2013_03_05 Yangon, Myanmar aka Rangoon, Burma

Subject: Yangon, Myanmar aka Rangoon, Burma

Out of my mind with worry from the stories; high cost low quality accommodations, one bank machine in the whole country, only perfect US currency accepted, two weeks will cost you $7OO! Since losing my Visa card in Zagreb, I had had to raid my cash reserve and had only about 2OO dollars in presentable bills. And my Visa card again stopped working in Thailand!

Couchsurfing was impossible, it is illegal to host a foreigner. They must even get permission to host a relative! That is what I heard.

The aspiring hostel owner Alex I met in Bangkok had emailed that he would reserve a bed for me in Yangon, formerly Rangoon, at the Okinawa Guest House near Sule pagoda. There were four 9 dollar dorm mattresses on the floor with wooden lockers and mosquito netting.

On the plane from Bangkok, the only way to enter Myanmar, I sat with a young traveler with no place to stay. We changed our watches, as Myanmar time is half an hour different from Bangkok time. On my last night in Burma, he was on the mattress next to mine in the Okinawa Guest House! Very small world. Everyone remembers the bald headed American lady. It takes her a moment to figure out why she should know that person.

I met a Finnish couple before the flight and again afterwards and we agreed to share a taxi into town. The line in the airport to change money collapsed when they ran out of kyat, pronounced chat. 855 kyat to the dollar. We bargained the taxi down from twelve dollars to ten. Two weeks later I would take public buses back to that airport for 3O cents! I didn't have a five dollar bill for my share of the fare. The taxi left us on the one way street before the Okinawa Guest House, a block from Sule pagoda. It was fully booked."You know where to find me," I said, but I never saw them again. Worse case scenario they could stay in a monastery.

The friendly driver, 35, with limited English, told us the woman in the back seat was his sweetheart, 42. He drove on the right side of the road, yet the steering wheel was also on the right! I sat to his left. Traffic was heavy, mainly taxis. I saw a colorful Obama tshirt for sale and later bought one. There were others of Obama and Aung Sung Syi  together from his visit to Myanmar for 6 hours last year.

I noticed many women on the streets seemed to have bandages on their cheeks. I later learned that was thanaka powder, or sandalwood, mixed into a paste and applied to the face for sun protection, smoothness and beauty. Some men and children also sport it. Twice it was applied to my face.

I also noticed many shaven headed monks in maroon robes off one shoulder. There were nuns too, also shaven, but with pink robes and sleeves.

Small dark boys who cleaned the place led me up two flights to the dim dormitory and gave me a padlock and keys and a towel, rare for Asia. There was a small air conditioner humming feebly and one dim light bulb. When my friend appeared while I was unpacking, I asked him to draw me a map of the area in the back of my 1973 Burma guide book, of the internet cafes, sights, possible bank machines, big hotels with wifi in their lobbies. The Yangon river was just a few blocks away.  He wrote arabic numerals and the Burmese equivalents so I could recognize the bus numbers. 43, my principal bus, has two characters which together look like a tied bow. I gave him a ten dollar bill and received a thousand kyat bill as change. I had money!

Everyone said not to change money on the street. I met a French woman, Anya, of my generation, divorced and living in Polynesia - she had a double bed next to the dorm by the steps going down to the bathroom. She planned to go to the gem museum the next day, would I like to go?

She went off to buy a beer, I went in search of an ATM. The streets were dark and crowded, full of people selling food. I soon turned back to the safety of the guest house. Korean and Chinese students were in the other beds. Cries of street hawkers woke me in the morning.

Getting up meant gathering the hanging mosquito netting up to  the ceiling. Anya was bitten until she lowered her netting. When I went downstairs, the short, smooth faced receptionist asked me if I wanted breakfast. It was included! A cup of hot water, a packet of sweetened instant coffee, a cup of green tea, a concoction of noodles with shards of vegetables, peanuts, a tiny slice of lime and a spicey red sauce on the side. Also a dish of watermelon slices or two small bananas. Everyone ate outside overlooking the street.

A boy walked down the street striking a gong and neighborhood ladies began to assemble with pots of rice.  A line of monks appeared and received ladles of rice in the pots they carried. Anya hadnt known about breakfast either. She dined with the Korean and Chinese boys and I took their picture.

She had bought a bus ticket for Bagan for the next morning and couldn't find it. Her taxi driver of the day before appeared hopefully. She asked him to come back at 5.3O in the morning for the hour ride to the bus station. We headed towards Sule pagoda when an Indian greeted us up the street and invited us for a cup of tea. It was that delicious spiced milk tea I remember from India. We sat on tiny plastic stools in the street. After the little cup of delicious tea, there was a pot of Chinese tea. He assured me there was masala dosa, the curried potato stuffed rice pancake, available nearby. He would invite me for tea another time, and I couldn't pay. I finally got his card and email, he was a 7th Day Adventist!

The agency where Anya bought her ticket wasnt open yet. We walked in the hot sun, me with my pointed palm rice paddy hat, and caught an ancient bus with the numbers looking like a bow. The fare was around 12 cents, the floor made of wood, the windows open and the betel chewing conductor with red stained teeth hawked at the door calling out a litany of destinations at every stop. Anya had her French Lonely planet and the address of the gem museum. She would lend me the 5 dollar admission. It was near a temple and since we were there, we went in.

Anya had stayed at an ashram in India. We doffed our shoes at the entrance and passed a gauntlet of stalls selling flowers, incense, statues and religious items. We entered a small museum with a large mural of a devotional country scene, in the foreground statues emerged from the flat, making it a rather cheesy form of 3d. Little alcoves of Buddhas lined the walls. In the middle of the round pagoda was an inner sanctum, a special shrine where people brought offerings of flowers sold nearby.  We joined the people seated on the carpet, bowing, as a guard stacked the offerings near the image. There was a small fee for photographs and Anya had me take one of her.

The Gem Museum was nearby, just past Yangon University. We went through metal detectors, then took an elevator to the top floor, the other floors were full of gem shops. We peered at glass display cases of every kind of gem but emeralds and a large map of the world with gem distribution. Myanmar is very rich in gems. We saw rough and polished peridot, lapis lazuli, citrine, ruby, commercial and utility jade from green to white, not only as jewelry, but statues and tea sets. Metals too from iron to steel, silver to asbestos to aluminum. Some gems just had a chemical formula.

I went to the ladies room and saw a very large rat dart by, though the building seemed very clean. Downstairs were bracelets starting at a dollar, and I especially liked a chart with examples of all the gems found in the richest part of Myanmar. Anya did some shopping, I vowed to return. I thought I would email my jewelry making friend if she wanted some gems. Apparently you could double your money back home.

We went to a shopping center across the street. Anya needed a memory card for her camera. She couldnt find it in her bag! We had taken pictures at the temple, she was horrified to think of lost images of her grandchildren.  Back we went to the gem museum where we had checked our bags. To our vast relief, it was in the cabinet. Leaving, we showed some British women Anya's purchases and they turned around to shop some more. Back to the shopping center we went for the memory card, much cheaper than in polynesia, then a pleasant rice lunch for a few dollars.

It was a long trudge until we found a bus stop back to the Sule pagoda area. Anya knew the way back to the Okinawa. The ticket agency had opened and closed in our absence, but Anya noted a number, and then found her ticket. Sitting outside the guest house we saw a vendor passing by with strawberries hanging from a pole across his back and bought some for 45 cents. We told the Korean and Chinese about our adventure. They planned to skip the museum and just visit the shops.

Anya had been to Yangon's major attraction, the Schwedagon pagoda, and wanted to return there to watch the sunset, but the receptionist said it would be dark by the time we got the bus there. My Visa card once more wasn't working, but through Skype, I could call my bank in the States for ten cents a minute and get them to release my money. To my relief, I found a working bank machine so I was able to repay Anya. She went to bed early and I found an Internet place in one of the many shops circling the base of nearby Sule pagoda to catch on up Internet at less than a dollar an hour. There was a storefront temple next to the Guest House and women started chanting that evening into a loudspeaker for over an hour. I had read about this, as well as the wet bathrooms and having to pass through people's rooms to get to them, on hostel reviews online. There was nothing to do but go find a meal of greasy masala dosa where I enjoyed Myanmar television in the restaurant. The modern romance seemed to have little to do with the street life I saw around me. The waiter kindly refilled my water bottle, I hate buying plastic water bottles!

I happened to be up at five and woke Anya for her taxi and bus. I took her email and hoped for a report of her visit to Bagan but have yet to hear from her. I started noticing a lot of German tourists and my next travel companion was a Frankfurter, Christian, with a shaved head like mine, and a beer and a cigarette usually nearby. He had been to Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam, and was on vacation from a pharmaceutical supplier but recovering from a cold.

I took a bus after breakfast to the national museum but it was closed two days a week. I headed back by foot and met a British woman on a tour cooling off and catching her breath, sitting in the shade. She had been to Scott's market so there I headed. Several floors of fabrics, paintings, lacquerware, wood sculpture, jewelry, everything you could imagine. It was too much. I saw tshirts of Aung Sung Shi I wanted but I needed a sugar cane juice drink! I found Chinatown and walked its length, stalls of food and vegetables spilling into the streets. I found a yogurt stand with a very fat man collecting all the bills from the boys who waited on the customers. I treated myself to a strawberry yogurt shake, costing over a dollar!

I still had more shots to get for the Bangkok street dog bites. The receptionist pointed out an SOS clinic for foreigners near the Inye Lake resort. I headed off on the bus and an obliging young man escorted me halfway there. I saw a native doctor who had studied in Chiang Mai and could read my paperwork. He took my pulse, listened to my heart, then a nurse administered the injection. I filled my water bottle and then got the bill, 57 dollars! 2O for the doctor, 16 for the nurse, the rest for the drug. The staff told me there was a bank machine nearby that gave dollars, but they were mistaken. I parted with three twenties, they had taken my passport! I didn't want to repeat the trip. I hope my travelers insurance will reimburse me. It was much cheaper in Thailand. But I shouldn't complain. Some seniors pay hundreds monthly in supplemental insurance.

My favorite beverage in India was sugar cane juice, the long stalks freshly ground with a slice of lime. Bells are attached to the wheel so you can hear the ringing promise of refreshment. It became a daily habit. I saw from the map we were just blocks from the river so I headed there to find a ferry to the other side and numerous food stalls and stopped for sugar cane juice. Twice I made my order before noticing a diesel generator to crush the stalk. I much prefer to watch them crush the cane, fold it and crush it, fold it and crush it, and gather the juice through a cloth.  A little ice, a little lime, heaven! A few blocks later I found a sidewalk restaurant serving Indian food. I sat on a childsized plastic chair and watched a child scrub and rinse torn and battered plastic stools. Myanmar is dry and dusty. Rain is not expected for months but the weather, already in the '90's, promises to get hotter.

I had finished the Vonnegut book and found Water for Elephants in the lobby and read it in a day. I asked the receptionist for another light bulb, it was too dark to read in the room. He was not receptive. There was plenty of light outside at night. The man across the street washed his new white car lovingly nearly every night. Taxis went by continuously and parked laboriously. Tourists were continually arriving and departing. Then the Buddhist women started their chanting on the loudspeaker. I repaired to an Internet shop. A friendly monk who stopped by during breakfast was there going online to my surprise.

It was time to visit the famed Schwedagon pagoda. I took the bus and had a time finding an entrance to the park. I was charged 5 dollars and found myself in a dusty amusement park. One ride featured motorcycles, which I hardly saw in Yangon, unlike the rest of South East Asia. I thought perhaps they were outlawed by the military so terrorists could not strike and escape easily. Then I heard that the son of a prominent military man was killed on one so they were forbidden in the city. There were plenty later on in Bagan.

I could see the gold pagoda from a distance, but how to get there? I followed a dusty path but a young man redirected me to a park where couples posed before a sculpture spelling out Love and finally the entrance. Huge white demon dogs guarded it.  A woman chased me for another 5 dollar fee and then, barefoot as required, I proceeded down a long hall and up several escalators to the real beginning of the temple. Huge Buddhas were stuffed together. Throngs of people milled about, sat and bowed in various rooms before Buddhas. Huge hanging bells with thick clubs nearby invited you to ring them, and I did. 

Visiting the pagoda meant circling it and enjoying the varied statues, large and small, of Buddha. Some had LEd lights radiating colorfully behind his head, a Vegas effect I found cheesy. One man was setting up a slide show and historical lecture. There were many tourists taking pictures. Two genial monks in one room encouraged me to take any photos I wanted, and chatted amiably where before I had been afraid of making eye contact. I had finally explored all of the immense compound as it grew dark, but the temple was brilliantly lit. Some children presented me with a packet of Ovaltine.

Finally back on the street, I asked a passing couple where the bus station was. The man, in immaculate white shirt and lungi, material hanging from his waist to the ground like most men, said "My English little skill”, but turned around and walked me some distance to the bus stop. Then they boarded the bus with me, paid my fare, and walked me another eight blocks back to the Okinawa guest house. The kindness of strangers! I asked him if he had email, he said he was too poor to have a computer.

I returned to the national museum the next day, where two oversized statues of Burmese kings flanked the immense building. The first exhibit was on the development of the present curly alphabet. A huge room held royal palanquins, beds, furniture, accessories, costumes, and next door was a red lined throne room holding the last surviving lion throne of the original eight. It was impressive though I couldnt tell the front from the back. Several other floors had extensive displays of mannequins in different costumes from the different tribes or races of Burmese, musical instruments, paintings, crafts, but without any music or video it was all a bit lifeless. I hope they improve it!

I bought a bus ticket to Bagan after calling and reserving a bed at the Eden Motel, which an Australian girl in the dorm had recommended. Christian was also going so we boarded an afternoon bus 43 for the long ride to the bus station and our all night ride to the north, warm clothes and hats handy in case of excessive air conditioning. I started reading Mackinlay kantors book, Spirit Lake.