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Minga La Ba, (a common greeting in Burmese, translated loosely to mean "Have an auspicious day"). For those who were worried about this part of our adventure, the 48 hours in Burma/Myanmar, you'll be comforted to know we are safe & back in Bangkok. We are staying 1 night in the Amari Hotel that is attached to the airport, so we can easily leave early morning for our flight to Hong Kong, where we'll depart late tomorrow evening for home. I'm glad that our flight is Sunday, and not Monday as there are some significant protest plans going down in Bangkok according to what I've heard from a few people. The big day is this Monday, where they hope to have most of the city shut down (on strike per se), including the airports. Some airlines have already cancelled some flights and someone at the hotel lobby told me it's already getting dangerous in parts of downtown Bangkok as of today. Not sure if some are exaggerating, but, we're safe in a nice hotel and ready for the early flight that's scheduled to leave in 8 hours.
NEW VIDEO: https://vimeo.com/83922243 Note: my video program crashed on me for some reason, leaving the last 20 seconds of the video cut off, and I don't have the time to figure it out
now -- but at least we got 90% of it ! Click on the link to enjoy the video of our 48 Hours in Burma.
What a great time we had in Burma ! It's hard to put it all in words at this stage, especially now that I'm short on sleep & just finished putting the video together. The video (link shown above) gives you a good synopsis of our time, all wrapped up in 3 minutes. Without a doubt, the most enjoyable part of our time in Burma was the people --- how friendly and warm the people were, especially where we went, far away from the tourist spots. Bobby & I took a different route than most tour groups are doing, as we arrived in Mandalay & went the route toward the Ancient Capitals. We made it to Mandalay MotorBikes, and met Zach & San San, who have been so helpful & responsive for the last 12 months with my many questions. Completed some basic paperwork, met our private guide, Sam, and was introduced to our motorcycle for the next 2 days -- a Honda XR125L dirtbike. After a bumpy start (despite me taking a full day course on dirtbike riding, I was still a little rusty and had to get the feel for the bike), I slowly got the hang of it and was riding well. I jumped right into it, as we were in the heart of the busy Mandalay street traffic, and had just one close call. No crashes -- yay ! And I was actually pretty good after a little while, and adapted to the Burma city driving.
Our first stop -- the MBOA Mandalay Buddhist Orphanage. Bobby had been in contact with Mr. Gyi on several occasions to make plans for our visit and collect needed resources as his service project. The orphanage staff and children welcomed us so warmly. We were shown around the property, and introduced to each classroom one by one while they were still in class. After introducing ourselves, a boy from each classroom walked up to Bobby to share a picture he had printed out from our TravelPod site, showing that they were already following us and were anticipating our arrival -- very nice and touching. The boys were shy, but excited to see foreign visitors. Mr. Gyi gave us nice introductions, and Sam helped out with some translation when needed. Bobby found common ground with them when the topic of European Football/Soccer came up, and each boy would share his favorite team. The school day was finishing right as we made our last classroom visit, and then the boys were brought into the assembly room for the presentation of the donations. Bobby was first given some Thanaka (as most of the Burmese youth wear), a Burmese cream made from the ground bark of the Shwebo tree. It's part of their culture, and it also provides protection from the sun. He took the stage and presented each of the donations to the orphanage, including English learning workbooks donated by Triumph Learning, computer keyboards, mice & DVD players donated by Professional Tutors, 3 soccer balls donated by JUSA, and 3 English Learning software programs donated by the Emblem Club of Fullerton Elks. The orphanage was founded in 1926, and there are currently 165 boys at this orphanage. The school operates very much from donations and volunteering, including the teachers. They were very grateful, and it was really a great experience. And thank you again from both Bobby & I for the donations provided to support this service project.
From there, we moved on to the Shwe In Bin Monastry, a structure built in 1895 completely out of teakwood. We spoke to a monk there and he answered a lot of questions for us. Lots of learning along the way. Sam guided us on motorcycles through the busy city to the next site of the Mahamuni Buddha Temple (or Pagoda), a very impressive site. Sam gave us a great deal of insight as we toured around the property, and we got to see the Buddha up close. Bobby was wearing shorts & a tank top, so he was prohibited from entering until he put a shirt & sarong over himself. I found it interesting about the culture's policy when it comes to women. Women are allowed to view and pray in the pagoda, but only from a minimum of 30 feet away. The belief is that menstruation is a natural physical excretion that women have to go through on a monthly basis, nothing more or less. During this time women tend to have weaker emotional balance and would need religious support more than any other time. But in practice, ironically, they are kept out of the temple and branded as unclean. And yet, at the same time, male tourists like myself are allowed up close and can take photographs of Buddha. It's certainly interesting how things are different around the world, from what we may see as normal.
We rode into the evening on our way to the first night's hotel stop, the Shwe Pyae Sone Guest House, which ended up being quite nice. We stayed literally just to sleep, then woke early
to get on our bikes & ride ! The early morning brought us across the bridge over the Ayarwaddy River to the Sagaing Province and Sagaing Hill. Some beautiful sites, as this area is blanketed with pagodas and stupas in the rolling hills. Instead of visiting a nunnery as originally planned, we went to the Aun Myae Oo Monastic Education School in Sagaing. That was a real treat, as once again, the principal and teachers were extremely welcoming even without any notice. We were shown around the school property and introduced to various teachers and classrooms. Bobby was amazed, as this school operates on a smaller campus than the school he attends (St. Catherine's Academy), yet has 10 times as many students -- 1,652 students! They
started in 2003 with 31 students and have grown this much. They are just now starting to receive some limited financial support from the government, and prior to this the teachers were all volunteering. Children are provided both academic and Buddhist cultural instruction. Another great stop, and met some extremely friendly and giving people.
We then hit the open country road, out of the city, on our way to Shwebo and Kyaukmyaung. In all, we rode about 200 miles roundtrip on motorcycle with Bobby on back, passing ox & cart farmers -- rolling back time. This part of the country doesn't have the tourism like Mandalay does. In fact, at one stop we hit the local farmer's market -- one vendor stated to Sam that she's never seen a foreigner here at the market. Further, I didn't see one caucasian the entire time in either of these 2 towns -- I definitely stood out (the Burmese men don't have much facial hair at all, and with my thick beard growing the last 2 weeks, I was very noticeable), and people were intrigued and happy to see us. Bobby mixed in a little bit more, in fact one person thought he was local ! I loved the town of Kyaukmyaung, a historic pottery village providing large pots to much of the country. It's the simple life there -- no technology that I saw, and the nicest people you can imagine. There was no vendors trying to push something on you -- no haggling or price gouging -- and every person stopped what they were doing to answer questions or accomodate us. The kids were cute and smiley. They didn't mind getting their pictures taken, and were especially excited when I showed them the result on the LCD screen -- instant results and they could see how this was fun to make faces. We had some fun moments interacting together. One woman approached Bobby and said he looked like her grandson (she's 75 years old), and insisted on giving Bobby a gift of one of her pottery products. We talked a little while, and she thought Bobby was adorable and basically wanted to keep him. So, I said goodbye and wished him well ! :-) Truly no tourism here, just genuine people that enjoy their lives and what they
do, and were always happy to share a moment with us. The real Burmese people here -- very cool.
Our guest house we planned to stay at wouldn't allow us -- when we arrived, they said "no foreigners allowed to stay here". Very limited options with no hotels or tourism. So we were shown down the street to a different guest house, and when he said to go look at the room before paying, I knew this wasn't going to be good ! It wasn't, but I reminded myself -- hey, it's just one night, we'll survive. And that we did, and my eyes showed it this morning -- quite puffy and looked like I had been in a fight. It could have been the street noise (huge gaps in the windows where anything could get through, so all noise came right in), the dogs barking incessantly for an hour, or the chanting on speaker (or loud TV) that seemed to go through most of the night. And as we were getting into the room, they quickly came in and sprayed chemicals and probably moth crystals all over, which was fun with my allergies flaring up. Aside from all that, we got through and it was water under the bridge.
We were back on our motorcycles bright and early, as we had a 3 hour ride back to the city for our flight to Bangkok. It's a lot colder there in Burma than it's been everywhere else on this trip, and at 6:30 AM riding at 35 mph with no protection, it's really cold. Kind of reminds me of the scene in "Dumb & Dumber" where Lloyd & Harry are on their way to Aspen -- with the snot running down his face frozen, and Jeff Daniels stuck to Jim Carrey's back -- yeah, that was Bobby & I this morning !
Well, I'm about done writing, as I need to get some sleep before our final day in Hong Kong. I hope that I gave a decent picture of our experience in Burma for 2 days, as it was extremely fulfilling. I loved the people and culture that we experienced. And a big thanks go out to Sam, our guide, and Zach for renting the motorcycle. We couldn't have made this short adventure without them.
Onward, to Hong Kong !
NEW VIDEO: https://vimeo.com/83922243 Note: my video program crashed on me for some reason, leaving the last 20 seconds of the video cut off, and I don't have the time to figure it out
now -- but at least we got 90% of it ! Click on the link to enjoy the video of our 48 Hours in Burma.
What a great time we had in Burma ! It's hard to put it all in words at this stage, especially now that I'm short on sleep & just finished putting the video together. The video (link shown above) gives you a good synopsis of our time, all wrapped up in 3 minutes. Without a doubt, the most enjoyable part of our time in Burma was the people --- how friendly and warm the people were, especially where we went, far away from the tourist spots. Bobby & I took a different route than most tour groups are doing, as we arrived in Mandalay & went the route toward the Ancient Capitals. We made it to Mandalay MotorBikes, and met Zach & San San, who have been so helpful & responsive for the last 12 months with my many questions. Completed some basic paperwork, met our private guide, Sam, and was introduced to our motorcycle for the next 2 days -- a Honda XR125L dirtbike. After a bumpy start (despite me taking a full day course on dirtbike riding, I was still a little rusty and had to get the feel for the bike), I slowly got the hang of it and was riding well. I jumped right into it, as we were in the heart of the busy Mandalay street traffic, and had just one close call. No crashes -- yay ! And I was actually pretty good after a little while, and adapted to the Burma city driving.
Our first stop -- the MBOA Mandalay Buddhist Orphanage. Bobby had been in contact with Mr. Gyi on several occasions to make plans for our visit and collect needed resources as his service project. The orphanage staff and children welcomed us so warmly. We were shown around the property, and introduced to each classroom one by one while they were still in class. After introducing ourselves, a boy from each classroom walked up to Bobby to share a picture he had printed out from our TravelPod site, showing that they were already following us and were anticipating our arrival -- very nice and touching. The boys were shy, but excited to see foreign visitors. Mr. Gyi gave us nice introductions, and Sam helped out with some translation when needed. Bobby found common ground with them when the topic of European Football/Soccer came up, and each boy would share his favorite team. The school day was finishing right as we made our last classroom visit, and then the boys were brought into the assembly room for the presentation of the donations. Bobby was first given some Thanaka (as most of the Burmese youth wear), a Burmese cream made from the ground bark of the Shwebo tree. It's part of their culture, and it also provides protection from the sun. He took the stage and presented each of the donations to the orphanage, including English learning workbooks donated by Triumph Learning, computer keyboards, mice & DVD players donated by Professional Tutors, 3 soccer balls donated by JUSA, and 3 English Learning software programs donated by the Emblem Club of Fullerton Elks. The orphanage was founded in 1926, and there are currently 165 boys at this orphanage. The school operates very much from donations and volunteering, including the teachers. They were very grateful, and it was really a great experience. And thank you again from both Bobby & I for the donations provided to support this service project.
From there, we moved on to the Shwe In Bin Monastry, a structure built in 1895 completely out of teakwood. We spoke to a monk there and he answered a lot of questions for us. Lots of learning along the way. Sam guided us on motorcycles through the busy city to the next site of the Mahamuni Buddha Temple (or Pagoda), a very impressive site. Sam gave us a great deal of insight as we toured around the property, and we got to see the Buddha up close. Bobby was wearing shorts & a tank top, so he was prohibited from entering until he put a shirt & sarong over himself. I found it interesting about the culture's policy when it comes to women. Women are allowed to view and pray in the pagoda, but only from a minimum of 30 feet away. The belief is that menstruation is a natural physical excretion that women have to go through on a monthly basis, nothing more or less. During this time women tend to have weaker emotional balance and would need religious support more than any other time. But in practice, ironically, they are kept out of the temple and branded as unclean. And yet, at the same time, male tourists like myself are allowed up close and can take photographs of Buddha. It's certainly interesting how things are different around the world, from what we may see as normal.
We rode into the evening on our way to the first night's hotel stop, the Shwe Pyae Sone Guest House, which ended up being quite nice. We stayed literally just to sleep, then woke early
to get on our bikes & ride ! The early morning brought us across the bridge over the Ayarwaddy River to the Sagaing Province and Sagaing Hill. Some beautiful sites, as this area is blanketed with pagodas and stupas in the rolling hills. Instead of visiting a nunnery as originally planned, we went to the Aun Myae Oo Monastic Education School in Sagaing. That was a real treat, as once again, the principal and teachers were extremely welcoming even without any notice. We were shown around the school property and introduced to various teachers and classrooms. Bobby was amazed, as this school operates on a smaller campus than the school he attends (St. Catherine's Academy), yet has 10 times as many students -- 1,652 students! They
started in 2003 with 31 students and have grown this much. They are just now starting to receive some limited financial support from the government, and prior to this the teachers were all volunteering. Children are provided both academic and Buddhist cultural instruction. Another great stop, and met some extremely friendly and giving people.
We then hit the open country road, out of the city, on our way to Shwebo and Kyaukmyaung. In all, we rode about 200 miles roundtrip on motorcycle with Bobby on back, passing ox & cart farmers -- rolling back time. This part of the country doesn't have the tourism like Mandalay does. In fact, at one stop we hit the local farmer's market -- one vendor stated to Sam that she's never seen a foreigner here at the market. Further, I didn't see one caucasian the entire time in either of these 2 towns -- I definitely stood out (the Burmese men don't have much facial hair at all, and with my thick beard growing the last 2 weeks, I was very noticeable), and people were intrigued and happy to see us. Bobby mixed in a little bit more, in fact one person thought he was local ! I loved the town of Kyaukmyaung, a historic pottery village providing large pots to much of the country. It's the simple life there -- no technology that I saw, and the nicest people you can imagine. There was no vendors trying to push something on you -- no haggling or price gouging -- and every person stopped what they were doing to answer questions or accomodate us. The kids were cute and smiley. They didn't mind getting their pictures taken, and were especially excited when I showed them the result on the LCD screen -- instant results and they could see how this was fun to make faces. We had some fun moments interacting together. One woman approached Bobby and said he looked like her grandson (she's 75 years old), and insisted on giving Bobby a gift of one of her pottery products. We talked a little while, and she thought Bobby was adorable and basically wanted to keep him. So, I said goodbye and wished him well ! :-) Truly no tourism here, just genuine people that enjoy their lives and what they
do, and were always happy to share a moment with us. The real Burmese people here -- very cool.
Our guest house we planned to stay at wouldn't allow us -- when we arrived, they said "no foreigners allowed to stay here". Very limited options with no hotels or tourism. So we were shown down the street to a different guest house, and when he said to go look at the room before paying, I knew this wasn't going to be good ! It wasn't, but I reminded myself -- hey, it's just one night, we'll survive. And that we did, and my eyes showed it this morning -- quite puffy and looked like I had been in a fight. It could have been the street noise (huge gaps in the windows where anything could get through, so all noise came right in), the dogs barking incessantly for an hour, or the chanting on speaker (or loud TV) that seemed to go through most of the night. And as we were getting into the room, they quickly came in and sprayed chemicals and probably moth crystals all over, which was fun with my allergies flaring up. Aside from all that, we got through and it was water under the bridge.
We were back on our motorcycles bright and early, as we had a 3 hour ride back to the city for our flight to Bangkok. It's a lot colder there in Burma than it's been everywhere else on this trip, and at 6:30 AM riding at 35 mph with no protection, it's really cold. Kind of reminds me of the scene in "Dumb & Dumber" where Lloyd & Harry are on their way to Aspen -- with the snot running down his face frozen, and Jeff Daniels stuck to Jim Carrey's back -- yeah, that was Bobby & I this morning !
Well, I'm about done writing, as I need to get some sleep before our final day in Hong Kong. I hope that I gave a decent picture of our experience in Burma for 2 days, as it was extremely fulfilling. I loved the people and culture that we experienced. And a big thanks go out to Sam, our guide, and Zach for renting the motorcycle. We couldn't have made this short adventure without them.
Onward, to Hong Kong !
- comments
Sue The video is sensational and so are the pics and write up (as usual). I'm just in awe over this trip, Robert. It was perfect just perfect! I'm so happy for you and Bobby. What percentage of the population in this world get to do what you two did? ... not many. :)
Rosanna Another great chapter in your great adventure! What else can I say, great posting, great pictures, great videos. While I'm glad you guys had a great time, I am also glad that you are coming home soon. Can't wait to see you guys tomorrow night. Love and miss you both, xoxo.
Rosanna I love this picture!
Marisa We are very happy to know you enjoyed your stay in Burma and that you are safe! We can't wait to see you both soon! Safe travels back home!