Day 45 - 48 Myanmar, Yangon. - Beds, Buddhists and Buses.

Our last night in Laos was at a pleasant, but simple guest house back on Route 13, to stop for the night, following an appetising evening meal of crisps and yoghurt and a cup of 3 in1 Nescafe coffee!!! .................... The local fried 'bird' didn't look too appetising!! .......... we got a good and well deserved, nights sleep.

Roast 'Bird on a stick' ...................... not sure quite which bird! ..... looked like flattened road kill!!

With an early rise we made our destination at Europcar in Vientiane early with time to enjoy a good brunch and great coffee at JoMa Cafe. We dropped the children off with all the rucksacks at the Cafe to order, while we drove a few blocks away to drop the car off. When all the paperwork was complete Europcar kindly drove us to JoMa Cafe and agreed to pick us back up 40 minutes later, after brunch, to take us to the Airport!! ...................... now that is what you call service!!! All in all Laos was a wonderful country and the people were extremely welcoming, friendly and very genuine, a country where you felt safe wherever you were.

We took a short flight from Vientiane to Bangkok then on to Yangon in Myanmar (Burma), where we didn't quite know what to expect and Myanmar was probably the one place we hadn't had too much time to research and this soon came home to roost! But, "This is Burma" wrote Rudyard Kipling. "It is quite unlike any place you know about". ....... and, as in Kipling's day, having had the luxury of ATM machines all over Vietnam and Laos, in Myanmar, International ATM's didn't exist!! We found out at the Airport from a grumpy Australian man (thats not a generalisation, .... he just sounded grumpy ................. mind you after we heard what he had to say there were now a few grumpy Brits in the Airport!!) who said "ya can't get cash in this country, .......... thats why I've had to come over here with $14,000 cash in ma pockets .............. it's bloody hopeless!!"

Ahhh!!! .................. problem challenge No. 1!! ....................... We only had $300 between the five of us for three weeks!! ..................................................... bugger!!!!!!

The Old Colonial Governement Buildngs, now empty, built to show the Burmese people the strength of the old Empire. This is where Bogyoke Aung San (Aung San Suu Kyi's farther) was assassinated following his overwhelming majority in the 1947 elections.

In three moves (1824, 1852 and 1885), the British took over all of Myanmar. The Burmese King and Queen were exiled to India and their Grand Palace at Mandalay was looted and used as a barracks to quarter British and Indian troops!!! .............. mmmmmmh! ..... they are a nice bunch of people!

Other evidence of colonial architecture.



Jo had only got the 'SE Asia Lonely Planet' out during the flight and the money situation wasn't mentioned in any great detail and non of the other articles we read mentioned it - we had even had time in Bangkok to get money out, so it was even more frustrating.

We met 'Saw' a local taxi driver who worked with the Tourist Information Office, "There is only one place in Yangon you can change money, at one of the travel agencies and they will charge about 7% .................. You cannot get money from the Banks and there are only ATM's for local cards" ................................ bugger!!!!

It was a very strange feeling arriving in a country, with not enough money to get out and not enough money to stay in! .......................... you suddenly have to place a lot of trust in local people and your own judgement of character! ..................................................kind of focuses your mind a little and ironically, having mentioned Rudyard Kipling's attachment to Burma, thoughts of his very famous poem "IF", come flooding to the forefront of your mind .............................

'If you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you; If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, But make allowance for their doubting too: If you can wait and not be tired of waiting .............etc. etc' ...... Kind of sums up Burma really!!

Problem challenge No. 2!! ................. Hotel prices. After 'Saw' had taken us to the fifth Hotel (nothing booked) we were faced with the news that since November, last year, Hotel prices had gone up by 200 to 300+%. In some cases, with many of the better Hotels, a $56.00 room rate was now being sold for $240.00 - $300 a night (in many places we need 2!), following a high demand from the Chinese and Japanese business men, who were more than happy to pay it. As a result there has been a major outcry from many of the tourist operators who have not been able to renew contracts with Hotel Operators at previous low (respectable) prices, even to the extent of hitting the front page headlines in the Myanmar Times!! .............................................. bugger!!! It was made even worse as today (Saturday) was the 'Full Moon Festival' at 'Shwedagon Paya' and apparently Buddha's Birthday (or one of them!) and effectively a Bank Holiday weekend, so there was an influx of some additional 5,000 locals to celebrate at the main pagoda. ............... he's obviously a very popular chap!!It was now getting late and we were all very tired and hot and we couldn't afford to blow our only cash on one nights accomodation, just in case we had difficulty in getting money out, which 'Saw' promised for Sunday afternoon! ..... We eventually bartered a single room for five of us for $45.00, with me sleeping on a mattress on the floor. We stood and watched our very helpful and smiling hotel staff bring the mattress into the room, .............. clearly it had previously been heavily used on the film set of 'Slumdog Millionaire' and we all stared at each other with a rye smile ................ and that feeling you get in your stomach, just before your about to throw up!!! ............ I felt it might be more hygenic to simply sleep on the floor!! and you know when something is sooo bad ........ you feel there is no point in even mentioning anything ........ the room turned uneasily quite until the children suddenly jumped on their respective beds, to 'bagsey' their place, landing with a look of determined ownership, just in case Dad decided to change his mind and volunteer one of the children for the matress on the floor!!! Fred, Imogen and Jo slept in a double bed and Harry in a single bed!! The Hotel Spa and jacuzzi wasn't quite finished yet!! ................. well, it hadn't even been started!! ............ in fact I don't think it actually featured in the manager's business plan!! ............ but I am sure he had visions of it one day!! - All in all, a bit of a squeeze; the children even refused to get their teddies out of their rucksacks ..................... well, I think it was actually the teddies that REFUSED to get out of the rucksacks in case they caught something - but it served its purpose until we could feel more financially comfortable.

The next day we made our transaction at the Travel Agents to get cash and were charged a massive 10%!! .............OUCH!! ............. Whilst there, we booked our flights for our reduced itinerary - half the dollars gone already We now had to change dollars for local Chit .................. sounds like an American drug deal!!! (spelt Kyat but spoken as Kit or Chit). This again was more difficult than anticipated. By the time we had concluded our money transaction at the Travel Agency, the Banks were closed for lunch and we were told to come back in an hours time. This was a good excuse for us to eat and we found a very good cafe for a welcome lunch stop, that also took dollars. After lunch, we were going to head into the famous local market, known as the Scot market, apparently so named as it was a Scottish Company that built it back in the Empire days. Before this we popped back into the Bank to get some Chit ............... "sorry, no money"!!!!! ...................... Great, the Bank had run out of money!!! ....................... We walked back out onto the very hot and bussling street, ........"You want to change money sir, ..... come with me" ................ Well, left with no option but 'the black market' we followed our man through the tiny covered market alleyways, where goods of all sorts could be purchased, gold, diamonds and other gems, paintings, cloths, food, wicker crafts, wooden carvings and much more; in one market alley, out of another, down another, ducking under items hanging from the ceilings, left, right, across a street, ........... At one stage I thought of dropping bread crumbs or rice! to find our way back, but we eventually arrived at his friend's very small jewellery kiosk. Checking the situation out as best we could, ......... it was as good as we were going to get inYangon, we changed $200 at a fairly respectable rate!! You had to be quite careful as in Myanmar as people only liked dealing in crisp notes, anything that was slightly worn or even marked with a pen, would not be acceptable currency in many places ....... so beware as a 'fist-full' of old notes from a less respectable 'black marketeer' wouldn't even buy you an ice cream!! Fred also changed his 10 pounds sterling for 12,300 Kyat ............... I have never seen such a big smile on his face!! .......... he thought he had won the lottery!! ................... Little did he appreciate that he now had enough money to buy a bag of custard buns and a sprite!!

We wandered around the huge number of market stalls, with the children stopping to look at all the precious gem stones of Jade, ruby, aquamarine, saphires, emeralds, diamonds and many more. These stones, together with gold seemed in abundance in Myanmar, as I believe they have a wealth of minerals that occur naturally in the mountains. There appeared to be so many stalls selling these precious stones, but clearly, like most things in SE Asia, its a question of quality and many of the stones in the markets, although real were not as pure as others - luckily the budget didn't extend to buying jewels ......... phew!! sorry Jo!! Some of the local art work was extremely well done and clearly there were many talented artists in Myanmar. Copying famous works of art was a very popular past-time, so if you want a realistic Vangh Gogh 'Sunflowers' hanging in the hallway, this is the place to come.

Scot Market's numerous stalls and small alley-ways.

After haggling for a few things in the Scot market we left and made our way to the 'Shwedagon Paya' ('paya' - 'holy one', a religious monument - Temple). This was a huge Golden structure and a defining image of Yangon, a couple of km north of the centre, with the gilded spire being a symbol of Burmese identity. It rises 98m from its base, glistening in the sun and dates back 2,500 years - if legend is to be believed. -

This is truly an amazing site and the children looked up in awe as we walked into the compound through the south entrance toward the main stupa and its 82 other buildings. The 'Paya' is said to be built upon the hill where Buddha relics have been enshrined, including eight hairs of the Buddha!! The stupa has reportedly accumulated more than 53 metric tonnes of gold leaf!! The top of the spire is encrusted with more than 5000 diamonds and 2000 other stones. - a good job Burma doesn't suffer from travellers!!!!! ................. they'd have that lot off before you could say "Shwedagon Paya"!!!

Top: The huge 'Shwedagon Paya'. Next: 3 'monkets!' - female monks. Next: Fred being eaten by a crocodile!! Bottom: A group of local tramps begging for food and shelter in Myanmar!!

The entrance to The Strand Hotel - refurbished to its former glory.

Although we couldn't afford a nights stay at the well known 'Strand Hotel', the grand old colonial hotel by the port, that has historically hosted the likes of Rudyard Kipling, George Orwell and many Royal Families, having been totally refurbished about 10 years ago, we thought we could stretch to a cocktail. Getting there was an experience, we decided to take the local bus from the 'Paya'. A local man helped us with directions to the correct bus stop and said he was taking the same bus, so we could follow him. We all bought Cornetto ice creams on the way to the stop and waited with our friendly local, for the bus to arrive. It turned up fairly quickly and then the fun began. We had forgotten how full these local buses get and 2 adults and 3 children all with ice creams wasn't going to go down well. We piled on to the bus and were hearded in with loud shouts from the conductor to 'move down, move down!!' (in Laos)......... I didn't think we could move down any further .......... but I was wrong! ...... "move down, move down!!' .......... we in fact, moved down several more times towards the back of the bus into small pockets of space that I hadn't realise existed!! .......... silly me!!! ...... there was now bearly enough room to breath, let alone think about trying to get your wallet out to pay the conductor!! Our local man, who obviously knew the system, managed to keep himself near the front and seeing our plight actually paid all our bus fares to the conductor!!! .............. now would that happen in the UK!! .......... I don't think so! We now had the added complication of trying to eat ice-creams, with your head firmly stuck in some locals arm-pit, the bus of which was swaying from side to side and constantly stopping to pick other people up!! ............. where the hell they were going to go I had no bloody idea!! .....HOW we were actually going to fight our way off the bus at our required stop, was was going to be a major logistics excercise that I would have to start planning now. Another major complication we were now faced with, was that fortunately I had finished my ice cream quickly, however, Freddie, who was squashed in between me and several local people, had mistakenly chosen a 'Jack Fruit' ice cream!! not good, as Jack Fruit tastes like onions!!! Fred, not being of a stubborn nature, holding this barely licked ice cream, firmly refused to eat any more!! ............. However much I tried to insist that he eat it very quickly, as we were now in a bus with what seemed like 300 local people, that would normally hold a maximum of 30, in temperatures that were melting hot, for the next 20 minutes, ........ if some poor soul at the back wanted to get off, at least 100 people would be smothered with 'Jack Fruit' ice cream!! ............... Fred didn't consider that outcome to be anywhere near as bad as having to eat this horrible tasting ice cream, so stood his ground with 'Jack Fruit' ice cream slowly starting to run down his hands and, as the bus jossled, all over my shirt and the shirt of the lady next to me!! ........ oh .... and hear we go, someone at the back wants to get off!!! .......Jack Fruit ice cream touched the souls of many people on that bus trip, until we finally manoeuvred him next to a window and one local woman, seeing his plight put his hand out the window and got him to drop what was left on the road!! ........... We managed to fight our way off at the right stop and our local man refused to accept payment of our bus fare (It worked out at about 10p each! but a very nice gesture) and coctails at the grand 'Strand Hotel' were definately well recieved!!

After cocktails, hosing Fred down in the 'rest rooms' and the children providing a free music concert in the Hotel foyer on the decorative wooden xylophones, we headed for the 'Monsoon' restaurant for supper, another grand old colonial-era building, with good eastern and western food choices and great shakes to keep the children happy!.

The taxi back was hilarious, we flagged one down outside the restaurant with the help of one of the waiters and all piled in! .................... this car was something out of 'scrap heap challenge'!!! ..... and to be honest with you, I don't think it would have won!! ......... The back seat looked ok, but when Jo sat down with a scream, as there were no springs in it, wonderring how she was going to actually get out of this car and I sat in the front holding on to the door ......... with no window! ....... just in case it swung open round a corner. The only thing that was working properly was the radio, held on by a piece of dexion! ...... and as far as MOT and insurance went? ...... it was us that needed to take out the insurance and I think MOT in Myanmar, simply meant Means Of Transport!! This was something in the UK you wouldn't dream of getting into, but we later learnt that until VERY recently cars were very difficult to get hold of and even a second hand chinese taxi would cost up to $56,000!!, hence most of them were barely road worhty.

The smaller 'Sule Paya', another, (2,200 years old!) temple in the city.

Yangon was certainly a city of contrast, with a mixture of old colonial buildings left over from the days of the empire; huge and extravagant golden temples, amongst parks and general old commercial buildings. The wealth of some of the worlds top hotels such as 'The Savoy', 'The Shangrila', who own 'Traders' and 'The Strand'; the dour Government buildings which run the city; the high prescence of armed police and military on the streets and the familiar sites of orange robes of buddhist monks that can be seen in most places.

We eventually made it back to our 'room'! and rose early the next morning for a flight to the magical ancient town of Bagan, a place where some 4,400 temples exist within some 42 sq. km, dating back some 800 years.