The REAL Myanmar and then back to Bangkok

Feb 5

Fried Bamboo Worms

David and Zhou picked us up after breakfast and we went to the town

market. We have seen markets everywhere we travel. They are always fun, filled with locals mostly and some tourists and everything you can imagine is on sale. My least favorite parts are the fresh meat/fish sections where un-refrigerated products are on sale. I really dislike the dried fish section as the smell just about turns me green.

For the first time ever, I saw two sections of traditional tribal clothing. I even tried on a magnificent Lahu jacket covered in silver ornaments but alas my large framed western body is no match for diminutive Asia tribal women. If I were staying longer I would have a garment made to fit but alas we leave today. The black cotton jacket with all the silver was all of $30. As we were wrapping up David took us to his construction site and we got to see his work in progress and talked about his plans for the project.

As we drove around town we spied women and men road crews hand building a road foundation, one rock at a time. I saw this in India as well.

Afterwards we told David we wanted to rest before our flight. So returned to the hotel and walked across the street at lunchtime for a quick bite. Off to the airport. We flew a short flight to Mandalay. It was dark by the time we arrived so we just hung out at the hotel, again a pleasant surprise. There was a pool with lots of tropical plants around the patio areas.

Feb 6

We got up early to make a Skype call to our credit union as we discovered both our accounts had been frozen. Talk about being vulnerable. We had enough cash to get through Myanmar but none for Thailand. Our problem was easily fixed with the call. We had checked our accounts in Yangon using Jeff’s computer and he had a VPN (virtual private network) so it looked like we were checking our accounts from the US and we had given a travel notification to our credit union that we would be in Thailand/Myanmar so they thought someone was trying to get to our accounts. Whew!

We checked out and drove for a few hours to a former British hill

station Maymyo, now called Pyin Oo Lwin. We stayed in a former 1921 British residence that is now a small hotel. We loved the room, a high ceiling room with lots of windows and a large bathroom. We visited a wonderful botanical garden established in 1915 and my favorite part was the aviary with great birds: several species of hornbills, rosellas, pheasants, egrets and cranes. It was a thrill to see the birds flying around and being so close to them.

We went to lunch and had another "point and eat" meal, not quite as good as the first one but still good. We rested in the afternoon which was great because neither of us had slept well the night before. The weather is divine, cool mountain air and not so hazy. We were taken to the town market and it was not as busy as most we have been to. 

Our guide Soe Moe had arranged for us to ride in a horse drawn

wooden stage coach vehicle that are popular with tourists. These must be a hold over from the British era. Most are painted bright colors. Ron and I are not big on touristy activities and this would be a good example. Neither of us fit into the coach well. We had to slouch as we couldn’t sit up straight without hitting our head on the ceiling. Given the structure of the carriage, we couldn’t see out as our view was blocked by the top of the door. Did I mention how uncomfortable the ride was? Oy! I guess I sound like a crabby old lady but really folks what is the point? We ended up at another grand former British residence that is in the process of being converted into a hotel. There were about eight grounds workers planting grass starts! I had never heard of such a thing but sure enough they were putting in small sprigs of grass, one at a time. Eventually there will be a lawn.

Next we drove to a small picturesque waterfall and on to walk through

a small village where there are many small farms growing veggies and fruit: carrots and strawberries and wheat of all things. Most flour here is rice flour so to see wheat was quite unusual. We walked by some of the modest homes with no running water or indoor plumbing. We ended the day on a hill above town where Ron could take some sunset photos. A lovely ending to a great day.

Feb 7

We had a good sleep and drove to Hsipaw about four hours away. We asked Soe Moe about salaries in Myanmar and discovered that elementary teachers make about $150 a month while high school teachers make about $300. While we were en route we spied numerous small piles of sand and gravel then we would see a 50 gallon drum that had been cut open from the side and here they were heating tar with a wood fire underneath to apply to the road after the gravel and sand had been laid down. All of this was done by hand. Small flat baskets are used to distribute the sand and gravel. Construction workers make $10 a day, a decent wage here. Soe Moe pointed out sandalwood being grown for incense for export to India.

We went through multiple tolls booths during this trip. Each town collects tolls to pay for their roads. This is the main road to China from Myanmar so it was quite busy with large trucks hauling goods in both directions. The tolls were usually 50 cents or less for a car. We frequently saw trucks carrying watermelons in boxes to China which I had never seen before. Sugar cane and rubber plantations are here in abundance. We saw dragon fruit being grown as well. The roads had no markings for lanes and no shoulders. It made the trip through the mountains a wee bit hairy.

We learned that primary schools are free and required in the villages but usually students drop out after primary school to help on the farm. Farm families are still quite large by our standards as the farmers need all the free labor of family members. Next year the government plans to make middle school free. University studies are by correspondence mostly. Only the wealthy can attend classes in a physical institution. I cannot imagine what the quality of a correspondence degree is. We saw huge banyan trees here that are truly incredible with the trunk girth and area they shade. We noticed that the spare tires of many of the trucks were completely bald. This is a very poor country after 50 years of military rule and complete isolation from the rest of the world. 

We had to descend a gorge and then climb back up the other side. It took 30 minutes to reach the bottom due to the steepness and how slow the large truck had to go. If a truck lost its brakes there would be no surviving the accident as the gorge sides were incredibly steep. And forget guard rails. I feel sure in the future there will be funds to build a bridge across the Gokteik gorge. China is so hungry for the resources Myanmar has.

Another odd sight was seeing a motorcyclist carrying a new motorcycle on the back of his cycle which was mounted perpendicular to the rider. It looked very dangerous and is illegal according to our guide. Did I mention that most vehicles are right side drivers and that they drive on the right side of the road? Think about it. If you want to pass a truck or another vehicle, you must pull into the opposing lane of traffic to see if you can make your move. Holy Crap Batman! Because of the danger of this, we noticed the big trucks would use their left hand signal when the road was clear for a car to pass them. Brilliant! The soil here reminded me of Georgia: red clay. The natural gas company here has built a pipeline to China and now sells gas to them. The farmers grow GMO corn under contract to China. China furnishes the seed and feeds the corn to their animals, apparently.  One farmer told us he wouldn’t feed his animals that corn but unfortunately we aren’t sure that he understood his corn would be cross pollinated with the GMO corn if they are grown near one another.

Soe Moe, our guide

We visited a pagoda near town and the four of us had lunch together. Ron paid for all of us and the bill was $6.50! Our hotel is great. It’s called Mr. Charles Guesthouse and has three main buildings. Some are set up for foreigners like us who want a double or queen bed with an ensuite bathroom. Others are for back packers who require fewer amenities. It was a great place with a good breakfast. This is a place that has been around a long time and it owned by a Myanmar family. After being let off after lunch we walked through the small town and ended up in a coffee house. The owner is Australian who has lived in Hsipaw for 14 years and opened the place about three years ago. We sat out back and had Americanos with a muffin. The coffee was way strong and somewhat bitter but at least it wasn’t weak or instant. The patio was lovely with lots of plants and umbrellas to shade us from the hot sun.

Soe Moe next took us to a farming village and we walked along a  

small dirt road and talked to families about their way of life. One grandmother was preparing broccoli for the market. It turned out she and I were the same age. She still had black hair and had 10 children, all grown now.

Next we went to a historic home of the last Shan prince. We are in the Shan state which is the largest in Myanmar I think. The Shan people are the second largest ethnic group after the Bamar. This was a very British looking mansion but in disrepair. We heard a talk on the history of the Shan princes. The man who had built the home died in prison in the 1960’s after a military coup. The woman who gave the talk is related by marriage to the last prince. He was married to an Austrian woman whom he met while studying at the Colorado School of Mines in the US.

Afterwards we went to another hill top to take sunset photos. We ate dinner by the river in a lovely restaurant. This place was expensive by Myanmar standards and definitely was catering to tourists sense of esthetics. We had beer, bottled water, fried rice with chicken, and sautéed broccoli with garlic for the price of $6.00

Feb 8

This morning we were treated to a boat ride up the Dutawaddy River.

We saw women washing clothes in the river which is where they bathe as well. We saw small boats that are built from a single log that had been hollowed out as well as the kind of boat we were riding in which was a wooden boat built from numerous lengths of lumber. We rode for an hour then disembarked and walked up a steep bank.

We were warmly greeted by a woman who lived alone in a simple hut. She had no teeth, was 73 years old and grabbed me and put her head on my arm while stroking my arm. It was a very touching moment. Apparently her children check on her a couple of times a week. There is no water source visible other than the river, no electricity nor an outhouse in sight.






We continued our trek to the 100 year old Khone Monastery about 30 minutes away. Here 23 village
boys come to study as novices with the two resident monks. We drank tea and ate peanuts but didn’t have any interaction with monks or the novices.

We hiked back to the river and the woman who had greeted us so warmly repeated her endearing behavior. Back onto the boat we continued up river to the confluence of the Nantu Ma River and the Duttawaddy River. 

We headed back down river and stopped at a village where there was

a ‘Burmese wake’. Someone had been buried a day or two before and now people from all around had come to express their condolences and there was a large gathering with lots of food. We were invited to join in. Another one of those very special moments when we were included in an intimate cultural event.

We were served fermented tea leaf salad, our favorite new dish. People were giving up their own cutlery for us to eat. It was humbling to say the least. Our guide told us everyone brings food for several days and many will attend to offer love and support to the family members of the deceased. 

Here everyone washes clothes in the river and bathes in the river but

they had wells for drinking water. There was no indoor plumbing but we did see outhouses and some of the better homes had concrete floors on the ground floor which is an open structure with the living quarters on the second floor. Some roofs were metal and some were thatch. At the outer edge of the village were train tracks. As the train nears the village it will slow down. If someone will be taking the train a flag will be set out to let the engineer know to stop here. Soe Moe said it stops for one minute.

There was a shrine for good crops. It consists of bundles of bamboo

pieces about eight inches long each. Each bundle represents a village family. If someone dies they will take one bamboo piece out of the bundle. The bundles were stacked around an unseen vessel that holds peanut oil. See photo. Each year before planting the family will take a cup of the oil and pour it onto their plot of land to ensure a good crop. There is an all day celebration with a monk sitting on top of this shrine structure chanting to ask for good crops. This village had about 85 families and a population of 500. Families are large and kids drop out of school after primary to work on the farm.

As we traveled down river back to town we saw banana trees, sour peach trees, oranges, mangoes, papayas, tamarind, coffee, and pineapples along the river banks. And of course there were banyan trees. GMO corn is grown for export to China. After the corn is dried and striped off the cob for export, the cobs are saved to use as fuel for cooking fires.

Back in town we had a Shan noodle soup and Shan noodle salad for lunch. Both were delicious. The soup was a rich broth with rice noodles crushed tomatoes, greens (cilantro?) and seeds that tasted like anise. The salad was similar but had tiny bits of something chewy, perhaps bacon or some other meat. Soe Moe joined us and the bill for the three of us was $1.60

We are staying in the heart of a very small town with a visible Muslim population. In the Buddhist traditional the monks learn a dead language. I think it is Pali. Near our hotel the monks recite chants in Pali that no one understands 24 hours a day over a loudspeaker. I thought I would jump out of my skin. I asked Soe Moe if this didn’t disturb people, particularly the Muslims. He said ‘This is Asia. We are use to a lot of noise so after a while you don’t hear it anymore’. Well it kept us awake nightly and woke us up quite early daily. It seems insensitive to me to think that non Buddhists would want to hear that all day but I often am offended by what I view as impositions of religions

Hsipaw is a small town of 5,400 people with one main road and two other main streets. Most of the roads are not paved so there is dust, sand and dirt everywhere. I watch shop owners dusting all day. Most shops in this part of the world are small, maybe 6-8 ft wide and 10-15 ft deep. They have a metal retractable door that lifts up into the ceiling area so that the shop is completely opened to the street. So when a motorcycle, car or truck passes by dirt flies everywhere and right into the shops.

A very sweet surprise was the dress here. As we ate lunch our first day numerous women passed by on the sidewalk with sarongs with multiple bright stripes of color and matching blouses. They wore wonderful hats made of woven material, probably bamboo. Some were colorful and some plain but they were such a variety of shapes and colors. It was a treat for the eyes.

In the afternoon we rested then went out again for another village visit. I don’t know if I have said this but last year we visited Burma and did what I think most tourists do. We visited Yangon, Bagan (a temple city), Mandalay and Inle Lake. This year we specifically wanted to visit small towns and villages to get a feel for how people lived in Burma. So we set off on a two hour walk. We visited a sculptor who carves wooden horses for temples. They were always done in pairs: one white horse and one back one. They are ½ life size. He gets $300 per horse and probably makes about $200 after expenses. He can carve one horse a week. After the carving he paints them with a lot of decoration.

As we passed through the village every child would call out ‘hello’ and ‘goodbye’ to us.  We only encountered warmth in Burma. This was a prosperous village with every house having its own well and outhouse. They had bamboo fences where they grew peas and beans. We passed a chedhi where a large number of villagers were volunteering to help the monks rebuild the 600 yr old structure that had collapsed in a recent rainstorm. When it collapsed they discovered 19 Buddha statues inside. After photographing them, they were put back into the new structure.

 At one point our guide said ‘Chinese water buffalo’. I looked aroundChina. Many men still use a manual plow with a water buffalo. See photo. It was dusty everywhere and we felt pretty dirty after two hours.

and saw a mechanical plow…hence the name as it was made in

An, our local guide, is a member of the Palaung tribe. He said the UNDP had piped water to his village. Before this the villagers had to get up at 4:30 to go to the water source and carry it back to the village. His village is 16 kilometers (about 9 miles) from town. He walks it in 5 hours. If it is dry season he can go on motorcycle. He spends half the year working on his family’s tree plantation and half the year guiding. The high season is Nov-Mar and April-Oct is the rainy season.

This year we saw something we had not seen before: motorcycle vendors. They load their bike with numerous veggies or fruits and drive to a neighborhood and sell directly to the people in that area. This is brilliant since many people do not own any form of transportation. We also saw small pickup trucks doing this. One disturbing sight was motorcyclists who carry their helmets instead of wearing them or wearing them but not fastening the strap to hold the helmet on. DUH!

We ended the day with another sunset shot.

Feb 9

We drove back to Mandalay today, about five hours. When in Mandalay we drove on the newest road in the country which is mostly empty because it is a toll road and people are still quite poor after 50 years of isolation. But the road was substandard by our measure. There were frequently dips requiring cars to slow down. We were not interested in doing anything in Mandalay other than relaxing as our schedule had been quite busy the past few days. I didn’t have any appetite at dinner so ordered watermelon and ate a few bites of Ron’s fried rice.

Feb 10 - 19

Neither of us slept well due to rock hard pillows. I woke up feeling a bit nauseous. Today we are to fly to Bangkok. At the airport I got light headed just when we were supposed to go into the passport control area. Poor Ron he was first in line but I had to lie down on the bench and he had to get out of line. I got through the baggage screening but at passport control I gripped the desk and hung my head below the desk. I was asked to stand up for the photo that is required. I got inside the next part of the terminal and immediately sat on the floor and put my feet in the air trying to get the circulation to my head. Ron went in search of the bathrooms and gate. I went to the bathroom and seemed to be better. I didn’t eat anything until 3 or 4 in the afternoon in Bangkok. Those that know me know I get low blood sugar and never miss a meal so this didn’t bode well. I ate a bowl of soup and went to bed. In the middle of the night I got diarrhea. Have I ever mentioned what a saint I am married to? I didn’t quite make it to the toilet and was about to fall off the toilet in a faint when Ron came to the rescue. I took some medicine but still was having trouble the next morning so we got a doctor to come to the hotel. He prescribed four meds and I was encouraged. However my system was so irritated that nothing could stay put long enough to take hold. 

So the next morning still having trouble we called Dr. Krishrat who owns a private hospital and whom we have known for six years. He told me to come and spend a night. I was a wreck to put it mildly. I met with a doctor and told him how long I had been having symptoms, showed him the medicine I was taking and he immediately said I needed an IV to get the medicine to take effect. So I stayed overnight and had two IV’s. I cried with relief when he told me I needed to stay overnight. I haven’t been in the hospital since 1989! For about 18-20 hours I had audio and visual hallucinations. Nothing scary but it was weird and took me a while to figure out what was happening. Every time I closed my eyes I would see what looked like really lovely flocked wall covering in beautiful colors. The audio was soft music and low voices which I couldn’t distinguish what was being said or sung. Trippy! I checked out at noon and took a taxi back to our hotel where I rested. Somewhere prior to the hospital Ron went to a restaurant that we frequent and asked if they could make some chicken soup for me. They actually delivered it to my room and refused payment. It was such a kind gesture as they don’t serve chicken soup at the restaurant.

We had tickets to fly to Chiang Mai but I was too sick. We had a doctor’s letter saying I couldn’t travel but the airline wouldn’t honor it so we cancelled our trip. Because Ron had a meeting the next week in Bangkok we decided to just hangout in Bangkok rather than go to our house and turn around and come back to BKK then turn around and go back to the house.

We had to change hotels the day I got out of the hospital but there was a room right across the street. Ron got us moved before I got there. Have I ever mentioned what a swell guy I married? I won the husband lottery!!!!!!!!!! Because it took a few days before I could eat solid food and because I had so little appetite we decided to delay Valentine’s dinner until I was back to normal. So a few days later we went to our favorite place, Once Upon A Time, a lovely restaurant where we always eat in the garden outside. We ordered a favorite dish that Larry Brown introduced us to in 2005 I think. It is called Seafood soufflé and is cooked in a young coconut. It is quite rich and absolutely delicious. We also ordered a fried fish with garlic, a dish we discovered last year.

Nothing else of significance happened while in BKK. We shopped for some friends back home. I had planned to get them a table runner in Chiang Mai and was lucky in that organization has a small shop in BKK. I found the perfect item in the color combination I wanted. Once we acted like tourists and walked around the old ‘farang’ area (foreigners). This area had some old colonial buildings and beautiful shops. Ron and I find BKK too frenetic for our tastes. There are 14 million people in the city. It is crowded almost everywhere you go and it wears us down pretty quickly so we really just cooled out jets mostly. I made a daily trek to the internet café for email. I did observe how casual people in BKK dress. You will see women in very short shorts. Everyone wears sandals, mostly flip flops. There is no traditional dress in the big city. All the malls are crowded. I decided since I was going to be in BKK for a week I might as well take advantage of the tailor next to our hotel. It was the same tailor Ron and I used in 1997 on our first trip to BKK. I had a couple pair of pants made and three silk blouses at a great price.

We walked through a city park and Ron took some photos

Ron had his meeting with someone from Thammasat University about him possibly teaching there. He is encouraged after the meeting though nothing definite has been decided.

Feb 20

Today we hired a private car to bring us back to our home. We usually take a van but we had so much luggage and I just didn’t want to schlep it through the sky train to the place where you pick up the vans. It was so much easier. It feels so good to be back here where we hear a variety of birds throughout the day. We have some noisy neighbors but they rarely bother us.