Yangon, Myanmar
A swift flight from Bangkok, Thailand to Yangon Myanmar led me back into a country with a tragic past and an uncertain future. The last time I was here there was little infrastructure for tourists and travelers. Little has changed; guesthouses are registered with the government and pay a tax-fee to operate and are over-priced and full up. Those people that use a tourist book have one main complaint, the prices in the books are lower for the most part than in real life. I have heard of some guesthouses that are at the cheap end are $12-15/night. I’m staying for $22/night and try my hardest to get out and away from Yangon as quickly as possible. Prices are high everywhere but if you have time to look or book ahead it’s better for the traveler. I stayed 2 nights in Yangon and had a look around.
Pagodas and Stupas still hold tourists attention in Yangon, especially the Sule Pagoda pictured here at night;
and the Shwedagon Pagoda. As the story goes, about 600 BC, Gautama Buddha attained Enlightenment. As he traveled off in seven directions he happened across two merchants who offered him alms-food and for their compassion Gautama gave them eight hairs as a blessing. The two merchants returned to their homes in Okkalapa land with the eight hairs. The king and his council enshrined the eight hairs with artifacts of the three Buddha’s before Gautama, the walking staff of Kakusanda Buddha, a water filter used by Kawnagamana Buddha and a netherrobe of Kassapa Buddha in a 66 foot tall ‘Pagoda’ and called it Shwedagon. The Shwedagon Pagoda had been maintained by 32 kings of the Okkalapa until the 14th century and by other warlord kings after the end of the Okkalapa kingdom fell. The Shwedagon Pagoda was reconstructed, (heightened), in 1453 AD to 302 feet by Queen Shin Saw Pu and again in 1774 by King Sinbyushin to 326 feet. Back then it was painted in gold leaf, but not so today. There are still jewels covering the Vane and the diamond orb, all well out of reach at the very top. There is a set of high-powered field glasses pointed directly at the vane and orb on ground level for tourists and locals to view through.
Wandering around town, almost every corner has some form of food shop or cart. Many Burmese sit with friends and family at low plastic tables and chairs and drink tea and eat curried meats and fish, dried fish, an assortment of salads and vegetables. Eating seems to be a favorite pass-time.
In Yangon there are Buddhists, Christians, Muslims and other religions living in a mixed society.
There are not a lot of English speakers, mainly the elderly men and younger school kids. The education system is not always consistent so there are breaks in a lot of children’s education. The country spends approximately 30% of their budget on the military so education, healthcare and power take a back seat. For more information on Myanmar, check out ‘Burma Partnership’ on the Internet. Burma Partnership is a weekly news update that is one way to stay connected and keeping aware. It is also a way of finding out what big companies are doing such as ‘clarifying land rights’ meaning large companies are coming in to invest for the long haul even if it is only behind a curtain called ‘Democracy’.
I ventured into the Strand Hotel, an old colonial landmark of the days gone past. The British would fly in on a seaplane just across from the Strand and have most of the comforts of home. Those comforts still exist at the Strand although they are very out of place sometimes a touch of home is welcome. Today the waterway across from the Strand is still a port but cannot be seen because of a metal fence and construction site. Construction and cranes can be seen poking out of the skyline in every direction.
I wandered into a travel agency and looked at a map of Myanmar. There was a dotted line across part of the southern section of the country that read ‘Permit line’. The nice lady told me I couldn’t cross that line without a permit. I found out in my travels that that is just not so. Tourists were entering at the most southern point in Myanmar and coming across that line everyday. Certain types of travel, bus, or plane is acceptable and of course a boat from the lowest island. The islands to the south are off limits and up for lease by any company or country that can afford the lease. I don’t have enough information to go any further. I headed south by AC bus. There are two or three types of buses. The military government segregates tourists on AC buses owned by the government or ex-military private sector players. Tourists also pay a much higher price than the locals. The other bus that they don’t want travelers on is the local bus mixing with the locals. This separation hasn’t changed since the first time I arrived in Burma in 1996. I took the bus to Moulmein, about 12 hours with my knees smashed into the seat in front of me. Lucky for me the person in front of me didn’t set their chair back like some other unlike passengers I met.
www.davidcdagley.com
