Burma Observations
Traveling Burma with a book guide is a good idea if you don’t know anything about the country but many travel guidebooks are out of date in relation to accommodation prices and new travel options but it’s a good start. My majority source of information comes from talking to people who have just come from where I’m going.
Another is the Burma Partnership – a weekly news update supporting the betterment of peoples lives in Myanmar.
The secret police have assimilated into society. Their work is not done and tabs are still kept on all western people. They are more likely to be English-speaking men of middle age and chat you up asking all kinds of questions and have a tendency to prefer to guide you rather than let you go about your business.
Plastic garbage is everywhere with no real solution is sight. I watched people throw plastic bags of garbage straight into rivers, gutters, or left by the side of the street. People throw plastic bags from buses and moving cars with little care for the environment at this point. A man threw three bags of garbage over a riverbank wall. When I went to the wall after he left and looked over it was lined with plastic. In some places such as Moulmein, the creeks are tidal so the garbage flows out twice a day. This practice is countrywide. On the rivers human waste goes with gravity plumbing and straight into the rivers. On my boat rides I’ve watched the locals grab a cup and drink straight out of the river. If I do that, I’ll be sick for weeks. I don’t have the proper immune system not to mention the proper bugs in my system to combat what is in the water. In the case of many South East Asian Rivers such as the Mekong, many pass through or are near the border of China and who knows what they put in it besides human waste, garbage, leak fuel, oil, spilt chemicals, fertilizers and other toxins I can’t think of.
Na Pa; strong military presence to the point where they follow you and still stay in the next room and eves drop trying to hear what you’re talking about. The military have a military mind, not a mind for the people, not a mind for democracy. This is going to be a failure due to the military mind. It will be a success because they are getting help from the outside world but so far only in the economic sphere. Burma/Myanmar is in the process of making a military aristocracy that I suspect was preplanned and possibly partially prepaid by economic powerhouses far enough in advance to let all the countries and their biggest companies in to ‘capitalize’ on Myanmar’s natural resources leaving less than nothing for the peoples of the weaker ethnic minorities. I stick by my words and add one; this is a ‘Burmese Military Invasion of Myanmar’.
Arakan State: Word on the street is, from people in the Arakan State, illegal immigrants have been crossing the border because they can’t buy land in their own country and settling in the Arakan State where the Arakan are not settling at the moment. They are occupying empty lands doing small rice and fishing besides cultural cottage industries from their homeland. Bengal men are mostly Muslim and marry more than once having numerous wives. Many Bengali men still maintain wives and families still in Bengal at the same time going back and forth. They have a tendency to populate quickly leading to villages and skirmishes with the Arakan people. The Arakan State was originally absorbed into Burma and never really had a say in the process. Remembering the times; World War II was in motion and Burma was coming into awareness searching for independence fighting against the British thinking the Japanese might be a quicker way to independence but in the end getting word to Louise Mountbatten in India and double-crossing the Japanese in exchange for independence. A deal was struck and general Aung San began his political campaign by joining all areas of Burma to be under independence and nation building. Arakan had little option and are still under Myanmar control but also not happy about it.
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