Where on earth is Tim ?

A Floating Tomato Salad

I've not cooked while I have been travelling. So, following a craving for a salad, which I continually have, I went to the floating market on Inle lake a couple of days ago, purchased a bag of tomatoes, a couple of bunches of spring onions, some onions and made a monster salad. Ok, its not strictly cooking, but It was rather good and I looked the part with my Lungi and Bamboo hat, both recently purchased. it tasted magnificent thanks to the wonderfully fresh ingredients, all of which are grown on floating gardens on Inle lake. Its a rather ingenious way to grow produce and its been this way for a long time. To grow a wide variety of produce, they float a lattice of bamboo on top of which they place a thick layer of weed followed by some soil dredged from the bottom of the lake. I saw tomato's, onions, many types of lettuce leaf and a bunch of vegetables I don't even know what they were or cant remember. As I say, rather ingenious and some of the tastiest tomatoes I have ever had.

Off to market with giant spring onions, with floating Gardens as the backdrop

We saw this on our day spent cruising round the lake in a speed boat, which for Inle lake, consists of a long boat with a monster diesel engine strapped to the back. It went quite fast, too fast, creating a lot of noise and a large plume of spray. It was a lot of fun to ride, especially when the driver allowed me to drive. The lake fishermen were interesting chaps, who fished using a rigid funnel net to trap fish against the bottom and then speared them from above. Apparently a net won't work because of the weeds, it's more efficient than a line and hook. I was quite impressed. And left with the feeling that I wanted a go...

Not quite at full throttle...yet !

We stopped at a floating village which was err not quite floating, but on bamboo stilts. They have notches in the bamboo to raise and lower the house as the level of the lake fluctuates. Just like everywhere else in Burma, we were invited in for another Burmese cuppa by a friend of the drivers and got chatting to the family. The young lady of the house worked rolling cheroot cigarettes, a 1000 cigarettes a day for 1000 kip. Thats $1 a day. The family were pretty much self sufficient with the men growing produce in the floating gardens and for protein, with little cost, they grew fish under house from fry, feeding the fish with rice every few days. I could not help but wonder why the lake families don't farm fish in large pens. I wish I had asked.  

'Floating village'

Rolling Cheroots for a Dollar a day

The income from the local produce and tourist industry that Inle lakes gives the place a rather wealthy and very laid back feel. It was a great place to spend a few days to chill out before we headed back to Yangon for the end of our trip in Burma. The next day we arrived back in Yangon and a few of things struck me:

Arriving in Yangon from Bangkok over three weeks ago, the city seemed really run down. Arriving yesterday it struck me that the city seemed really modern. How my views have changed over three weeks in Burma! I am sure our return to Bangkok is going to seem like Vegas in comparison.

Secondly there are no motorbikes in town. Which for a third world country like Burma is quite surprising. Why? Apparently the Military Junta banned Motorbikes from Yangon as one of their wives got hit by one. I guess you can do this if your a military dictatorship. Shame they have now decamped to their DisneyWorld capital in Nay Pyi Daw.

Finally I got thinking about the mobile phone industry in Burma. For a start, International roaming is not enabled which means I can't use my UK mobile. Surprising really, as I am sure it would be a big money spinner from tourists like me who like to stay in touch. But then I met a couple of Burmese chaps who explained the different options to buy a SIM in Burma. You can get two types of SIM cards in Burma. A Pay as you go SIM costs $20 for which you get $20 of credit. Its not possible to top up the SIM, so once you run out of credit, you need to buy a new SIM and therefore get a new number. You can however, buy a SIM which has a permanent number and can be topped up. That costs $1800, for the SIM alone, which is a princely sum to your average Burmese. What better way to prevent your population from organising themselves, if they don't know which number their friends have currently got? Another fine example of the extraordinary measures that the Military Junta go to, to prevent any mass organisation of feeling which could impact their grip on power.

Parting gift of some books on Buddhist meditation

My final afternoon in Burma was another trip to Shwedagon Paya. I took the afternoon out to sit and enjoy the ambience of this magnificent Paya. I was soon joined by a pair of girls, initially to practice their English who I then chatted to for a hour or two. When I declined a trip to their house, I need to return, they insisted on buying me a book on Buddhist Meditation. In return I paid one of the tourist photographers to take a picture of us in front of Shewadagon Paya. It came back laminated ready to be hung, which they said they will hang up at home. I promised to send a postcard from our next stop, Laos. I left with another reminder of the essence of Burma. The people here are simply fantastic.

Goodbye Burma and the last of many friends

Burma is a place I loved and ranks up their with my favourite places. I will definitely return one day.

Suspension snapped ? You'll need a G-Clamp and some wood...

To get from Bagan to Kalaw we took the bus. Its an all day service, departing at 4am, for a distance that probably no further than London to Portsmouth. The buses in Burma are hand-me-down from the Chinese affair meaning they are quite old, incredibly small and designed for people with much shorter legs than me. You got a numb bum very quickly.

Lady smoking a cheroot

On this particular journey, we were a good 6 hours on the road when the bus started to lurch. The driver stopped, looked at the wheel and then started to rummage in the rear for his tool kit. I thought we had a flat tyre, but once I got out of the bus I saw that three of the four bars on the rear suspension had snapped. But this is Burma, some 30 minutes later the driver and his mate had G-clamped a lump of teak wood to the suspension. A quick test and off we went. We left, with me trusting the ingenuity of the Burmese more than some of the inherent dangers that a suspension collapsing could present. So much for my three years of study to get a degree in mechanical engineering.

A few hours later we arrived at a blocked road. We were told that a truck had broken down, blocking the road and needed to be fixed. I wandered down the road and came across a Truck that had a snapped drive shaft. This may have had something to do with hundred odd tonnes of bricks overloaded in the rear of the truck. I realised we were in for a long wait. The bricks needed to be unloaded before they could even think of moving the truck or fixing the drive shaft.

It was at this point that another bus tried to ford the river to bypass the blocked truck. Result: Flooded engine and a bunch of puzzled Burmese wondering what the hell to do.

  

What the hell do we do now ?

It then started to rain. A protracted and heavy monsoonal downpour which is typical at this time of year. We walked passed the broken truck and headed up the road to catch a bus beyond the blockage. We left, in rather leaky and very wet bus as the river started to flood. We found out a few days later that the unfortunate bus ended up several hundred meters downstream with its nose in the mud. And with even more puzzled Burmese wondering how to extract it from its predicament.

A few hours later, we arrived in Kalaw. Kalaw is a colonial era hill station used by the British to escape the heat of the plains thanks to its cool climate. Not surprisingly its got a splattering of British colonial influence, like quaint English bungalows, a high street and a model train station. Its also got a Gurudwara, Mosque and Hindu temple to serve the Sikhs, Muslims and Hindus imported by the British from India to serve.

Palaung Lady Weeding

As we walked down the street with our backpacks we were accosted by a several people with offers of Trekking and accommodation. I felt like I was back in India. The last to accost us was Mr Eversmile, which I quickly abbreviated to Mr Neversmile, because, err, he never did. I quickly told him we were not interested in accommodation and I certainly did not want him to inflate our hostel costs by some commission scam. We told him we wanted to trek with Mr Charles, a recommendation. He said that him and Mr Charles were a partnership, so no problem.

Several days later after a cracking trek with Mr Charles, we found out that Mr Neversmile got a commission for this and has nothing to do with Mr Charles. We got commission scammed. I was a little pissed off that I have become so rusty since India.

The trekking was rather good, through several Palaung villages each time stopping for copious amounts of tea. We got to meet and chat with many people, including one acquaintance who left rather full ... a leech. In the evening we stayed within a monastery and had a good chat to the monks. It was all rather excellent.

Putt Putt in Kalaw

I finished our time off in Kalaw with a round of putt-putt. My skills were somewhat rusty and these guys knew the local 'features' better that I did ... I got routed.

Mine Clearance anyone ? Fodder for an incompetent army...

We bumped into Alessandro and Lisa-Marie yesterday. This is the third time we met them by chance on our trip in Burma. Its one of the aspects of traveling, you keep bumping into the same people in random places, sometime even different countries. The last time we met was at dinner in Hsipaw, at Mr Foods. They stayed a few days longer in Hsipaw than we did and gave us reports that "we missed the action". A day or two after we left, the Burmese Army arrived in town. Apparently there was insurgency kicking off in the Kachin state and Hsipaw is on the road to the action. So, the army stopped in town, raided the restaurants for teenagers and carted them off. That was every restaurant except the one that Alessandro and Lisa-Marie were in, as they are foreigners and it would look pretty bad right? Especially to their generals! Apparently the army needed a little bit of land-mine protection where they were going and who better to do this than a bunch of local teenagers from an Ethic minority, the Shan? We were reliably told that the army are suffering massive casualties and have turned to the local Shan population to provide thier protection. That is an army consisting of mostly Burmese soldiers and the unlucky Shan teenage kids who are force marched ahead of the Army, hitting any land-mines that lie waiting.

We knew full well that the Burmese generals, the Junta, are abusing human rights before set foot in Myanmar. But its moments like this that really brings it home that we are travelling in a country were Human rights are being continually abused. And they still are. Quite Seriously.

It also leaves me wondering, if there had been more foreigners in town, maybe even us, would this have happened in Hsipaw ?

Paddling on Inle Lake

I really urge you all to appeal to your respective countries to put pressure on the UN into acting on the gross human rights violations committed by the Military Junta in Burma. And if you're Swiss, go join the UN! The UN is failing in Burma and we all share responsibility for this.

Squatting Tips for Travellers

One of the aspects about traveling is that you talk about crap. A lot. No, I’m not talking about endless conversations concerning useless bits of information. I am talking about one going to the loo for a number two. Yes, you’ll quite frequently end up talking about your bodily functions with people that you have perhaps only met a few moments ago. And, this is all thanks to being in a part of the world where they are inflicted with less than optimal hygiene during food preparation or a little bit of a mix up between sewage and fresh water syndrome. Everyone is, sooner-or-later, inflicted with a bout of the runs. Its a rite of passage for the Indian Subcontinent and SE Asia. I would go as far as saying that more time is spent talking about your bodily functions than is spent on the throne... except they don’t have many thrones here, you get the pleasure of trying to squat during the experience.
I guess if your world trip is a sort of a ...USA..Hawaii...New Zealand...Australia...Cook Islands...Skiing in Switzerland... sort of trip you’ll end up not having this experience.

Boy in Bagan

You must be wondering why I brought up crap on this blog. This is all thanks to this Australian guy I met called John, who we have bumped into on a few occasions round Burma. John has the runs this week. And he has got it bad, so bad it leaves him at panic stations all the time, especially when he needs to take the overnight bus from Mandalay to Bagan. Thankfully Burma is one of those places where the bus driver is quite happy to stop the bus for whatever the demand, and on this occasion he had to stop the Bus quite a few times. That was until, in the middle of the night, he stopped the bus, legged it over the road into a field of grass, fell down a cliff and crapped himself.

We are in Bagan, which is simply amazing. Its an immense plain littered with some 4000 temples and Paya’s scattered over about 50 Square kilometers. Its the site of a ancient city, over 1000 years old which was abandoned c.600 years ago. What’s left are the only structures that were built from stone, the Buddhist temples. It instantly reminded me of Hampi, which still lingers in my mind as one of the Highlights of India. With that in mind, I planned to arm myself with a scooter to cruise the sites (A Scooter of the No License, No Paperwork, No Helmet, No worries variety). Unfortunately the government has recently cracked down on the use of scooters, so I settled for a push bike, which turns out to be quite hard work in the heat of the day. But it was worth it.

Bagan Panorama

Wandering this incredibly immense site, involves huge temples towering some 70 meters above the plain, discovering small temples with intricate frescos decorating the walls and ceilings, walking up small dark winding staircases to reach the immense views across the plain and my favourite ... watching beautiful sunsets over the temples. Its a great place.

Of course, with it being so special, it comes with its fair share of souvenir and drink sellers. But, compared to everywhere else in Asia, the Burmese are the least pushy I’ve come across. They are fantastically hospitable, quite happy to show you the ‘secret parts’ of the temple, or even shining a light up the dark staircase to lead the way. And in return, all they expect is to be able to ask you if you want to check out their lacquerware or paintings. And they expect a polite ‘no thanks’. Its quite a contrast to India where they would expect payment! It leaves me incredible inclined to tip, something which I really enjoy doing in Burma.

Bagan Scene

Its also the place where I’ve first spotted avocado on the menu. This has been a craving of mine for about five months now and I was drooling over the menu when I asked if the restaurant had avocado and got the reply “Yes sir”! I ordered a salad and settled in for the agonising 15 minute wait for it to arrive ... 30 minutes later the waiter came across and politely apologised as the avocado was not fresh. So, take two on the following night, where I tried a different restaurant and yes ... they had avocado salad and it was available! But, alas, I got exactly the same story some 30 minutes later... its not ripe... And then to take three last night in another restaurant and ... hurrah... the avocado salad arrived, but this chef used avocado that was not ripe. It was all a rather big let down. Blue cheese has now just gone into the number #1 spot of cravings.

Bagan Sunset

Tomorrow we are off to Kalaw, which is a Hill Station for a few days trekking.

Mr Charles, Mr Food and Mr Book

We have spent the last few days in Hsipaw, a small town well off the ‘banana pancake trail’. Its a quaint little place where you stay with Mr Charles (who runs the towns Guesthouse), eat with Mr Food (...not surprisingly he runs the local food joint...) after you have stopped on the way at Mr Book. Its a rather nice place, nestled in the rolling hills and quite easy see why people get stuck here. Unbelievably, the highlight for me was the trekking to a democratic Burma. Yes, it does exist and thrives away from the reaches of the Junta. We spent a day trekking, to visit a group of Shan and Palaung villages. The Palaung villages people are of Mon Khmer origin, a high mountain people who grow tea to make a living.

The Shan are low mountain people who farm rice. They still use traditional dress and only recently have got water and electricity in the village, although electricity is always limited to just a DIY hydro generator put in place by the villagers. What I found amazing was the difference between the Palaung and Shan villages. They have completely different cultures and speak radically different languages, though they live only a few miles apart. They are however, united in their Buddhist faith, like the rest of Burma. We visited the Chief elder of a Palaung village, who, explained to us that he is elected every few years and is the person who collects tax’s for the community. He taxes those who are doing well and helps those who struggle in the tough environment. They don’t pay taxes to the Junta and don’t receive any help. It was good to see this freedom, even if a central government could help much more through the benefits of infrastructure investment using the economies of scale. The water to the village was put in place by the UN, the first involvement from the UN I have seen in Burma. The elders wife told Sarah she was fat, which is a big compliment in this part of the world. I am now almost certainly going to be in the dog house for mentioning this on my blog. For at least a month, maybe two. To get there was a long days trekking. Not surprisingly, walking in the monsoon involved plenty of mud and water. Lots of it. We had to cross several paddy fields and struggle up muddy paths, meeting many burmese along the way, several times accompanied with their water buffalo. We met the odd Motorcycle plying the route, which was only possible with really chunky chains on their rear wheels, much thicker than ones you’ll get in Europe an Ski resorts when it snows.

While in Hsipaw we stayed with Mr Charles, which rather unfortunately had a school next door and with a 6.30am start. Which would have been fine in most schools, but not a Burmese school with their repetitive teaching methods.

The lessons consists of children repeating after the teachers all day long. Lots of repetition over and over again, which I was told is because the kids have trouble ‘pronouncing’ and ‘remembering’ ? For lessons like arts and science ? I am not an expert, but could see that this was hardly a way to encourage children to develop the ability to learn. I also understand that the Junta does not knowingly allow studying abroad. I have to say I do rather like the school kids uniforms in Burma. They all have their grade neatly stitched on the front of their shirts. Like ‘grade 5’. I bet you you even find their names on the insides of their collars too, something the UK forgot in the 1980’s. Speaking of schools, we met this British school teacher while having a bite to eat at Mr Foods. She teaches culture. Its a New Labour/Tony Blair sort of idea to teach todays UK youth a little bit of culture apparently.

Leaves me wondering how times have changed since my dose of Latin in the 80’s. After a few days in Hsipaw, we have returned to Mandalay and are taking the slow boat to Bagan. We are going to miss Mr Food, his food was excellent.

However, spending a few days in Hsipaw, was not as it seemed. We heard that Mr Charles, although not government owned is linked to the government and is running a racket against his competitors in town. No-one but Mr Charles was able to provide a guide to go trekking. If another establishments, such as Mr Book offered anything but accommodation, the police pay regular visits to provide some persuasion on way this is not a good idea and they are not nice ... after-all they work for the Generals.

Blood on the Tracks

We spent a few days in Mandalay, our first stop after Rangoon. Generals: Let me offer you some help ... remember you renamed Rangoon to Yangon ... ?

Sarah and I now know that Mandalay is quite a big place. The moment of realisation came half way around the Royal Palace walls, when I admitted that we really should have looked at the scale of the map before we started walking. So, to get around we opted for the local transport options; Trishaws, horse carts and the ubiquitous taxi’s in Mandalay ... tiny little Mazda B600’s.

Trishaw and Driver

Trishaws are new concept to me, but basically consist of a bicycle with a side car welded onto one side. Its quite a beautiful bit of engineering and rather unique. Two passengers sit back to back in the side car while they are whisked away by the ‘driver’ huffing and puffing. Apparently the trishaw drivers will be quite happy with a couple of decent fares of say 1-2000 kyat each. That's about 3000 Kyat or $2.40 a day. Many days they don’t get anything and have to resort to a meager fare by ferrying 10 meter log steel struts to construction sites about town.

Get a little out of town and you’ll find horse carts. I am not a fan after a horse tried to give me a love bite. On my Leg and he succeeded. OK, I was near the horse and I was stroking him, but he could have bloody warned me ? It still hurts and has gone a nice shade of purple. Next time in I go to China, I am going to try horse. With some Ketchup.

Me and our driver for the day, Chi Cha.

Finally there is the dinky toy of a Mazda B600. There is something quite special about sitting in the back of the Mazda, which is open sided, watching the world go by. Our driver has had his car since he bought it new, some 45 years ago. It gets a new lick of paint every seven years and its no problem getting parts as there are plenty of them around. He told me its been through many repairs but is still on its first engine after hundreds of thousands of miles. He always refuels outside of town where the majority of fuel is sold via the black market. That means two blokes with a billy can filling the car up on the side of the road. You really don’t want to smoke anywhere near the petrol stations here ! I am told much the black marketeers are very adapt siphoning off their fuel from official sources. Generals: Yes, you read it here. Your citizens are stealing from you! Just think ... you could have doubled the number of diamond encrusted toilets in your mansions !

Incidentally, given that the highest denomination bill is about $0.80 cents, you need a wheelbarrow to by a second hand 1980‘s Toyota, or even a Mazda B600. Which reminds me. Here people drive on the right. Generals: Remember you decided to change to the right ? And the only reason was to spurn the British colonial era, even though all your immediate neighbors such as India, Thailand and Bangladesh drive on the left ? What a stupid decision. With most cars dating back a few years, or low cost Japanese, which means they are left hand drive. Which is particularly dicey when a left hand driven Toyota tries a blind overtaking maneuver on the right side of the road. Especially when Sarah and I are in the back. I wonder how many needless road deaths have been caused by this daft decision.

We don’t use the trains in Burma. They are government owned. Generals: Yes, you just missed out on another diamond for your toilet. But don’t worry, you can always use those gemstones you keep mining with adults over the age of 8.

Whatever the means of transportation in Burma, you are sure to find it driven by a friendly, chatty and always smiling driver. It that great Burmese smile which I love, revealing a set of red, rotting teeth thanks to years of chewing Paan, a mixture of betel-nut and spices wrapped in a leaf. Once on the road its accompanied by periodic spitting of red Paan juice out onto the road. In many places the sides of the road are red ... and some worried tourists have wondered if they are blood stains. So Generals Don’t worry, the blood stains from your little crowd control incident involving monks during 2007 have been camouflaged with Paan. The UN is not here and The Hague is a long long way away.

Monk with a Paan stained lips and mouth

Finally, I have an admission to make ... while in Mandalay I bought myself a Lungi, which is kind of like a Burmese equivalent of a Sarong, worn by most men here. I have to say that there is something quite liberating for your legs not being wrapped up in a pair of trousers or shorts. I rather like it. You may even see me wearing it in the UK, but only within the safety of my home ... I am still recovering from the time I wore a dress to a party in 1995.

We are leaving Mandalay to visit the mountain town of Hispaw. We are taking a shared Taxi, this one a 1980’s Toyota corolla estate. Its about 200 kilometers of mountainous road and cost us $12. Not bad really.

Model Town for Model Dictators

We took the bus to Mandalay last night. It was one of those 12 hour overnight services which deposits you at the bus station, bleary eyed, at five am in the morning, while the hotel and rickshaw hawks swarm all over you.

This journey was different, not only because this was the road to Mandalay, something of a legend in my mind thanks to a poem by Rudyard Kipling.

Thinking at Dusk

No, on this evening, I woke up in a dream. The first I saw were some clouds illuminated in the distance. I pondered. I thought this must be an oil refinery with a lit gas flume, with such brightly lit clouds. We journey another for a further 20 minutes as the sky continued to get brighter, but I could tell, this was still a long way off. I was convinced this must be a rather large gas flume, in a Mt Doom sort of a way...

And then I was then rudely awakened by an immigration checkpoint, a surprise to me, as there was no border here ... this is the middle of Myanmar. So passport out for 10 minutes of pleasantries with the ‘immigration’ officials. Back on the bus and back to my dream...

We went on, and I started to see a golden spire rise through the landscape as we approached the illuminated clouds. Maybe this wasn't a gas flume ? Maybe it was a another Golden Paya (Stupa), of which there are so many in Burma ? But this must be huge to be able to see it so far off ! A few minutes later, after struggling to see the movement of a flame, I settled for the idea that it must be a massive Paya. And then I asked the guy sitting in front of us, one of the few awake on the bus. He told me it was Naypyidaw, the new capital of Myanmar.

I had discovered Disneyland for the Junta Generals. A model town for model dictators. A nice place to escape from the realities that they live (and run) a third world country. These guys, thanks in no small part to the $6 billion in oil and gemstone exports, have built themselves an exclusive new capital.

And the crowning jewel is a freshly built Paya, now the largest in Myanmar to somehow legitimise the capital in the eyes of the devoutly buddhist people of Burma. There are the large tree lined streets, with trees under 2 years old, and its all well lit even the numerous streets with plots lying empty. Its got its own ‘beach resort’ style hotels and restaurants. There is nothing less than ‘Villa’ style housing. And if its missing a golf course, I am sure its going to get one soon. Naturally it comes with 24/7 electricity, while the rest of Myanmar suffers load sharing, never-mind the dysfunctional roads, communication, sewage and water systems.

Maybe a small amount of the $6bn to repair this part of The Road to Mandalay ?

And you need a permit to enter. Good job I was passing through as I can’t remember ever joining this exclusive club, I don’t earn enough and I don’t have a dinner jacket for the clubhouse.

BLOG NOTE:

As you can see, the only way I can express such an inexpressible abuse of power is with sarcasm. In case you didnt know, the rest of the country sits in poverty. Myanmar is ranked as the most corrupt country on earth (tied with Somalia) and its amongst one of the poorest. It has one of the worst human rights records in the World. All thanks to a bunch of Generals sitting in their grand new capital.

Burma, A forgotten Land

After a few uneventful days in Bangkok, we have headed to Rangoon in Burma. Burma, I am told was renamed Myanmar by the military Junta. As a result, Burma, is still used by many, even though Burma is the name given to the region by the colonial British.

My first impression of Rangoon was one of a crumbling version of London in the 1980’s. Here trees and shrubs grow from the windows and crevices of old buildings, sometimes obscuring the beautiful facade. But unlike the 1980’s in London, you wont find MK II Ford escorts (complete with Chav inside), here almost everything is a Toyota, almost certainly a 80’s model and usually clapped out.

And then you see and meet the Burmese. The Burmese people are quite different to any I have encountered elsewhere in Asia. Men and women wear Loungi’s, a type of a Sarong, the likes of which I have only seen in South India. However, here it’s almost universal worn, given a really different feel to the place. Women’s makeup is still in the form of a yellow paste, called thanakha, smeared in intricate patterns across the face, which also acts a sun block.

Burmese ladies walking around Shwedagon Paya

And then there are peoples with their smiles. Smile back and a grin emerges. It’s a wonderful experience. Get talking and you are soon engrossed, usually with lots of hints and tips about the things that you must go and see in Burma. They are also very interested to know a little about where you are from.

I also have to say the Burmese script is wonderful:

I am enchanted by it. There is something mesmerizing by the curves of the script, with each character somehow appearing to be circular in nature.

I am going to really like this place.

Crumbling Rangoon

That said, Its quite clear the country has come under long term economic sanctions which effects everyday life for most Burmese. The most obvious is a lack of an international banking system. The banks here are basically a bloke behind a desk, a big wooden one at that, in an more or less empty building. Really ... it’s like the 1950’s without bank robbers. We changed some money, through the black market (thereby avoiding the auspices of the military government) only to find that the highest denomination note is 1000 Kyat. That's about 90 cents. We also know that you get the best exchange rates for the largest bills, which gave us a huge wedge of money when we changed our US $100 bill yesterday morning. I am sure that will last a long time, particularly as 100 Kyats will buy you a coffee in a restaurant.

We have also run into George Orwell’s old friend, Big Brother. The was best manifested yesterday afternoon when we went to the wonderful Shwedagon Paya . Shwedagon Paya is a magnificent golden Paya (Stupa), some 98m high, which majestically shimmers, even in a monsoon-ridden sky, against the Rangoon horizon. After a circumnavigation of the Paya, we sat chatting to this chap, someone we met through the wonderful exchange of Burmese smiles. We chatted about Buddhism and the English language of all things, when some 15 minutes later this bloke came to sit near us. We all noticed. Very quickly the conversation from this chap ended. We said our pleasantries and he wondered off. He, too, has read George Orwell’s 1984.

Shwedagon Paya

And, not surprisingly for me, I am also back in the land where the Internet is in lockdown, just like our experience in China. My blog is blocked, along with other important stuff such as my email account and my daily dose of fun from Paul’s Back For More blog. In fact it seems to be more what the Myanmar Junta allow, rather than what they block. Thankfully, Google and all of its services seems to be the flavor of the month in Rangoon, so this blog comes to you courtesy of Google mail and a very helpful facilitator in London ... now that comment makes me feel like a criminal.

One of the conditions that Sarah and I set for coming to Burma was a vow that we would actively channel our US dollars to sources that would prevent a minimum amount ending up in the Military Junta’s hands. We am keeping a track of what percentage of our outgoings are going to government sources, and we’ll let you know on this blog. These include things like VISA’s, Government sponsor museums/monuments, VAT and government owned travel. Unfortunately this also includes the State owned brewery, so no Myanmar beer for the next three weeks !

You may not hear much from me in the coming weeks, Internet cafes are sparse and poorly connected behind the state controlled firewall.

Q: Should I go to Burma (Myanmar) ?

I have decided not to go to Pakistan via the silk road. For a start I can't get into XinJiang as this is closed to foreigners due to the the troubles that have kicked off. And Pakistan is still in a state of turmoil. So I have gone for the easy option and decided to pass.

   I am debating on if I should go to Burma/Myanmar

I got hold of Lonely Planet at the hostel I am staying at to do some reading. There is a debate about wether foreigners should visit Burma.

On one side stands Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize winning Burmese citizen, who is still under house arrest by the military dictatorship. Her viewpoint is that Burma is not ready for tourism and foreigners coming to Burma are legitimising the military government. She argues that most of the tourist sites were built up and restored using forced labor and that tourist dollars go right into the pockets of the corrupt military dictatorship.

On the other side, the argument is that tourism opens these oppressed countries up to the world and your tourist dollars could go directly to the people. It is the same argument used for places such as Tibet (which Sarah and I are going to). Given Burma is a country with no free press, you can also allow people to understand how the rest of the world lives and have their opinions voiced:

“Don’t come in with your camera and take only pictures. We don’t need that kind of tourist. Talk to those who want to talk. Let them know the conditions of your life” Burma resident 2004 (from Lonely Planet Myanmar [Burma] 9th Ed.)

I met an american couple in India who had visited burma before India. They were glowing about the experience. They told me that since the Government now allows USD to be converted to Myanmar Kyat via the black market, very little of thier Tourist dollars ended up going into direct government channels. Instead it goes to local businesses (Hotel, Restaurants, etc). They also said that everyone they met wanted Foreigners to come and visit Burma.

I agree with both arguments.

Should I go or not ? (comments welcome)