The Road to Mandalay Part 2

:: Locals at Indein Market ::

A long (19 Hours) overnight bus journey covering 660 Km brought us to Lake Inle, a freshwater lake in the mountains of Myanmar's Shan state. The lake shores are home to 70,000 people who live in wood and woven bamboo huts on stilts and live simple lives as farmers and fishermen. The dominant ethnic group in this area is the Intha people who have developed a distinctive one foot rowing style. Standing on the stern of the boat with one leg the men wrap their other leg around the oar and power themselves along using just their leg. The one advantage this weird style gives the men is better visibility over the reeds ahead.

:: Leg rowing ::

We used the village as Nyaungshwe as a base to explore the area. The village is located about 5 miles upstream of the lake. One thing we immediately noticed in the village was that there were crates of tomatoes being loaded up into trucks everywhere. We took a walk around the village and came upon warehouse after warehouse full of people sorting hundreds of thousands of tomatoes into different boxes. A day trip out on the lake revealed the source of the crop. Using seaweed from the lake, farmers have constructed rows and rows of long floating saturated platforms; so-called floating gardens covering kilometres of the lake. According to the season crops such as tomatoes, peppers, sunflowers etc are sown by the farmers who access the floating gardens in little wooden boats. While we were there the local ladies were out in force in their little boats picking the ripe tomatoes as far as the eye could see on the lake there were floating tomato plants laden with fruits...... important learning point .... from what we've seen it's not possible to over water tomatoes!

:: Harvesting on the lake ::

Our day trip swung past the local rotating market in the lakeside village of Indein, where local hill tribe ladies decked out in luminous orange head scarfs sell their wares. Tourism unfortunately has taken a lot of the "local" focus from this market leading to lots of tourist driven trinket stalls. However on saying that there is still plenty of local produce and lots of groups of little old ladies with bright orange scarves on their heads sitting around smoking cigars. A short walk out of Indein brings you to the top of a hill home to hundreds of small stupas.

:: "Jump !" ::

The just for thrills stop of the boat trip was at the "Jumping Cat Monastery"...... bored monks here have taught their cats to jump - well that was the info we'd been given. Arriving to a beautiful old teak monastery on the lake we disembarked and entered to find twenty or so cats sitting around relaxing.. we told them to jump but it didn't work.... I think we just expected them to jump upwards. Later we saw then in action jumping obediently through a hoop for a small treat. Still think jumping upwards would have been cooler.

An obvious left over from the colonial days is the practice of frequenting tea houses. Tea, cakes and savoury snacks are offered either on curbside plastic (kindergarten sized) tables, or in minimalist shops (concrete floor and adult sized plastic tables). Busy from breakfast until dinner time, men, women and families drop in for a hot drop and a nibble. At the other end of the spectrum, beer stations are the Myanmar versions of pubs. Normally all-male, concrete floored and equipped with 1 beer tap (serving whichever brand the beer station is affiliated to) the really interesting thing about them is that most people there are not drinking beer. Spirits in Myanmar are stupidly cheap. $2 AUD (1.2 EUR) will get you a 700ml bottle of decent whisky (even cheaper for Rum or white spirits). For the price of a beer you can get a quarter bottle of spirit so most guys opt for the whisky. They buy a bottle and sit down with water to finish it (half or qtr bottles mostly) or they get a slug put into their mug of draft beer. Apparently these boozers are a fairly new arrival in Myanmar, they seemed to have hit a sweet spot as they were to be found in most of the towns we visited.

From our chats with locals, another interesting point kept coming up. The governments intervention in communications. Personal incoming and outgoing mail is routinely read. There is only one mobile phone company - Government owned, so thats covered (and a SIM costs $2000 USD) and only one ISP, so they watch your internet movements as well. One example given to us was that email sent internally takes between 1 and 2 days to arrive (read make it through the government censors).

I think this photo I took at the Mandalay airport pretty much sums it up.

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The Road to Mandalay Part 1

:: Shewdagon Pagoda by night ::

Myanmar. A country that may not ring many bells with you immediately; hopefully these jottings will help add a few "bells".

Probably better know by its previous name - Burma, Myanmar is a country we need to keep an eye on. Led by a Military government since 1992, it is a sizable country (the largest in Sth East Asia), with plentiful resources that is heading in the wrong direction.
Myanmar is a major exporter of Rubies, Jade and illegal drugs (2nd largest producer of Opium), it also has significant quantities of old teak forests which have mostly all been sold off to Russian or Chinese opportunist businessmen (it used to supply 75% of the world market). Income from these exports finds its way mainly into the hands of the ruling generals. The normal citizen in Myanmar is very poor compared to the rest of the region. Sustenance farming is the norm, with government jobs (say teacher) very lowly paid compared to the private enterprises (ones of any scale normally co-owned by military staff) in the country. (a teacher earns between 12 & 20 USD p/month).

The lack of infrastructure investment has led to a situation where there are very few good roads (proximity to airports, Defense academies and smuggling routes ensure better quality). One main Nth/Sth road branches off into single lane (plus a bullock & cart path) unmaintained tracks to East/West destinations. This makes for very slow and bumpy overland travel. Electricity is unreliable, with most businesses setting up a diesel generator on the footpath out front.

Market forces of supply and demand, fuelled by the shutdown of most international import/export (except from China) has led to a crazy situation with cars. Most of the cars you see on the road are 1980's Japanese models or even older. In Mandalay they are still running taxis and buses provided by the Japanese as War repatriations. To import a car you need to line the generals pocket to the tune of ~$40k USD. Needless to say only the top earners (see above to imagine through what business) can afford newish vehicles. So the top end market (2005 Landcruiser) will cost you around $300k USD in country. A 1980's Toyota corolla - around $23kUSD. Ludicrous. Interestingly this had created an industry hand modelling cars or reconditioning wrecked and rusted chasis (alot of US army Jeeps) into one-off vehicles.

We were lucky enough to enjoy a few nights of chatting with locals, often over a cold Myanmar larger (Government owned). In these discussions they imparted their dislike of how the government is running their country (The Military conducted - then ignored results from 1990 elections), their view of the corruption from the top, their concern about the friends Myanmar is making (The Russians are helping them build a Nuclear reactor, China is their major trading partner) and their hope that the future will bring regime change.

All these details are to help paint a picture of the country from a political and economic perspective. They shine no light on the fabulous spirit, generosity and friendliness we experienced from the people. We really enjoyed our time in Myanmar. We learnt alot that we want others to know, we saw fantastic sights, ate incredible food and shared great memories with locals and of course each other. Its a country that is not on the easy road, but we feel greatly rewarded for our expedition there.

Ok on with our story.....

Following a long night on a hard metal seat in Bangkok airport we took to the air and landed in Myanmar's capital city Yangon (formely known as Rangoon from British colonial times). Our first view of Myanmar was on final approach to the airport when all we could see was the skies reflected over hundreds of square kilometers of heavily flooded land. The reference to the umbrella in the last blog entry was not just in there for the laugh.

You very definitely know you are in a very different country from all others once you step outside the airport in Yangon and meet the people. All the men wear longyis (sarong style long skirts) - David Beckham didn't dream it up by himself! All the women and children smear a thick yellow paste on their faces in various designs as a combination of makeup and sunscreen. The first words of English you hear in the airport are spoken in a grand English accent reminding you of Myanmar's colonial past. When you hit the Myanmar roads you become aware of a plethora of 1980's Toyota Corollas which take you back to childhood memories of what cars used to look like in the old days.

Yangon is a bustling capital city with a mix of grand dilapidated colonial buildings on leafy streets and huge golden pagodas, once of which dominates the centre of the city doubling as a massive roundabout. Walking down the main street is time consuming as street sellers have set up elbow to elbow along the path selling everything from tv aerials to samosas. The street stalls pen you in to a tiny footpath where the flow of people dictates your progress in actually getting anywhere. There is a strong Indian influence in Yangon evident in the number of high quality cheap and cheerful indian restaurants churning out curries with kick and thali plates full of flavour.


Our time in Yangon was spend getting caught out in the frequent surprise torrential rain showers and fending off the droves of money changers who constantly hustle for business.Due to International sanctions, all foreign banks withdrew their presence in the 80's - leaving the country without any international financial services - read - no ATM's, no Credit card transactions, no travellers cheques. You need to bring all the money you will need with you in USD cash. Tourists to the country pay for their hotels and entrance fees in US dollars but all other expenses are paid in the local kyat. You can only buy kyat when you reach Myanmar officially $1 USD = 6 kyats but on the black market $1USD = 1250 kyat, leaving the black market as the only viable option. US dollars proffered to changers must be absolutely perfect to a ridiculous degree. Annoyingly we invested a lot of time in Bangkok airport slyly touring the many 24 hour money exchange booths begging them to swap all our older looking notes for a perfect ones only to be rewarded with lots of humming and hawing and questioning of the integrity of the notes in Myanmar. Carrying out the dollar to kyat exchange itself is delicate procedure that usually takes place in a dark stairwell or other suitably covert location lending itself to the illegal activity. In our stairwell after extensive examination of our two perfect $100 bills and lots of tut tutting over a possibly bad serial number we were eventually given the thumbs up and the guy reached into the back of his skirt and pulled out a colossal wad of worn, tatty, dirty looking bank notes each one almost the size of a newspaper. The largest domination of the kyat is the 1000 note (1AUD, 0.60 EUR, 0.85 USD), if you're lucky you only have to count a few hundred of these if you're unlucky you're in the stairwell a while counting in 500 notes. Later that day we left with our supermarket bag full of small big sized money.

No visit to Yangon is complete without taking in it's most infamous pagoda. Myanmar's most sacred Buddist pagoda, Shewdagon Pagoda sits glittering on a hill overlooking Yangon. With it's 98 metre gilded stupa it towers above the city. Thousands of Myanmar people make a pilgrimage here each year. It is truly a spectacular sight, the lower stupa is plated with 8,688 solid gold bars and an upper part with another 13,153. What's almost more impressive is what you can't see, the tip of the stupa is set with 5448 diamonds, 2317 rubies, sapphires and other gems, 1065 golden bells and at the very top a single 76 -carat diamond. Rain showers during our visit to the Pagoda drove the crowds away and we were left in solitude to enjoy the striking reflections on the wet marble surrounds.

:: Circle train - Yangon ::

On our final day in Yangon we decided to take a spin on the circle train that loops the city's outskirts in a mere three hours, it's a good way to see all the small satellite villages and farms around Yangon. The rickety old wooden train carriages are open and empty apart from two wooden benches that run along under the open windows - No shortage of natural air conditioning. Rushing to catch a train that was almost pulling out of the station we presented our "foreigner fare" of $1 US dollar note each. In a memorable exchange the station master said "This note is old I need a new US dollar bill" Marcus replied "My friend I can guarantee that note is newer than the train !" As it happens our foreigner ticket got us into executive class. We were quickly waved up one end of the near empty carriage and a length of thin rope was tied across to distinguish our space from everyone else's. All occupants of the carriage regardless of proximity rope were drenched when the monsoon rains came down with a vengeance.

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So Long Beaches.....cya

:: Refugee boat ::

Setting off from Ao Nang we shot across to Surat Thani in time to jump on the night 'refugee style' ferry to Koh Tao. Checking in you are assigned a number which is your space on the ground for the night...territory which you fiercely defend for the rest of the night. Luckily our crossing was smooth and uneventful.

:: Night Diving ::

Some see Koh Tao as the diving mecca of Thailand. Some view it as a factory as there are something like 47 Dive schools on a not very big island. For us it was a perfect place to do some more courses and rack up some good value dives in relatively good weather. We worked through our Nitrox, Deep, Navigation and Computer specialities. The deep being the highlight as part of the training is to experience induced narcosis which kicks in around 35m. At 37m (120 Ft) we couldn't manage to write simple words backwards...sort of like being drunk and not caring to answer the question asked.
As luck would have it our time in Koh Tao lined up with the 20th year anniversary of the Full Moon party on nearby Koh Phangan. Needless to say we jumped the party boat from Koh Tao to check it out. We expected 19yo on their holliers but we were pleasantly surprised, finding a mix of all sorts enjoying a good party on the beach. Being the rainy season weather was also a concern but we enjoyed perfect clear skies...even seeing the moon.
A few more dives...including one at night which was very very weird....(weightless with the visibility of a narrow torch beam) then we headed back to the welcome of John and Nus in Phuket for our final few days in Thailand.
Tonight we are off to Yangon, Myanmar...and after 11 months and 3 weeks of holding out on flying, we are forced to take to the skies once more as travellers cannot enter the interior of Myanmar without flying in. Our first purchase will undoubtedly be an umbrella as we hit there smack in the middle of their monsoon season.

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