Burma: The First (Mandalay)

I’ve only been in Myanmar for a few days now.  I’m finding it to be one of the most fascinating places I’ve ever visited, which is not a small feat considering I’ve lived in South-East Asia for the majority of my adult life.  I’m only on the first leg of my trip, but it is already shaping up to be one of my best solo adventures.

So, here’s a recap of my first day in Mandalay.

"Rice with spaing onion and fish"

I got into the airport without incident, taking my time to get into check in, through the long lines of the Don Muang airport (aka hell).  The flight to Myanmar was brisk, just a few hours, and I slept most of the way.  We got in, and I was in a taxi on my way to the hotel in record time.  The visa, the money exchange, everything was incredibly smooth.  The drive from airport to town was more than I expected; about 45 minutes from point A to point B.  It struck me that the roads were so wide and so clear, like the infrastructure was matching a city more like Thailand than Mandalay.  I noticed it again on another road, that they seemed designed for quadruple the cars than were actually traveling on the road.

This lake and this tree from the bridge.

My hotel, once we reached it, seemed like it was in the middle of nowhere.  The buildings across the street felt empty, and the street caddy corner from the hotel looked deserted.  I was worried at the neighborhood and how bereft of humans it was.  But then, I checked in, stepped downstairs, and talked with the reception staff.  I mentioned I was hungry, and one of the boys walked me to a nearby restaurant, Cafe Inlay.  He did walk me there, led me the entire way.  

The place was quite nice, and I received “rice with spaing onion and fish” from the menu.  It didn’t look all that appetizing, I must say, but it was delicious. I also tried the rice crackers, but I missed the sweet sugary syrup that they use in Cambodia and ended up leaving them unfinished on the table.  

Upon returning to the hotel, the nice young man that had walked me to the restaurant asked if I wanted to go see Mandalay.  I did have reservations about heading off into the city with a stranger… “What would my mother say?”  But, I decided to let it happen and soon found myself on the back of this moto, stopping at the monastery where he lives so he could change, stopping for petrol at a gas station with far more hands on deck than necessary, then racing through the town to some unknown location.  Did I mention that the boy, Joe, spoke pretty limited English?  

The hat that I saw on the back of Joe's motorbike.

It didn’t matter, because within 15 minutes of zipping through the clustered traffic of the sprawling city, we found ourselves at a beautiful lake.  The shores were clustered with people, silhouetted by the evening sun. Fisherman were casting their nets in the water, young people were laughing together, families were sharing food.  A little bit further on the dusty roads, and we found the U Bein Bridge.  It doesn’t sound too thrilling from the description; a long, old, wooden bridge on a lake.

This bridge, and the sunshine.

This bridge, though, was fascinating.  On one side, the lake, with colorful boats puttering through the water.  On the other side, vivid green farmland, with freshly tilled soil and a curiously gnarled tree stuck in the middle of the land.  On the bridge itself, there was a full cross-section of Burmese people.  There were teens relaxing with their friends, monks in their burgundy robes, children running and playing, and older women in their traditional clothes.  Almost everyone on the bridge was bundled in at least a coat, or a hat, warding off the winter chill.

Watching a fishing boat dock.

Many women and men were wearing traditional clothes, which for men is a longyi, a sarong-like garment that ties with a large fold in the front.  It’s popular, so I’ve seen men of all different classes wearing it.  For women, the typical flowery sarong is a common sight, especially paired with a sweatshirt.  For a fancier look, they will wear a skirt with the SE Asia style; a folded wrap skirt that clasps on the left and hangs to the ground.  I’m enamored of these skirts, some are bright and colorful, some black with rainbow geometric patterns on them, some flowered and bedazzled with sparkles.  Often, the skirts match the fitted tops, with the same fabric on both.  Some women also wear tanaka, a pale foundation-like makeup that they cake onto their forehead and cheeks in subtle patterns.

Yep, here I am.

Joe and I walked across the bridge, stopping here and there for a photograph, then a coconut, then a conversation.  An older monk stopped me on the bridge to ask me where I come from.  A few girls flashed shy smiles at me.  Some young boys giggled on their way to a “hello” and Joe mentioned that they liked me.  Many people flashed me curious stares.

Traditional dress (sort of).

I spoke with Joe for some time on the bridge, however we could.  He is 20, and has a brother working for another hotel in the same city.  His mother and sisters are back in his home town, which is 10 hours away by bus.  His girlfriend is a fisher and they talk on the phone all the time.  He doesn’t support his family, but he helps his younger brother out with school with his work in the hotel.  He makes about $100 a month.  He learned English in school and through watching movies, but he only reads in Burmese.  His favorite singer is Justin Beiber. He sang me three songs to prove it.  Joe was also shocked at my status as a single and childless 29-year-old.

We walked all the way to the end of the bridge, where the land turned into a little village and temple.  I saw a few fisherman having a swim and shivering with the evening cold.  I saw one of the most beautiful sunsets ever across the bridge, with hazy air and slow colors from the higher longitude.

Pagoda at the end of the bridge.

I heard the Burmese language throughout this little jaunt, and I found that to be incredibly interesting.  The script looks very similar to Thai, Laos, and Khmer, with big loops and circles, but it is much more similar to Sanskirt, the language in which the others were based.  Burma appears to be a sum of the three influences around it, with its own cultures interspersed at will.  Burma is bordered by Bangladesh, India, Laos, and Thailand, and my ear hears more of the South Asia than the SE Asia in the language.  Even the cadence of the English reminds me more of Hindi speakers than Thai speakers.

The selection of spices at the Shan Noodle joint.

After the bridge, we zipped around the town more, stopping for Shan Noodles (the most amazing creation on earth), and at the mall for a tour (an Asian way of showing someone around).  I saw Star Wars playing with a Bollywood and Burmese horror flick.  I noticed that honking is the only acceptable way to drive here.  Traffic is noisy, and organized similar to the Khmer style, where everyone kind of knows the rules, and chooses when and how to follow them.  The city is loud, but not crowded.  There’s not nearly enough traffic on the road for anything to be a problem.  

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Creating gold leaf and muscles.

The second day in Burma, I decided to take advantage of the newfound knowledge of the city and rode a bike into town.  I found first the gold pounding workshop, where workers take small pieces of gold and pound them into the fragile gold leaf that can be adhered onto a Buddha statue.  They take little bits of soft gold, divide it across many waxy sheets, then pound it to get the right consistency.  Then, the women take the pieces from inside those waxy sheets and put it onto small, rectangle pieces of paper to secure it for ease of use.  It was fragile work, what the women were doing, but labor-intensive industries like this are common in this part of the world.

Putting irregular shapes into squares of gold.

Then, I sought coffee.  This led me to a restaurant off the beaten path, one I stumbled onto after I tried to order coffee from a beer garden.  I sat down and fielded the multitude of stares from the other patrons; this was obviously not someplace that the average foreigner arrived.  I ordered some noodles and a coffee, and when I began swatting at the mosquitos at my ankles, the owner came over, concerned.  She was 30 something, with very short hair, and I thought she may be involved with the other woman at the restaurant.  Her English was flawless, apparently because she lived in Dubai for 6 years working for DHL (of all things).  She took care of this noodle shop, and her parents took care of a bigger noodle shop a few streets away.

Creating yummy noodles for me to eat.

The next big tourist attraction was Mandalay Hill, a series of pagodas with a view of the whole town.  I biked up to the base of the mountain just in time to see a celebration brewing.  I’m still not quite certain what the ceremony was for, but it involved several beautiful people dressed in their finest silks (you can tell because the fold lines are always sharp on the skirts).  The hair and the makeup was done, and they were taking selfies on the back of their trucks.

The music was loud, blaring from a truck filled with musicians and speakers.  It took me back to my days in Cambodia, when trucks would blast music for all to hear.  I can’t be certain what ceremony was taking place; I believe it was something for novice monks, or maybe for the pagoda to fundraise.  Whatever it was, it was organized.  A quick announcement from the loud-speaker, and all the women who had previously been eating noodles on the side of the street soon found themselves on one of the many trucks to take them off to their destination.  

Taking selfies on the way to enlightenment.

I tried to follow to find their destination, but ended up on the top of Mandalay Hill instead.  I’m feeling quite lazy this week, so I took a moto to the top.  From what I can tell so far, the bulk of people in Myanmar speak just enough English to get around, but still not much.  It’s taken my skills as an ESL teacher and long time Asia resident to grasp the deeper meanings of the conversations that I’ve been having.  The moto man was telling me about the Mandalay Hill temples, and how so many monks live in the area.  I posit that there are more temples per capita here than almost anywhere; with monks to accompany them.  In fact, I’ve read that monks have been crucial here in enacting social change in a government that has quite a few issues.  

But more on that later.

Buddha corner 1.

I walk up to Mandalay Hill temple, and I’m stunned at its beauty.  This is one of the best kept pagodas that I’ve seen in the country, with open space and sparkling clean floors.  I’m walking around, in awe of the view of the whole city, in awe of the religious icons and the sounds, thrilled to see considerably more Burmese people than foreigners, most in their fancy traditional clothing.  I make eye contact and smile at everyone, because there’s something about a tall white woman with metal in her nose and short crazy hair that attracts attention (I’m not sure what).  Every smile is greeted with another smile, and perhaps even more.

Example!

I'm really tall, and really white.

I was stumbling around this temple, just glancing around, and I encounter a older Burmese woman.  Almost immediately, she takes my hand and gathers her family to ask for a photo.  She asks with hand motions, then her daughter (?) asks with a few English words.  I acquiesce, so we pose for a photo with the light blinding me in my eyes.  I know I’m squinting, and apparently the photographer (the son?) notices as well. We move to another location, and she tries very hard to get everyone in the photo, including the young boy (grandson?) who appeared very worried to be so near a tall scary white woman.

Older men looking wistfully into the distance.

Now, I have no clue why they felt the urge to take a photo with me.  I would assume that they wanted to remember the auspicious occasion of a strange looking woman in their temple.  Tourism in Myanmar is fairly limited, and single women travelers are uncommon.  Perhaps they wanted me to feel welcomed in their country (which I very much did).  Either way, they held my hand and my arm, with their beautiful clothes, and I felt like a rockstar.  This country reminds me very much of my Cambodian village, where there just wasn’t much exposure to the outside world.  

Buddha Corner 2. This man had a gong that he rang with prayers.

Until there is.  I went to buy a small souvenir of my travels for the woman watching my cat back in Bangkok, Khun Ann.  I acquired a few small gifts, and the seller told me how much he liked President Obama.  Obama has made friends with Aung San Suu Kyi, the woman currently trying to follow her father’s lead with human rights justice, and this appears to be very okay with the people of Burma.  On one of my treks in the mall, I saw a young man with a portrait tattoo of Suu Kyi on his arm, and I know she is a well-loved figure in this country.  She’s also, unfortunately, being blocked from most of her efforts by the government, a military regime that has been in power for longer than I’ve been alive.

This country, for all its beautiful people, is wracked with some of the worst problems in the region.  Corruption in the government is rampant, even more than in the other SE Asian states, with human rights abuses beyond belief.  The government has been in the news recently for its abuses against the Rohingya people, a Muslim group from near the Bangladesh border.  They are unwelcome in their own country, the government unwilling to provide them citizenship.  Their religion makes other nearby countries (like Thailand) similarly unwilling to welcome them.  

Buddha Corner 3. 

The military regime is ranked as one of the most oppressive in the world, and Suu Kyi has warned tourists to be careful where their money lands, to ensure it doesn’t support the government.  The country does welcome tourists, somewhat.  I had to get a visa online, which was easy for me as a white woman from the States, but is not always the easiest.  The country runs not dissimilarly to Cambodia, with the core group of people (like the “President” and his cronies) selling the natural resources of the land to fund their extravagant lifestyles.  The wage gap is one of the highest in the world, as well.  The President and the core military make bank while the average citizen scrapes by on next to nothing.