Myanmar or Burma

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  Yangon, Myanmar
Tuesday, October 25, 2005

Okay so we are going into the worst country in the world as far as civil rights goes.
The contry is led by a military regime and which won't take into account that they allowed free elections a decade ago, and Aung San Suu Kyi is supposed to be the rightful leader of the country. Unfortunately she's been under house arrest for the past ten years. Apparently you are not allowed to call Myanmar, Burma, which is the name that the country was given when it first became an independent country. When we were given the cultural preport, their theme was that we are going into the unknown. They didn't know what the port looked like, or how transportation is going to be, they didn't know the current money situation or anything. Then at the diplomatic briefing we had 6 US ambassadors there telling us the dos and don'ts. Basically it's against the US governement policy to given US money to this country, so that means no ATM's no cashing of traveler's cheques, no paying with a credit card or anything. This country is a cash country, unfortunately I only have about 60 dollars US left. This is going to be interesting.
Alli, Kurt, Kate, Elizabeth and I headed out around 1:30 to make the 2pm shuttle. It's a 20 minute walk in the heat to get to the port entrance, then it's a 10 per person cab ride to the city which is 45 minutes away. So we decided it was easiest to buy a shuttle pass and wait with the crowd for the bus. We waited forever and we didn't make it onto the first bus, but with the help of Kate, and my rock concert crowd skills we pushed our way onto the second bus unfortunately without Kurt, and 45 minutes later we were in Yangon.
It was not what I was expecting but then again, I had no idea what to expect, after all it was the "unknown". The streets were so much cleaner than India, and the trader hotel, which is where the shuttle dropped us off at was nice. With marble floor and huge gorgeous Myanmar lacquered vases. We grabbed some water to rehydrate and then walked out into the Myanmar sunlight where we were immediately bombarded with little kids trying to sell us postcards. No, no, no postcards thank you. We headed to the Scotts market to scope out the good deals and see the Burmese wares that we aren't supposed to buy because US customs won't allow us. We walked by the stores on that opened onto the road as we made our way to Scott's market. In every shop people stared out at us like we were aliens, which to them we were. Americans don't normally come here because the US doesn't approve. On the corners baskets of fried and/or dried locusts were being sold, along with random cooked eggs. Not anything I want to try, if I want to not get sick.
Anyway we had to cross the street which was a little bit scary in order to get to the market. The cars drive on the same side of the road that we do, but they have cars with the drivers side on the right side, which I'm sure causes many accidents. The market was crowded and noisy, but it was fun. Once you got past the bigger shops and into the heart of the building, there were little stalls selling mostly fabric. Our mission was to find a tailor to make us pants. I brought some pants that I had bought in Mauritius so they could see what we wanted. Almost immediately we found a tailor who would sew the pants for two dollars each, so we went out to search for awesome fabric. After an hour, and much bargaining we each got fabric and cotton lining for our pants, although we were so ripped off on the cotton lining. Oh well, hopefully they get a better meal because of it. We had to use an interpretor to talk to the tailor to get our meaning across, especially since each one of us girls were different sizes and Alli wanted capris instead. After a while we got it worked out, and we, or I would pick up the pants on Thursday because I was already going to be there for one of my trips. Excitining, excitining. Im getting pants made.
Well all this shopping made us hungry so we stopped at this really cute restuarnat along the main street that the market is located on. Again we were followed with kids who wanted to sell us postcards, they are relentless. We had really good food, and I had a banana split with banana ice cream, delicious. Afterwards we headed back to the shuttle, and went back to the ship. Where I passes out, I guess I still haven't really recovered from India, after all we only had one day in between. Tomorrow I go on the all day city orientation, which should be interesting.

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