Boy Meets World

Well, where to begin with Burma/Myanmar...

If I can, I would like to start with the sweeping statement that this has been one of the most random, exhilirating, unique, bizarre, fun experiences of my life. Let me emphasize RANDOM though. Seriously, I found myself shaking my head every few minutes, and am at least partially surprised we made it out of there alive.

For the skippers, pics at the bottom....

Anyways, any description of Burma would not be complete with a few stories about the unbelievable transport system. This would be because there is no coherent transport system. It takes no less than 21 hours to drive the 400 miles between the main two cities of Yangon and Mandalay. In a way a lot of it was kind of fun, but once those first 17 hours have forced you into a state of delirium, it's hard to really call it fun. Our first experience was our attempt to reach the ancient temple city of Bagan from the capital of Yangon, or as you may know it courtesy of Dr. Evil, Rangoon. We took a spin through Yangon to find the bus ticket office, which ended up being a 15 year old kid with stained red teeth sitting behind a 3 legged wooden desk in an alleyway. All the buses to Bagan were full so we were sent to a random town called Meiktila where we arrive at a wooden hut "bus station" at 5am after a comparatively amazingly luxurious 13 hour bus ride that was tarnished only by the movie "The Mummy" on repeat with no sound except for Brendan Fraser's soul-sucking commentary: "Haha oh i remember this scene, i hurt my leg." "haha oh excuse me for laughing, mummies are just so funny to me now". Little did we know that even the sound of Brendan Fraser's voice would be a godsend compared to the 15 hours of Burmese karaoke music videos that could be found on any other buses that surprisingly had televisions. Anyways, in Meiktila we paid 6 times as much as any local for the right to ride a local truck 5 hours to another town that wasn't even Bagan. I got the dubious honour of riding on the roof of the truck, which was a little bit bigger than a mini-van. It was pretty fun at first, about 6 of us men up there, checking out the beautiful scenery, while dave rode down below with the ladies. However, it became less and less fun as more and more people climbed on. We tried to keep the mood light and I was still quite happy as we coined slogans for the Myanmar transport system: "Myanmar: there's always room from one more" "Myanmar: nobody gets left behind" "Myanmar: bring your live chickens, dead fish and family of 8, we have room for you". Unfortunately, someone called our bluff on the last slogan and really did bring those things. I was wedged beside the chickens, who really developed a taste for me. At our peak, we counted 21 people on the roof, 7 people hanging off the sides and 24 people in the actual truck for an impressive, guiness book-worthy number of 52 people. and unbelievably, i'm not even exaggerating. After that, we had 2 horse and buggy rides and one more 2 hour truck ride which we spent sitting on the roof of the cab, above the driver. we were so delirious at this point that we were falling asleep and had to keep slapping eachother so we wouldnt tumble off the truck, but we made it. So that 21 hour journey was hard to top, but was followed by many a crazy crazy local bus.

The Burmese people are incredibly interesting and for the most part exceptionally kind. We only got robbed once, and that was when we think someone was able to climb into the luggage hold and get into my bag. However, even the thief was nice, as he only stole 30 000 kyat out of a stack of 100 000. Don't fret, 30 000 kyat is like 20 bucks. However, in a country where a 5 course meal costs 3 dollars, it was a bit of a budget breaker. Anyways, the people were really great. Everyone wears traditional longyis, which is basically a blanket wrapped around the waist. Many people also wear this yellow cosmetic on their faces for heat/beauty purposes, which was at first kind of bizarre but I really grew to like. All the men have stained red teeth from chewing betel constantly.

Yangon is the largest city in Burma, but is like a small town with 5 million people. There are no tall buildings and no international brand things anywhere because of the international boycott of the military government. Its main attraction is the Schwedagon Pagoda, which I would compare favourably to some form of a buddhist disneyland. While the Pagoda was amazing, the smells in Yangon were not. Open sewer meets dead animals meets tropical heat, good stuff.

The main highlight of Burma is the ancient temple city of Bagan. I had heard of it, but had no idea it would be as amazing as it was. I havent seen Angkor Wat yet, but as of now I dont know how it could be much better. There are 4400 temples in an area of 40 square kilometres. We spent 3 days biking around them and climbing to the tops to look around. Unbelievable, every which way you look a forest of temples rises out of the scrub-brush and jungle.

From Bagan we took the most uncomfortable 9 hour busride of my life to get to Mandalay, the second largest city in the country. Its major draw was a Dutch guy named Hein who was getting ready to take a 22-40 hour train ride to the north on a wooden bench. Other than that it had some ancient cities nearby yada yada yada 200 year old teak bridge at Amarapura yada yada some good if unhygienic milkshakes.

We then did an incredible 3 day trek from a small village called Kalaw to the majestic Inle Lake. We were accompanied by a Sikh guide named Rambo and a Burmese alcoholic cook named Tong U. The trek itself was incredible, through rice paddies, past angry yet stupid buffalo and through tiny little villages in the mountains. Our first night we slept in a small village that was holding a contest to see who could build the best rocket out of gunpowder and bamboo. There was something surreal about sitting in the middle of nowhere on a mountain watching Burmese people coming incredibly close to blowing themselves up. While we were there we played Chinlo, which is an amazingly fun game that basically amounts to volleyball with your feet and head. Our second night was spent in a monastery in the mountains. When we go there we played piggy-in-the-middle with all the young monks and immediately endeared ourselves to them when Dave smoked the piggy-in-the-middle-monk in the face with the ball. An incredible/painful experience to be woken up the next morning at 5am by the singing prayers of all the children, which may have also been retribution for piggy-in-the-middle.

Nightlife isn't really too noteworthy in Myanmar. In fact, there were 2 nightclubs in all of Yangon, but one of them got closed down when the General's son got in a fight (and we heard lost, the pussy) there. Our craziest nights were had on our trek, courtesy of Tong U, who has a real love for lemon moonshine. Our first night we taught the villagers we were hanging out with how to play Black Jack and Between the sheets, with the loser having to put his finger in a candle because we had no booze left as Tong U had drank it all. On the monastery night Tong U lead us to a hut in the middle of the woods where he proceeded to drink a 40 of moonshine and spend the rest of the night violently wretching in the bushes.

Inle Lake is just an unbelievably gorgeous place. It is a very shallow lake surrounded on all sides by mountains and where it's impossible to see where the water ends and the land begins. Everywhere you look there are small villages built on the lake on bamboo and stilts. The lake is littered with fishermen in flat-bottomed canoes, incredibly paddling with their legs. We spent a day riding around the lake, checking out the markets, the knife-making bamboo hut on water, the cloth-making place, etc... We also went to a Burmese cigar-making hut, where Dave supported child labour by buying some. However, Dave then got some form of "heat exhaustion" and we had to go back to our hostel and miss the prime attraction of the whole journey....the monastery where monks have taught cats to jump through hoops. I don't know if I'll ever be able to forgive him for this, but his acquisition of the greatest wifebeater sunburn i've ever seen softened the blow.

Whenever you travel, and find yourself quite happy and content with what you are doing, you are often brought crashing back to earth by something you see. Ours occurred during our hellish 19 hour bus ride back to Yangon. We were riding through a beautiful mountainy-foresty area when we saw a small grouping of people on the side of the road. A motorcycle was on the ground and a boy of no more than 12 wearing no helmet lay beside it. It was pretty clear that he was dead, and it was just really hard to see. We were probably 8 hours from any hospital and he wouldn't have had a chance either way. Just tough to see.

We are now in Kuala Lumpur where we have met up with the one and only Al Ottaway, who is working here saving the world one refugee at a time with the UN. When we arrived we immediately went out for the drunkest night of my life to celebrate dave's birthday. we attempted to pretend we were at queen's by starting a drink fight, but apparently this fun tradition has not yet made it to Malaysia. i got back to the hostel at some unknown time with 1 shoe and no dignity, but it was a solid night.

Anyways, going to Myanmar was like stepping back in time 50 years. Unfortunately, the main reason it's so unique and incredible to travel there is the same reason the Burmese people are among the poorest and most oppressed in the world. We did our best to avoid giving money to the government and to give money to local businesses, but it was tough to avoid. However, I feel like i get let in on a secret or something just by going there, such a unique experience. I would really recommend it if you want to have the most bizarre, awkward, amazingly random travel experience of your life.

One of the 4400 temples of Bagan...