TWO SIDES OF YANGON

Well, its been a bizarre sort of a day. Nevertheless, Yangon is starting to reveal itself to me. Today being a Monday, is the first working day since I arrived late on Friday. While I saw plenty of people working on the weekend, clearly there is a lot more traffic during the week. And it's officially pretty crazy. I thought there was something missing, and today I realised what it was. No motorcycles, and that includes scooters as well. Scooters are the staple transport of Asia, so what's going on? Then I vaguely recalled some info to that effect when Chris and I were planning the big trip 10 years ago. The ruling elite were quite concerned about the risk of assassination by fanatics shooting into car windows and getting away rapidly on motorcycles. And the guide confirmed as much today. I think they have been watching too many movies, personally.

Have to say, I wouldn't like to be riding in Yangon, and I'm glad I let Kay Kaesler from Big Bike Tours talk me out of  it. They had three clients crash on the last tour they ran into Myanmar, all taken out by traffic. There are traffic lights, but not much else. It's very unpredictable, people make all sorts of movements, especially changing lanes (and there are few actual lanes marked) with no indication other than a quick toot on the horn. The only saving grace is that the pace is fairly subdued. Pedestrians go wherever they like, whenever they like, and the drivers in Yangon are not used to looking for scooters, so on a bike, it would only be a matter of time. Then there is the widespread use of right hand drive vehicles (there are thousands of them) but traffic drives on the right, so nothing makes sense, and the risk factors just pile up. I wonder what the rest of the country is like?

Today I crossed the Yangon River on a ferry, for a look at the much more rural heartland on the other side. It was like a different world. No problem with scooters over there, it was much more normal. I even saw a Honda Shadow, and thought about the one Roger Knapp killed in Alaska. Hi Rog !  Its a pretty substantial river, able to take full size container ships, and it buzzed with activity of all descriptions. Plus it gave me the opportunity to look back at the Yangon skyline. There is very little high rise, only a handful of  buildings and a few cranes indicating construction. I assume that eventually it will go the way of all other big cities, but the question is when.

The area across the river was virtually third world, and quite confronting, but everybody seemed to be going about their business without a care in the world. Most of the buildings could best be described as shacks, possibly hovels, with stagnant water everywhere, breeding God knows what. Life looked basic and very hard. Not much air conditioning around here. And no fly wire! Skinny cats and dogs roamed the streets, and there was trash everywhere. Once again, the nemesis of modern day packaging strikes. It was all plastic wrappers, bottles, bags, polystyrene foam, Why don't people get it??? Nobody is ever going to pick it up and it won't go away until it gets flushed into the ocean by the monsoons. But of course, it will just keep on coming. Help!!

At this stage, I was being carted around in a bicycle rickshaw, like Lord Muck of the Fowlyard! I noticed the dismay on the face of the poor little guy who was pedalling when I got in. It didn't take long! About 15 minutes later, one of the overloaded tyres spat the valve out. I had to wait in a shop while he got it sorted. I asked for an orange soda, pointing to a refrigerated cabinet with Fanta or similar. Back came a glass of juice, freshly hand-squeezed by a kid with doubtful at best personal hygiene standards, AND it had ice in it. Hmm, to drink it or not? Against my better judgement, I did, and so far no problem. Here are a few photos, it was tricky trying to shoot from a moving rickshaw, but I didn't want to make the poor bloke lose his momentum. So these photos could have been a lot better, but I already felt like a bit of a dick pointing a camera at people from a rickshaw, like they were zebras or something.

River fish being dried (and fly blown) in the sun. Mmm-mm.

 At one point, we stopped to have a look at some guys making some kind of thin crepes, similar to the kind they use in Vietnam for making cabbage or spring rolls. Talk about a rough job. These guys were putting the batter on searingly hot charcoal heated hotplates- by hand, mind you- while working under a tin roof. It was absolutely stifling. Then they handed them over to mum, who was sitting down counting them into bundles. What a way to exist. I counted my blessings.

Going back on the ferry, I was going for a surreptitious shot of the yellow powdery stuff people rub on their faces here. It's some kind of tree bark, ground into a paste, and probably 50% of the people you see, of both sexes, use it in varying degrees. Its for decoration, and also used as a sunscreen. This chick has put hers on with a trowel. Then I noticed the facial expressions in these two photos. At first, she's got some kind of problem, but in the second, a subtle look of triumph as she overcomes it. A total fluke, but an awesome photo in my humble opinion.

I finished the day at what is probably the top hotel in Yangon, The Strand, for their renowned High Tea. This place was really something, everything you would expect from a place that catered for the British upper crust. Not dissimilar to Raffles in Singapore. It was included in my itinerary, so I went with the flow. And yes, it was fantastic! Very weird after what I had been looking at all afternoon.

OUT AND ABOUT IN YANGON

Had a pretty solid day running around Yangon today, and finally saw more of the things I was expecting to see. Like the CBD. It is evident that Yangon is a sprawling city, albeit one with a relatively small downtown area. The population of Myanmar is around 60 million, with 6 million living in Yangon. There is much evidence of British colonialism, with not too much new construction as far as I could tell. Wide streets, grand buildings, mostly former government offices or banks, port and rail infrastructure. The kind of things that you are going to need if you want to build an empire, strip a country of its natural resources and subjugate its people. A lot of it is now dilapidated or has been turned to other uses. Yet change is evident too, but they are starting from a long way back, in my humble opinion.

They day began with the obligatory visit to a street market, this one selling mostly produce. The kind of operation that springs up at short notice, then disappears when it's time to reopen the street to traffic. I have now seen plenty of these in Asia and knew what to expect. It was gut churning in places, but I have seen worse. (In Laos and Cambodia if you must know. No cockroaches or spiders for sale here.) The thing that I just can't get my head around is this:  How is it possible to buy meat or fish that has been sitting out in the sun for hours covered in flies, take it home, cook it, eat it, and not die?

 I'm no zoologist, but that tail is a giveaway. That ain't a sheep.

 Frog, anyone?

Steggles are ripping us off in Australia. How come we don't get the feet attached ??

Look, no hands! How do they do that? Respect!

I can remember way back in 77, they were busy knocking down whole suburbs in Singapore, to build flash new apartment towers. They were still doing it in 2008, and the results are there for all to see. That is what Asia used to look like.

This is what a lot of Yangon still looks like, although most apartments now seem to have air conditioning. And of course, the satellite dishes go without saying. What's black and crisp and hangs from electricity poles? Anybody who touches one.

Moving on, here are some of the older colonial era buildings. Complete with foliage growing from the nooks and crannies.

St Mary's Cathedral took me by surprise, and its pretty good, but there are also mosques here as well. Tolerance? Good! I hope so.

Then it was time to get over to see the reclining Buddah. Of course, this was covered in scaffold as well, due to major maintenance. Not sure if this is the biggest going around, but it must be up there. One of the interesting customs here is to offer gifts or petitions or hopes and dreams to the Buddah. These are placed in a basket and hauled up on a rope by the supplicants to a golden doorway surrounded by cut-out clouds. Where some guy unloads the basket and sends it back down, and everybody is happy. See earlier photos, but there is one of these on the Schwedegon Pagoda too, only yesterday I didn't know what it was!

Notice everyone has bare feet. It was shoes and socks off again, no ifs or buts. And this time there was a sign in English (well, sort of) for the Westerners to get the message.

A short ride on a local train followed. It was rough and ready. Oh, and it didn't have any doors either. There were guys selling stuff, mainly bottled water and snacks, people and animals walking across the tracks, rubbish and shit everywhere, the whole catastrophe. Disastrous but funny at the same time. And it got me thinking. I reckon our sense of self preservation in the western world has been replaced by a blame-somebody-else culture, and we are the poorer for it. Too late to put that genie back in the bottle!

The train ride finished at a large indoor market, specialising in jewellery and textiles, both of which are big industries in Myanmar, and I expect to see a lot more of this whether I want to or not. I might be able to pick up a bargain, like a genuine high-end handbag from Paris.

Or maybe from Pabis, wherever the hell that is.

And to finish, here are the twin lions guarding the Eastern (and the most significant) entry to the Schwedagon Pagoda., which was too dark to photograph last night. Talk about dedication.

ME AND MA

Well here I am, in Myanmar, the so called Golden Land. I feel more like a stranger in a strange land. First impressions, it looked very different as soon as I exited the airport. Hardly any traffic, even though it was about midnight on Friday. Along a couple of main roads, still no traffic, then a mind boggling series of twisty alleyways, no cars, no lights, no people. Weird! Finally arriving at my hotel, I turned the aircon up to max, had a quick shower and sacked out. Even though I was supposed to leave Adelaide at the gentlemanly hour of 1pm, the body clock was now saying 3.30am, and I was fairly knackered.

My plane was delayed by about an hour, for "safety reasons". Suits me, fix it on the ground, guys. Nine hours and two movies later, I arrived in Hong Kong. I didn't have a window seat and couldn't see a thing. A view of the lights would have been nice, since the only other time I have ever been to Honkers was 1977, a lazy 41 years ago, and I had my twenty fifth birthday there. I imagine it must be vastly different now. The airport certainly was. Back then, I flew into the old Kai Tak airport, down below the buildings, looking up into people's lounge rooms, and thinking the wingtip was going to collect somebody's laundry drying on one of the umpteen balconies. It was certainly memorable!

This time I arrived at gate 60-something, and had to transit, go through security again and then make my way to gate 504. None of the money changing places would touch Burmese currency. Hmm, there's a clue. I could tell the flights to Myanmar left from a forgotten part of the airport. I walked for miles down endless corridors, many of the shops were shut, hardly anybody else around, save the odd guy leaning forlornly on a mop. I was starting to see tumbleweeds blowing around, and half expected to see a skeleton or two. Finally made it to the end, where there was a waiting shuttle bus full of diesel fumes. A mobile gas chamber. Across to another terminal, miraculously without asphyxiating, this one even more deserted than the first one, for a by this stage 45 min wait. Finally got aboard and we started moving again at last. The plane took so long to get out to the runway, and made so many turns, while passing umpteen other buildings and parked planes, that I thought the pilots were seriously considering driving all the way to Myanmar.

At one point in the journey, I was able to look out and see forty or fifty strange sets of lights, like inverted letter V's, lit up in red. No other city type lights were visible, and I would love to know what it was all about. Guess I'll never know. In the baggage hall, the overhead sign said collect the bags from carousel number 3, but they came out on number 5. I then tried to get some money changed, but the change guy was just closing, despite a busy terminal. This is Asia, folks, and it moves to its own rhythm. So my prearranged guide who I had only just met, lent me 50,000 kyat, which sounds like a lot and looks like a lot, except it isn't, apparently. So hopefully I can pay him back tonight. So far I haven't seen anything I might want to buy. Exiting the airport, every cop I saw (and there were quite a few despite the late hour) was tooled up with the ever popular AK-47, Russia's greatest export. Although these might have been cheap Chinese knock-offs. Its a serious bit of gear though.

So after a good night's sleep, I ventured out into the daylight to see where the hell I was. Its a dog's breakfast out there. Not a straight bit of road to be found. Fearful of getting lost, I only walked so far, then doubled back. Then I tried the other side of the hotel, and kept going till I reached the point I had turned around on the first go. I have just walked around the block, and I feel very proud of myself.  My conclusions thus far:

• I was reminded of Bangkok, circa 1977. Very foreign and tourist/user unfriendly.
• It is really easy to get lost. 
• If there are any shops or bars or restaurants, they are very well hidden. 
• If you sold paint, you'd be out of business in three months. But if you sold razor wire, you'd be laughing.
• The Burmese written language looks to me like every possible word is nothing more than a variable length combination of the words coco, cocoon, swoop and the numbers 6 and 8.
• The all pervading stench coming from the very deep, open drains is not possible to describe without causing offence. (Sure, I could give it a go!)

But its early days, so I won't jump to any premature conclusions. An adjustment period is clearly required here.

Burmese writing. It's like I said.

Now that's a drain! Just be grateful you can't smell it.

That's my hotel, The Classique Inn, I'm in the bit on the right. How about those columns !

Here are some random shots from my walk this morning.

 See what I mean about the paint and the razor wire. Pretty handy security gates and all.

I saw lots of very big trees around this part of town, probably for the shade. Lots of them are being being attacked by strangler figs, like this.

 Ritzy neighborhood, eh?

PART 2

The tourism bit has started. Just visited the Schwedagon Pagoda, and its mightily impressive, and the place was packed. To give you a sense of scale, the top is 99 metres above the bottom, that's about a 30 storey building. Like a lot of the stuff I've seen, its all in the timing. Unfortunately the main stupa was covered in bamboo scaffolding. Apparently every three years they have to renew the gold leaf. And there is so much of it, it weighs in the tonnes, apparently. The top of the spire is encrusted with diamonds as well. It appears to me that all over the world, deities are not to be pissed off and in fact they deserve to be appeased with nothing but the best, lest they turn their wrath on the general populace. I much prefer science, and speaking of which, the scaffolding itself was even better than science, it was a work of art. They do this all over Asia, and its amazing. Too much damage would be caused in this case using conventional steel scaffolding, especially if you used boofhead Aussie riggers. So horses for courses. It was late in the day and the light wasn't the best for photos, but enjoy.

Neat clouds, huh?

 Technology marches on. The latest LED disco lighting flashing garishly around a statue of the Buddha. I'm still trying to figure out what he might have thought about it. It's a bit over the top, but I reckon its alright ! I'd like to put some lights like that on the bike.

Interesting that you have to take your shoes and socks off, leave them at a counter, and walk around the whole area (which is paved with marble tiles) in bare feet. It doesn't pay to think too deeply about what you're walking in, because there were hundreds of people there. When you collect your shoes, they give you a few "wet ones" to wipe your feet. They instantly turn from white to black. Eerck! Etiquette demands the same at my hotel, although its a lot cleaner. I don't like it, but when in Rome...

Finished the night off with a visit to a much busier downtown area, where it was buzzing. Much more of what had been lacking in my suburban retreat. I must be getting soft. Really, I mean it. I've eaten street food all over Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam with no ill effects, but I wasn't prepared to eat any of the food on offer in this street. Lots of sartee type stuff which I wasn't prepared to gamble on. Maybe it was the indescribable stench coming from the overfull dumpsters at the entry to the street that killed my appetite. I settled for beer, and there was nothing wrong with that.

ON THE ROAD TO MANDALAY

Yes, it's a corny title, but when am I ever going to get another chance to use it? It's time to travel. Where have you been for the last two years? Rhetorical question. Hell, where have I been for the last two years? Well, I've been stuck at home, saving the readies for my next trip. Oh, and getting a new knee. I've kept myself busy for the last eight months doing stuff like, ooh, trying to bend my leg, learning to walk again, cursing the medical profession, you know, that kind of thing. Let's just say I had a below average experience. Thanks to all those who encouraged and assisted me, I'm most grateful. If nothing else, I've had plenty of time to plan my next trip, and the one after that as well.

Groucho Marx once said "When the guy driving the elevator tells you it's time to buy, then its time to sell", or words to that effect. He was talking about stock market advice, but what I take from that is this. When you like to get off the beaten track, like I do, and you overhear some pimply adolescent in the checkout line telling somebody else about his killer trip to Phuket, or hear about some bogans getting married in Bali, you start to think what else is left? Fortunately, there are still a few places that haven't been ruined by the common herd. Yet. But that doesn't mean I'm going to pull a sled across Antarctica. (I was going to, but the knee job sunk that idea.) I'm not going to Burundi or Togo in the foreseeable future either. No, I'm going to Burma, also known to the ruling clique as Myanmar.

Its one of the few Asian countries I haven't been to. When Chris Phillips and I did the big trip to England in 2008, you could not get into Burma with a motorcycle. Period. End of story. Simply not possible. And China made bringing your own bike into the country so difficult as to be virtually impossible as well. So we searched for alternatives, and at the time, the most popular one was to crate your bike and have it flown about 35,000 feet above Burma, from Bangkok to Kathmandu.  But things change, and now both Burma and China are more accessible, but not without a giant dose of ingrained bureaucracy, I suspect. So to some extent, its unfinished business for me. Burma now, China and Tibet in 2019. That's the plan. (Yes, I know China reckons Tibet is part of China. Ask the Dalhi Llama what he thinks.) 

As I'm a bit of a history buff, Burma does hold some attraction. The first thing I ever heard about Burma was finding out that the Secretary General of the UN when I was a kid was a Burmese guy named U Thant. I remember being impressed that someone had just a single letter of the alphabet for a first name. Very efficient. And it was easier to pronounce and kinder to the senses than the name of his predecessor, Dag Hammarskjold. Then of course, there was Lord Mountbatten of Burma, a fancy handle if ever I heard one. I think he told the Burmese "Its all yours, but the flag is ours, so I'm taking it with me. Sorry about the mess" after Britain granted independence to Burma after WW2.

Burma, an ancient peaceful Buddhist country, but one which was constantly at war with Thailand for yonks. A former British colony, invaded by the Japanese during WW2, who attempted to build a railway from Thailand to India brutally using mostly Australian, British and some American and other POW's who died in their thousands. The extremely hard fought recapture in diabolical conditions by the Allies, the behind enemy lines exploits of the legendary Chindits led by Brigadier Orde Wingate (an oriental Major David Stirling, founder of the SAS, if you will), then eventually independence from Britain, only to fall victim to the military junta which booted out the King and which has run the country since. The infamous house arrest of Nobel Laureate Aung Sang Suu Kyi, then finally her release and election to office, followed by vast silence, mostly from her. Then a whole lot of bad publicity due to persecution of various ethnic minorities, (eg Karen, Rohinga, Shan and Chin, to name but a few.) Some more recent than others. Evidently enough for a UN indictment of the military junta for crimes against humanity. Then more silence. Its a mixed bag really. Anything could happen. I could actually be safer in Yemen, but I bought the tickets for this trip months ago.

Of course, there has also been the obligatory plane crash just before I decide to fly out of the country. Last time it was Malaysian Airlines, this time Lion Air. Tragic and unnerving as it is, I hope it has got all the pilots focussed. Just to add a bit of excitement to my preparations, last night my fridge decided to die. I lost everything in the freezer, and a lot of stuff in the remainder. So at 9am this morning, I was waiting for Harvey Norman to open, raced in and delivered the ultimatum to the first sales guy I saw. I need a new fridge, delivered today, or its no deal. They delivered, so good on 'em. Mind you, I had to wait quite a while for the fridge to get down to operating temperature to accommodate the little useable food I still had left. In the meantime, I raced out and got some ice so I could chill the most critical foodstuffs, ie the beer. And some incidentals like milk, margarine, cheese etc. Sofar, no gastro, so I'll take it. My wheelie bin is going to stink something toxic by the next bin collection. A little toxic waste never hurt anyone. It will probably smell like most Asian countries, so its kinda completing the circle. Yin, yang, karma or whatever. Then, later today, the usual tantrum from my laptop during the travel shakedown. Adding every update ever issued since Bill Gates was in short pants. It ain't easy folks.

So I leave Friday morning, Adelaide to Hong Kong, a quick change of planes to Yangon (that's Rangoon to anybody over 50), arriving about midnight local time. That gives me a whole day to pack, and for once, I don't have to fit all the stuff on a bike, so its a bit of a luxury having all that space. Space that will rapidly be used up by travel medicine, (to treat everything from rabies to St Vitus Dance), chargers and leads for myriad gizmos, and of course, my trusty and very well traveled coffee plunger, immersion heater and this time a half kilo of vacuum packed Lavazza. Hope they don't think I'm smuggling something to throw the sniffer dogs off. Kaz also gave me a box of Robert Timms coffee bags as a backup. Well, you can't be too careful where coffee is involved, can you?

Hasta Luego, readers.