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April 29, 2005
TALES FROM AFAR The road through BurmaFORMER PVT REPORTER VENTURES INTO ONCE FORBIDDEN, OFTEN FRIGHTENING MYANMAR
By MARK WAITE
Some tourists have avoided this country between India on the west and Thailand on the east due to the policies of the brutal military dictatorship, especially after the generals rejected the democratic elections of 1992. Dissident Aung Suu Kyi has become world famous for her opposition to the military regime. Even the highly popular Lonely Planet travel guides carried instructions on how to visit the country without contributing to the government. I decided I wasn't going to play politics. If I avoided Myanmar because of its politics, then I should avoid China because of its harsh crackdown on Tibet, avoid India because of Kashmir; the list can go on and on. Where do you draw the line? A columnist writing a guest editorial in the Bangkok Post suggested tourists visit the country and be a witness to any atrocities, like peace advocates who visit places ranging from the Palestinian West Bank to Chiapas state in southern Mexico. While Thai tourist officials reached a target of 12.4 million foreign visitors in 2004, in Myanmar, the government set a target of only 750,000 foreign tourists for 2005. Those tourists who follow what they feel is a politically correct path and avoid this country don't know what they're missing: a step back into Asia of many years ago, a country with a fascinating history and probably the nicest people in the world. Myanmar became the official name in 1988, as government officials shook off their colonial name, Burma. Some cities changed names too, the capital city, Rangoon became Yangon. The foreign exchange regulations, however, were totally absurd. The women at the foreign exchange counter at the airport said they couldn't cash travelers checks. There were no ATMs in the country either. My guesthouse manager said I'd have to take a cab to the Sedona Hotel, which looked like a five-star hotel. The front desk clerk at the hotel could change a $100 travelers check, but I was charged a whopping 10 percent commission. It looked strange to see the familiar U.S. greenbacks again. The $12 bill for my guesthouse room was payable in dollars or euros only; not the local Burmese kyats (pronounced like chots); however the restaurant bill at the guesthouse was due in kyats. I was advised to cash in my greenbacks for kyats at the Bogyoke Aung San Market, where I received a rate of 880 kyats to a dollar, almost double the rate quoted at the airport. The cyber cafe downtown had a sign: there was no yahoo, hotmail or aol.com. Apparently the government wanted to keep Burmese from accessing information about the outside world. The guesthouse manager said Aung Suu Kyi could do anything outside the country, but nothing inside it. The generals ruling the country can do everything inside Myanmar but nothing outside since they are international pariahs. He lamented, "Fifty years ago, Burma was the richest country in Southeast Asia." However, Yangon, a city of four million residents, was like a breath of fresh air after bustling Bangkok. While Bangkok residents rode on a new subway, an overhead sky train, or sat in modern cars in traffic jams on multileveled expressways, Yangon residents, wearing traditional Asian sarongs called longyis, rode in dilapidated buses with wooden seats. But Yangon, billed as "The Garden City of the East" by the tourist department, has lots of parks, a few lakes, many trees and the famous Shwedagon Pagoda, which is worth a visit to Myanmar all by itself. The Shwedagon Pagoda is without a doubt the most spectacular Buddhist monument in the world. It was constructed by the King of Okkalapa, which became the city of Rangoon, to hold eight hairs of Buddha brought back by local merchants around 600 B.C. The 66-foot tall structure was eventually expanded to its present 326-foot height in 1453 A.D. and 1774 A.D. A friend said he could see the glittering gold pagoda below on a flight over Myanmar from Bangkok to Katmandu, Nepal. The state tourist board reported the pagoda has nine tons of gold. The base is surrounded by 64 small pagodas, four sphinxes, and statues of elephants crouching, men kneeling and 72 shrines. Unfortunately, the stupa was being renovated to add a new umbrella while I was there, which meant looking at tarp and scaffolding instead of the glittering gold. But the hundreds of other shrines and statues around the central stupa made for a remarkable site nevertheless. The diamond orb at the top alone has 4,352 diamonds of 1,800 carats. Friendly, curious Burmese, who don't see as many tourists as do those living in neighboring countries, stopped to chat with me while worshipping at the shrines. Myanmar seemed to be the most devoutly Buddhist country I've ever seen, with dozens huddled at the various shrines. A Buddhist monk at the Shwedagon Pagoda led me to the Chauk Htat Gyi Pagoda, with a 240-foot-long reclining Buddha. First we walked along Kandawgyi lake, where local Burmese were relaxing on a Saturday afternoon, with a view of the Karaweik Palace along the lakeshore, which looked like a Burmese style temple on two large golden ducks. Much of Yangon looked like it hadn't been renovated since the British left after World War II. Mazes of haphazard electrical wiring hung from mildewed buildings decaying in the tropical heat. The centerpiece of downtown Yangon, the Sule Pagoda, is surrounded by British colonial buildings, like the Customs House, with a clock resembling Big Ben, now closed and barricaded off. The historic City Hall was also closed. The street in front of the American Embassy, Mahabandoola Garden Street, was not only barricaded, but guards kept watch on any pedestrians who wanted to enter. The scene made me feel a little uneasy, unaware if something was amiss. The classic cars that made Yangon seem like the "Cuba of Asia" as one tourist called it, weren't as much in evidence now. There was a little less innocence from previous years, a few hawkers walking in front of the Sule Pagoda at night either wanted to change money or asked, "nude lady massage?" While an air-conditioned sleeper on an overnight train in Thailand could be had for only $15 U.S., a seat on a non air-conditioned train from Yangon to Mandalay cost $30. Only a few other foreigners were on board. At least that was better than the wooden seats the Burmese were sitting on in the other carriages for a more affordable $11. The train rocked and rolled making a walk from one carriage to another a little dangerous. We stopped for a few hours in the middle of the night; I suspect the conductor wanted to catch a little nap. Vendors at different stops had only greasy, fried bananas and hard-boiled eggs to sell. White Buddhist stupas lit up the night in different villages. Mandalay is 432 miles north of Yangon, but the train journey took more than 17 hours to complete. Unlike the namesake in Las Vegas, there is no Mandalay Bay. Mandalay is a landlocked city of about three million poor residents, a flat, dry place laid out in a grid by the British, with numbered streets. A mandatory trip to Mandalay Hill was first on the agenda; perhaps there were more tourists to Myanmar than I thought, about 60 foreigners had climbed the 1,700 steps to watch the sun set over the Irrawaddy River. Near the two large lions at the base of Mandalay Hill was the Kutho-Daw Pagoda, which boasts the largest book in the world: 1,774 marble slabs containing the teachings of Buddha. A boy selling postcards latched onto me at the Kutho-Daw Pagoda and didn't stop pestering me until he sold a pack of them. Sagaing Hill, about 13 miles south of Mandalay, is packed with temples, stupas and monasteries. It was a short ride, but it seemed like forever by public transportation as the attendant packed the back of a Toyota pickup until more than 30 people were crammed inside and hanging out the back. The driver of a tri-shaw - a bicycle with two seats that flipped open on the side - met me in Sagaing and convinced me to hire him for 2,000 kyats to tour Sagaing Hill. He explained there were 391 monasteries and 271 nunneries on the hill, which explained the profusion of stupas littering the landscape and the abundance of people in orange robes. The transportation was mostly by horse cart or tri-shaw. We passed the sound of women thumping clothes on the banks of the river. The walls of the Mandalay Palace and a moat stretch for miles around the northern part of the city. I was turned back from entering by military guards on the west side; the only entrance for foreigners was on the east side. However, there was little to see inside, I was told, as the inside of the fort was bombed heavily during World War II. A National Geographic photographer, Steve Winter, was photographing the outside of the walls near sunset for an upcoming article on the Irrawaddy River. I took a side trip from Mandalay to the delightful hill station of Maymyo, now renamed Pyin Oo Lwin. I paid 4,000 kyats to share a taxi for the two-hour trip, preferring not to be a glutton for punishment and take another horribly overcrowded pickup. At 3,500 feet the climate was delightful. I hired a horse carriage resembling a stagecoach for a couple dollars to take me clip clopping around Kandawgyi Lake to the botanical gardens, past old English manors on streets ablaze with the red blooms of poinsettia trees. The stagecoaches were a common means of transport in town, not just a tourist attraction like in New York's Central Park; bicycles were another. The guesthouse had a sign advertising an Internet service at a computer business school. But the sign stated: "in order to protect our good name we reserve the right to refuse to send any e-mail which might be considered harmful to the interests of Myanmar. All e-mail is checked for such content before sending or delivering." The return trip to Mandalay included a visit to the Mahamuni Pagoda, with more relics of Buddha. Women had to worship behind a rope, while men could sit in front of the solid gold statue. The temple complex seemed in sharp contrast to the poverty of the streets around it, where men took baths under public taps. I almost felt a little guilty to be sitting in a hotel with air-conditioning, flipping through the remote control of my television set, and having a cold drink amid such poverty. A young tri-shaw driver made a good day's wages, as I paid him 4,000 kyats to bring me to the Sedona Hotel in Mandalay to cash more travelers checks, then to the Mahamuni Pagoda. My tri-shaw driver picked me up again at the hotel at 4:30 a.m. for the early departure of the boat to Bagan. The pre-dawn silence in one neighborhood was broken by the chanting of a Buddhist monk over a microphone. We arrived along the Irrawaddy River in the darkness well before the 6 a.m. departure time. The clerk didn't want to accept one five-dollar bill because of a small spot on the backside. "We are a very poor country," he said. There were only foreigners on board the boat; I imagine the Burmese saved money by taking the slow boat, which left at 5:30 a.m. but didn't arrive in the ruined city until 10:30 p.m. The boat soon became grounded on a sandbar, but that was good, as it allowed the morning fog to dissipate before we passed the spectacular temple complexes on Sagaing Hill. At one stop on the river women waded chest deep to sell snacks, while tourists on the second level of the boat snapped their pictures. At the second stop, women were throwing woven blankets into the boat, while boys swam after the kyats tourists threw into the river. The boat was scheduled to arrive in Bagan, formerly called Pagan, at 3 p.m. but we pulled into shore at 5:30 p.m. The tourists on board paid the $10 entry fee to the archeological complex to a girl with a desk outside, at the top of the riverbank. At one time there were 13,000 temples, pagodas and other religious structures constructed during what must have been a phenomenal building boom from the 11th to the 13th century; one that made Pahrump's building boom in the 1990s seem trivial. Today there are more than 2,000 structures left; one monument on the map was marked No. 2,356. It is one of the richest archaeological sites in Asia, along with Angkor Wat in Cambodia. Some locals still got around by ox-cart, probably like they did back in the time when Bagan was an active city. I had a choice of hiring a horse cart for 7,000 kyats for the day, or renting a bike for 1,000. The next day, I chose the bike. I rode down the sandy trails, sometimes getting stuck, to the Sulimani Temple to see the paintings on the walls; took pictures of a group of Burmese college women in front of the large Dhamma-yan-gyi Pahto; and spent some time at the Ananda Temple, named after Buddah's most loyal disciple, built in 1090. It is one of the most venerated temples with four huge, standing, golden Buddhas. The Thatbyinnyu Temple is the largest in the complex, but access to the upstairs balconies was now closed, like at many other temples, to prevent deterioration. A caretaker at a small, seldom visited temple nearby however, unlocked a padlock and let me up a narrow flight of stairs to a balcony affording a great view of the numerous temples. Vendors were lined outside the major temples; a few less scrupulous vendors were selling stone heads of statues inside temple corridors. A brochure from the tourist department advised tourists to buy only handicrafts from registered souvenir shops, modern lacquerware, modern figurines, bronze weights, modern woodcarvings and marionettes, clay and terracotta art objects and paintings. By about 2 p.m. I was so hot I had to stop at a food stand to gulp down volumes of fruit juice and beer. The owner let me lay back on a reclining chair and fanned me with a hand-held fan to cool me off. He threw in some complimentary chunks of pineapple and papaya. I wished I hired a horse cart. There were a few more stops, the Bu Phaya Pagoda, a golden landmark along the river, and a couple temples that fortunately have balconies open to the public for sunset. "Que bonito!" Spanish-speaking tourists exclaimed upon climbing the steps to Mingalazedi Pagoda, which was close to the river on the west end of Bagan, affording a great view of the pagodas to the east, bathed red in the setting sun. Tourists accompanied by guides speaking French, German, English and Japanese also jostled for position on the narrow balcony. A short distance away, tourists filled up almost every space on the top floor of the Shwesahdaw Paya, which afforded a view looking west toward the pagodas silhouetted by the sunset and the river. The ShweZigon Pagoda near the town of Nyaung Oo, where my guesthouse was located, was built in 1087. There was one cage where people could reach through the wire and throw money at the rotating bowls with signs requesting different wishes like, "pass my examination," "be a learned person," "lose five enemies" and "be well and healthy." Heads of mechanical puppets in a kneeling position bowed down every few seconds to make the prayer. I missed the bowls, unsure if my wishes would still be granted. I opted for a bus ride back to Yangon, though I wish I'd taken the short three-hour bus ride to Thazi and met the train. We left about 3:30 p.m. First the passengers yelled for the driver to stop after we smelled something burning. Later there was dust coming up through the floorboard as we drove on dry, unpaved roads. Finally, we stopped for a couple of hours in a tiny village late at night as the driver tried to repair the transmission. While drivers grinding gears is not uncommon on Third World buses, the driver couldn't get this bus going at one point. We limped into Yangon about 8 a.m. the next morning. I wondered if we were a victim of the economic sanctions imposed on Myanmar, which resulted in a loss of spare parts. Yangon looked nice and green after the area around Bagan, called the "dry zone," with barren fields everywhere. There were few flights out of Yangon, surprisingly; most passengers went back to Bangkok. On my last visit to Myanmar in April 1996, I was one of the very few foreigners to enter the country by land, from China; most everyone has to fly in and out by plane. On my last trip I visited Loikaw in the east, to see the Padaung women, who wear brass rings around their neck - a voyage on a train with wooden seats and soldiers lighting candles at night for light - this time I was told that area was off limits. Tribal areas near the Indian border were also off limits, I was told by a representative for Myanmar Tours and Travel, the government travel agency. I remarked how I liked the music at a store at the airport. The woman gave me the cassette tape free of charge. While the poor transportation and closed government has kept this magical country and its people relatively unspoiled and an interesting insight into the past, many tourists wonder when things will change, nice roads will be opened to Myanmar's neighbors and more tourists will see the country's wonders. |
