Myanmar part one: Nov 7 to 10
Trip Start
Nov 03, 2011
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2
Trip End
Dec 07, 2011
Bangkok, Krung Thep, Thailand
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
So I spent two nights in Bangkok with no evidence of any flooding in the centre of the city, but awful reports of whole neighbourhoods being inundated in the outskirts, and several districts being evacuated. I usually stay at the Royal River Hotel right on the west bank of the Chao Phraya river, but they had warned me that the hotel was inaccessible by either car or boat, so I stayed in the central Sukhumvit area. The city government is desperately trying to keep the flooding out of the city centre, to the detriment of some of the outer districts into which they are diverting floodwaters. Time will tell if they will be successful ot not, but meantime many businesses have built walls of sandbags, and even concrete walls about 40 - 50 cm high around their entrances, in anticipation of flooding. On the way to the airport, I saw thousands of cars and buses parked in the breakdown lanes of the elevated highways. But fortunately the new Suvarnabhumi airport is surrounded by a concrete floodwall and is operating normally so I could fly as planned on Monday to Yangon (formerly Rangoon), where Zoe met me, looking very elegant in her Myanmar blouse and lunghi. Had dinner with several of Zoe’s friends in the restaurant of her apartment block.
On Tuesday I wandered the streets of central Yangon, all alive and bustling with vendors and rustic kitchens, and numerous large gensets permanently installed on the pavements (sidewalks), a necessity for any large building due to the frequent power cuts. I visited the Sule Paya, a large gold-encrusted, pagoda-like temple in the middle of a roundabout at the heart of the city. Walked by several large, handsome Victorian buildings dating from British colonial times, now sadly neglected and crumbling, streaked with mildew, and with shrubs growing on windowsills and roofs. Dinner with some of Zoe’s teachers in a local restaurant serving tasty Indian food; 2500 Kyat (about US$3.25) each for more than we coud eat.
On Wednesday, Zoe’s driver took me to her school, the Inernational School of Myanmar, which is located in a suburb about 20 minutes’ drive fom the city centre. It’s in a rather poor residential area, sandwiched between some run-down Soviet-looking blocks of flats, and a squatters’ camp which looks like a garbage dump. Every schoolday, around 7.30am and again at 3pm, there is a huge traffic jam around the school as dozens of chauffered cars arrive to deposit or collect their pampered cargo. I wonder what the locals think. The school itself is modern and has great facilities. I met several of the teachers and students, the latter being astonishingly polite and well-behaved - a big contrast to most middle-school students in the US or UK! The teachers seemed well-behaved too. After Zoe had finished work, her driver dropped us at Schwedagon Pagoda, near the centre of the city, a huge golden stupa which is the most important Buddhist site in Myanmar. We arrived just as a procession of costumed worshippers, with musical accompaniment, was making its way around the main stupa, which is surrounded by dozens of smaller stupa, shrines, bells and temples, all ornately decorated, many with gold. Tonight happened to be Tazaungmon, the full moon of November, the only night when people are allowed to sleep at Schwedagon, and the area around the central paya was packed with families with children of all ages, spread out on rattan mats, many eating complete meals which they had brought with them.
We spent about an hour and a half soaking up the festive atmosphere and then walked back to the city centre, stumbling along the uneven, broken pavements (sidewalks), with random mysterious cave-ins, which seem to be a feature of Yangon.
On Thursday, Zoe dragged me onto a 7am flight to Mandalay, the late 19th century capital of Burma, as the country used to be known. We hopped a taxi to the base of Mandalay Hill, from where shared pickups (more on forms of transport in separate entry) take you part way up the hill. Being foreigners, we were ushered to the two cab seats, while about 25 people piled into the back and onto the roof. Our vehicle had clearly seen better days (maybe about 20 years ago) and on a particularly steep section of the hill, the clutch started slipping badly, and we came to an abrupt halt. The driver stuck his head out of the window and shouted something to the passengers in the back; roughly translated it was probably “six of you, get out!”. Which they did, including a couple of monks from the roof, whereupon the pickup crawled up the steep bit, and the six clambered back on board, and we continued until we hit another steep bit and we ground to a halt again. This time, the driver’s instruction must have been “all of you, get out”. Which they did. We started to do so, but the driver indicated that we should stay put, and we rode the last 50 metres or so in privileged isolation.
From the drop-off point, we climbed to the top of the hill where there is a Buddhist temple and a spectacular view south over the city, and east to the Shan hills. We descended on foot, down a series of stairways lined with food stalls and stalls selling religious trinkets. At the bottom, we had a quick lunch at a dirt-floored food stall (to call it a “restaurant” would be an exaggeration) and then haggled with some taxi drivers to get one to take us south of the city First to a couple of monasteries, one of which was built of teak over a hundred years ago and is now rather dilapidated having suffered from a lack of maintenance, where a monk, of similar description as the monastery, proudly showed us some dusty books and relics. The second was large and modern, home to over 2500 monks and a quarter scale replica of Big Ben, which chimed 3pm as we arrived, making us feel like we were in London. Well, not quite.
On to Amarapura, the early 19th century capital of Burma, and site of U Bein’s wooden bridge across Taungthaman Lake, made famous by being chosen to grace the front cover of the current Lonely Planet guidebook to Myanmar. In truth, it was probably quite well known already, as it is over 1km long, has over 1000 teak posts, and was built in 1849, a few years before the LP was published. The deck is about 6m (20ft) above the water level and has no guard rails so would be instantly closed in the US or Europe, but here it bustles with life: locals commuting from one side of the lake to the other, some with bicycles, fisherrnen with freshly caught fish, women with baskets of food balanced on their heads, numerous crimson-robed monks, and, just before sunset when we were there, far too many camera-wielding tourists. We hired a boat so we could see it from the lake and get our own Lonely Planet photo.
That evening we ate at a local BBQ restaurant where you select from a display of skewered meats, fish and veggies; amongst others we had a whole fish and a skewer of “ladyfingers” which we know as okra. All very tasty and washed down with frosty Myanmar beer. I was rather taken by the green polo shirts emblazoned with the name of the restaurant in Myanamar script, and worn by all the waiters, and asked to buy one, but unfortunately they don’t sell them. I offered to buy the one our waiter was wearing, but he didn’t go for it. Maybe he thought his boss wouldn’t approve of him working shirtless for the rest of the evening. Maybe he was right.
More to follow......................
T.
