Sad to say but our photos were inadvertently erased so we have no more to add to this adventure.

Nov 20 2012

Our flight to Yangon was 1 hour 15 minutes. We flew Air Asia, the budget airline. You paid for water if you wanted it. Nothing was free. When we booked our flight they showed the fee for the tickets, then you were to choose your seat.  Hey, guess what? You added a fee for your seat. Depending on which seat you chose, the fee varied. Exit rows cost more, for example. Well it ended up being less regardless of its additional costs but it was deceptive to see the initial price.

The Yangon international airport was bright and looked up to date. As we drove to town the area close to the airport looked quite nice if not prosperous but the closer we got to the heart of the city, the dirtier and more dated it looked. Buildings were tired and needed repainting or remodeling. Sidewalks here are covered in red spittle from betel nut chewers. Gross. The area where we walked near the town center was densely populated and quite crowded. There were lots of street vendors, particularly food vendors selling produce or prepared food which looked unappetizing. We also saw lots of meat and fish being sold, no refrigeration or means of cooling the products.

Everywhere we went in Burma there were bright smiles all around. We were humbled by the warm welcome. Obama had visited the day before and everyone seemed thrilled with the visit. The newspapers and BBC news had his photos in abundance. Many women, small children and some men wear a face ‘make-up’ which is used both for beauty and sun protection. It is made from the bark of a tree which is ground into a paste, mixed with water and smeared onto the face, mostly the wide swabs across the cheeks but sometimes all over the face or some other variation. It is extremely hot and humid here.

All of our arrangements we made through a travel agency because when I tried to book hotels online two and a half months prior to leaving the US, the hotels were booked! A friend recommended a travel agency in Yangon. Our hotel was 100 years old and had not been undated since the 70’s I would guess. They are in the process of painting and added new curtains in the rooms and there was scaffolding on the exterior. However it was a dump. Internet was rarely available, the stoppers in the sink and tub didn’t work, the light switch in the bathroom didn’t work, the lighting in the room was awful, etc. Because Burma has opened up in the past couple of years, tourists are coming in droves. We met a woman in Bangkok who works here with refugees and said her hotel that used to cost $32 a night is now over a $100. So at some level we were lucky to have a place to stay. Ron and I have traveled to areas in Ethiopia and eastern Sri Lanka that made this place seem like a palace so we mustered through.

We took a walk our first day as it was an open schedule. We went through a market area which was extremely crowded and dirty. It started raining hard so we ducked under an awning of a wire/cable shop and the manager/owner (?) grabbed two stools and invited us to sit inside. Once again we were touched by the reception. We spied a Christian church, many Buddhist temples, some mosques and a Jewish synagogue. We saw older buildings like the immigration office and railway buildings being renovated. These are colonial era buildings. The renovation of city hall has been completed. Burma is the poorest nation in Asia after 50 years of military rule and being isolated from the rest of the world. There were lots of cars and like many places we have visited pedestrians have no right of way here.  Our first dinner was in a biryani joint, complete with florescent lights, plastic stools which are ubiquitous in Asia. The chicken fell off the bones and was flavorful. I only got a couple of bites complete with grit. Our dinner was under $5. We walked back to the hotel as it wasn’t far. There were no street lights which made walking difficult as sidewalks were not even, sometimes there are lids off manhole covers, etc. We need to take our flashlight with us in the future.  We came home to our room and the AC was leaking water on the floor.

We got up at 4:00 a.m. to catch our 35 minute flight to Bagan. The domestic terminal was much more humble than the international terminal. There were two gates, side by side. When we arrived in Bagan we were directed to an area to wait for our luggage which took around 40 minutes, longer than the flight. Everything is done manually here, a sign of the poverty of the nation. So men hand load and unload luggage. There are no conveyor belts into and out of the planes. They load the bags onto a cart that is then pushed back to the terminal and there are none of those fancy retracting gateways that snug up to the planes like we have in the US.  For some unknown reason they parked the cart a block distance from the terminal and ran back and forth to retrieve the bags, one at a time.

Since we arrived quite early we started our sight seeing immediately. I failed to mention working through the travel agency we arranged for a car with driver and guide in each location, something we don’t normally do but it seemed the wise move given the situation in Burma. Our guide took us to the morning market where locals shop. Oy! We walked through narrow spaces with people on the ground, chopping fish and chicken on small wooden boards. We were close enough to get splattered but fortunately didn’t. It was gross. You can’t imagine how crowded, dirty and confined the spaces were. Flies were everywhere. We saw all kinds of produce and fresh meats/seafood and it mostly was unappetizing if not nauseating so early in the day.  There was lots of dried fish for sale, my least favorite part of Asia.  We saw all kinds of dried fish like the snake fish. YUM! It smells so bad that I have to hold my breath. The vendors were aggressive and I assume this is due to their poverty. Women selling wrap around skirts made for tourists to resemble the native dress would rush up to me and start wrapping a skirt around me. I resisted (I can’t wear this type of skirt due to my body shape). One woman actually knocked me off balance. Another one walked right up and applied the face make-up used here hoping I would buy a jar from her. Betel nut stands with all the paraphernalia was in abundance as were the chewers, men and women. If you have never seen this, it looks like the chewers mouth is bleeding profusely: the entire cavity is blood red as are the teeth. Eventually the teeth are permanently stained.  And so it went.  We then visited three Buddhist temples. This region is renowned for its temples: 3200 in all. Our guide was quite knowledgeable and detailed and both of us got overwhelmed with the information he was giving us. I asked him to be a little less specific.

We had a classic Burmese lunch of chicken curry. This consisted of stewed and somewhat tough and dry chicken, and about four or five side dishes, about twice what either of us could eat. Then we checked into our lovely hotel. It was small with about 15 rooms wrapped around a courtyard. The breakfast was served on the roof top terrace. We had booked this room as the agency was having difficulty finding one in our range in Bagan. It was spotless and everything worked and it cost $30 a night as opposed to $84 in Yangon where very little worked. The breakfast here was to order and far superior to the place in Yangon. We rested in the heat of the day then went to a lacquer ware showroom and workshop. We purchased a tray and headed out to see the sunset over the river. It was a perfect ending to a long day. We stopped at a restaurant on the way home and had a good dinner. We were asleep by 9:30.

November 22

Today is Thanksgiving. We have so very much to be thankful for and it is abundantly clear when you visit other parts of the world just how good we have it in the US. We were picked up at 8:30 and drove to a famous temple (Shwesandaw paya-golden holy hair, one of Buddha’s hairs is enshrined here) where we climbed up five levels to catch the view. Bagan is located on a large plain and many temples were visible from this vantage point. The steps were so steep and high (not to code mind you) that I had to literally pull myself up hand over hand using the railing. Coming down was even more difficult. But it was worth the view. Most of the temples here were built in the 11^th-13^th centuries. We sat on the wall on the top level while our guide regaled us with stories of the history here. The hair was presented to King Anawrahta by King of Ussa Bago in thanks for his assistance in repelling an invasion by the Khmers. But we also asked about life in Burma today and Soe Wen was happy to answer our questions. He said teachers make $80-$100 a month. It is not enough to support a family but a couple could eke out an existence on that amount. Soe Wen’s wife works full time for the government and he works full time during the tourists season, about six months a year. They have two children and he said without his wife’s income they could not make it. She lives with her parents and the children. He lives with his parents and when they can get together they do. They live where their work is and they are about an hour away from each other.

We visited Htilominio pahto,150 ft high, built in 1218. It marks the spot where King Nantaungmya was chosen (by a leaning umbrella-that timeless decipher), among five brothers, to be the crown prince. Ananda Pahto was perhaps the most impressive. It was thought to have been built in 1090. It contains 1000 Buddha images most of which are small and way above eye level but there are four that are each 31 ft high made from a single piece of wood. Two are from the11th century and two are replacements from a fire in the 1600’s that destroyed two of the originals. They were magnificent.  They are in the process of restoring some wonderful murals with the help of archeologists from India.  Every temple we visited in Myanmar had vendors in the entrances to the temples. They were selling religious items as well as souvenirs and trinkets. It is interesting how the commercial and religious are blended here as in other parts of the world.

Afterwards we went to get cash by exchanging dollars as there are no ATMs, no credit cards and no travelers checks used here. We had to carry cash in US dollars and the bills had to be new, with no creases, no marks, stains or tears. They also had to be certain serial numbers. We went to three banks in the US before we were able to get the required money. While changing money we bought a nat (spirit being) mask to add to our mask collection. Worship of nats predates Buddhism in Burma. Nats have long believed to hold dominion over a place, person or field of experience. Afterwards we asked to see a village away from the tourist area and walked around. As we passed by homes our guide would ask if we could enter the yard when a family was outside. Each time we were welcomed in so we felt like we got a small taste of family life in this village. The first place was a farm family and they were poor. The second home we visited was a family who has a rice noodle business. Everyone, men and women, are involved in this two day process of producing the noodles. Their business was a successful endeavor and their home had more amenities. Keep in mind they live close to the ground literally and figuratively. The people in this village have outhouses and drink river water which is pumped to the houses. The homes we saw were mostly made of bamboo woven mats for the walls and no foundations. The wealthier families might have brick walls but by our standards these people were living in shanties. Soe Wen said there were no TVs in his village until 1996. Today we saw some satellite dishes on bamboo mat walls. There were only a very few cars in this village. Horse carts are still in use. All farming is done as it has been for centuries: oxen ploughs, hand harvesting, hand threshing, etc. We saw a grandmother lighting up a cheroot.

Nov 23

We left for Mandalay, another 30 minute flight. Again luggage is hand carried from the check in counter to the area where it is scanned then carried to a roller carts then rolled out to the tarmac and loaded onto the lane, all manually. No moving machinery here. Four flights arrived within 25 minutes and four departed. There is lots of room to make a mistake with the luggage given the system here which is hardly a system but we did just fine. There are no computers in the airport either. Boarding passes are hand written with no assigned seats. As we were driving around I saw a billboard with two photos of motorcycles accidents. Each one featured a bloodied (dead?) body and a crushed motorcycle. Our guide said there is a real problem with motorcycle accidents and deaths in Mandalay. That evening we saw people driving their motorcycles with no lights on!

That morning we visited the world’s longest teak foot bridge which gently curves 1300yds. across a swallow lake in Amarapura. A 17 year old girl approached us as we got out of the car and followed us across the bridge and back to the car asking us to buy her necklaces. I told her as soon as she asked that I would not buy her necklace. She persisted and was disappointed when I got back into the car. Again I think people here are quite poor and probably desperate for money. Ron asked to take her photo then gave her some money as a thank you. As we crossed the bridge there were several beggars on the bridge: an elderly woman, a woman with an infant and a woman who appeared to have leprosy. We then went into Mandalay and saw artisans: wood carvers, tapestry makers, marble carvers, silk weavers, and gold leaf pounders. The gold is first flattened with a small machine that is manually cranked but the final process is a man who uses a heavy wooden mallet to pound the gold leaf for five hrs. Because the gold leaf is used in temples this final step is required as using a manual machine would not meet the requirements of the temple.

In the afternoon we saw a replica of the royal palace which is located on a military base. The sign at the entrance said “We and the people cooperate and crush all enemies of the Union”. I aaume this is a remnant of the previous military junta. The original palace was destroyed in a bombing during WWII. We visited a highly carved teak monastery, a teak pagoda and the world’s largest book: the holy Buddhist scriptures that are inscribed onto 729 marble slabs, each housed in its own small stupa. The evening ended with a ride up Mandalay Hill. Many walk up the hill as a ‘pilgrimage’ of sorts. I could never have made it and was thankful to be in a car. The view from up top which includes two or three escalator rides is a 360 degree view of Mandalay. We arrived in time for sunset.  Mandalay, like Yangon has many unpaved roads and is dirty consequently. There is a litter problem here also. People sit on the ground or quite close to the ground to do their work whether they are washing dishes or clothes, sewing tapestries, or carving marble or wood. Many homes have no foundations so the dirt easily enters the home. Some homes have dirt floors. Although there was less begging here than in India  it seemed poorer to me than India.

The majority of people in Burma dress traditionally. Men and women wear sarongs, long length of tubular cloth that is tied at the waist. It requires constant retying throughout the day. All of our guides wore sarongs. One guide told us they wear them because they are cheap and fit the weather here. We frequently saw men riding on top of crowded buses. There is a growing disparity between the wealthy and the poor. The military has been in power for over 50 years so many of the military are cronies and are quite wealthy. We would see very nice homes built right next to a shanty or a small business. People use horse carts, bicycles, bicycle rickshaws, motorcycles and cars to get around along with buses.  Many of the temples are decorated with mirrored tiles, garish to our tastes but quite popular in Burma. What was peculiar was that drivers ride on the right side of the road British style but the steering wheel is also on the right side. They cannot see to pass the car in front of them without getting completely into the opposing lane of traffic. We had a very nice accommodation here, a suite in a new hotel. Such a contrast to Yangon.

Nov 24

Next morning we flew to Heho and were met by our next guide to took us to the boat launch for our stay on Inle Lake, my favorite part of the trip. The lake measures 13.5 miles long by 7 miles wide. The elevation here is 3,000 ft so it was cooler. The communities here are prosperous as they grow 85% of the potatoes for Burma as well as many other crops: rice, corn, cauliflower, sunflower seeds for oil, tobacco and bananas. It is the breadbasket of Burma. The population of Heho is 13,000. The homes were better constructed of stucco, cinder block or brick instead of bamboo. We saw crops being dried on tarps in front of homes. Gas stations were small stands that sell gas in liter bottles. Still we saw no foundations on structures. They are built at the ground level. Many residents wore broad brimmed straw hats for sun protection. I saw women washing clothes in the irrigation ditches. Our trip on the boat was an hour and we spied the leg rowers that Inle Lake is famous for. Men standing up use one leg to row their fishing boats to leave at least one hand free to manage their gear. The lake is surrounded by stilt house villages and floating vegetable gardens. The lake is 3-4 meters deep and rises to 4-5 meters during the wet season. Some houses sit on small dirt ‘platforms’ and would be sitting in water at 5 meters. Boats are the main means of transport here and it is a busy lake as this is one of Burma’s top five attractions for tourists. Our hotel was fabulous. It is built in the water and rests on stilts. Our cottage included a large bedroom, a covered veranda facing the sunset with deck chairs and a small table and chairs and a large bathroom with a tub and a shower. It is rare to find a tub in Asia. The houses on the lake were much larger than we saw anywhere else in Burma. Our guide said one family lived in each house but I am not sure if there were two generations as she said that the older people lived upstairs. Almost all the houses were two stories. We visited a silver smith with a very large showroom, a weaving studio where we saw lotus weaving, something I had never heard of and that I was totally fascinated by. The weaver takes a lotus stem and scores it about three inches from the bottom. She then carefully breaks the stem and gently pulls it away from the main stem and tiny threads are visible which she twists and lays onto a board and uses her hand to rub the threads together. She repeats this process working her way up the stem adding the new threads by rubbing them into the former ones. Needless to say the scarves made from lotus were more expensive than silk. The resulting cloth is like linen or flax, a somewhat coarse fabric and most attractive. We visited a boat builder. The boats are made of teak and it takes four men working 20 days to complete one boat. These are simple albeit long boats with outboard motors. It takes twenty men to haul the boat into the lake. The builder also does yearly maintenance on the lake boats as they require resealing yearly. We stopped by a blacksmith shop where knives were made as well as something that looked a lot like a scythe, farm implements and gongs which are used a lot here. We watched cheroots being made. All the people doing this were young women in their early 20’s. They make 1,000 cheroots a day and make about $3.80 a day. Oy! I loved watching paper being made with bougainvillea blossoms. The paper was made into wrapping paper, lamp shades, hand held fans and parasols. A woman can make three parasols a day. We ended the day looking at floating gardens where we saw a ton of tomatoes being grown as well as cauliflower. As we drove around in the boat we saw women washing clothes and dishes in the lake from their docks. I didn’t want to know about how residents dispose of sewerage. I was surprised at how little debris we saw in the lake. Only once or twice during the day did we see a collection of trash (plastic items, etc) floating in the lake. Each time we arrived at the hotel, staff and two little kids greeted us with a loud welcome of banging gongs and other percussion instruments. When we arrived at the end of the day there was a Pa-O couple there in their traditional dress of black clothing and red turbans.

Monks in Thailand mostly wear saffron robes while in Burma they are burgundy. Several times we saw fisherman slapping the water with their oars. They do this to stun the fish in hopes of making it easier to catch them. We saw beautiful and large poinsettias here about four or five feet in height. Because this is poor country I twice got shopping bags made of newspaper.

Nov 25

Yangon

Our first day in Yangon we visited the national museum and a 70 meter long reclining Buddha (the longest reclining Buddha I have ever seen and I have seen a heck of a lot of Buddhas in my travels throughout Asia). We had lunch at a traditional Burmese restaurant and visited a park in the afternoon that had a ‘hamsa bird shaped floating barge on the lake. Later in the day we visited the famous Scott’s market with its 2,000 shops. I had read about a shop that sold ethnic textiles and other items. Our guide knew the shop and took us there. The owner quickly figured out what I was looking for and sent us upstairs to her mother’s shop which was floor to ceiling in tribal goods. The guide and Ron sat down while I ogled the goods. We ended up purchasing a tribal ceremonial belt from the Naga tribe that lives on both sides of the border of Burma and India. The belt is leather about 5 ½ inches wide and covered in cowry shells. In the mid back there is a carved wooden piece that holds a knife and it is decorated in pinkish hair but we don’t know what kind of hair. There was no knife with the belt. We were thrilled with the purchase. We admired a magnificent headdress piece with orange beads. The price of $500 was beyond our limit. We ate dinner at an Indian restaurant that was overpriced (the menu prices were listed in US dollars) and the food was nothing special.

 The next morning we walked around downtown admiring buildings built during the colonial era. Amazingly they all still had their same original use: the immigration office was still the immigration office, etc. Most of the buildings have not been updated but there are beginnings of historic buildings being preserved. City Hall for instance has been refurbished, at least on the outside. We did not go inside. We visited one of the famous downtown temples, Sule pagoda which is 2,000 years old. It is a beautiful octagonal golden stupa. We visited the lone Jewish synagogue built in 1890. During colonial times there was a vibrant Jewish community here. Jewish merchants had migrated here, from Bagdad and India when it was under British rule. The community grew to 2,500 and lasted until World War II. There is only a handful left in Burma today.  We then visited the bustling harbor. What a sight. Everything is done manually here due to the poverty. Men haul all sorts of cargo off of ships and onto smaller craft that will take the goods to various parts of Burma. Some were lifting 50 kilos of rice. That’s over a hundred pounds. They run down the gangway and onto the boats. They are given a tally stick when they pick up a load and give it to a tally man who tracks how many sticks each man hands in and that determines one’s pay. The pay is low and our guide said most of the men drink their wages nightly. At sunset we visited the Shwedagon pagoda, the most sacred of all Buddhist sites in the country. It is huge and we almost had a full moon to boot. The place was swarming with people. November 28^th will be a full moon which is a  Buddhist poya day and a big celebration will be held. Many preparations were underway. Our last night we dined at a fabulous restaurant and ate a delicious meal. We carefully ordered our meal to use up all our Burmese kyat.

Upstairs was a quality handicrafts shop. One of the volunteers who was staffing the store strolled through the dining room wearing/carrying some of the handicrafts and encouraged diners to stop upstairs before leaving. I had read about the place and told her we would come up when we finished eating. We had no intention of buying anything for two reasons: our suitcases were bulging with other purchases and we had just spent all our money except cab fare back to the hotel. Up we went. OMG what beautiful crafts. I was immediately drawn to some exquisite weavings. The volunteer came over and said ‘you realize you are looking at our most expensive items’. I said they were so beautiful. I couldn’t afford them but loved admiring them. We took our time and oooohed and aaaahed over the various items. Then we spied some used items that were woven and couldn’t resist a head scarf that a tribal woman would wear somewhat like a turban. We had seen various tribal women in different towns with the turbans. Fortunately the shop took US dollars so we were in luck and the item was small enough to squeeze in our luggage. We were thrilled.

Nov 27-29

Bangkok

We flew back to Bangkok and I made no notes of what we did but mostly we relaxed. The following day we had planned to connect with a young Thai friend for Loy Kratong, festival of lights, that is related to poya. She hadn’t heard from us so made other plans. She recommended a good spot to watch the activities. What a mistake to stay in Bangkok for Loy Kratong. It is a city of 14 million people and I think everyone one of them was trying to get to the river for Loy Kratong. The metro was crammed. We tried to walk down to the water and it was impossible so we circled around and went up on a bridge to watch but there wasn’t much to see. We were worn out from just trying to get there so after about 90 minutes we decided to go back to the hotel. As we reached the metro the fireworks started but by then we were tired and just wanted to get away from the throngs of people and off our feet.

Nov 29-Dec 2

Phetchaburi

The next morning we headed to our house where we relaxed for three days. We had no car so we ate what was left over in the refrigerator from when we had been there 10 days before. Our family there asked us when we needed food and someone would take a motorcycle and go pick up a take out meal as needed. We celebrated our 27^th anniversary on Nov 30^th. I offered to forage in the refrigerator for dinner and we dined on grilled cheese sandwiches with two olives each. Ron looked hungry after finishing this repast so I offered him a grilled peanut butter sandwich with the last two pieces of bread. He had never had one and was quick to say yes. Each night we played Scrabble and Ron was the constant winner. We also played rummy and enjoyed each other’s company while jointly working on a crossword daily. Two days we walked up to the little ‘community’ near our house. There is a small grocery store, a laundry, an internet café and a seamstress. We stopped by for lunch at an outdoor ‘eatery’. This is a palm leaf covered  roof on an open sided structure with no floor other than the dirt. Cooking is done in a wok over a gas burner. We ordered pad kee mao and as I was eating it tears rolled down my cheeks due to the chilies. I turned to the cook and said ‘phet, phet’ which means hot in Thai. The woman almost died laughing at me.  The next day I ordered pad Thai and fared much better. We hired a private car to take us back to Bangkok to catch our plane. We checked into our hotel and rested. After spending a month off and on over the seven week trip at this hotel, they upgraded us to a bigger room. Oddly enough the smaller room was better because the TV in the big room was so far away you couldn’t see it that well. Too funny. We went to dinner with Thai friends and met some family members we had not met before. We had a fabulous Thai meal and headed off to bed. We went to bed around 11 and got up at 4:00 to catch our flight. All in all it was a great tip. It was also our longest trip where we are just ‘vacationing’. We have been on longer trips where Ron was working but this trip was strictly a vacation from retirement.