up lots and lots and lots of steps to the top of the little knoll, and I wasn't going to break my back carrying my DSLR up the hill. And just as well I didn't bring my camera up, cos the trail was infested with , destestable, vicious, filthy, ferociously aggressive creatures - monkeys. They were absolutely everywhere, they SHAT everywhere, and they would take everything you held in your hands. The little water I had left was snatched from me half way up, which benefitted the old and young ladies selling drinks from a box cooler that appeared every 20 steps or so. I had to go alone because E had a bad hip and would never have made it back down, and I was so nervous going up the steps I barely stopped, sweat pouring through my skin in fear of being scratched, touched or even looked at by those nasty pests. The few times I did stop was when a whole family of them lay right in the middle of the path and I was too chicken to go ahead by myself, so I'd wait for a group or to come by and I'd just join them. I would (shamefully) even run behind kids who seemed oblivious to the ferocity and disease-infested-ness of the monkeys. The view at the top was rather breathtaking indeed - but I wasn't sure if it was the view, or if it was cos I was trying to hold my breath for most of the way up lest I accidentally breath in their dried up shyte particles. But never again.
The Irrawaddy Village
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| Transportation methods |
This was undoubtedly my favourite part of the trip.
After lunch, a shower and an afternoon snooze, we set off from our hotels again mid-afternoon by foot to the pier, got a boat (and boat man) all to ourselves, and began our short but beautiful journey along the Irrawaddy.
The boat ride itself wasn't particularly eventful. The river was very wide, and after passing a few interesting cruise boats, we made our way down the river for a while, before cruising to the other side of the river and stopping at a random village (although random or not I still don't know).
Our boat man didn't speak a word (of English, hence didn't speak). He only waves, walks, and waits. Where he walked, we followed. When we stopped, he waited.
It was as if we had been transported to another world. The fishing boats, the cow-drawn carts, the women with crops on their heads, men with tools, the monk with a bag, the dog following the monk...and the sound of water, of birds, of a breeze blowing through the tall grass, of our footsteps over sandy grassy paths, and of the murmurs of village life further inland. The air smelled of grass, smoke and country.
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| Snow peas |
We stopped a lot to take a lot of pictures. It was probably quite strange to them, since this is perhaps one of the simplest forms of living which is still (relatively) not too difficult to reach. I suppose one of the reasons why we kept taking pictures of grass and cows and water and fields was our desire to capture some of this..this "atmosphere", of simpleness or pureness of living, "earthiness", seeing your sustenance come up from the ground in front of your eyes, manual labour, living with just the basics, living with just the necessities...but that feeling, that atmosphere of simpleness is not something any camera can capture. Nor can any words describe. Second hand account, in whatever form, won't do the
real sensory and sub-sensory experience any justice. It's kind of ironic too - technology has taken us so far, it has made all this sophisticated machinery and "improved" our lives in so many (debatable) ways, and then we take these sophisticated gadgets back to the country-side and try to capture some of this essence of simple living and grab onto what life was like
before these machines came about. I won't call this nostalgia as I've never actually grown up with this sort of simpleness. It's not really melancholy either. I suppose it's simply recording something that's actually
new to me.
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| Fans |
We walked through the village, attracted a small following of children who showed us their very simple village school; we peered into people's homes and gardens, got a lot of "hellos" from villagers, and waved "hello" back, wondering what kind of meal they were preparing in their front yards.
We wandered out onto a snow pea field, watching the sun slowly descending over the horizon, women carrying baskets of fresh crops across the field and back home to cook their harvest, birds and butterflies flittering in the midst of a golden hue cast over the fields by the sunset behind...it was hard to imagine anything more picturesque than that.
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| Boatman, guide, wanderer. |
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| Snow pea field |
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| Late afternoon stroll |
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| Dusk at the Irrawaddy |
Last day encounters
On the final day, with E ill in bed, I ventured out alone and rented a bike across the street from the hotel, cycling around the old town for the morning. I was hoping to just poke my head in here and there, take some pictures and talk to some people. And that was exactly what I did.
The first encounter was with a young girl who was also cycling, and said hi to me as we cycled along each other. She took me to her village by the river, and as we entered the village, she sold me some postcards and left, and I was greeted by another man from the village. He showed me around, and invited me to his home for tea with his family.
Moving on, I wandered into another village, and sat with a family of lacquer-ware makers. I chatted to the wife (well, tried to), who kindly offered me a bag of crisps, while the husband worked quietly applying gold paint to a little container thingy that I fancied. I wasn't really sure if the price I paid was considered high or not, heck I don't even remember how much I paid for it, but it was probably worth the experience and the "bother" I caused by randomly crashing into their peaceful Monday morning.
After returning the bike and a spot of lunch, we found our patient horseman Mr. Aung again, who had previously agreed to take us to his village for a look-see. We went to the school, talked to the kids and took pictures with them; got mobbed when we started handing out simple stationery (pencils, erasers, small clipboards etc), and got offered sweets.
We also got to visit the Aung family home, and his very very young son, mini-Aung! It was a very humbling experience - seeing his very humble (and clean) home, knowing how his sole income had to support a family of 5 or 6 (his family of three plus sister and mother), AND having to take care of the horse which he doesn't even own.
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The next generation
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We flew back to Yangon late afternoon/early evening, saw the glimmering reflection of the setting sun on the Irrawaddy from the sky, had our final seafood dinner not too far from the airport, and sat around in the airport for quite a few hours waiting for our 1am flight back to HKG. Even though it was only 3 days ago that we landed in Yangon, we packed quite a lot in, and the heat and traveling zapped all the remaining energy out of us that we didn't even bother making a short visit to Yangon city centre. Perhaps next time.
I'm kinda running out of blog-steam here so I don't really have much insight to add, or a clever way of concluding, other than this: Myanmar is a beautiful country, the Burmese are very kind and hospitable people, good food (I just realised I hadn't talked about food at all here - but I assure you it is good) and it still has a lot for me to explore. I'll be back, hopefully before even more tourists come flooding into this little Asian gem.
