“Huh? Where is that?” was most people’s reaction when I
mentioned that we were planning to travel to Myanmar for the holidays. Most have
not heard of this new official name for Burma. But even if I said Burma
most people were lost, unless they were literary buffs, who invariably asked
“Have you read Amy Tan’s latest novel Saving Fish from Drowning?” The response
to the later question is “Yes, and a lot of our time was slated for Inle Lake,
where her story takes place.” The response to the first question: “Surrounded
by well visited neighbors of China,
India, Laos and Thailand.”
Burma’s
obscurity was one of the biggest attractions for us. We were hoping to find a
country largely untouched by tourist industry-somewhat like China, when we
first visited twenty years ago and many places we showed up we were a novelty,
the only, warmly welcomed white faces. This, to our great delight, proved true,
yet I would be unfair if I didn’t mention the dilemma and one of the reasons
why Burma
is visited by so few. Many feel that by visiting the country one supports its
repressive military regime and we weighted the pros and cons very carefully. In
the end we followed the arguments of those who say that by bringing the outside
world and dollars to local population the isolation they feel is chipped away
and perhaps the repression lessened by potential witnesses from the West. When
we mentioned this to many Burmese that we met, they all wholeheartedly agreed.
We were actually surprised how willing people were to speak to us, though
sometimes in symbolic language. For example when bringing up the future of the
country they might say, “Even Buddha talked about impermanence of all things.”
We were surprised how much information there was allowed; at first we thought
only the hotels had BBC and CNN on TV screens, but then our guides told us that
people could watch those channels in their homes as well. “Truth be told,” they
would comment, “most people would rather watch soap operas and soccer games
than international news.”
While negative fallout of a dictatorial regime is lack of
democratic freedoms, the positive is the lack of crime on the streets. While
difficult to navigate streets at night due to errant electricity supply we felt
absolutely safe. Compared to so many other Asian countries there were no pimps,
prostitutes or moneychangers hanging around the hotels. There were no beggars
or sick and dying on the streets. Yes, people are poor, very poor, but not
destitute, at least in places accessible to us. Everyone is helpful, yet never
pushy or subservient. Everybody and everything is on time; be it a small
airliner or the driver of our van. Steeped in Theravada Buddhist tradition the
Burmese are incredibly honorable and kind people. On numerous occasions we
forgot things in restaurants or left a tip on the table and someone would chase
us down the street to return it to us. In part to support the new entrepreneurs
and in part to make navigating the government bureaucracy a bit easier we
decided, for the first time in our travels, to enlist the assistance of a local
travel agency. In a flurry of email exchanges over the months of preparations
we began a great working relationship and an intimate friendship. After
realizing that the hotel accommodations booked through the agency will cost
less than if we tried to get them directly form the hotel’s web site we put
ourselves in their hands completely. Not only they arranged for our hard to get
air tickets inside Burma,
government permits into Pa-O tribal territory, they also enriched immeasurably our
experience by providing us with knowledgeable and excellent English speaking
guides and drivers. We must have had the best of the best; they were all
college- educated architects, physicist, zoologist and the like. We are
reluctant at first, as we have never used guides before on our trips, but we
were very glad to have them and we were also happy to be able to put some more
money and extra tips into the hands of the local people. It is easy to be
generous when a dollar goes such a long way.
Rangoon=Yangon
Just like the name of the country itself many of the
geographical places have been changed from the old colonial names given by the
British to the new names, sometimes recognizable and sometimes not. The famous Irrawady River
is now Ayeyerwaddy and the capital is now called Yangon
but, whoops, it is officially not the capital anymore as, supposedly on an whim
from a superstitious general, advised by an astrologer, it has been moved to Naypyidaw
in the middle of nowhere. No foreigners, but foreign military guests, have been
allowed to visit the new capital. Little has been left of the old colonial
glory of Rangoon,
but a few dilapidated downtown mansions and refurbished Strand Hotel. We couldn’t
help but stop there for proper English tea and as in many of the places
established for tourists we were the very only ones. After tea we snuck a peak
into the famous Strand bar, where military
officers and perhaps an assistant superintendent in the Indian Imperial Police
of the stature of Gorge Orwell wet their whistles in their time.
Famous writers and Burma
George Orwell was born in India
but spent his childhood in England.
His mother was a daughter of an English tea merchant in Burma and as a young man Orwell
spent five years in his grandfather’s old haunts. Some say that while his
famous book “Burmese Days” was based on his past experiences in the country,
his two other, even better known books, “1984” and “Animal Farm” predict the
bleak future of the country. Another literary Brit is closely tied to Burma. Some of you might remember
Rudyard Kipling’s exotic poem of swaying girls and palm trees, “Mandalay”, from your
school days. Let not the fact that Kipling never visited Mandalay, the home of the last Burmese kings,
and therefore couldn’t know there were no palm trees to be found there, cloud
your memories. He was absolutely right, though, when he sang special praises to
the country. “This is Burma,”
he wrote, “and it will be quite unlike any land you know about.” Though
familiar with many Asian wonders, he was quite taken by Rangoon’s most famous and holiest site, the
Shwedagon Pagoda, which he called “a golden mystery…a beautiful winking wonder
that blazed in the sun.” The 2,500-year-old Pagoda is said to be the world's
richest golden stupa, its golden dome rising 323 feet above its base, covered
in 60 tons of pure gold and a treasure trove of fist- sized diamonds, rubies,
emeralds and the like. We contribute to its golden glory by making a small
donation and then a thin leaf of gold is put into a special miniature gondola
in a shape of a duck, which is pulleyed up to the dome. We have saved the best
for last, making sure we were at the site about an hour before the sunset. The anticipation has been building throughout
the day. As we drove around town to visit interesting sites, here and there we
would catch a glimpse of the golden pagoda, enticing us to abandon our plans.
But we resisted, starting at a smaller Sule Pagoda, said to enshrine a hair of
the Buddha, and we posed for photos in front of the lake and quite gaudy
gigantic replica of a golden Burmese royal barge in the Kandawgyi Park.
We admired the enormous Chauk Htut Gyi Reclining Buddha with eyes made of
glass. The glass workshop that fashioned them is nearby in a large compound
strewn with tons of broken glass of all colors. As for the quality, it is a far
cry from the famous glassblowing workshops in Venice, but the atmosphere is much more
fascinating.
Scott's Market
Our girls bought lacquer bangles and a jade Buddha, admired
rubies and emeralds and happily browsed the thousands of merchant stalls in the
lively Scott Market (named after another literary Brit-explorer Sir
George Scott). The market is now officially called Bogyoke Aung San Market, in
honor of the most revered native son, national leader General Aung San, who was
assassinated in 1947. He was also the father of Aung San Suu Kyi, the Nobel
Peace Prize winner and pro-democracy leader, who has been under house arrest
for more than a decade. We carefully ask if there is a way to even glimpse the
house of The Lady, as she is referred to here, but we are told it is
impossible. Given the oppressive regime we are surprised that some people are
even willing to discuss politics with us. We are somewhat saddened to hear an
opinion that The Lady, given the freedom and chance, might not be politically
savvy enough to unite all the people and bring a workable plan for the future
of the country. Passing the building where her father was assassinated by his
political opponents we start to explain to our girls the complicated history of
the British, the Japanese, the Americans and the Burmese during World War II
and when we turn to our guide for confirmation of our facts, he says, “No, no,
please continue, I love to listen to you, we weren’t quite taught our history
that way in school.”
Shwedagon Pagoda
In the late afternoon as the rays of the setting sun deepen
the gleam of the golden spires we stroll barefoot around and around the marble
courtyard of Shwedagon Pagoda, one with the local crowd; novice monks in orange
robes, nuns in pink, elderly, mothers with young children, whole extended
families, people stopping by before going home from work There’s a little girl
helping her mother pour libations on carvings of animals, an older nun in white
robes meditating in front of one of the numerous golden statues of Buddha, but
the atmosphere is far from heavy with religious fervor. It is light and happy,
full of smiling faces and positive energy. As the sun sets we reluctantly
descend the long staircase and as we emerge from the covered walkway we look
back to see literary thousands upon thousands of birds pouring out of the
pagoda like a river in the sky, meandering swiftly as the birds shift in
unison. The spectacle goes on for 40 minutes every evening with the birds
returning at dawn.
Besides the many different waterfowl on Inle Lake
we unfortunately had not chance to encounter any other wild animals. As lowly
tourists we would never get permits to travel furthest north to Hugawng Valley, where famous American biologist
Alan Rabinowitz discovered new species, a leaf deer, and pushed through the
world's largest tiger reserve. We had an interesting conversation with a local
man who traveled to the area and said he didn’t manage to see any animals, not
even deer, let alone tigers. He was familiar with Rabinowitz’ account Beyond
the Last Village and was saddened by the conditions he found there. He also
claimed that the government won’t allow Rabinowitz to return to the area and
then we said that even if they did he might not be able to as he was
unfortunately battling chronic lymphatic leukemia.
Inle
Lake
Known as the Venice of the
East, and deservedly so, Inle
Lake is just one of those
spots on the globe, where even well-traveled, been- there- done- that visitors’
hearts skip a beat. Surrounded by a soft line of green-brown Shan hills, edged
by islands of reeds, palm trees, white stupas and golden temples the Inle Lake
is home to Intha people, the famous leg- rowing fisherman. It is quite
fascinating to observe them precariously standing on one leg at the stern of
the flat bottom boat with the other leg wrapped around the oar, keeping the
boat steady in place while their hands work diligently with the fishing nets,
wrapped around a tall bamboo contraption. They are, as most of the Burmese
population, dressed in a long wrap around skirt called longyi, often wearing a
conical bamboo hat. Silhouetted against the sun and shimmering water they are
front- page, picture-perfect opportunities, even for amateur photographers with
dinky little digital cameras like us. The Inthas are skillful at other
endeavors as well, like creating floating gardens with bamboo poles, soil and aquatic vegetation, where crops of tasty
tomatoes, vegetables and flowers are grown year round. Or building thousands of
homes on stilts, clustered in about twenty small villages, some specializing in
silk weaving, paper making or silversmithing. These villages are accessible
only by canoes or motorized longboats, such as we were using to explore the
highways and byways on the lake. For the amount of people living on the lake,
around 100.000, there is not much traffic and only an occasional boat with
tourists sitting in a line of comfortable wooden chairs. The rest of the people
we encounter go on their merry ways ferrying the soil to their gardens or the
crop to the market, drums of oil or sacks of rice to their villages or smiling
and waving kids to school. Among the thatched roofed houses on stilts small
children, born and raised on the water, paddle their boats on their own, women
wash dishes or clothes crouching on the bottom stairs and fat black pigs grunt
and squeal in their pig pens.
We stop at different villages to admire the handiworks but
the one that makes the biggest impression on all of us is the Silk Weaving
Village. Every family has
looms in their house and one can hear the rhythmic clacking of the pedals as we
approach. The many storied wooden houses are cavernous with light streaming in
through the windows upon the rows of dark haired maidens bent over the silken
threads. One of them is just hanging up the skeins died bright red to dry in
the sun and another is threading the taunt lines of royal purple silk. In one
corner an ancient grandmother is spinning on a wooden spindle, in another an
old man is removing the shreds of pulp from the lotus stems to weave the famous
lotus cloth. It is a dreamlike visual feast of color and light. We wander among
the looms, admiring the intricate patterns growing under the skillful hands of
weavers, that nod and smile as we approach. It seems as if we have stepped back
centuries into the time when the Chinese silk weaving secrets were first
unveiled. But when we ask through our
translator one of the younger weavers how old she is and she answers twelve,
the shocking realization hits us, and especially our girls, hard. These weavers,
so close to the ages of our teenage daughters, are sentenced to the life of
weaving, chained by the silken threads to the looms, immobile but for their pedal-shifting
feet and hands, one shooting the shuttle across the line, the other pushing it
tight with a comb. “Basically, we are in a sweat shop,” says our oldest.
“Well”, explains our guide, “it’s a lot better than tilling the soil and here
the labor laws are respected- they only work 8 hours a day earning about $50.00
a month.” We are compelled to buy silk scarves and shimmering garments. To us
they seam ridiculously cheap, but we are well aware of the true price.
Markets
Most people head to Inle Lake
to visit the so called 5- day- markets. This system of rotating markets, every
fifth day in a different village, was established centuries ago by the saophas,
feudal lords, of the Shan
State for the sake of the
tribes living in remote hillside villages. While some markets, especially the
Ywama Floating Market have to some extent deteriorated into tourist traps where
there are more souvenir than vegetable sellers, one can still see and take
wonderful pictures of Pa-O villagers in their traditional black pants and
jackets with bright colored headdress and hand woven shoulder bags. Taung Toe
market on the way to Sanghar, the area just recently opened to tourists (with special
permits and escort) is interesting for the wood sellers and the Indein Village
is worth a visit as you can combine browsing at the market with a short hike
through a bamboo forest to the Pagoda where thousands of Shan stupas in
different stages of disrepair sprout everywhere. There you might encounter
heavily laden women returning from the market on a long trek to their home
village or playing among the stupas young children with white thanaka paste
smeared on their faces. Many women, too, use the paste made from a ground bark
of a tree and water as home made sun screen, moisturizer and make up in one.
Our girls get a make up lesson when we ask about the thanaka paste we see in a
paper-making workshop. The ladies jump at a chance for a diversion in their
paper making day and grind it for us, then put it on the girls’ faces with a
small brush. As we experience often they absolutely refuse the offer of a few
thousand kyat (a few dollars).
But the best market we have discovered was just around the
corner from our modest, yet new and sparklingly clean hotel on the edge of the
lake in the small town of Nyaung Shwe.
The best time to see all the action is right when it opens, at dawn, about 6:30 am when the sellers are just
coming in to set up their wares. A long stream of people is coming in from the
hill villages, some with horse-drawn carts laden with vegetables, herbs or
famous Shan tea stuffed into bamboo tubes, others carrying huge bundles of
kindling on their backs. Most of them are women; mothers with babies tied to
their backs with blankets or large scarves, girls crouching close together to
warm up in the cold morning air of the Shan plateau or old women haggling
passionately over ginger roots just to dissolve into friendly laughter. There
is simple breakfast cooked in one area for those who had to get up long before
dawn. Our favorite staple is eechakwe, a donut like flattened dough fried in
hot oil.
Feeding the monks
Every morning we were awoken by the prayers and the tinkling
bells coming from the neighboring monastery. One chilly morning we decide to follow
a line of barefoot, orange clad monks with lacquer alms bowls down the streets
of the little town. Out of the morning mist every now and then a figure of a
woman will appear with a big pot of steaming rice, and quietly, respectfully
serve each monk a ladle-full of their everyday staple. Each of the long lines
takes its own route so as not to overwhelm a particular neighborhood. We, in
our hiking boots and warm jackets feel sorry for the littlest shivering boy
monks, but they grin sheepishly when we stop to take their picture. At one such
serving a woman bending over her pot says in English, “Please do not take my
picture, I am not very tidy today.” Of course we immediately take advantage of
her language skills and start asking her questions. We find out that every boy
(and many girls as well) is expected to go to a monastery for a period of time,
as that brings great honor to the family and religious education to the child. Novices
and monks can only posses a few things such as the alms bowl, their robes and
an umbrella to protect from the sun. A woman is never to touch the monk and a
monk never to touch money. They only eat what they gather in their alms bowls
and nothing at all after 12:00 o’clock
noon. The pink clad nuns go
out later in the morning with their alms bowls and collect uncooked rice.
Tea with near royalty
It turns out that this college educated lady teaches private
English lessons in the afternoons and is nothing less than a granddaughter of
the minister of one of the last Shan princes. She lives in her grandfather’s
two storey wooden house, which has been built at the same time and in the same
style as the palace (now a museum) around the corner. We are soon invited to
tea and viewing of old black and white portraits adorning the walls of the
prayer room. One can see the golden adornments on photographs and can imagine
the lush garden teeming with servants and important visitors, but now the house
is stripped of all ornaments and in disrepair. Nevertheless guests are treated
royally, served with special treats and when we come to say goodbye on our last
day our youngest daughter is given a ruby bracelet as a gift. In exchange we
have only brought some fancy Hilton hotel toiletries and then we feel terrible
when we have to explain what a conditioner is used for and a nail file.
Visit to the Orphanage
We run into a similar problem when we visit an orphanage in
Taunggyi, the capital of Shan state. Through our wonderful Rangoon agent, a Pa-O native from Taunggyi we
have learned about an orphanage with 130 children taken care by two old
spinster sisters, themselves orphaned as children. When traveling with our
girls we always try to show them real life, not just glittering monuments or
fancy beach resorts. We also do not want to shield them from poverty or strife.
Now that they are older we want to see them engaged in community service and
charity work at home and abroad. With the help of friends, coworkers and girls
scout troops we collected 200 pounds of school supplies, vitamins and
toiletries for each child. The members of my daughter’s high school Interact
club helped sort them and stuff them into black plastic zipper bags. They also
helped fundraise over $1000 with car washes, coffee sales and the likes. Since
we arrived to the orphanage on Christmas day and the orphanage happened to be
Christian it was as if Santa himself showed up with all the gifts. If this was
a day filled with excitement and expectations for the little ones it was also a
very emotional day for us. As we stepped into the shabby classroom with wooden
benches filled with all the shiny, scrubbed faces our eyes filled with tears. Even
my husband had to turn around so the kids wouldn’t see his tears and construe
them as pity. The little voices sang Christmas carols and we taught them some
new songs and games to play. At first they were shy, but soon we had plenty of
volunteers to play Duck, Duck, Goose! We asked them what they wanted to be when
they grew up and in unison all the boys shouted out, “Engineers!” and all the
girls, “Doctors!” They were awed when our translator told them my husband was
an engineer and I worked in a hospital. They shared a special lunch of Shan
noodles and sauce with us (on an ordinary day it would have been rice, more
rice and some vegetables) and then we took the director of the orphanage on a
shopping spree of her 75 years long life. We bought 180 bricks, cement and wire
to build a water cistern, 20 blankets for the newest arrivals, cooking pots (as
they cook in old oil drums on an open fire), cooking oil and 70 huge bags-3,5
tons of rice. My husband negotiates a good wholesale discount with the rice
merchant telling him he will have good karma if he helps out the orphans. The
price was even cheaper as the director insisted on buying the rice of II.
quality-this way it will take longer to digest and the kids won’t be hungry so
quickly. Before we left town we were told about another, Buddhist orphanage,
and we stopped there dropping off the excess vitamins and rolls of stickers
that have been such a hit everywhere. Most of the kids have never seen stickers
but as soon as a few in a village got them on their shirts the word spread and
all the kids, many riding on their slightly older sisters’ hips, surrounded us
wanting some as well. As a special treat we are invited for coffee and tea to
our translator’s house, where we meet his parents and his 3 year old nephew,
who is dressed in, of all things, a Superman costume. Our translator calls him
Second Buddha and it is easy to see why, as his grandparents simply adore him.
We give him some markers and other small gifts-but his very favorite is a
Mickey Mouse soap, that he still holds tightly in his chubby little fist when
he waves goodbye to us a few hours later.
Silver
Beach
As a reward we take our girls at the end of our trip to the
beach for a few days of relaxation before the long trip back. It takes us 6
hours for drive the distance that we would easily cover in an hour at home. Our
driver never looses his cool and his smile-even when his clutch starts slipping
after our stop at an umbrella making workshop in Pathein and we have to get out
of the van and push him up the dirt road. When we comment that the road is
terrible, he smiles and says it is “little bad”, but he does admit that in some
of the big craters in the middle of the road “a buffalo could sleep in”. And we
do see buffalos on the side of the road trashing rice or plowing the neon green
rice fields, as well as mama pigs with little piglets and hens with their
chicks. There is an occasional bus or pick up truck overloaded with supplies
and people, but mostly just bicycles or people walking between the villages.
The beautiful Ngwe Saung (Silver) Beach is similarly deserted. There are a few
local kids playing in the waves, a few Burmese tourists modestly bathing in their
longyis and shirts and a Swedish family with three teenagers staying at the
same resort. We quickly become friends, sharing travel stories, playing
volleyball or cards, going to dinner at the local seafood restaurants. There
are fresh fish, lobster, shrimp, clams all at comical prices and even
hamburgers for those tired of Asian fare. One day we all make a trip to the
Elephant Camp and get to feed the baby elephants bananas and take rides through
the forest and the village on the banks of a small river.
Then our friends are off to Bagan, one of the world wonders
with thousands of Buddhist temples on a dusty plain. I would much rather go
with them than back home. This is my one regret about our trip to Burma,
but then again, it just might be the incentive I need to go back.
Pre-trip resources: books: Saving Fish from Drowning, The
Glass Palace,
Movies: Beyond Rangoon
Useful information for travelers: visa
Travel agency: www.fascinating-land-travels.com
Take with you medicine, toiletries and a good supply of
batteries
“Huh? Where is that?” was most people’s reaction when I
mentioned that we were planning to travel to