OSI’s new album Blood is at least as outstanding as their previous two: a masterpiece between (sometimes heavy) melodic rock, smart grooves, and electronic music. In addition, Kevin Moore’s calm and soothing voice raises the chill level to the extraordinary. I’ve never paid particular attention to the actual words sung, just enjoyed the ambience.

The first verse of the second song, “Terminal”, kinda changed this for me. Whether due to the rhyme, a pathetic attempt to be alternative or strangely cool, alien brain infiltration, or excessive, mind-boggling drug consumption, at some point he sings:

I wanna talk shit when we get outside
I wanna play tough when you’re terrified
I wanna have fun like we used to did
I wanna […]

Oh the pain!

My friend Nicole and I rode our bikes from Chur across the San Bernardino (2066m) to the Lago Maggiore this weekend. The final 30-odd kilometres had us cycle down a busy road, against strong headwinds, with hurting necks, backs, bottoms, and thighs. It was then that OSI came to my head and I found myself singing a later portion of the aforementioned song:

Goin’ goin’ goin’, feet don’t fail me.

If OSI hadn’t screwed up the grammar so painfully, I might have never noticed how cheesy their lyrics were. Now I need to learn to fade them out and return to absorbing the truly excellent tunes alone. The album hovers high up there with other must-haves nonetheless.

NP: OSI: Blood

I guess following the bomb attacks from last year, the Yangon people have stepped up security procedures, requiring your bags and body searched at all major hotels, business, and shopping places.

I find it amusing though, that they run the metal detector once down your body, and whether it beeps or not, that’s all. It always beeps due to my cellphone, but they never made me take it out or felt it.

Airport security is similar. I have no problems taking my pocket knife in hand luggage, and they don’t make a fuss about people putting things from their pockets into their bags, after they have been scanned, and before the body is searched.

Very effective.

My last day in Bangkok is hardly worth writing about, I mostly ran around meeting people and trying to get the last things done, before getting on the plane at 23:30 that night. I did meet the Jim Thompson retail manager and had an interesting two and a half hour lunch with her (she is quite a character, and it won’t be the last time I’ve visited her), subsequently went to visit the Jim Thompson museum. Then, I stopped by the dreadful Khaosan Road to pick something up for a friend and left as quickly as I could. The “tourist centre” of Bangkok is now even more horrible than the last time I went there, buzzing with improperly dressed (sex and beach) tourists, and lined with shops ripping them off. I found myself getting rather annoyed watching this crowd, who are all representatives of the West and are thus painting quite a despicable picture.

Coming back to the hotel, I still wasn’t allowed to take a shower by the unfriendly hotel staff, but was lucky when an englishman heard my cries and offered his room for a quick rinse. Feeling a lot better, I made my way to the airport and passed the three hours waiting time with my new Murakami book.

The flight itself was okay, despite the Swedish couple next to me. Apparently it must have been their first long distance flight, and they could not get enough “free drinks,” so while the guy was stashing away cans of beer into his bag, the girl ordered a beer, whiskey on the rocks, and red wine all at the same time, then kept complaining to her boyfriend that she wasn’t feeling well. As I was sitting on the aisle, I had to get up to let one of them out every 15 minutes or so (they refused to climb over me), so you can imagine how I felt when we finally landed in Vienna, 11 hours later. At least they have excellent coffee at the airport to soothe the pain, and by the time I learnt that my Swiss flight back to Zurich was delayed by almost two hours, I had already stopped worrying and just took everything with a smile.

So now I am back home and somewhat sad. Running over to the supermarket to fill the fridge for the weekend was depressive, and I am sort of reluctant to catch on with real life again, but who wouldn’t be after any vacation. Enough whining…

My cousin and travel companion on last year’s trip to Southeastasia found it amusing that my previous travel reports continuously switched between expressions of displeasure with a certain sight, and statements that I’d have to return soon. Both are true; I have been disappointed a number of times during the time in Myanmar, but I attribute that largely to following the “beaten track,” the route all tourists go. Now that I’ve seen the most popular sights, I am ready to get off the beaten track the next time and get to know the country as it really is, not as it has been shaped to meet the demands of tourists.

As I stated before, I have much more to say about my trip than I am willing to do publicly. In case you are interested in my thoughts, please drop me a line and let me know briefly how I know you, or why you are reading my blog anyway, just so I can make sure that I know who’ll be reading my comments. If you have gotten an email from me, advertising the blog before the trip, you need not let me know.

But before you get your hopes up, these aren’t going to be revolutionary thoughts I have to keep away from the public; instead, they are just personal ramblings, not censored for the general public.

The last 18 hours have been quite eventful, including a mugging, an accident involving first aid, two more confrontations with the military, a visit to the university, and a monk drowning a fly. Fortunately, the heat has gone down quite a bit, the thermometre at the pharmacy now measuring 44 degrees in the shade.

When I left the Internet cafe yesterday in the early afternoon, thick clouds covered the sky and it was starting to become quite bearable. Thus, I decided to visit Shwedagon Paya that afternoon, but not before getting a massage (for $3), which was duly necessary after the two hours of almost continuous typing during the hottest hours.

I reached the pagoda sometime around 16:00 and almost got into a fight with the ticket office. Admission is $5, and since I am keeping my dollars until all the Kyats are spent, I was asked to pay 8000 Kyats. The current exchange rate (which fluctuates +/- 50 Kyats per day, it’s very unstable) is 1450 Kyats to one dollar (it was 850 just one month ago), so I’d have to pay a little more than half a dollar more if I paid in local currency. The lady tried to tell me that she’s paying 1550 or 1600 for $1, so I tried to tell her that she better find some other exchange place because she’s being ripped off. After ten minutes of a heated discussion, I turned around to leave and she finally settled for 7500 Kyats. You may wonder why I make such a fuzz about 500 Kyats, but the reason is simply that the money goes to the government, which I don’t want to support unless I have to.

The pagoda itself is quite impressive, rising 100 metres into the sky from atop a sixty metre high. In as such, you can see this pagoda from many places in the city, unless enclosed by tall buildings that usually line the streets. It’s said to contain the hairs of Buddha, from when he shaved his head to go and contemplate under the tree in the forest for six years at the age of 29 years, while in Bagan I was told that Buddha threw his hair into the sky, where it hovered and bring luck as long as it remains up there. I suppose he had to shave more than once, so the theories can both hold.

I had a guide show me around, but I ended up knowing more about Myanmar history and Buddhism than him, so it was kind of a joke when he asked me for $5 afterwards. I gave him a lecture that he needs to announce his price beforehand and gave him $3, then left him protesting. Again, I am not here to rip people off, but I also won’t pay $5 for a half hour tour, when the guide should instead be at home and reading books about the stuff he told. Still, I found the pagoda quite impressive, even though the overcast sky prevented me from seeing the sunset, for which it is famous among tourists. I would come back again at night to watch the supposedly beautiful lighting after dusk, and headed back to the city, with a number of detours thanks mostly to hopping on the wrong busses. As I mentioned before, “yes” apparently means “no” and “yes” and “I don’t understand” and “thank you” and almost anything else, if used as a response by a not-so-fluent Burmese.

For dinner, I treated myself to a somewhat expensive Sushi dinner, came back to the pagoda to watch the evening life of families and couples strolling clockwise around the stupa (resembling a little the evening family strolls in small Italian cities), found the lighting too bright and still boring, and made my way to the hotel, on foot because I only had a $20 note on me, which is useless when trying to pay for a taxi.

… and then I was mugged; not by some evil Burmese or one of the many muslims living in the city, but by two American rednecks, who apparently ran out of money (and it’s very hard to get more without going across the Thai border) and were desperate enough to threaten me with a knife. I really didn’t feel like a hero and prepared to hand over the $20 bill, when I saw a military truck drive up the road behind their backs, and remembered the Burmese call for help (“Keh-ba!”), which I shouted just as they were about to pass. The rednecks tried to make a run but had no chance (the military did not even think about using guns, they just called out to a police man at the end of the street, in the direction the rednecks were running). There was not much discussion, the two were loaded onto the truck, and the police officer then explained to me that those guys will be held in prison for two weeks before handed over to their embassy for further prosecution in the US. He asked me if I wanted to press charges against them, in which case they could get sentenced to up to ten years in prison in Myanmar for use of a weapon against civilians (with no right to a lawyer or help from the embassy), but I declined. Curiously, just in the morning, I had read a bit in a doctorate thesis on Myanmar prison life in the bookstore on Merchant Street at the corner of 38th, and it was obvious that the next two weeks for them were going to be hell on earth and enough of a punishment for their misdeed. While handing over my passport, I was assured that the “prisoners” were not going to find out my identity (and I doubt they’ll find this blog), and with still somewhat shaky legs and a slight feeling of guilt, I climbed in the back of a police truck to take me to the hotel, wondering a little about how friendly and cool the police were towards foreigners.

The next morning, I rose early to confirm my flight reservation and make some arrangements for tomorrow’s departure, then headed off to the university by public bus in the hope to talk to the folks at the computer science department about Linux, and to hand over some of the Ubuntu CDs I have left. In Mandalay, it was not possible for me to set foot on the campus, and here in Yangon it would not have been much different, had I not met a zoology professor on the bus, who took me to the campus and refuted everyone’s claim that I could not enter. Instead, she called the computer science head professor, who then explained to the officials that she had been waiting for me and would come and pick me up.

While waiting, I witnessed a Burmese student just falling to the ground and ran over to help — nobody else did. With the military folks chasing me (I had not thought about that), I didn’t actually have to explain a lot when I knelt down next to the guy, obviously trying to help. The officials just stood close by and watched my every move, as I scrambled to remember my first aid training, diagnosed the guy with a heat stroke, or something in that direction (no sweat, very hot forehead, rapid pulse, white face, mild seizures, uncontrolled movement of the eyes, and delirious lulling), and gave orders to the bystanders to help me carry him to the shade, get water (I had some electrolyte rehydrating solution left), sugar, to have someone fan his head, and someone else call a doctor. Nobody understood anything of what I said until another student with very good English skills translated. Nevertheless, noone wanted to get a doctor because it was too expensive, so I offered to pay the charges and off they went, and I handed over 10’000 Kyats (more than enough) to the translating student with instructions.

In the meantime, the computer science professor had arrived, and took me to her office, where I found out that the university is already using Red Hat to teach some of their courses, that she’s the vice president of the Myanmar Computer Professionals Association, and that she’s also a member of the Myanmar Linux Users’ Group. She set up a meeting for me with the founder of this group tomorrow morning, and I proceeded to show off Ubuntu’s Live CD to her, and to explain the benefits of Debian over Red Hat, which she understood very well and seemed delighted, because “dependency hell” has been a major problem for them in the past. I left her with half a dozen CDs and information on how she could obtain more, then had lunch with two of the teachers (where I witnessed a monk drowning a fly into his soup while laughing! Imagine that!), who wouldn’t let me pay no matter how hard I tried. Upon leaving the campus for the city centre an hour or two later, I was informed that the guy had recovered and was okay, and the officials gave me 3000 Kyats, which I suppose must be the return money from the doctor. Another instance of honesty.

I’ll spend the afternoon strolling over the market to spend some of my excess Kyats (the rest of which will go to an orphanage), probably get another massage, and finally take in my last Burmese dinner, together with the Burmese white wine I had picked up at the vineyard on the way to Taunggyi, possibly accompanied by the Portuguese traveller I had met before in Bagan and Inle, who’s now in Yangon as well…

… which is good, because I found a new argument pro beggars the other day, as I was resting at a street tea shop: I witnessed plenty of Burmese people handing money to a bunch of beggars on the other side of the street. One benefactor then came over to the tea shop, sat down at the table next to me, and answered my question as to why he just gave them money with a simple “because I have some at the moment, and they do not.” To me, it could not have been more convincing, and by now, the only argument against supporting beggars is the one raised by the Portuguese: if begging is lucrative, people will give up their self-sufficieny in the countryside and come to live on the streets in the city, in the hope for more money. I’ll be looking forward to tonight’s discussion.

Tomorrow’s my day of departure (after meeting the Linux Users’ Group founder at the MICT park on the way to the airport), and I’ll be in Bangkok for 24 hours before going home. And already the thought of Bangkok makes me sad, because it surely was a great trip in this lovely country, even though I wasn’t always happy with how it turned out. I’ll be back.

I suck at spending money, and three hours on the market saw me spend not even 10’000 Kyats ($7.50). So I gave up and took a taxi to a nearby orphanage, where I left all my remaining money minus the small amount I was going to need for dinner tonight and the taxi to the airport tomorrow, which I thought was still in the safety deposit at the hotel. Yeah well… thought.

I still have small dollars, but with those, you end up paying too much all the time, so instead I went out on the quest to change some money with the street touts. Normally, if you are walking the streets, you’ll have someone approach you with “change money” every few metres, and it gets quite annoying. Of course, over time, you develop methods to deal with them, ranging from avoiding eye contact, walking fast, and simply answering their usual introductory questions (“how are you?” or “where do you come from?”) with “no, I don’t need any money”.

But of course, when you are actually searching for someone to change money, nobody comes up. I just spent an hour roaming the streets without a single tout approaching me. And when one finally did, I was surprised at what happened to the rate. He offered 1’300 Kyats for the dollar, when it was 1’450 this morning, and 1’400 while I was on the market. Naturally, I told him to get a grip and fortunately soon found the next one, who explained to me that the dollar is now at 1’200, but he’d be so gracious as to offer me 1’250. Yeah right. The next one, shortly afterwards, also offered 1’250, and so did the forth and fifth, with whom I then made the exchange, having grown tired of the search.

What I find pretty amazing is how the word spreads. There are hundreds of those money changers all over the place, and if the rate really dropped by 200 Kyats in a single day (which my hotel confirms), then it’s pretty cool how quickly everyone finds out.

The Southeastasian countries never cease to amaze me.

On a related issue, more infos on the beggars question: I enjoyed a cup of tea with a former professor of English at the Yangon University, and I asked him how Myanmar people deal with beggars of both kinds, the stationary (and less obnoxious ones), and the ones who keep pestering you for minutes on end. He pretty much gave me the same answer I had received the other day: “I have some, and they don’t, so I give”. Since the Portuguese traveller has not linked up with me so far, I guess that settles the debate for me.

Thanks for reading along.

I spent my last evening in Yangon at “Sandy’s Myanmar Cuisine”, a wonderful restaurant (albeit a little pricey, I paid $10 for appetiser, main dish, and two beers) overlooking the Kandawgyi lake, attached to the Yangon Kandawgyi Palace hotel; dinner was duck eggs filled with minced prawns, followed by boiled snake-head fish, wrapped in moringa leaves. Quite delicious, although I would have really liked to try their pig ear salad, but they rightfully alerted me that their pig ears weren’t fresh. Afterwards, I treated myself to perhaps the second-best back massage I’ve ever received (the first one was delivered by a massage therapist from Berkeley, whom I had met on the boat down the Mekong to Luang Prabang last year.

Before the airport the next morning, I made a stop at the Yangon MICT, specifically the Myanmar Info-Tech company, to meet William, the Myanmar Linux Guru #1. Unfortunately, he was busy at the 5th Myanmar ICT week, so I sat in one of the talks instead and was very pleased to learn that there is an active (but small) group of people working hard on localisation of Pango to the Burmese and Pali languages (the latter being the ancient Buddhist language, and the acceptance of the Burmese character set into Unicode 4.0. I exchanged email addresses with a few of the folks involved, who were well familiar with Debian and Ubuntu, and rather interested in teaming up. I’ll forward their addresses to the localisation people as soon as I get back.

With still some time left before check-in, I enjoyed my last Myanmar-style breakfast — Mohinga — which is a spicey fish soup with noodles, and definitely the best way to start the day; I’ll miss it. At the airport, I was getting mildly annoyed once again at their security procedures, which in part required everyone to surrender their gas lighters. Of course, I had four of those on me and in my hand luggage, but when I refused to give them all of them, pointing to the smoker’s lounge on the far side of the security check, they held their heads low and gave in. I bet they do this primarily to sell the lighters for some cash on the side, given that nowhere else in Myanmar, or flying to Myanmar, I was asked to do the same.

My chaotic self managed to also leave the info brochure from the Info-Tech company, as well as the slides from the talks at the immigration counter, which promptly got me into a questioning by the military as to what kind of documents these were (they cannot speak English in general). With the help of a local, I told them all about localisation and they seemed impressed, but when I finally got on the plane, I guess I felt somewhat of a relief to be outside this tightly-controlled country again.

I landed in Bangkok and took a taxi to the hotel, only to discover that thanks to a power outage and the crappy Internet connection back in Mandalay, I had managed to book the wrong one. Instead of central Sukhumvit, I am now staying at Soi 57, which is 4 km further outside of the city. That wouldn’t be a problem, for the sky train station is right in front of the hotel, but the staff have not had a lesson in friendliness and generally barked back rather than answering my requests. Plus, since my flight tomorrow is only at 23:30 and I requested to take a shower at 20:00 before taking off (having otherwise checked out and cleared my room), they simply shoved a sign into my face which stated that check-out after 16:00 hours would cost a full day’s room rate, and that they did not have any showers available otherwise. Screw that. I’ll make sure to let asiarooms.com know in the form of a review.

Having settled, and with a bunch of Thai Baht left to spend, I headed for the center, bought myself another Murakami book (“Hardboiled Wonderland and the End of the World”; I seriously love this author), and then proceeded to spend money as fast as I could — and I am not good at that. I got another massage, bought some bamboo plates and one of those gravity-defying wine bottle holders, a bunch of DVDs, had dinner, and then didn’t feel like anything more, so I went back home.

As usual, coming back to Bangkok is quite a disappointment (while arriving at Bangkok at the beginning of a trip is a thrill). The city is busy, dirty, and noisy, it’s all comparatively expensive (even if you bargain hard), and people are so much more into making money that it’s not really possible to get in touch with locals. Then again, I cannot figure out whether my disappointment stems from the shopping mode (into which I was put by several requests to bring back stuff), this being the end of my vacation, or just being back in a metropole after so many rural days.

Almost no plans for tomorrow. I might have to make my way to the dreadful Khaosan Road to pick up some student IDs for friends, I would like to (finally) see the snake farm, and I have a lunch appointment with the retail manager of Jim Thompson (the famous silk exporter), who happens to be a friend of Adam, the guy I met in Mandalay, and who introduced me to her — no worries, I am not getting into the silk business, nor will I spend money there, but the lady is supposed to be quite a character and fun to talk to. Why not? If I wake up, it’ll be Tai Chi in Lumpini Park at around 5:30, and if there’s time in the afternoon, I’ll make my way up north to the biggest market of Bangkok (don’t have the name handy). In general, not such an exciting day, waiting to return to Europe.

Sigh.

I am nearing the end of my trip, and have arrived in Yangon late yesterday. Fortunately, as I got to the airport, there was yet another change in schedule, and I only had to make one stopover in Mandalay as opposed to a second one in Bagan. And if it hadn’t been for the French package tourists, wo were nasty (= unwashed, or with a really bad perfume), smelly (I think they all suffered from diarrhoea and couldn’t control their exhausts) and rather obnoxious (= loud, and unwilling to speak English, aggrevating themselves why the Burmese wouldn’t talk French to them), I might well have enjoyed the trip. I did finish Murakami’s book as we touched down in Yangon, and I really enjoyed it. Give it a week, then I’ll know whether it has replaced “Wild Sheep Chase” as my favourite of his books.

One problem overshadowed the entire day, nevertheless, and I think it must relate to bad food the night before at the Four Sisters Inn in Nyaung Shwe (not meaning to badmouth them, such things can happen): Around noon, I started feeling nausea every now and then, and my stomach apparently meant to tell me that something’s not right, my belly feeling hot to the touch. I was then sure I’d come down with another food poisoning, but so far (24 hours later), my body has not revolted yet and the symptoms are fading, so maybe it’s strong enough to cope without sending me to bed for a day. Which would be rather unfortunate.

The hotel, which I prearranged over the Internet, is nice, and in a very good location. Upon arrival, I tried to score new reading material at one of the bookstores but found them closed already, so I ate some food at the market (not giving my stomach a break, really), had a couple of beers at a small bar, and finally fell asleep to a crap action movie involving a kidnapping and many cellphones on the TV, with the intention not to get out of bed until I could not sleep anymore.

And that I did. When I finally went to breakfast, it was almost 9 o’clock, which is averagely three hours later than the last two weeks, and tried to figure out what to do for the day. Of course, I am haunted by bad spirits because even here in Myanmar, which is not socialist (anymore), the first of May is still a holiday, meaning that most sights and shops (including the ENglish bookstore) are closed for the day. I’ll thus consider just roaming the streets, getting out of the heat at noon to watch a movie at the cinema (which is supposed to be a big event on holidays), write some more blog entries, and then possibly hire a guide for Shwedagon Paya towards the evening, 2-3 hours before sunset.

Thanks for reading along.

I am scheduled to leave Inle today for Yangon; that is to say, I was scheduled to leave to Yangon on a noon-time flight, and despite confirmation yesterday, this morning the flight was cancelled. Fortunately, I managed to get one in the late afternoon, but instead of a direct flight, I have to go via Mandalay, Bagan, and then Yangon instead. Fun fun fun.

This also means my stay here at Inle Lake is almost over, and I have not even seen the lake. That was a conscious decision, simply the weather is quite bad, rain in the morning, and a drizzle most of the afternoon, and without a view of the surrounding mountains, there really was little incentive to subject yourself to tourist treatment on a loud boat, while unable to move and getting soaked.

Despite the weather, I did pass a rather pleasant day yesterday. I joined the crowd at my hotel on a trip to Taunggyi, from where they continued to Kalak; I didn’t have much interest in seeing this place, so I was to stay in Taunggyi and catch a bus back. Before we got there, though, we stopped over at a vineyard run by a German, which serves three “okay” wines made from French Shiraz and Italian Musquat grapes, which they grow here in Myanmar. After a wine tasting at 8:00 o’clock in the morning, we continued to Taunggyi, where is was raining unpleasantly, so I had only a short stroll across the huge market, then set off to find the cheroot factory (cheroots are a local type of cigarettes; see below), as well as the Shan museum and library. Unfortunately, all three were closed for the day, it being Saturday and market day and all.

If it hadn’t been for a short encounter with the military, I would have to admit that my trip to Taunggyi was pointless. I have yet to find out what actually went on in Taunggyi, but it seems that some important government people got together, while the police and military secured the area around it. My bus was about to leave, so I insisted to go the direct route and found myself accompanied by five armed soldiers, walking in a pentagonal shape around me. As we passed the Pagoda with the convention, I dared to take a peek but was immediately commanded to keep my head straight and not look.

I caught the bus in time and enjoyed a one and a half hour ride back to Nyaungshwe, the town in which I am staying, perched on a rather small pickup truck with 31 other passengers. I guess you have to see it to believe it, but this sort of mass transport is common in most Asian parts, especially India.

I got back in time to run some errands (like post a little present to Eddy back in Pyin Oo Lwin) and met a canoe driver around 15:30 for a three hour ride among the canals running virtually everywhere in the town and through the rice fields. The first stop was another cheroot factory, where I was introduced to the art of rolling these local cigarettes. They use some rather coarse tobacco, roll it up in a bamboo leave, which is glued in place with glutinous rice. As filter, thin bamboo wood is rolled up tight and rolled together with the tobacco. It takes the women working at the factory around 15 seconds to make one cheroot; it took me almost 15 minutes to make one. :)

We continued, and my driver was all too keen about showing off the peculiar rowing style developed by the Intha people (those who inhabit the lake and surroundings) to decrease the strain on their arms: they stand on one leg, hold the padel in the arm on the other side, wrap the other leg around it, and then kick the padel in and through the water, while keeping a good balance. I wanted to try, but the driver would not let me, and it’s probably better that way or else I would have most likely gotten really wet.

Returning from three hours of canoeing, my arms and back ached, and I was dreaming of a shower and a massage when I ran into the Portuguese globetrotter from Bagan by chance and we decided to have dinner instead. Ending a lengthy discussion with whiskey at around midnight, I struggled to find my way back home, the streets being completely unlit (we’ve been without power for a while), my torch back in the hotel, and the whiskey skewing my sense of direction. I did eventually find the hotel, must have passed it several times looking for the sign, and was all too ashamed to wake the owner to let me in.

My plan for this morning was simply to sleep in, eat breakfast, then go to the airport, but the couple next door to my room forgot to take the snooze function off their alarm clock before going to breakfast at 6:00, and with bamboo walls, the sound carried perfectly well. But I considered it no biggie, got up, ate, headed for a massage, and then was lucky to have some time to make arrangements for my next flight, after discovering the one I was supposed to take had been cancelled.

So now, with four hours to eat, I am happy to sample another serving of Shan delicacies, undecided between rice noodles with a semi-sweet seasoning of green tea leaves and peanuts, or a pumpkin curry with ginger.

Tonight, I’ll be in Yangon, and I am looking forward to this city, having heard many great stories, and with some good references in my pocket. As always, stay tuned.

I guess you could say I am now on the verge of tears, or at least have been for a while (and it’s wearing off) — since I came back from a little expedition on a horse cart around Bagan, visiting some of the poorest villages in the area to drop off a good share of the presents I still have with me (like marbles, balloons (latex ones, so biodegradable), soap bubbles, hair pins, fake jewellery, balls, and pens and paper), as well as a bunch of tubes of toothpaste, bars of soap, and bottles of shampoo, which I had picked up on the way just before.

My sadness comes from two aspects of this experience. The first, which is minor because I had expected it, was simply to (once again) witness the conditions under which the poorest of the poor live: in bamboo houses together with their cattle and pigs (everyone here seems well aware of bird flu and have taken the appropriate precautions; the government apparently did a good job in educating its people), with trash and feces all over the place, kids with almost no clothing and the elderly obviously sick from a distance. But I’ve actually seen worse in Laos and expected it, so that wasn’t the main source of my tristesse.

What almost made my eyes water was rather the fact that in the first village of the two I managed today, my arrival and obvious wish to give out gifts resulted in fights among the kids, and in dishonest behaviour by some, while the mob was almost ready to run me over as everyone (including grownups) was stretching out the hand and grabbing at whatever I pulled out of my bag. Call me naive, but that part I did not expect. It’s understandable, as for these people, anything makes a difference, sometime and existential one, but they are Bhuddist after all, and among the teachings of the Bhudda you can find such lines as “do not be dishonest”, and its philosophy (which carries throughout many non-Bhuddist Asian countries) includes the rule to never lose one’s face, which covers shouting or fighting.

On my first trip to Southeast Asia — Vietnam — I reached some remote villages in the Tonkinese Alps in the country’s north — villages which where equally poor, but which were also quite detached from civilisation as found around larger cities. While money still served as the main means of exchange, it appears to have a much lesser meaning to the people, who are mostly self-sufficient to a point of independence from the government as far as you can get (I guess). In these villages, I also passed out presents, but never had an experience such as the one today (nor did we experience something of this sort in some of the villages in Laos, equally removed from the main lines of infrastructure). Rather than fighting for the gifts, the kids would share them. Rather than tears, the gifts brought smiles. It thus seems that civilisation as we know it causes the competition even among kids, and that’s the part that fills me with sadness at the same time as it disillusions me quite a bit, because that kind of civilisation will inevitably spread.

Going off on a tangent (without the intention to return), I have been thinking a lot about my “mission” in Myanmar, which was to bring clothing and medication, as well as gifts to the poor. While one could interpret this mission — carrying more than 15 kg of “stuff” through the stifling heat — as an altruistic act, I also cannot deny the selfish component, because I take great joy in helping people. If you recall, dropping off the clothing I had brought in a village a couple of miles outside of Pyin Oo Lwin didn’t fill me with the satisfaction I had hoped to gain, mainly because I was obviously misinformed about Myanmar (btw: I am calling it Myanmar again, which is actually what locals use, unless they speak with tourists). Fortunately, however, I quite easily managed to accept that the mission was still a success for the people undoubtedly were helped quite a lot. If there is one thing I have learnt for sure this time around, then it’s that I will return, sooner rather than later, and hopefully with a lot more goods than this time around.

This trip has been self-funded, which is why I am also (trying to) spend most time on vacation. I could well imagine that the next time might see me just running the goods there and fly back after only a couple of days. Of course, there are no details, but keep this in the back of your heads (and pass it on), just in case you’d be willing to donate funds to finance the trip.

This brings me to another, somewhat related topic, which I have been pondering ever since I arrived in Myanmar, and especially so after I met and talked to a Portuguese globetrotter, last night: the topics of beggars and how to support these countries in effective ways. Let me address those in turn, the second one first as it’s more closely related to my braindump you just read (thanks for that), and because I am nowhere near a resolution and can thus sum it up in three sentences: even though individual aid trips, like the one I am on, are helping, I would guess their effectiveness to be quite low, and raising this effectiveness certainly requires a lot of effort and infrastructure. Thus, it may be more beneficial if I were to donate my will to help to an existing organisation already established and connected in the Southeast Asian countries. I am not talking Unicef and other, similar large organisations (some of which I do support already, and if only financially), but rather much smaller endeavours that concentrate on this area only —surely the need for help exists in all developing countries, but I am most interested in helping Southeast Asia, for the people here have taught me so many valuable things that have changed my life.

On the first topic — beggars — let me say this much: if you’ve been to developing countries, you know what I am talking about. If you have not, just imagine all sorts of people (but mostly poor-looking) coming up to you with their hand stretched out, saying “money, money” repeatedly and not respecting a “no” in any way. Any guide book advises you not to give any money, because it will increase the “nuisance” these beggars are to future tourists. But at one point during my time here, I was as far as giving a small amount to everyone who came up (unless there were more around, at which point it would just get out of control too fast) by reason that it doesn’t hurt me a bit, and that despite the syndicates and other arguments against it, if you are actually helping one out of ten beggars, that’s one more than zero. Since then, however, I’ve found some more compelling arguments, and the one that’s been the most persuasive so far is that a beggar’s success attracts more beggars, and while the guide books call that a “nuisance”, the real problem is that these people come from villages to cities, from places where they are self-sufficient (at least in Myanmar with its vast resources) to places where they’ll end up sleeping on the streets.

Enough of that for now, you can be sure there will be more another time; on to something completely different:

This is the first time I am travelling Southeast Asia while blogging, and I have very mixed feelings about it. First of all, Myanmar isn’t the place for easy Internet access, so it’s been quite painful to keep publishing (which was only possible thanks to the help of Hanspeter back at home; thanks), nor is it the place where you’d be inclined to spend a couple of pensive hours in front of the screen while serialising your thoughts into writing — the power keeps coming and going every couple of minutes, and frequently the battery-backed power supplies most people have cannot bridge the downtime.

But that’s not the reason why I am not really too satisfied with my blog entries so far. I have found it difficult to write even in Thailand, where Internet access was excellent, and I guess it’s mainly due to two reasons: first, there is too much going on outside and the fear of losing a minute of “street action” to these godaweful computers just keeps me from taking the time to think before writing. The second reason is related: impressions need time to settle, and I guess in some ways I do prefer very much to just “be”, rather than experiencing with the objective to blog about it in the back of your head at all times (I am a geek after all, don’t forget that). I guess I’ll try it another time since having Aline along for the first part, and then being subjected to Myanmar’s suboptimal information infrastructure, may be factors of larger value than I see them right now.

By the way: this blog does not contain all of my writings while I am here, for obvious reasons, so there is more to come if you are interested, but not via this channel. I’ll let you know.

Now, on the boring side: I returned to the temples in the late afternoon yesterday and saw another three or four, before sprawling out on top of another in aspiration of the sunset to be Obscured By Clouds (which is when I talked to the aforementioned globetrotter for an hour or so). I did find that after all, Bagan didn’t have much in store for me, having seen some of the temples at Angkor. The scenery is breathtaking, and some temples are really astonishing views, but as soon as you get on the inside, they are mostly walls and Bhuddas, one similar to the others, and thus quite unlike to what I’d seen in Angkor last year. Since I am also not the type of guy to go off meditating for a day in a remote location, or take my book far away to read in peace, I think that this one day between the temples was enough for me.

Maybe the temperature did play a role too, but there was no question for me: I was to do something else the next day (which is today), rather than go out again on that horse cart. I thus joined up with some Australian travellers on their overland way to their new home, London, and hired a taxi to Mount Popa, home of the 37 Nats (spirits) which are closely knit into the Burmese culture. After a 25 minute climb up steep stairs, I found myself again disappointed by a somewhat dirty and absolutely non-pretty stupa on the top of the hill. The view (and temperature) was great though, so no hard feelings, but also no time lost to head back to the hotel, to get on with the village hopping I had planned for the afternoon.

Tomorrow morning I am leaving for Hohe and Inle Lake, where it’ll be much cooler (or so they say). Stay tuned.

PS: And of course, Murakami’s novel is not called “Kafka at the Beach”, as I wrote in yesterday’s entry, but “Kafka on the Shore”. I guess it must have been yesterday’s intense heat causing that Freudian slip. Anyway, the book is truly captivating and I am afraid I’ll zoom through those 600 pages faster than I’d like, given that it’s the last of the books I brought. Hopefully I’ll find something to pick up on the way that’s not Agatha Christie, Dan Brown, Jane Austen, or the other wonderful writers of entertainment fiction, which I’d rather not read even if you paid me for it.

Leaving the computer centre in Mandalay, I decided to settle my further itineraries and headed to an Internet shop in the hope to arrange some online bookings, using Aline’s credit card (because mine was lost and I would rather preserve the cash dollars I have, given that there is no way to get more money in this country. I managed to book myself hotel rooms for the One Night in Bangkok I have before returning home, as well as the five days of Yangon before. Other than that, however, I could not get any flights; Myanmar-internal flights cannot be booked online, and Thai Airways refuses to take passengers when the name on the credit card does not match the passenger’s.

Given that my plans for the evening where set, I had to leave the place with my mission unaccomplished and headed for the Green Elephant restaurant, which the Lonely Planet describes as up-scale. For a whopping $7, I treated myself to beer, pickled ginger and green tea leaves, and butter fish in a tomato curry. Very delicious. Afterwards I attended the Mandalay Marionette & Culture Show, which was quite lovely despite the atonal music that came with it. Mandalay marionettes (or Myanmar marionettes in general) are very elaborately made, and the style to guide them is very unique to the country, the art having been the popular art back in the days when kings ruled the land. The artists are devoted to keeping this art alive, and you could really feel their enjoyment as they showed fights between ogres, princes and snakes, riding horses and trolling monkeys, princes engaging in “hackysack”-style football artistics (which is very popular over here, and people are rather good), as well as synchronised dances between marionettes and real dancers. I can recommend this show to anyone visiting (as I recommend to anyone visiting Hanoi to see the water puppet theatre) and am glad I chose this option over the “Moustache Brothers” performance, which is political satire and slapstick on the edge of legality. I ended the evening talking to some other travellers, most of which had no interest in listening to others but to tell their stories instead.

The next morning saw me rising at 4:30 to catch the ferry to Bagan at 6:00 o’clock. The boat had comfortable seats and a restaurant, and only a handful passengers, so the 10 hours went by reasonably fast (no comparison to the ride we took on the Mekhong last year to get from Chiang Khong in Thailand to Luang Phrabang in Laos). We arrived in Bagan on time and together with some Australians I found the May Kha Lar guesthouse (following again the Lonely Planet), which is a rather pleasant place with a lovely, elderly, English-speaking lady running it. SHe also arranged my further air travel for me and wanted about $30 less than the official booking offices. I decided to spend an additional day in Bagan, so I am heading out from here by plane on the 28th, going to Heho, then spending two and a half days at Inle Lake, and flying to Yangon on the 30th. From there, I am leaving for Bangkok on 4 May.

With the tickets in my pocket, I felt relieved, showered, and went for a traditional Burmese massage, which turns out to be completely different from the Thai style (which Laos and Vietnam copied more or less) and was rather painful, both because the lady literally tormented my legs far too long and spent only a very short time on my pained shoulders, and because neither the mosquito coils nor my repellents warded off the beasts as I was lying there out in the darkening sky right at dusk. No Malaria in this region, fortunately. Following a very traditional Burmese dinner (goat meat curry), I went to bed because…

… the next day I rose again at 4:30 to meet a guide, and left the hotel at 5:00 o’clock on a horse cart for a tour of the temples. Bagan is what could be called the heart of Myanmar, and on a 42 square kilometre area, you can find 2700 temples (of the 4500 originally built), dating back to the 10th century AD. Unfortunately, the wall carvings and paintings in most temples has been washed away, and it was nowhere near as fascinating to stroll along the endless corridors as it had been in Angkor Wat or Bayon Wat in Cambodia, but from the outside, these temples still look spectacular and are well preserved or restored. Also, climbing up on one or the other, the sight was almost overwhelming: a vast landscape of strupas and temples as far as the eye would reach, and all that under a lovely sunny sky. Haha. The “sunny” bit is what made me get up so early, because the temperatures are bearable only up until 11 o’clock or so. Between noon and 16:00 o’clock today, the thermometre measured 46 degrees Celsius — I don’t think I’ve ever been in a place so hot (if you leave out our trip to Death Valley in an airconditioned van.

So in order to escape the heat, I went to the archaeological museum at noon, then back to the city and into the swimming pool of one of the nicer hotels in town, which cost me $3 for a pool that was green (they don’t have the money for chemicals), and the water about the temperature of my bathtub at home. I did not swim, but fortunately, the showers there were pleasantly cold, so I lay in the shade to read (“Kafka on the Short” by Haruki Murakami), taking a shower every ten minutes to cool down.

Going back to the hotel, I find the electricity to be gone once again. I think that this town (and Mandalay as well) has maybe 4 hours of electricity a day, it coming and going every few minutes (which makes computer use quite unpleasant). This also means that there is no aircondition most of the day, at least in the budget hotels which don’t have their own generator.

I am meeting my guide again at 16:00 hours for another 2-3 hours, then will follow the hotel owner’s suggestion for a “back massage expert”, eat, sleep, and climb Mount Popa tomorrow morning. I’ll try to get online again in the afternoon.

Thanks for reading along.