Week 19: Myanmar

We have moved ourselves to sunshine, sparkling pagodas, and the kindest people we have ever come across. We had smooth flights from Langkawi, with a short stop over in Kuala Lumpur, to get to Yangon, Myanmar. Now, as soon as we say ‘Myanmar’, the images from the current news stories flash through everyone’s heads. We were questioned about why we would keep Myanmar on our travel list for safety reasons, and we questioned our own decision for ethical reasons. How could we support a country that was treating many of their own citizens so terribly? We did a lot of reading and thinking, and felt these two articles did a great job of summarizing why we decided to come here in the end: 

https://www.worldnomads.com/explore/ethical-dilemmas-and-travel
and

So, here we are, and we are SO glad we decided to visit this country!
A lot of our first evening here was spent trying not to gawk as we took in our new surroundings. Yangon’s main streets are lined with trees and green spaces, and even shiny gold pagodas! There is still garbage and sewage on the smaller streets, but they are cleaner than some other countries we have visited. The people are fascinating as well! We ate at a restaurant with amazing food from the Shan region of Myanmar, and were served by staff who were welcoming, funny, and eager to talk to us. Little did we know, this experience would come to be the norm in most restaurants here! We also visited the Sule pagoda, a beautiful, large structure right in the middle of a busy intersection. A local man showed us around the pagoda and explained a lot of what the locals were doing in the pagoda.

We then spent most of a day at the Shwe Dogan pagoda. This place was like a city in itself, complete with a map for finding your way around all of the different sights. There was so much to see, from the gold and jewel laden spires, to the many relics in cases surrounding the pagoda. It was a pretty hot day, but since we’ve lost the humidity we were experiencing in Malaysia, we were pretty comfortable with short breaks under the beautiful Bodhi trees. We also walked through the gorgeous parks surrounding the pagoda, enjoying the gardens and lakes.





In the evening, we attended Htwe Oo Puppet Theatre, a puppet show that has been running for 11 years out of Mr. Htwe’s living room. We were joined by four other couples, and we all thoroughly enjoyed this lively marionette show.



We spent part of the next day on Yangon’s circle train. This train takes about three hours to complete a circle route around the city, and gave us a better look at the daily goings on of this city. We rode with another couple from the UK, Maddie and Luke, and had a great time chatting with them as we went along. We rode in a fairly quiet car for the beginning of the ride, looking out at the grassy fields, small buildings, and people walking along the train tracks. We then made a stop where there was a flurry of activity with women throwing bags through the windows and stuffing them under our seats. Many women joined our car, packing it with people and fresh produce, and filling it with the scent of lemongrass and herbs. We watched with fascination as they sat on the train, chatting away to each other, and bundling their goods to sell at the market.







We fueled our explorations with delicious local dishes at restaurants in the area. We have to be careful to tell them ‘little spice’, but we have really loved the food we’ve tried here. The service has been wonderful, and we have often found ourselves in conversations with the staff and/or other patrons, which has been so nice.

We then took our first night bus on this trip from Yangon to Kalaw. The bus was very spacious and comfortable, and we were both able to get a few hours of shut-eye. They even provided a few snacks, a blanket and air conditioning! We arrived in Kalaw at 4:30 am, and found ourselves a hotel manager willing to let us sleep on his living room furniture for a few hours.

Our day in Kalaw was very relaxing. We booked our hike from Kalaw to Inle Lake, visited the shops, and talked to other travellers. We also enjoyed some reading in the sunshine!

We then hit the trail for a three-day hike between Kalaw and Inle Lake. This 65 km trek took us through forests of bamboo, small villages, and so many fields. We ate at small, local restaurants for lunch, and in villager’s homes for breakfast and dinner. Our group all slept in one large room on mats on the floor of villager’s homes. We travelled with two guides, Win Kyaw and Phyo Phyo, and two couples from France: Lucie and Kevin, and Marine and Simon. We had so much fun together, chatting and laughing together on the trail, and learning about the crops being grown in the fields. We walked through fields of tea, oranges, rice, tomatoes, garlic, bananas, ginger, sesame, papaya, tobacco, wheat, corn, strawberries, and beans. There were many people out in the fields harvesting the rice and chilies, and with their bamboo hats and baskets, it was like a scene taken straight from a movie. We saw buffalo and cows, and even saw them being led by people with haul carts attached. After lunch on the third day, we piled into a long boat and rode through the channels of water connecting to Inle Lake. We saw homes on stilts, gardens under water, and the famous leg rowers. It was the perfect end to a great trek together!













Here’s the thing, we love travel recommendations. We have read a lot of other travel blogs to help us build our itinerary for the places we’ve been so far. One step up from that is getting recommendations from other travellers we’ve met along the way- it gives a bit of a personal connection to the place after hearing it from someone’s mouth. But for us, the step above that has been getting recommendations and advice from people we know and love, and then following in their footsteps. On each of these sorts of adventures, I have been known to exclaim “(insert recommenders name) was RIGHT here!”. It just feels like a little piece of home, and it’s so nice. We are so grateful to all of our friends who pushed for SE Asia to be added to our travel plans, and especially to friends like Lisa who took the time to write out a ton of details about her adventures travelling here so that we could follow in her footsteps. She was the one to first recommend the Kalaw-Inle hike, and as soon as we read about it, we knew we wanted to do it. Thank you, Lisa!


Although we are hitting fairly ‘touristy’ spots as far as Myanmar goes, we have not yet felt like there are many tourists around. The people we have met all basically have the same itinerary, due to the limitations on where you can travel in the country, but some are travelling to areas we will not see.

10 things we’ve learned this last week:
  • This fascinating fact has occupied a lot of my thoughts while we’ve been here: it is just in the last two years that 70% of Myanmar has been exposed to the internet. Before this time, SIM cards were ridiculously expensive and hardly anyone had internet or cell phones. Can you imagine this?!
  • The drivers in Myanmar drive on the right side of the road, but most of their vehicles are also right hand drive. My heart still jumps every time I look over and see the person on the left sleeping or reading.
  • I was not meant to be a puppeteer. We were given a chance to try manipulating the marionettes after Htwe Oo’s puppet show, but I was terrible at it. I need to hold on to my day job!
  • Many men and most women wear a long, circular wrap around their waist that nearly reaches their feet. This is called a ‘longyi’ for men and ‘htamein’ for women.
  • Many men and most women apply thanaka in patches to their face. Thanaka is a yellowish-white paste made from mixing water and ground bark, and it is used to protect their skin from the sun and keep their skin clear.
  • Many of the Burmese people we have met have a habit of chewing betel nut, a green leaf that turns their teeth red.
  • Both the Shan region and Mon region make delicious foods! This food is even tastier when served by people who are so visibly excited to have you in their restaurant.
  • While visiting the Sule pagoda, we learned that it is very important here to know which day of the week you were born. Will was born on a Saturday, making his animal a dragon and his lucky number 10. He is also said to have a great sense of humour, an easy confidence about him, and be good at finances. I was born on a Friday, making my animal a guinea pig and my lucky number 21. I am said to be creative, sympathetic, and enjoy talking a lot.
  • Myanmar has 8 days in their calendar, so in order to keep things jiving with the rest of the world, they split Wednesday into two days (Wednesday morning and Wednesday afternoon).
  • There are some REALLY busy spiders here! During our hike between Kalaw and Inle, we saw some magnificent webs with some equally amazing looking spiders. I took so many pictures of the webs that I think our guides got the impression that we don’t actually have spiders in Canada.




Random act of kindness: The people here are so incredibly friendly that we feel like every day is filled with random acts of kindness. People are eager to smile and wave at us, and we have been given many welcoming cups of tea.

Comments

  1. The architecture is very beautiful and the puppet show seems a perfect time out, I mean, it’s no muppets...hahaha! Very cool look at a very interesting country.

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  2. More fascinating stories. I love them! Your photos are amazing. Let the journey continue!

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