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.

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 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.

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 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.

I woke up early this morning to see the most important sights in the city before the midday heat, but already at 7:00 o’clock, it was unbearable to set foot outside. I decided that there was no way I went to see temples, where I’d have to take off my shoes and walk on the burning ground, so instead I tried the market, which surprisingly didn’t seem to be open yet, when I got there around 8:00, people were just setting up. I’d come back later is what I said and headed off for an air-conditioned bakery for some sweet breakfast.

On the way, I passed a pharmacy with a thermometer. It read 56 degrees, and it was in the shade of a tree. While I have no way of verifying its tare, I wouldn’t be surprised; walking the 500 metres from the market to the bakery, I was literaly drenched in sweat.

If only I had a book left to read, then I’d have a simple solution to the question how to pass this day. There are no bookstores with any form of reasonable selection to be found here.

As previously mentioned, I apparently overchallenged my body just a little the last couple of days, eating mostly on the markets, where hygiene isn’t really an existing concept. Without a “Delhi belly”, I managed to overcome the symptoms, and I attribute most of it to dehydration, which I find had to explain given the amount of water I had been drinking.

So this morning I went to buy electrolyte solution and drank a total of six litres before the cinema, and still have not had to go the bathroom. My body, which I can usually rely on very much in these parts (even to the point of digesting moderate amounts of the tap water here), must have been in dire need for salt and water. Now that it’s refueled, it’s not complaining anymore.

… which once again supports my theory that just water (with electrolytes at times) can cure way more bodily aches than the pharmacologists would like.

I did leave the midday heat today for the cinema, but even though I wanted to buy the ticket already more than an hour in advance, it was completely sold out (and the cinema has 500 seats…). I ended up getting an upstairs seat for 1700 Kyats ($1.20) instead of 1000, and went to watch “The Myth” by and with Jackie Chan.

The movie itself didn’t strike my fancy. Imagine Jackie Chan and Indiana Jones tossed in a tumbler, and out comes this flick, a tale of ancient warriors, gravity defiance inside hard to reach caves, and love, of course, all interlaced with some ridiculous fighting scenes. Call me cheap or boring, but I certainly do prefer Jackie Chan in the streets of Hongkong, battling the mafia or other gangster clans, running up walls, and fighting Kung Fu as opposed to lances and swords.

What made the movie an unforgettable experience nevertheless were the 499 Burmese in the room with me (or at least I could not spot another foreigner). The film was in English without subtitles, and most of the people (whole families, couples, little kids, elderly people) came for the fighting scenes and did not understand anything in between: most talked almost all the way through, the crowd growing louder as talking replaced the fighting, and their talk turning into rooting and laughing when Jackie picked up the sword again for the next butchery.

The couple next to me were seriously making out, skin contact included, while the three guys diagonally in front of me were obviously drunk and got even more so during the flick.

So in the end, I can’t really say that I liked the movie, for I barely saw it. But I’ll consider doing the cinema thing again, this time on the cheap seats down below, where the real party was apparently going on. “The legend of Zorro” strikes me as a good choice because it’s probably pretty crap, judging purely from preview, actors, and director.

This vacation may mark the pinnacle of my streak of leaving and loosing things. While still in Thailand, I lost my wallet, and today I left my Lonely Planet at the market, and dropped my USB memory stick while in the cinema. Both are basically easy money for resellers, but in both cases, people kept them safe until I fechted them.

This brings back memories from previous trips… when I left my camera in a shop in Hanoi and the owner came running after me; when a streetboy ran after me because 5000 Vietnamese Dong dropped from my pocket; when just today, I accidentally used a 500 Kyat not to pay for a bottle of water (150-250 Kyats), turned to leave, and the seller stopped me to hand over the change.

I realise these are little things, and all the touts and cheaters you kind find in most larger cities here (especially Bangkok) aside, I would have to say that the honesty of the people (which is undeniably Buddhist) is one of the major reasons I keep coming back.

Update: this in from Mike Hommey:

I saw recently on Japanese TV that in South Korea, if you find a wallet, you can just drop it in a postal mailbox, and it will reach its owner within a few days. It also works for mobile phones.

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.