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Hello everybody, sorry for the one month solid radio silence but the Union of Myanmar is a country that enjoys being disconnected from the world digitally and beyond.
Myanmar, where to start??
Well, when we thought that South East Asia couldn't surprise us any more, we landed in Yangon and got proven wrong. We had not really any expectations from Myanmar, besides it looking like another south east Asian country but stuck in the 60's because of its international isolation. The latter is definitely true but the former is not. Myanmar is not another south East Asian country but a geographical and cultural bridge between China and India. Ethnical diversity is in the country's blood. Yangoon inspires thoughts of a little Delhi more than a little Bangkok, with Burmese and Chinese, Indian, Nepalese, Bangladeshi and Pakistani, Portuguese descendants all mingling together. The melting pot was created by the British that shipped Indians and Nepalese to take on construction (road and railways) and administration jobs. The Portuguese arrived in the 17th century and established posts for their trading routes; they also brought with them the Catholic religion which with the help of Italian missionaries now accounts millions of believers mostly in big cities or amongst minority ethnic groups.
The friendly cultural melting pot is nowadays unified esthetically by the national male piece of clothing, the longhy, a finely checked sarong worn like a skirt by almost every male in the country no matter what religion or background. It was the most bizarre experience to arrive at the airport and see men wearing skirts, but we realized that wearing a skirt is way more comfortable than pants in 40 degrees heat. Women are instead united by Thanaka paste (made out of a tree) that is worn as sun protector by every female individual from 1 to 90 years old in the country.
As mentioned, the country stuck in the past in terms of: roads, cars, computers, phones etc. Mobile phone sim cards cost 4000 $ (monopoly of the government) until few months ago, landlines are very limited and as a consequence people make phone calls on the street where vendors sell calls by the minute; there are no ATMs and the only way to get cash is exchange crisp new dollars for the local currency. If the $ bills are slightly torn or stained, they are not accepted. Hotels look like relics from the 80's. Electricity doesn't run at night, making sleeping unbearable without airco or fans. Internet is slower than a modem 56 K dial up connection. Certain websites are censored but for all others it takes minutes to load up. Not able to use Skype because of the slow connection, the only way to call Europe is by paying 2 Eur per minute at the very few hotels that allow you to do that. Another difficulty is transportation, where the infrastructure set up by the British is now in ruin; buses and trains take forever to cover few hundreds kms. That's why we decided to do the first leg of our trip North by plane, expensive but convenient. We had the pleasure to be accompanied by Melanie, our friend from Amsterdam that joined us since Bangkok. Two more guys, one from England and one from Canada joined the gang and headed towards Kalaw a hilly destination in the Shan State.
Once there, we embarked on a two days trek leading to Inle Lake, the biggest lake in Myanmar and these days quite a popular tourist destination. The trekking was more relaxed than the one in Laos but nonetheless very beautiful in landscape and ethnic minorities we encountered on the way. At the end of the first day and after 10 hours of walking, we stayed overnight in a monastery where we conformably (not!) slept on the floor and dined on a magnificent meal a cook prepared for us. Our trekking guide got so stupidly drunk at a bar on the way that he fell asleep on the floor as soon as he sat down and skipped even dinner.
The day after we trekked few more hours and reached Inle lake where we boarded a fisherman boat and cruised the lake from South to Norht, as well as admired the Inta fishermen, an ethnic minority that developed a difficult technique of rowing with one leg and one arm. The lake itself was not actually that great, however we enjoyed the relaxed atmosphere and stayed few days cycling, eating and drinking some amazingly good red and white wines..
The hills around the lake (the so called Shan hills considered the southern extension of the Hymalaya) hosted two wineries, one German run and another French run. These operations reached the impossible goal of achieving wine making in a subtropical country. The Sauvignon Blanc and the Rose were surprisingly amazing and we got drunk a couple of times on them, considered that we didn't have any wine for months ;)
After Inle Lake we reached by bus Myanmar second biggest city, Mandalay, where we arrived at 3 am in the morning and got welcomed by a dirty, sweaty, smelly place, about which there is not much to write home about, besides the amazing people. Well, Burmese are the most fabulous people we ever met in Asia and they are as friendly and welcoming as the Laotians, but without the shyness. And in Mandalay in particular, because not many tourists stop there and the city is so big, people are way more interested in westerners and where they are from etc etc. After 5 months of non-shaving, my beard is currently in Bin Laden's territory, hence all the Muslims in Burma thought I was one of them. A Pakistani woman running a chapate shop (pancake) allegedly wanted me to marry her daughter but then rejected me when I said I was Italian (and Christian); anyway she made pretty amazing chapate so it wouldn't have been a bad place to settle. I loved all the Muslim attention and I realized that I can always find a second home in a bearded Muslim country.
In Mandalay, it was also Election Day for the nationwide by elections. Aung San Su Chi party won 43 out of 44 seats available. The only seat she didn't get is because her candidate was Muslim and the government junta doesn't want Muslims in the parliament. So, my bearded friends seem to have a bad life in Myanmar still although some of them manage to become filthy rich but not to let their wives take the burka off.
The very same day of the election, we got randomly approached by a guy in the streets who wanted to buy us coffee. He turned out to be a member of the students group that fought the regime many years back and was jailed for one year and released only after suffering a heart attack in jail at the age of 17. Scary stuff. He was a friendly chap and invited us to his house where we met his daughter and his parents. His mother made an amazing tea leaf salad for us. At the end of day we became friends and we went back to Mandalay to visit him after few days, when in Mandalay was hitting the water festival. Water Festival is the main Burmese celebration with roots in Buddhism but nowadays also a big fat excuse to get drunk and throw buckets of water at passersby. We were amongst the passersby and enjoyed the refreshment for a couple of hours but got fed up with it pretty soon but the festival lasted for 4 days!!!!!!!
Before the water festival, we actually ventured North trying to get off the tourist beaten track and headed towards the border with China where at some point foregners are not allowed. We took a 6 hours bus ride and reached a refreshengly cool village called Hsipaw, sitting on the ShanHills at 800 meters above sea level. Finally we managed to get some sleep after the suffocating heat of Mandalay and enjoyed some walks and motorbike rides in the pretty countryside where watermelons are the main cash crop, sold to Chinese. After Hsipaw we took a short journey to the next village called Khyakme where they rarely see tourist as the place is not that pretty. The reason why we stopped there was to do a motorbike tour around the mountains where Shan people and Palaung people grow green tea. Our guide was a dodgy guy that bullied all other potential guides to talk to tourist; he sort of enjoyed having a monopoly of the tourist trade. Besides the guide we managed to enjoy a full day of sightseeing and visited several minorty villages including a small outpost of Nepalese hidden on the top of a mountain (of course) and surviving on cows and milk (of course..they are Hindu!)
Our last stop after the mountains was the archeological site of Bagan. It was amazing to visit all those temples from the 11th century. The aereal sight of the whole site from the top of the temples was magnificient and incomparable for its sense of mysticysm and spirituality. Besides visiting temples and having some pretty good meals at the many restaurants in town, after two days we left and headed back to Yangoon where we waited for a couple of more days for the water festival to be over and for our appointment with our flight to Malaysia.
Now we are in Kuala Lumpur and miss the Burmese humanity already, as here people don't smile at us. We hope that Myanmar will stay as pure as possible even when tourist will flow into the country. Because we definitely want to go back sooner rather than later. Hopefully!
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