Cycling Burma: You Say Bye-Bye, And I Say Mingalaba

Jes giving a lift to her 12-year old, non-English speaking "guide" to the temple ruins at Pyay.
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MYANMAR TOURING HIGHLIGHTS

*Ecstatic children waving and yelling "Hello", or just as often, "Bye-Bye," as you ride or walk by.

At the Water Festival, there are no time-outs!

*Amazing people who are not only friendly, but are always happy to help you and will accept nothing but smiles for their time and effort.

Us with our guides in one of the temples.
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*Making long, loud smooching noises to call your waiter, and listening to a crowd of other patrons do the same.

*Now-you-see-it, now-you-don't electricity.  The show can start, or stop, at any time.

*Inevitable bouts of food poisoning and traveler's tummy, just to keep things interesting.

*Crazy oppressive heat, pushing 110 degrees.  We vowed to thereafter refer to the sun as "that blazing death ball."

The floating market on Inle Lake. They have the world's hardest hard sell method, where they anchor themselves to your boat for 10 minutes thrusting things in your face randomly. Frightening!
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*Men and women with red-stained teeth and red gook in their gums from chewing betelnut.  They look sort of like vampires just after a kill.

*Stepping into "1984" as the government severely restricts internet access, bans web-based email sites, and reportedly reads all emails.

*NO BANKS!  If you run out of cash, you are screwed, my friend.  No credit cards, no ATMs, no nothing.  Luckily, theft is almost unheard of.

*Hearing cheesy American pop songs reincarnated as even cheesier Burmese pop songs.  Pink's "I'm Coming Out" seemed particularly popular, but the examples are legion and the music is ubiquitous.

Some onlookers at the floating market.
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*Burmese rap stars.  Enough said.

*Climbing barefoot atop one of the 3000 temple ruins at Bagan and looking out at a forest of temples as far as you can see in every direction.

*Being drenched in water by everyone you see for all four days of the Water Festival.

*Bumping along in back of a sardine-packed pick-up truck with the locals, including monks and nuns.

The non-floating market, not quite as big a tourist draw, thankfully.
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*A relative absence of tourists, even in Myanmar's most "touristy" towns.

BACKGROUND

Myanmar is certainly a unique and interesting country, though it would probably fall in the category of "difficult" countries in which to travel. It has wonderful people, a very traditional culture, and some awesome sites, but it is also extremely poor, with a dreadful transportation network. After nearly one hundred years of British rule ending in 1948, followed by a highly unsuccessful and somewhat dubiously-intentioned attempt to move toward a socialist state, Myanmar finds itself with the current military government. After they lost Myanmar's first democratic elections in 30 years in 1989, staged after massive pro-democracy demonstrations that were brutally crushed by the government, they simply refused to hand over power. The oppressive and bizarre government, while having little direct effect on travelers (aside from restricted Internet access – we had to use proxies to check email), can't go without mentioning.

A boy offering flowers for sale on Inle Lake.
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First, because of the government, significant controversy surrounds even the idea of travel to Myanmar. Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar's Nobel Laureate for peace and primary symbol for political change, initiated a boycott in 1996, reasoning that tourist money only enabled the current government to remain in power. However, many in Myanmar have voiced disagreement with this policy, despite their great respect for "the Lady," as she is known to the Burmese people. The opposing view posits that isolation also empowers the government, that independent travelers can ensure the vast majority of their money goes to locals, who desperately need it, and that tourists offer an important connection with the outside world and possibly a disincentive for government oppression. There is some evidence that Aung San Suu Kyi may have changed her stance, but no one knows for sure since she remains under house arrest in Yangon, where the military government has forced her to remain for almost the entire time since 1989. Obviously, we decided to go. We never stayed at a government hotel and we took largely private transportation when we weren't bicycling, so we'd like to think we did as much as possible to direct our money straight to the people and away from "the generals," as one elderly ex-pat in Kalaw put it.

One of several temples on the lake.
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A poignant reminder of the government's oppressive rule is the story of the Moustache Brothers, Lu Maw, Lu Zaw and Par Par Lay.  For many years they ran a sort of Burmese vaudeville troupe, performing comedy and dance routines for weddings and other local events.  Then one day they made some jokes about the government and two of them were sent to prison for 6 years, doing hard labor in work camps for part of the time.  They now perform nightly at their home in Mandalay, and we attended the show.  While only one speaks English and it's a little hard to understand everything, it was amazing simply because they are doing it.  It's heartbreaking to think of such sweet and silly old souls spending years in a work camp for making some jokes.

Well allrightie then.
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As hinted already, the government definitely smacks of Orwellian bizarreness. One example is the posting everywhere, in Burmese and in English, of a cryptic list of causes and objectives of "The People." Each category has a list of three or four points that are ridiculously abstract to begin with, and are simply restatements of one another in any event. One category is titled "People's Desire" and lists things like "Oppose those relying on external elements, acting as stooges, holding negative views," and "Crush all internal and external destructive elements as the common enemy." To be fair, one or two sound like worthy goals, like increasing standards of education and health, but these are dwarfed by the silly double-speak of the others. Moreover, there is a severely twisted irony here: a government who refuses to acknowledge the results of a democratic election and is infamous for its harsh oppression of its citizens publishes a list of "People's Desires." The generals, not surprisingly I guess, have some serious balls.

Looks like the water buffaloes are enjoying it, too.
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Also supplied by the government, the tourist magazine handed out at the airport had some strange and unintentionally humorous things in it. An article titled "The Myanmar Adult," written by a "retired ambassador," was particularly weird due partially to its presentation of England and America and partially to awkward English. To illustrate how good it is that Myanmar has an even ratio of men to women, the article chose Britain and America as counter- examples. Speaking of empire-era Britain, the article states that because of the gender imbalance due to men leaving to guard the empire, "the aristocratic Englishwoman had to put on the breeches to ride with her man to the hounds, while her more common sister had to put on her scarf to join her man at the local football match."  England was a men's world, the article says, while the "New World," it says, became and remained a women's world (this would be news to many American women then and now, no doubt!). "So the poor American male there has to work long hours to invent more and more household gadgets for the American wife. And after office hours, he has to join her at those interminable cocktail parties where the wives show off to each other (not to the men, either) their latest dress, eyelashes or hair-do, hair-dye or hair itself." On the other hand, "the Myanmar wife is too shrewd to let her nominal 'lord and master' feel inferior and accordingly makes compensatory outward gestures such as walking a few paces behind him or letting him have the first dip into the curry." What a lucky chap this Myanmar Man, what with not having to suffer interminable cocktail parties or fabricate compliments for his wife's eyelashes and hair-dye, plus he gets first go at the curry! Huh.

A member of a tribe where the women wear rings to make their necks longer, which is considered very beautiful.
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But back to the real "people" of Myanmar, who constitute one of its best features. Burmese people were unfailingly kind, cheerful and friendly to us. The culture remains quite traditional in many ways, and people are proud of their culture and their country (though doubtless unhappy with the current government). I gathered that the ideal progress to Burmese would be to modernize and improve living conditions without sacrificing their cultural identities (plural because many distinctive ethnic groups live in Myanmar). People, men and women alike, dress as they have for centuries, in longyes (floor-length wrap skirts). The patterns worn and tying method distinguish a man's from a woman's longye. Longyes are simply long sheets of fabric, without pockets or anything, and people carry things (from wallets to whiskey bottles, during the Water Festival) slipped inside the back waistband of their longyes. Men's and women's roles are largely traditional, as well. Although, in farming villages, we saw men and women doing similar work - plowing fields with the aid of oxen, carrying huge jugs of water back from the wells - but I gathered that women do all of the cooking and laundry. Still, even Aung San Suu Kyi has emphasized that women are well-respected in Burmese society, even if they are expected to play somewhat of a background or subservient role.

Part of the floating village, where people live in stilted houses on the lake.
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The character of the people is even more impressive in light of their living conditions, which are probably among the poorest in the world. Both Yangon and Mandalay are dirty, hectic and prone to frequent power outages, but still seem to have something of a middle class. As you get out of the cities, conditions deteriorate. We passed countless farming villages where people live in basic bamboo huts with no running water and only ox carts or bicycles for transportation. The current life expectancy is only 56. On the bright side of things, the people enjoy a fair amount of religious freedom. While most of the population is Buddhist, there are many Muslims and some Hindus as well, though only a few Christians and Jews. We read that the Jewish population of Yangon is a whopping 50!

Souvenirs for sale at Indein, a village on the lake.
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OUR TIME IN MYANMAR

After waiting five days for visas in Bangkok, we finally arrived to Yangon and met our friends Chris and Annalee. First impressions of Yangon were that it's quite a rundown and dirty city, but the Shwe Dagon Paya, with its massive golden stupa towering over the town, is certainly beautiful. We then tried to bicycle 300 kilometers north to Pyay, but found that a combination of killer heat and lack of accommodations warranted a bus ride after the first day. Pyay wasn't much to see, but we had a nice time cycling around some temple ruins with a few local boys riding on the backs of our bikes as our "guides."

Another young impromptu "guide," who showed us the way to the hilltop ruins.
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Our next stop was Inle Lake in Shan State, a large shallow lake set in the cool air of the mountains. Life in the numerous villages around the lake centers on the water.  A few of the villages are located entirely on the lake itself, with all the buildings set on stilts and the locals getting around via jam-packed motored longboat ferries or their own small canoes. In the lake are temples, monasteries, restaurants, shops, markets, and even a floating garden. In the mornings, the glass-like stillness of the lake is broken only here and there by fishermen and people heading to markets or other villages. We hired a longboat and had a fantastic day just boating around and taking it all in. Moreover, the main tourist town in the area, Nyaung Shwe, is a picturesque and friendly place, with great cheap accommodations and delicious food. Food in Myanmar, though, wasn't what we'd hoped. We've had delicious Burmese food in San Francisco, but we had little Burmese food in Myanmar that was even sort of good. We did eat delicious Indian and Chinese, however, so we were hardly in dire straits. The food was cheap, but payment was also exacted in the form of one bout of food poisoning and two raging bouts of traveler's tummy.

The rundown and dirty buildings are sadly typical of Yangon.
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We biked from Inle Lake to Bagan, starting with a beautiful ride through and down the mountains to Meikthila (a rather boring and off-putting town with an inordinate number of drunk men – the exception that proves the rule of Burmese hospitality, it seems). The riding after this was flat and passed through many small villages, but was unfortunately brutally hot. After a great stop in Mt. Popa, a temple dramatically set atop a strange little mountain rumored to be an extinct volcano, we arrived to Bagan. Bagan is one of the highlights of Myanmar, and rightfully so. The ruins of more than 3000 Buddhist temples, some as much as 1000 years old, dot the plain over an area of only 42 square kilometers. Collectively it is a stunning sight, though depending on your degree of interest in temple ruins, you may tire relatively quickly of the endless visits to the individual temples, which all look remarkably similar inside.

Old monk entering Yangon's Shwe Dagon Pagoda.
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One of our favorite parts of riding in the countryside was certainly the constant shouts of "Hello!," and often just "Bye-Bye!"  We usually responded with "Mingalaba" (the standard greeting - literally, "It's a blessing") or "Hello," or sometimes even just (oh, what the hell) "Bye-Bye."  Most of our greeters were children, who if we stopped would shyly and slowly but surely congregate around us, mostly to stare and to giggle if we smiled or talked to them.

Our final stop was Mandalay, to which we arrived just in time for the Water Festival, celebrated throughout Myanmar in honor of the Buddhist New Year. As the name implies, the focus here is water, and lots of it. Adults and kids alike spray, throw and shoot water with reckless abandon – anything to get as many people as possible thoroughly drenched. No one is exempt. Simply venturing into the streets constitutes your entry into the game, though we also had water poured at us while seated at outdoor restaurants! All over Mandalay it was a full-on street party. Giant stands were set up along the moat walls surrounding the Mandalay Palace, from which different groups played (mostly techno-ish) music and used the moat water to fuel giant hoses with which they pounded everyone in striking distance. We had a fantastic time the first day, especially since we'd met up again with Chris and Annalee and it was fun to run around Mandalay playing in the water like four kids. But, the water-throwing lost most of its charm after that first day. Imagine that you want to go out to eat or to check your email, but you know that you will be completely soaked many times over by the time you reach your destination. At the Water Festival, there are no time-outs!

Us with Chris and Annalee at a cave temple during a hike near Inle Lake.
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After we dried out, we boarded a plane for Kunming, China. We plan to bike in Yunnan Province and possibly up into the lower Himalayas of western Sichuan Province, which is essentially eastern Tibet despite what the maps say. We look forward to cooler weather, tasty food, and some highly serious mountain scenery.