I was largely without a digital camera in Myanmar. I took a few film pictures, but most of the Myanmar pictures are either copies of ones other people took while I was with them, or ones I took on a digital camera I was lent. And there’s the problem – a lot of them have been copied them onto my flash drive BUT there was a virus on the computer, which found its way onto the flash drive. Result? ALL the pictures, and in fact everything else on the flash drive, has become corrupted. The only way to get rid of the virus is to uncorrupt the contents of the flash drive – which I have tried to have done without success – or reformatting it and losing everything.
My Myanmar pictures are thus a combination of mine and of those I was given copies of by others. These are acknowledged in the usual way by saying so in their titles. The copies from Thierry and Coralie – ‘TC XXX, as do Colin Miell’s ones – ‘CM XXX’. Thierry and Coralie I met in Myanmar, while Colin I know from Ealing Council – he takes people around the world on steam railway trips.
5th February, 2008
I am conscious that some of the detail in here looks rather like the ‘journal’ websites I have been slagging off that get a bit monotonous after a while. Oh well – but here’s a chance for me to give them some of Harry P’s both barrels!
No sleep the night before, thanks to the happy and selfish backpackers in the cheap hotel just off Khao-san Road. All night, constant crashing, banging and loud talking – even singing, guitar playing and mouth organs! At one point, I did drift off momentarily, but was woken abruptly by a loud crash, when some drunken English slipped coming out of the shower and put his foot through the wall – he got charged 200 baht, from what I could overhear. HA!
Circling like vultures, ready to pounce on the freshly killed carcases, the predatory taxi drivers on Khao San Road wanted 600 baht to take me to the airport in time for the 5 a.m. flight to Yangon. I was resigned to this, as the airport express bus didn’t start until 5 a.m. But, in an internet cafe, just as I was planning to leave, I saw a notice for the airport shuttle bus – 150 baht leaving hourly starting 4AM. Walking along Khao San Road at 4AM was weird, seeing all the backpackers still sitting in the bars, whose evenings still hadn’t ended. At times, the mini bus touched 100 mph on the (rather wet and slippery) roads – I hadn’t expected to fly until after reaching the airport. But all this achieved was having to stand in a queue for over half an hour waiting for the Air Asia ticket desk to open. When it did, the Air Asia staff suddenly decided to become self-appointed Myanmar immigration officers – I had overlooked it, but my passport, on 29th of January, had reached the six months points prior to expiry. Yet the Myanmar Embassy had still issued me a visa on 1st of February, so they were obviously not too bothered about the six months rule. But for 15 minutes, I had to argue this point with the idiot Air Asia staff while pointing this out, telling them to stick to their jobs and to let Myanmar Immigration do its own. As if to add insult to injury, not five minutes after buying my ticket I had to repeat the same experience with different Air Asia staff at check in.
Overheard 1 man on the plane saying he was only going to Myanmar for 4 days – other things had come up after he had applied for a visa – but he had been to the trouble of getting one so he was going to damn well use it! Yangon airport was surprisingly nice – at least, the new terminal for international flights. The guidebook I had for Myanmar was a bit out of date, but from the internet it looked like Motherland Inn 2 was currently the best cheap place in Yangon. As luck would have it, somebody from there was waiting in the arrival hall to meet someone off my flight, so no need to worry about a taxi. Second surprise – Myanmar drives on the right! This apparently is because Myanmar drove on the left until 1970, then changed sides because the then ruler, Ne Win, dreamt it was good feng shui that all traffic should keep to the right. For a time, Burma also had 45 Kyat banknotes for the same reason.
I kept falling asleep on the way into town, but in between could be seen the most amazing variety of cars. Mostly old Japanese with the occasional new Japanese or European, but trace elements of lots of other stuff, for example a lovingly restored Series 3 Landrover, well-kept Beetles and even a Mini Clubman Estate – and I don’t mean the BMW version. Virtually every vehicle seemed to be right-hand-drive, whether old cars and buses from pre 1970 or modern cars being Jap imports. There were even old traffic lights in Yangon on the wrong side of the road.
The cheap hotel in Yangon was so much more pleasant than the Bangkok ones and this was to be the case throughout the places I stayed in Myanmar. I was feeling fatigued, so I wanted to get some sleep – luckily it was still only 10 a.m. No joy, however, thanks to noise once again – this time from the banging from the scrap metal yard next door.
Bearing in mind the short timeframe, I checked immediately with the hotel staff about flights out of Yangon. Compared to Khao-san Road or India, their helpful attitude was a breath of fresh air – but I really couldn’t face getting up at 4 AM again to get a flight to Mandalay. They could only offer me this or a 3 PM one, which would have reached Mandalay too late.
Walking into town in search of sights, money changers and travel agents didn’t feel like being in a capital. I’d met a Quebecois couple in BKK a few days before who had just returned from a month in Myanmar and they were right – it IS extremely quiet, as nobody uses their horns. The streetscape and architecture aren’t dissimilar to India, but with far less rubbish, beggars and people working on the pavement – except the display of car parts and springs lovingly laid out at one spot. I do wish I had taken a picture and miss the digital camera.
Also reminding me of Southern India were the lunghis that all the men wear, although the Burmese ones tend to be darker with a crisscross pattern rather than plain white. The women all seem to have a strange mascara-like paint on their cheeks; I was to find out later that this is sunscreen. The snippets I heard of Burmese were so much more pleasant to listen to than Thai. Thai language is a very shrill and tonal one, without so many of the ‘D’ or ‘T’ or ‘P’ sounds in European or Indian subcontinent languages and the predominant sound when people spoke seem to be aah – quite grating to my ears after a while. Burmese seems less tonal and more melodious to my ears. After all this being said about Myanmar and its government, the police and army seem conspicuous by their absence. The one army truck I did see looked like it belonged in a museum.
One shop had a stack of mattresses plus a cat. Being me, I stopped to stroke dear pussy and then heard a miaow next to my ear. A kitten had climbed down from a top of the pile of mattresses to get a slice of the action and purred away delightedly as I stroked it and then put it on the floor next to the cat. Lulled into a full sense of security by me, poor kitty nuzzled up to the cat – who promptly batted it severely about the face with her paws!
The electricity situation in Myanmar is said to be dire, and this was confirmed by all the generators on the street. Rather than the little putt-putting affairs on the streets of India, these were proper heavy duty gensets, with their own concrete plinths or even whole sheds. A few days later, I heard that Myanmar actually sells hydroelectric power to India!
The Quebecois people I’d met in BKK had recommended Kandawgyi Lake. On the way, I saw a sign for Malaysian Airlines so I had a quick word with them regarding a ticket to KL. US$264, they said! (I had been led to believe it should be only about US$100). But they were extremely helpful and explained openly, in great detail, how to book and pay for the ticket via a non-Myanmar website, then give them a copy of the confirmation e-mail for them to print out the ticket. Just a shame that, when I tried this later, the Malaysian Airlines’ website did not seem to give the option to book flights from Yangon – only to Yangon – and that only from Malaysia. Next door, another agent was able to sell me a ticket to Mandalay departing at 11 AM the next day, so that means I will get some sleep tonight. Just before Kandawgyi Lake was a Bethlehem Protestant church, advertising services in Tamil and Telugu?!
Kandawgyi Lake was extremely pretty to walk around, with teak walkways passing between topiary-filled gardens and the water’s edge. Looming in the distance, shimmering in the late afternoon sun, were the peaks of Shwedagon Paya. Wikipedia can do the explaining, but suffice to say I haven’t seen many temples lately and this is the very last place I’d have wanted to see when templed-out.
After Shwedagon, I decided to follow the Lonely Planet and go to the open air grills on 9th Street, in Chinatown. First taste of Myanmar beer – very pleasant taste, no hangover and just 450 kyat for half a litre. Walking home, I discovered the streets of Yangon are unsafe at night! Not because of footpads, robbers or ne’er-do-wells, but because of all the holes in the pavements! Earlier in the day I had seen people busily painting kerbstones red and white, which was apparently part of some government-sponsored regeneration exercise. Wish I had spotted someone painting them next to a big hole in the pavement – now that would have made a good photograph!
First Rangoon (Yangon) pictures
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| Burma – Rangoon 1 |
6th February 2008.
Burmese breakfast of noodles chicken and egg is indistinguishable from the Chinese. Nice how all the hotels in Myanmar – at least those that take foreigners – include breakfast in this way.
Travellers in Myanmar are advised not to take internal flights with the government-owned Myanma Airways. From seeing the awful-looking Fokker Friendshipps at Yangon airport, I could quite understand why. The flight to Mandalay in the Mandalay Airlines ATR-42 was bumpy, which I hate. Passing over lots of brown fields must be murder in the hot summertime with all the thermals. ‘Bubbly’, as Jay would have said – he would probably have flown over it on purpose!
For some inexplicable reason, Mandalay airport is 45 kilometres outside of town. There was the usual battle with the taxi drivers’ cartel, but try as we might it was going to be US$15/18,000 kyats even though it’s only 4,000 kyats to the airport from the town. Luckily, I had found Dimitry, a Ukrainian, to share the taxi with. Dimitry was quite funny, putting his arm around the taxi driver and saying “think of Myanmar-Russian people’s friendship!” Once in town, we explored some sights in a couple of trishaws. These funny little three wheelers are a bicycle and sidecar, but in the sidecar one person sits facing forward and the other sits facing backwards. Shwenandaw Kayung was beautifully carved out of teak – very intricate. Kuthodaw Paya is the world’s largest book, with serried ranks of stupas housing the marble slab pages on lovely red/white color contrasts.
Mandalay Hill was a long climb, but worth the effort. To the west, the sun shimmered over the Ayerawaddy River while come to the South stretched Mandalay, and all was overlooked by the hazy blue outline of the Shan hills to the east. The Hill was also the site of a fierce battle between the British and the Japs in WW2.
The mirrored glass covering the pillars of the temple at the top seems to be a Burmese speciality – but very similar indeed to the Islamic style in mosques in places like Iran and Kashmir. There were photos in the temple of a state visit of General Than Shwe (Burmese Prime Minister/President rolled into one) and other junta members. Even when on a state visit to a religious site and surrounded by security people, they still carried guns….but took their shoes off as a gesture of respect.
I had a pleasant chat in the restaurant that evening with Dimitry, who owns a building supplies company, but had vertically integrated by going into construction – I didn’t know Ukraine was in the middle of a property boom. He also seems to be very into organic and properly cooked food so a lengthy debate ensued with the cook about how he didn’t want the food fried and without MSG. Funny – I never thought people would be like that in places like Ukraine or Russia. Even less so to see how he also prefers cognacs and absinthes to vodka or beer.
Here’s the Mandalay pics
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| Burma – Mandalay |
7th February 2008.
Personally, I would have been quite happy to stay in Mandalay for another day – I am sure there would have been plenty of serendipitous experiences to be had from strolling the streets and talking to people. But, ever conscious of the short timeframe, my first step before starting today’s ancient cities tour was to book a ticket to Bagan for the following day. For US$10 I could take the slow ferry, or for $28 the fast one which took only 8 hours rather than 14. Or for only US$37 I could fly and this is what Dimitry chose to do, but with the memory of Sunderbans still fresh I quite fancied a relaxing boat ride day – a chance to catch up with my diary, read etcetera. And after 3 days of constant sightseeing, a day of not doing so would let me appreciate Bagan better.
We had taken a little blue taxi for the ancient cities trip – a 1950s Mazda pickup with benches in the back underneath a canopy powered (if that’s the right word) by a 600cc V-twin engine. I explained to Dimitry about the camera situation and he very kindly lent me his digital one – I was expecting just to be able to take a few pictures here and there, but he seemed quite happy having me as the Official Photographer. It really brought home just how much I miss having a digital camera….it is as if film cameras have suddenly become more expensive and inconvenient, when in actual fact they have remained static and digital has snuck in over the top. Previously, I used to pride myself on having a ‘shoot first, chuck away and hang the expense’ attitude, but having come back to film I have found myself parsimoniously skimping on pictures. I thought I would be getting a digital camera in Bangkok, so stupidly I only took two rolls of film out of the car before it was shipped – leaving about 18 there. But in Bangkok, the Canon A640 was still nearly £160 and the A650is was well over £200 despite not being as well made, although it did have image stabilisation, a better lens and a bigger screen. So I couldn’t bring myself to get one, but decided to wait until Malaysia. I have found that the quality of my pictures makes a massive jump, if my own experience is anything to go by, when using a digital camera. I have found that I (obviously) take many more pictures, from varying angles and lighting conditions, and am far more experimental in the subjects and composition, secure in the knowledge that if it doesn’t work, it can simply be deleted. The ones that are left are the best and, if nothing else because of the law of averages, at least some of the more edgy, experimental shots do actually work quite well.
At Mahamini Paya, I happily started snapping away, not being afraid to try all sorts of angles and then delete all but the best afterwards – bliss! I like the mirror work, but another uniquely Myanmar Buddhist thing seems to be the birds on sale on the way into temples. Visitors are supposed to buy a little sparrow or something and release it into the air having taken it into the temple. Or, if you pay a bit more, you can have an owl, a parakeet or a mynah bird. I caused some amusement because on my way in one of the bird sellers motioned at me to buy a bird and I shook my head and patted my stomach as if to indicate I wasn’t feeling hungry. Horrified, the woman started gesturing that “no, you’re supposed to release the birds, not eat them!”
Earlier in the day, we had decided to go to Mingun before the other three, closer ancient cities. As the little Mazda puttered and bobbed along the road to Mingun, I could see that Dimitry was beginning to suffer, having developed a bad case of “are we there yet?”
But Mingun Paya – the immense 50-metre high cracked base of a planned 150-metre high Zedi or Stupa was impressive to see and climb. Had the king who was building it not died, it would have been the world’s largest but an earthquake badly cracked the base 19 years after work started. At least a lot of effort was saved.
Pondaw Paya is a 5-meter high model of what Mingun Paya would have looked like. King Bodawpaya had a giantist bent, for he successfully also cast Mingun bell. At 90 tons and 5 meters wide at the bottom, this is the world’s largest uncracked bell. We pretended to speak French, so we did not pay for the US$3 for the ticket – which just goes straight to the junta. On the way back to Sagaing, Dimitry decided to bail out and head back early, although he still paid his share. Considering he was still smoking, I think it was probably car sickess from the ride in the Mazda. With time beginning to run short I didn’t bother seeing Sagaing but went straight on to Inwa. We stopped to this small town nearby to let a Chinese New Year parade pass by – it seemed large relative to the size of the town. We passed back to Inwa across the Ava Bridge, built by the British in 1934 and partly destroyed in 1942 to stop the Japanese.
Riding around the countryside and the town so far, it has struck me how much more refined and less ‘in-your-face’ Myanmar is than Thailand or India. From the gentle rhythms of people cycling, to their graceful and unhurried gait, people seem to carry themselves with more bearing here. The statuesque poses they seem to adopt go perfectly with their long dresses and lungis. Also when people say hello – often in Thailand or India it has a pretext to trying to sell you something but here, apart from obviously tourist places, it is genuine. Even the way they say hello – quite often in India people would shout it in a mocking way and it sometimes seemed as though one young man in a group was trying to impress all his mates. Here so far this hasn’t happened – so much more dignified.
Had to take a horse-drawn cart around Inwa – the set price was 4,000 kyat for two people, but I walked off until they came down to three which I think was a fair compromise. Maha Aungwye Bonzam wasn’t really very distinguished from all the other temples, but then the leaning tower of Inwa – Nanmyin – was fine to climb. Interesting how the replacement top was built on the level, so it is a kinked building in effect. Kashmir was the first word that popped into my mind when I saw Bagaya Kyaung. The tower was a little like the Kashmiri minaret style ie made from teak and not brick.
Shortly before sunset, we reached the famed U-bein Bridge at Amarapura – the longest teak span in the world. In reality it’s more of an elevated walkway than a bridge but a stunning place to watch sunset.
Returning across the bridge, I was again reminded of Dal Lake in Srinagar – this time, by the very shikara – like boats plying across the water. Fell into conversation with Mr. Aurbasa, a monk who wanted to practice his English. He had obviously been doing so quite a lot, for he didn’t need very much help! He was curiously hazy on the events of September 2007 but there was another monk with him, so maybe I should have obeyed the book and let the Burmese broach politics if they wanted to.
I remarked to him that I was surprised to see so little Indian influence or goods in Myanmar – even the pharmaceuticals here are Myanmar or Chinese, when Dr Reddy or Cipla are ubiquitous names in chemists anywhere else in the developing world. Mr. Aurbasa told me that Myanmar sells natural gas and hydro-electricity to India and India gives Myanmar aid to help combat the rebels along the Myanmar/Indian border but that is as far as it goes – even through India and China are competing over Myanmar.
Dimitry told me over dinner that he had been at university doing Economics at the time of the collapse of the Soviet Union, telling tales of lectures being given even though they were out of date.
The Ancient Cities were so, so photogenic, but these were the sites I photographed with Dmitry’s camera and which ended up on the memory stick that got corrupted. So the few of these that I do have are all Colin’s.
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| Burma – Ancient Cities around Mandalay |
8th of February 2008.
Boat from Mandalay to Bagan. Overpriced, with no food included in the ticket. Also rubbish scenery – Sunderbans Tiger Reserve near Calcutta is far better. The Ayerawaddy river basin is prone to flooding and so the villages are set a long way back from the banks. But – the day away from temples I wanted.
Some people have a big aversion to going to Myanmar at all as the regime is an illegitimate one and, of those that do, most advise to minimise giving any money to the government. Some times this is easy to do (like avoiding Myanma Airways) but others (like paying departure tax) it’s unavoidable. But I did my little bit of defiance and bypassed the government ticket office, so avoided paying any US dollars for the pass to go around Bagan. Nobody challenged me.
I also don’t quite understand the inconsistencies in the foreign policy applied by the UK and USA towards Myanmar vs other countries. Should we therefore have stopped recognising the government of Pakistan as legitimate after Musharraf toppled Sharif in 1999? And how can the regime in China be classed as legitimate when it suppresses dissent and refuses to hold elections?
Bagan has some lovely open-air restaurants in even lovelier settings, with seating areas overlooked by small, adjacent temples. I overheard an English woman talking to two other people about the Kalaw-Inle trek which she had obviously just done, and which I wanted to do, so when she finished I asked her to tell me all about it. Incredible coincidence that Breda lives 100 metres – or less – away from me in Ealing….she lives on Loveday Road and I live on Glenfield Road!
9th of February 2008.
Cycled around Bagan – a sort of Burmese version of what you’d get if you crammed all the 4000 cathedrals in Europe onto Manhattan Island. Well templed out! Ran into the Canadian couple again and had dinner at the same place as last night – their recommendation was correct. They also regaled me with an account of the train ride they’d taken – not sure from where to where, but the tracks were so bad the train was rocking so badly it felt like it was about to derail – which isn’t uncommon apparently.
10th of February 2008
The internet in Myanmar is RUBBISH, as I discovered when booking flights to Kuala Lumpur with Air Asia. If you go via the official government telecoms provider, everything is blocked, but (at least in Bagan, Mandalay or Yangon) they know how to bypass the firewall – usually. Spent the afternoon exploring a different part of Bagan. That night, I was impressed by the travel agent in booking the ticket to Heho and the trekking for next day – very efficient and helpful. But I wish they wouldn’t run when doing stuff for you, as it looks a bit servile.
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| Burma – Bagan |
11th of February 2008
Flew to Heho, then shared a taxi with 3 French people to Kalaw. They were engineers in a Peugeot factory in China (Hunan province), in Myanmar on holiday. They had a permit to drive a car in China and had bought a Volkswagen Santana, which they were going to drive back to France at the end of their placement. They remarked just as I had done about how Myanmar did not feel like a dictatorship. well,its true. There aren’t any portraits anywhere, or much of a police presence. Met the guide (Wen) in Kalaw and off we went immediately. The trek was okay – had been told they could not transfer baggage if only it was a two–day trek so I had to carry my rucksack – good exercise. The landscape reminded me perhaps of somewhere in the south of the UK, with gently rolling hills into the distance but with one important difference – stepped paddy fields! Luckily the inclines were pretty gentle by and large. Reached the monastery, where we were due to spend the night, after 5 hours. The pumpkin soup was excellent!
Pics of the trek from Kalaw to Inle Lake
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| Burma – trek to Inle Lake |
12th of February 2008.
Early morning start. The monks had a very funny waking up method – they gently hammer on a bowl with the palm of the hand once every few minutes for about half an hour before 5:00 am, rather like my method of snoozing. I don’t care what anyone says – it is better to come to gradually rather than to wake up suddenly! We had to backtrack for half an hour to a village we had passed through the day before because I had left behind some paintings I’d bought. The chef took me – very fast walker! The pictures were there but the stupid people had unwrapped them – why?? Unless they thought I wasn’t coming back and were going to sell them, of course.
Back at the monastery, lovely breakfast. The scenery was not as good as yesterday but the earth was much darker – it was red/brown because of the iron ore, rather like Australia. I chatted to Wen about Myanmar politics. He thought the planned 2010 election was ‘same whisky, new bottle.’ 25% of the seats in the parliament are guaranteed by the constitution to go to the army. The rest of the opposition (2 to 300 parties) is far too divided to present a united front. Ayung San Suu–Kyi was just a focal point of opposition against the government. Principled, but too black-and-white in her views. Disagrees with the government over everything but no credible alternative.
The establishment of Napyidaw, the new capital, is because the military is nervous about demonstrations – Napyidaw is easier to control than Yangon in terms of street layout. But Myanmar kings have always moved capitals, often on the advice of astrologists.
Renaming of the country from Burma to Myanmar is not the same issue for the people of Burma as it is for the west as they have always called it Myanmar internally anyway (just like with Yangon) – Burma is a colonial name. Calling Burma Myanmar in this context is like Germany renaming itself Deutschland.
Political prisoners are always held under nonpolitical charges. There is no death penalty officially, but people sometimes die ‘accidentally’ in custody, covered up afterwards with a doctor’s report. Also criminals that they want to see killed are given the chance to escape and are then shot while escaping.
The only NGO left in Myanmar is the International Committee of the Red Cross. It is very diplomatic and doesn’t confront the government. When people get killed in demonstrations, the Burmese take the middle figure between the official death toll and the BBC figure as the one to believe.
Kalaw contains a military officer college, so it is a good place to make friends with the military for business connections later in their careers.
Entertaining high-speed boat ride to Nyaungshwe. There seem to be a cartel in the operation of the boats – the boat from the Jetty to Nyaungshwe is 15,000 kyats for 1 hour ride – but for a whole day from Nyaungshwe around the lake it’s 13,000 kyats. Spent the afternoon trying unsuccessful to get AOL….evidently not all the internet people know how to bypass the government firewalls!
Imagine my surprise when, the first night in Inle Lake, I was heading for some food and saw a Landrover with FRENCH NUMBER PLATES! This may not mean much to anyone who isn’t travelling with their own vehicle, but NOBODY but NOBODY is allowed to get a foreign-registered car into Myanmar. By doing so, Thierry became the godfather of the overland fraternity. After all, this was why I’d shipped the car from Calcutta in the first place, and why every other overlander does the same en route to SE Asia. Suffice to say I got talking to them because of the car ie my first approach – “excuse me – how the hell did you get this car into Myanmar?”
I will not forget my conversations with Therry and Coralie that night and over the next few days for a very long time. To write down to all that was said, to reduce it to text, would somehow cheapen it. Thierry was 58 and Coralie was 25. But after 5 minutes in their company, all thoughts of age difference had left my mind. Coralie summed it up by saying “I was worried about traveling to Moslem countries, but I knew that if I was with Thierry, nothing will happen.”
Everyone was very taken with the car while we were eating that night, especially the hotel owner. He was very helpful and full of information for example how to get diesel from black market places. In Myanmar, there is a big issue with the rationing of fuel; government fuel is rationed, and can only be bought, with ration books, in the same division (district) as the one the vehicle is registered in. This means that a lot of people are forced to buy black market fuel and, with various adulterations, it sometimes wrecks engines. Outside every MPPE filling station in Myanmar can be seen these black market people – Burmese roulette.
13th of February 2008
Boat ride around the lake. Lovely indeterminate line between the lake and the sky in the morning. Various factories, monasteries (leaping cats) etc. Rather touristy – witness the man photographing the long-necked women….although apparently it’s not the neck that lengthens but the shoulders that are compressed down from an early age. Spent the evening looking at the day’s pictures on T and C’s laptop – god, what a difference in picture quality from a DSLR!
Inle Lake Pics
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| Burma – Inle Lake |
14th of February 2008
Originally, I’d planned to get a bus to Taungoo, spend a day there and then go to Bago, then a day there and then on to Yangon BUT, having met T and C, ended up riding with them to Taungoo.
First stop to get diesel at Kalaw Ministry of Petrol and Petroleum Exports (MPPE) station. T and C getting a permit to cross Myanmar with a foreign-registered car was a new phenomenon – obviously such a new one that no one in the Ministry-of-whatever-it-was had considered the issue of fuel for said car, just as with the Iran petrol rationing thing. So although Thierry argued that the permit conferred by implication an automatic entitlement to get fuel at MPPE stations – and I don’t blame him – it did not actually say this. We were to find later that every single visit to a filling station involved the threat of causing a diplomatic incident in order to get served! True to form, the Kalaw MPPE station refused to supply diesel to T and C without a ration book – five minutes of debate and threats to complain to the army ensued and they reluctantly agreed to sell five gallons. Incredible day of discussions with Thierry regarding me, basically – like a sort of extended counseling session. Thierry has done many jobs in his time, but now does psychoanalysis and website design.
I was going to say goodbye to T and C in Taungoo and spend the next day there before heading on towards Bago and Yangon. I tell myself that I changed my plans partly because it turned out there wasn’t much to do in Taungoo but, in truth, Taungoo could have been the most interesting place to see in Myanmar and I would still have ridden with T and C to Bago. I wanted to get to draw together all that we discussed the previous day.
Shame in a very small way – Taungoo has one of the best guest houses in Myanmar – the Myanmar Beauty. Cheap, clean, lovely staff and incredible food – all grown in their own garden! The fruit would have Amanda swinging from the chandeliers. Not surprised to meet an Englishman who had been staying there for 20 days! Discussion with Therry about the route home – he wanted to ship from Mumbai to bypass Pakistan. I tried to talk him out of this, but he well and truly put me in my place. Apparently he’d spent six months there in the 1970s and one day he was fixing his car in the street when a demonstration broke out around him – he witnessed a massacre from under the car!
15th of February 2008
Stupendous breakfast and had a further chat with T and C and the doctors who ran the guest house. The doctors wanted to see more tourism for financial reasons; Thierry wanted Myanmar to retain its character and not go the way of Thailand, although he believes it is slowly changing. This is also why he hasn’t explained how he got his permit to get the car through Myanmar – I’m not sure I totally agree, for Myanmar does not attract anything like the same type of numbers of tourists as Thailand or Cambodia in the first place and, of those, the numbers overlanding must be miniscule. But – I respect his reasons for his refusal to contribute to – as he sees it – opening the floodgates. I suspect Thierry had managed to get the permit inductively ie by chatting to the officials and steering them into a place where they ended up offering it, rather than by directly asking for it.
On the way south to Bago, Coralie was very taken by the New Light of Myanmar newspaper when I showed it to her! Then she started to chat. She had been suspiciously quiet the day before, when I had been talking about Aspergers and the issues with non-verbal communication. It transpired she’d been listening intently; she was planning to do a Ph. D. in non-verbal communication, although not specifically with an autistic spectrum bent.
Unbelievable what happened next. Having omitted to fill up in Taungoo, Thierry found himself running on empty when he reached Nyaunglebin. At the MPPE station, it took 1 1/4hrs to get fuel! This was an entertaining and multi-stage process:-
1) They refused
2) Thierry waved the permit at them – still no.
3) Manager came – repeated step one.
4) Thierry repeated second step
5) Manager called an official and Thierry spoke to them on the phone. Thierry was told he could have diesel, but for the foreigner price of US$3.5 per gallon. Given all I had talked about with Thierry, I was a bit surprised he insisted like he did but hey – no one likes being ripped off. But then, this foreigner pricing was rubbish – no foreigner has driven a car through Myanmar, so how could there be an official foreigner price for diesel like there was with hotels or trains etc. Thierry pointed he had been given diesel at the official rate at MPPE place in Kalaw the previous day. The official promise to speak to Kalaw and call back. He didn’t.
6) Twenty minutes later, Thierry got the manager to call the official back – no answer.
7) Thierry attempted to pay with a US$50 dollar bill, but the MPPE had no U.S. dollars change (what a surprise!)
8 ) After a number of ultimata, Thierry went to the police.
9) Police were very keen to help and came with Thierry back to the MPPE station. Protracted discussion ensued – then the police told Thierry that the station couldn’t sell any diesel and he would have to buy it on the black market.
10) Thierry did not want to pay 5,000 kyat for inferior quality diesel, when good government diesel was 3,000 kyat.
11) Further discussion led to a compromise whereby they gave Thierry 5 gallons of government diesel for 5,000 kyat a gallon, while the government people went to the black market people outside to buy 5 gallons of black market diesel to pour into their tank to replace what they had given Thierry!
Minor diplomatic incident averted, on we went towards Bago. Was sorry to say au revoir to T and C, but we left it that we’d meet in Yangon. They were upset about the diesel issue, and wanted to get to Yangon early for meeting the French Embassy to sort out the extension to their Myanmar import clearance.
Didn’t do much for the rest of the day. Could have done, but was at a very unusual place after my chat with Thierry. Incredibly relaxed, as if some weight had been lifted from me – rather like I imagined I would have felt if I had got to scatter Jay’s ashes. Serene and chilled, like I felt after coming back to the UK after India in 2000/2001. It was also incongruous to see how many Indians are here. I had my rucksack repaired by ethnic Indians who were 3rd or 4th generation Myanmar but hailed originally from Hyderabad – they had never been there but still spoke Telugu.
16th of February 2008
Early start, then tried to use internet – the power cut out just as I signed in! After that, went around all the sites on the back of a motorbike – driver very safe thank God, with no crash helmets. It was quite funny to see how people in Burma people structure their lives around the timing of the electricity, which I guess you can do if you know the times it is and isn’t on. The motorbike man had said to me “Don’t bother seeing anything in the evening. I’ll take you around the sights early in the morning – in the afternoon it gets hot but then the power is on so you can have television and air conditioning in your hotel room. But make sure you go to the internet café before 10:00 PM because then the power goes off”.
I did as directed – I was quite happy not to do much after getting templed out in the morning and the effects of Thierry and Coralie hadn’t quite worn off. That evening, I was in a bar/restaurant when I saw a LC 80 series arrive outside – a new Landcruiser, BTW, attracts an import duty of $200,000 in Myanmar! I sniffed out the owner and had a chat. He was there with his family and clearly very well-off – he owned 6 Landcruisers and had traveled extensively outside Myanmar. He was a medical doctor but worked in forestry (!) His daughter was at Melbourne University and then about to do a masters degree at Melbourne, Harvard or somewhere in the UK. In fact, probably someone who had contacts with the military government. For my own part, I simply got talking about cars to a fellow Landcruiser owner, but the next thing I know I was ushered to their banquet table and fed royally. Not only did they pay for all the food I had ordered just before meeting them but they even paid for all the beer I had ages before they had arrived despite my protestations, which was kind. Interestingly, he said he filters all his diesel, even when bought from government filling stations. Perhaps this overlanding through Myanmar thing isn’t completely unheard of, for he remarked that 6 years before he had seen a convoy of 10 Scandinavians going through Myanmar from India to China, then the same thing 3 years ago with German people.
Pics of Inle back to Rangoon, via Bago
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| Burma – Inle to Bago |
17th of February 2008
Bago to Yangon by bus. Had the nearest thing to a fight I’d had in Myanmar when some idiot standing over me dribbled on me as he was chewing his betel or whatever it was, leaving a red wet patch on my shirt, and I had the temerity to indicate I found this disgusting. Pig.
Hooked up again with T and C in the same guesthouse I had stayed in on the first night. I hadn’t recommended place to them because of parking, but they saw it by accident in any case. Had a lovely session playing with their camera so I got some good people and car pictures……I do love that fisheye lens. Even they were impressed with the motion shot I took of the passing trishaw and asked how I did it, so I didn’t feel too much of a fool.
On balance, I’d say the hotels in Myanmar are better than those in India or Thailand. Nicer rooms, always a towel/soap and breakfast included in the price. Shame about the U.S. dollar price though.
Second set of Rangoon pics, before leaving Burma
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| Burma – Yangon/Rangoon 2 |
And lastly, out of gratitude to Colin, here’s some pics of his of places I DIDN’T go in Burma, but which are so good they deserve to be publicised
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| Burma – CM Misc |
