Burmese Days

We always saw Burma, or Myanmar, as a possibility in our travels and really didn't know up until about two weeks prior to going that we would definitely take the plunge.  It was all

a bit of a mad rush in the end with queueing outside the Myanmar embassy in Bangkok to secure the visa, shouting at the computer screen because the flights had jumped significantly in price from the day before and co-ordinating all of this while trying to see the sights of Bangkok.

So we eventually found ourselves on an early Air Asia flight to Yangon, formally known as Rangoon, almost not believing that we were doing it.

We didn't know what to expect having read a whole load in the news about the military regime and also being a little perplexed in our travels from what we have now dubbed the 'Rosy Planet', our travel guide, which sometimes gives a false impression of a restaurant/city/country.  It was very British weather when we

arrived with drizzling rain and overcast skies, the stifling humidity was a bit different I'll admit but there you go.  We jumped in a taxi to the bus station to book our onward journey to Mandalay, a bit of bargaining later we had managed to book our bus in US Dollars rather than the local currency as that was all we had.  What followed was probably the best example of the amazing generosity and friendliness that defines the Burmese people.  We had no local currency which we needed to pay the local bus driver, we asked if they would change some money for us but instead of doing that they just gave us some money and told us where we could exchange

money in town.  Needless to say we were very taken aback and although we tried to refuse he insisted with the words "it is a gift." We re-paid him when we returned but it was done with such humility it was in itself truly humbling.

The Burmese people have been through a torrid few decades, just Wikipedia Burma and have a read through the history and you will see what we mean.  They have been ruled by a military regime who restrict everything from the state run media, any 'official' places of national interest (which of course have a fee for foreigners) and basically anything that makes money internationally.  This can be anything from natural gas sales to Thailand, joint venture expensive hotels with Japanese, Chinese and Korean chains and pretty much any natural resource

e.g. gold, coffee, timber.  The result is that all the significant money is controlled by the government, quite often going to line the pockets of the generals at the top of the hierarchy.  We soon became very clear is the local population was quite often abused in the process.  

One of the most spectacular sights on our trip to Burma was to the temples of Bagan, a massive plain beside the Irrawaddy river full of cathedral like temples that have been constructed over a thousand years ago.

The local population used to live in place called Old Bagan which is situated slap bang in the middle of the temples.  In the early 1990's this population was literally picked

up overnight and dumped 4 miles down the road in an undeveloped, utility free area called New Bagan.  The people were then left to organize basic needs such as sanitation and roads while the Generals built expensive hotels with the support of joint venture companies.

Another tale we heard from a fellow traveller was a gold mine being sold to a Chinese company.  They then employed the local male population and paid them a relatively low wage alongside importing cheap alcohol and opium.  Consequently they all got addicted and spend all the wages back into the hands that gave it to them through the alcohol and opium.  The consequence is a ruined community who's men have all become junkies and can't even provide for their families, the regime is laughing all the way to the bank and the Chinese company is selling gold at $1600 an ounce.

Traveling for Burmese people is basically not possible for the vast majority of the population.  To obtain a passport you need $1600, about a £1000, when a government office worker earns about $65 a month you can see it is a most unlikely ambition.  Quite often people haven't even been the few places we managed to make it to on our two week trip.  So you can see that quite often they may feel trapped and unable to do anything about it.

I'm sorry if this seems like a tale of sorrow and I hope you are not too depressed, we just want to help you understand the plight of the Burmese people before we go on.

Ok, so as I was saying earlier we experienced a fantastic example of generosity on our first day.  We even struck up a conversation with a local man who turned out to be a Christian and invited us to his church, before we could stop him he paid for our meal and left with a big smile.  It was at this point we said to ourselves that we were going to enjoy Burma.

After a relatively comfortable journey up to Mandalay we spent a couple of days viewing the ancient cities.

Mandalay and it's surrounding counterparts used to be the capital of Burma and the evidence can be seen with pagoda's sprouting up everywhere.

ancient  The children were especially friendly, although they tried to sell us postcards from   the moment they laid eyes on us they soon responded to our questions and we had a lot of fun with them.

One of our more successful ideas was to buy some modeling ballons and give them to some of the kids we met.  

From Mandalay to Bagan, Inle Lake to Yangon they managed to draw a lot of attention.  There was even one point while we rested in the shade of a temple in Bagan that adults were requesting one of our slightly deformed ballon dogs which we had presented to some of their kids.

 The excuses came far and wide and it was always for their child/brother/sister and never for them.  It provided quite a comical half hour as I struggled to blow them up quickly enough.

Everywhere we went the people gave us huge smiles, quite often taking time to chat with their limited English.

 Several times we started conversations that could not be finished for one reason or another, quite often about what we thought about Myanmar and maybe leading towards their political situation.  A lot of you may have heard of Ang Son Su Chi who is the leader of the opposition in Myanmar.  She has spent much of the last 20 years under house arrest and it is forbidden to mention her name.  Quite often she is refered to as 'the lady' or just not at all.  She is currently free from house arrest and there seem to be some softening of the hardline approach to her but only time will tell.  People were just genuinely happy to see you and to be honest we were happy to see them.

Our time seemed to just fly by and before we knew it we were back in soggy Yangon preparing to fly back to Thailand.  Our trip had taken us on a tour from Mandalay to ancient Bagan, to the cool plains of Inle lake and back.  We really enjoyed our time, making good of our invitation to church and managing to make it to the service and enjoy some great fellowship.

We left Burma with some very fond memories of the people and a greater understanding of the situation there.  Some people say not to go as you are condoning the government and regime that ruled before it.  We would definitely say the opposite, you should go and meet the people who want to meet you.  Of all the money we spent we estimate about 12% of it went to the government, but 88% didn't, it went in to the hands of the people.

20 Hours in Bangkok

Our first day in Bangkok was quite an introduction to the city. It began by being dumped off our “sleeper” bus at 5am at what can only be described as a dark and completely random intersection, in a city the size of London, with no idea of where we were. We negotiated and navigated our way to the hub of budget accommodation and quickly found a room. 6am. We were planning a trip into Burma in the next week or so and to get the visa we had to visit the embassy in Bangkok. Being already awake, and not keen on the idea of an early morning the next day, we decided to fight the tiredness and head straight to the embassy. We took the early morning river taxi and then the sky train, both full of commuters and school children. In the queue, while John went off in search of a local newsagent who very wisely provided all the visa forms and helped you fill them in for a wee fee, I got chatting to a fellow traveller who, would you believe, lived in Kersland Street in the same years I did! The whole process went very smoothly and we left our passports with the staff (apparently all military intelligence) hopeful that our visas would be granted.
 
Next we walked our way to the main post office and picked up a parcel post restante. After marveling at the fact that it arrived at the post office in Bangkok only 3 days after being posted in Northern Ireland we sought out the ancient public telephones nearby. We are, or at least I am, risk reducers. I like risk, but I also like to have some knowledge and even control over the level of risk I am taking. So, when we planned our trip, we took all the necessary precautions in terms of our health and got jabbed up to our eyeballs with anti-everything. After four months of travelling, we were sent a letter by the NHS kindly asking if we would return to the clinic to have one of our jabs re-administered as the drug company had recalled the batch of injections we had had due to it not providing sufficient protection. We felt it a little unusual that, since the NHS had on our medical records that we were away for a full year after getting our injections, that they felt a casual letter to an address we weren't at was sufficient communication. After much deliberation and quite a few phone calls to the clinic at home we decided we were best to get a further injection while away. Bangkok was the place to do it. We phoned around some of the nearby hospitals until we found one which stocked the vaccine we needed. What followed was something so far from any NHS experience that it was actually quite a treat! (I must counter before I move on that I honestly love the NHS. I genuinely think that we haven't a clue how fortunate we are to have a health system that is available to us no matter what goes wrong and that our treatment options are not, like many countries on this earth, determined by the size of the cheque we can write.) However....
 
What was so different?
 
After locating a hospital which had our vaccine in stock I asked if we could make an appointment. “When would you like to come in?” I was asked....”eh, today?” I offered very hopefully. “Yes, and what time would suit you?”....”Would 30 minutes time be ok?” ...”Certainly, that is your appointment made, when you arrive please go to the registration desk.” Eh, ok! That was, well easy!
 
We took a taxi, and smoothly drew up outside the hotel...oh sorry, I mean hospital, with it's glitzy signs and well tended bushes. Before we could say “we're here” the concierge staff had gently opened the taxi door and said “good morning”. As our taxi drove away and the next car drew up the driver passed his keys to concierge and strode in leaving the staff to worry about getting a parking spot, just like NHS hospitals...hahaha.
 
Inside the futuristic air conditioned building were beautiful desks behind which dainty staff clip clopped about handing new, slim, non dog eared and neatly marked manilla medical folders (NHS staff will appreciate these observations!) to one another. At the main reception desk we were gently directed towards “registration” and it felt more like I was joining an exclusive private health club than a hospital register. After a few moments of waiting we were presented with our new hospital cards, beautiful golden plastic cards bearing our names and the hospital contact numbers, then we were escorted to a waiting area for the international travel clinic. Here we were welcomed with smiles and “good morning”'s from the nurses, all looking about 27 and like a flash back to the 50's...dolled up to the nines with a proper wee paper nurses hats and all! Our bums barely had time to hit the well polished chrome seats before we were called in, early, for our appointment.

The clinic room looked nothing like an NHS clinic room. It was bright, well laid out, had soft sofa like seating, beautiful pictures on the walls and everything laid out in a precise and pristine manner. Our nurse slided a patient agreement form towards us to sign, declaring we were aware of the risks and side effects of the injection we were about to receive. That, considering she had told us zero about the side effects of the injection, and the fact that I had to suggest closing the clinic room door, means I cannot be unequivocally full of praise of this experience. But still, it was nice to be given bandages after that matched our oufits.

Of course one of the last differences between the NHS and this one off experience which none of us would like was being shown to the cashier at the end...although even in this I'll say that it was cheaper than what we had to pay on the NHS for the same thing! After ringing through our bill we headed back out where concierge called a taxi up for us and told the driver where to take us leaving us to simply sit back and relax, giggling at the differences in the healthcare experience we had just had and what we get at home.

Keeping on what we had started, on a very Bangkok day, we headed next to the malls. A taste of the urban parks that middle class Bangkokians frequently roam. I had a hair cut and we ate in the food court before heading back to our hostel via a big bad traffic jam.
 
Ah, time to sleep!

A taste of Thailand

I don't know how many of you have been to south east Asia but it can be quite an assault on the taste buds, and your stomach, depending on what it is that you think is being served to you on your plate/bowl/banana leaf.

It appears that quite literally anything can potentially be on the menu, such as Fido, Kermit and even coffee made from the poo of weasels who are fed entirely on coffee beans.
 
It therefore came as a bit of a surprise when we, in our taxi from Chiang Mai airport, saw a huge banner proclaiming Chiang Mai's international food festival 2011 was on for the next few days. Now, any of you who know us will understand that we are food junkies and the evidence can be seen from my muffin top figure and Louise's ability to be quiet if good food is placed in front of her (why do you think I like to cook good food for her ;o)).  So you will not be surprised that the very next day we jumped in a tuk-tuk and instructed the driver to take us there forthwith.
 
It was quite an experience and had many highlights such as the embarrassing British stall serving fish

 and chips out of a mini microwave oven, a Japanese man walking around with a parrot on his shoulder
 and the chance to sample many of the things we had wondered 'what on earth is that?' but with the luxury of labels being on them.  We were also, at last, able to find decent desserts with fantastic ice cream and (Louise's favorite) custard tarts in a French style bakery.
 
Our attention was diverted when a 5 foot long, 42 kilo (100 lb) tuna that had been flown in from Japan that morning was heaved onto a table in the middle of the main stage.  What followed was a masterclass on how to carve up such a large fish into suitable chunks that  were then sold to the awaiting masses at £170 per kilo, funny enough that's one queue we didn't join!  It appeared to involve a lot of talking and various prodding with different knives and the extensive use of what can only be described as a giant samurai sword.

The most comical moment was when the chef was looking for his knife all around the table, lifted up one of the gills in the fish and removed it from inside the cavity.
 
Food is very much part of the culture here, every where we go we find a new smell or sight as we walk through the markets.

It is also a surprise to see how fresh the food is, the fish are even still alive, swimming around in large metal bowls with oxygen pipes bubbling away inside.  Everything is available, from vegetables to cooking oil, chillies to still squirming octopus and people somehow manage to barter and haggle with each other while regularly washing their produce and making sure their display isn't out of place.  Even in the glitzy shopping malls the food courts are set out a bit like a local market (sometimes there is a market) and the locals sit round identical stalls munching down on noodle soup and salted fish.  It's almost like a cleaned up version for the middle class so they don't feel too out of touch with home when they shop for their Gucci bag.
 
What we have really enjoyed though is the sumptuous selection of street food available for as little as 50p.  
Pad Thai is probably on top of the list, followed by delicious chicken and pork kebabs fresh off the charcoal, sweet sticky rice in all it's luminous colours and a potatoes that have been transformed into one gigantic

spiral and covered in salt.  All these things wouldn't pass the Rosemary Connelly test for a low GI but we quite often will start at one end of a street saying to each other 'We should probably think about going to get something to eat' and stagger out the other end wanting an ice cream.
 
All in all we are very much enjoying Thailand for more reasons than one, but that one is food!
 
Bon Appetit!