I didn’t know what to think as the plane descended into Yangon. The Thai faces I’d become so accustomed with seemed to have morphed into something a little more rounder, and a lot more unfamiliar. Through the porthole window lay dry fields as far as the eyes could see, with an occasional sprinkling of white oxen, like coconut shavings on a brown Myanmar cake baking at 40 degrees Celsius. A red smile welcomed me warmly at the airport, and after he tied the boot shut with elastic band and spat red beetle twice onto the warm pavement, we barged out into the traffic, heralded by the sound of angry horns and screeching tyres.
It was sweat and culture shock that rolled down my spine in this strange world far away from home as we followed our guidebooks direction into the wrong part of town. Through the taxi window I spied two people beating each other with sticks atop a rubbish heap, frustrated in their desperate outlet as bystanders barely slowed their expressionless march onwards.
Advertisements seeking help for starving Africans would be more effective if they could capture even a small part of this experience. I gave up on politics a long time ago, and when I’d see the latest scandal of yet another MP using our tax dollars like a credit card for his own personal prostitute penis puppet show, I’d just laugh it off as a causality of an imperfect system and the fact that the nerdy kids in school didn’t get laid enough.
But this was something different. When democratic free elections resulted in a landslide civilian government, the military shackled the opposition in prisons, and when monks protested for religious and autonomous freedom, the military showered them with bullets. I’m not accustomed to such blatancy. In context, when hippies rightly protest GM crops, we shower them with water cannons, as if the rudeness of the implication that they are stinky and need a shower would deter them from their dirty protests. Our ineffective policies and politicians are miniscule in comparison to ignorance that leaves a country enslaved and starving.
Still, visiting the Shwedagon Paya was something else, with its pure golden towers erupting out of lush green gardens, and more statues and monks than you could shake a machine gun at. I was awed by the careful detail of the carvings and statues, the unsaid life efforts of ancient men. And as thick lightning clouds rolled ever closer, we booked our bus ticket to Mandalay, screaming off into the stormy night.
Stupas!
I awoke in the daylight to find the bus still speeding through the countryside. When the English ruled Myanmar, they used their economics to transform it into the largest exporter of rice in Asia. In the vacuum of power that followed the departure of the Empire, this age of prosperity had long gone. Looking out the window at these dry empty fields, I couldn’t be sure if the top soil was blowing away in the warm breeze because of irresponsible economic growth, or the imposition of economic sanctions from the international community in response to oppressive governance. Either way, the bare cracked earth screamed a tragedy of lost opportunity to feed the people I saw so often malnourished.
Mandalay passed by without incident as we tired of the disparity between classes in Myanmar cities, and we booked another bus to the ancient splendor of Bagan. We boarded a taxi at the bus station in Bagan to take us to our hotel, and were not surprised when the taxi shat itself en route. Literally. This only makes sense if you realize that the taxi is a horse carriage, and this pretty much explains the pace and technological evolution of Bagan. In hindsight, it was amazing to be in a village of such heritage, history and simplicity. In the moment though, it was becoming frustrating and painfully red-raw staying in expensive hotels where nothing is as it is advertized, the electricity is intermittent and the toilets require seatbelts to stop the levitation experienced when diarrhea provides jet-like thrust after every meal.
The decision to hire a horse-cart and guide for the day proved fruitful. When I asked Maz why she had decided on this mode of transport, she said it was because the driver was “such a cute little man”, a statement which reflected all the ways in which I adore her beautiful soul. Her insight flipped the state I was in upside down, and in breaking the tradition of my thus far pessimistic review of Myanmar, this was the moment I fell in love with the Burmese people. Away from the traffic, away from the plight of the downtrodden in the city ghettos and away from the reports of mass rape and murder by military forces in the restricted areas, the everyday Burmese are amongst the most gentle and warm people I have ever met.
Our Chariot
To see the temple complexes rising into the mirage of distance like a giant chessboard is truly one of the most amazing sights I have seen. Some of the temples had perfectly preserved artwork that was over a thousand years old, visual tales of days faded just as sure as the paintings had themselves.
One of four Buddha statues in one of the temples
The chessboard of temples
The approach
It was probably the heat that kept the paintings so pristine, though it was having a taxing effect on our sweat glands, so with that we booked a flight into Inle Lake for something a bit more temperate.
Inle Lake is the unspoiled traditional paradise one might imagine the rest of Myanmar to be. The surrounding green mountains hold the lake in a gentle embrace while the thankful waters lie prostrate at the feet of these towering giants. Fishermen weave in and out of quiet reed beds, balancing on the ends of long teak boats and slapping the surface of the water with their oars, frightening fish into their nets. Being nestled amongst these ranges muffled the noise of the rest of the world like earplugs.
We hired a boat and driver to take us around the villages that lived on and around Inle Lake. It’s quite an experience speeding down the main street in a teak boat, traffic seems far more tolerable when the streets are paved with only liquid. It’s suburbia on stilts, where even the tomato gardens bob calmly on the surface. I couldn’t find the exact words to describe the joy of it, maybe there is something relieving deep within us to be close to water.
Rolling down mainstreet
The main street post office
For the equivalent of $2.40 each we also attended a Burmese puppet show. Although the skill involved in maneuvering each puppet is something no less than amazingly skilled, the whole spectacle was intensely confusing for us Westerners. I liken it to the feeling of being asked to write the answer on the board in school amidst an uncontrolled pubescent arousal, with equal parts confusion and shock. Looking around the room I could tell this feeling was not mine alone, as each puppet bounced us into an ever-deepening state of insanity, to the tune of music that sounded as if an array of cymbals had been granted life on the condition their communication would be riddled with Tourettes Syndrome. I loved it so, so much.
Learning from the puppet master
Insanity creeping over me at the puppet show
Monkey Dance
So what did I learn from Myanmar? When I asked the host of our guesthouse if he thought Myanmar opening up its borders to mass tourism is a good thing, he wholeheartedly replied that for him, it is not. In spite of the terrible electrical supply, the shocking roads, and the poor food preparation standards amongst all of the other things that inconvenienced my stay in Myanmar, it was the quaint simplicity of the place that I loved the most. The experiences I enjoyed were valuable because of their differences, not in spite of them, and an ever improving consumer experience promised to erode all of it faster than you can say the word ‘Starbucks’.
In the face of such monumental economic change, I hope a thought is spared for the people of Myanmar and their way of life. I hope the everyday Burmese has a place in the dollar-sign dreams of our seemingly well-intentioned governments and entrepreneurs, even when our past experiences of such economic promises prove otherwise. In failing that, I am both grateful and deeply saddened to have experienced the land the world forgot before it was rediscovered, redefined, restored, revamped and revolutionized.
