A Different Kind of Country

Where in the world are Ethan and Siena?? We get up really early to leave fly to this country. We are worried about clearing customs as we’ve heard it is difficult to enter the country. Not an issue! We breeze through, with the people at passport control as nice as they can be. Although the country is ruled by a military dictator with an iron fist, we see very little evidence of troops or police anywhere (unlike Russia or Egypt). This country has done a nomenclature switcheroo in recent years, changing not only the name of the country, but the name of the capitol city. The former we can understand; it was called Burma because of a mistake of understanding by the British colonialists, and difficulty with pronouncing the real name. As for the capitol, we never heard a real explanation why they changed from calling it Rangoon. They are in Yangon, Myanmar. Myanmar, and earlier Burma, do not usually make the international news for good reasons. Last year, Myanmar was hit with a huge cyclone (a hurricane that originates on the Indian Ocean), with an estimated 1 million people killed in the river delta. (Reports vary wildly.) Several years before, Myanmar graced world headlines when the government quelled a rebellion by shooting and arresting those pernicious Buddhist monks who were lobbying for democratic changes. For centuries, Burma was known for growing poppies—and selling opium. The last democratically elected president is currently living under house arrest, having never served a day as president.

Why did we choose to come here, you may be asking yourselves at this point. Well, two main reasons. First, Myanmar has been relatively isolated from outside influence and so the local culture is almost entirely intact. Also, one of Kim’s oldest friends in the world (not that he’s any older than Kim, but whom Kim has known the longest,) is teaching and living in Yangon. It turns out to be an amazing place to visit! Other than in the capitol, it is a bit like being in the early twentieth century.

The people all wear longyis—tubes of fabric that are wrapped and knotted into long skirts. At least 90% of the men and all of the women wear them. Ethan had a distinct advantage over his fellow soccer players. He didn’t have to continually re-tie his longyi and he was the lone wearer of closed toed shoes. The Burmese (the people and the language are still referred to as “Burmese”, not Myanmarese) prefer light skin and the woman and children wear a tree bark extract, a yellow salve, on their faces to prevent their skin from darkening. At first, it looks like there are bandages on people’s cheeks, but shortly we grow accustomed to the new in “look”.

The food here is like a combination between Indian and Chinese, but with more grease and less taste. Not so good. In fact, this is the first country we’ve not stuck with the local cuisine for our visit. We ended up going out for Japanese once, and had burgers at our friends’ house and out once. The beer and wine, on the other hand, are quite good. There are several different brands of local beer, and Scott has them all ice cold in his fridge in preparation for our visit (he’s been following our blog). We tried Myanmar brand beer—a nice lager, Mandalay, Dagon, Tiger, all decent, and, our favorite, Spirulina, an “anti-aging beer”. I gather it has some herbal supplement that’s supposed to make you look, act and feel younger (and get a healthy buzz at the same time). Now does that sound too good to be true or what?!! It is even delicious. We have no desire to find out if this doesn’t work, so: Nay Sayers, hold your tongues, please. The beer came in 20 oz bottles—can’t tell you why—that cost about $1.50. We also tasted the red wine. Pretty good, actually. Not worth importing, mind you, but nice with a burger.

We spend a few days up at Inlay Lake, about 500 miles north of Yangon. This is an unusual culture, based on fishing and hydoponic agriculture. There are acres and acres of vegetables grown in the middle of the lake, on mounds of seaweed, tethered to the lake bottom. The houses are all on stilts, and the local people have developed a technique to row their boats, standing, using only one leg, so that they had both hands free for fishing. The people were unbelievably friendly and so happy to have us in their country. Tourism, apparently, is virtually non-existent. We took hikes into the hill villages and people would literally come running out of the fields and out of their houses to greet us, offering us cups of tea and to visit in their homes. Few spoke any English, but our hiking guide would translate and smiles are a universal language. The people here are really off the grid. They run their own schools and health clinics. We passed 40 people from one village working together to repair their road. Everyone is responsible for working on common projects one day a week. They collected money from each family to buy a generator, which they hook up to a nearby stream to provide the village with all of its electrical power. We were told the government approached the village a few years ago about taxes. The villagers replied that the government gave them nothing, and they would give nothing in return.

There are several temples in the area. Some are surrounded with “stupas”, tall, pointy structures built by wealthy families to gain an in with Buddha (kind of like donating a pew in a church). This one here has hundreds of stupas, spilling down the steep hillside towards the lake’s edge. The stupas nearest the temple had been restored, but the rest had a wonderful, ancient feeling of eternity, with nature slowly reclaiming each one, thick vines climbing up and obliterating some, storms causing others to crumble. It looks like the opening scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark.

The most important temple in the country is in Yangon. Shwedagon, located in the center of the capitol, is nothing like the rural temples. It is gilded in, according to an official guide at least, 7500 kilograms of gold. Some of the Buddhas have flashing neon halos, and bright strobe lights. We joked that it was like “Buddha does Vegas”. The night we visited, the whole town seemed to be there. Everyone got a real kick out of our wearing the local longyi, loaned to us by Sandy. On our way in, we watched what we estimated was a million bats stream out of the top of one building, creating a black river of bats, extending for miles. It was an unbelievable sight, although I would recommend an umbrella for anyone considering watching from close by.

We visited Scott’s classroom and spoke to the students about our trip. They had as many questions as you’d think 30 eighth graders would have: none. Scott assigned Siena and Ethan each a book to read and a report to write. It was wonderful having someone else be their teacher—and a real teacher, too.

Since the Buddhists do not drink, there is no Burmese word for “cheers”. In the hill village we visited, though, they do have a word in their language-
Tan-to! (Pa-o for Health!)
The Beatties

Thailand, The West

Well, our plans got foiled a bit as our visas to Myanmar required an "interview". Without our passports, we couldn't go as planned to Cambodia, and rescheduled it for after the next two or three countries.

Because we didn't want to spend much more time in Bangkok, we trained over to Kanchanaburi. I loved this picture from the train. Unlike traveling in first class, third class is like a rolling party. There were no livestock on the train, but that's about all there wasn't. There must have been 10 different people offering various foods for sale, including ice cold beverages, grilled meats and unknown concoctions in plastic bags. One woman, returning from a farm, was tying together different vegetables, in packages for resale at her local market. She sold about a half dozen before her stop.

Where in the world are Ethan and Siena? Although it is normally the river that is the "Where", in this case it is the bridge and the railway that are. During the Japanese occupation of Thailand in WWII, prisoners of war and forced labor were driven like slaves to complete this railway. The bridge was built and shortly afterwards damaged. The railroad stretched for 405 kilometers, connecting Bangkok to Yangon, an area with such mountainous and jungle covered terrain that the engineers said a rail connection couldn't be built. 38 prisoners of war died for each kilometer of track laid. As for the bridge, it was memorialized in a highly fictionalized movie, with William Holden and Alec Guiness. This is the Bridge on the River Kwai. We visited the war cemeteries and walked part of the track, where it clung to the cliffs on rickety trellises. The railroad was dubbed the Death Railway--over 100,000 people died building it.

This mountainous region is also home to some beautiful waterfalls. We spent the better part of a day climbing up the 7 steps of Erawan Falls. Our favorite, level 4, has a natural slide. What a rush! After searching eagerly for a glimpse of the local Macque monkeys, one hit Kim and grabbed Siena's shirt before making off with another tourist's bag and throwing his camera in the river. This is what I call wildlife.

Riding on the roads in Thailand reminds us how different this country is from our own. How do you think these guys would go over in the states? We frequently see people dressed like terrorists, either on top of a truck, as pictured, or driving motorcycles. I have heard it is to protect them from the fumes. A piece of fabric over your face does exactly what to keep out fumes? Anyway, here, no one gives them a second glance, where as at home, we'd be running for cover.

The other sight that was everywhere was the image of the King of Thailand. At 82, he is the longest reigning monarch in history. Talk to a Thai citizen and somewhere in the first 3-4 sentences the phrase, "We love our king" is spoken. There are pictures of him lining the roads, in every restaurant and store we visited, plastered 20 feet high on buildings. Either he is truly beloved by his subjects, or the people want to be seen as incredibly supportive of him, as dissenters are not always treated kindly.

We have learned more of the Thai language, including being able to count to a 99. We like the numbers 7--Jet and 8--Bad. Unfortunately, as soon as we become comfortable with the language, it is time to move on.

So, Chock Dee, which means cheers, good luck, bon voyage, and just a general phrase for a positive vibe.

The Beatties

Chiang Mai

We train north out of the capitol. We can’t understand how the 450 mile trip from Bangkok to Chiang Mai can possibly take the 12 hours scheduled until our train pulls into the Bangkok station. Ethan turned to me and asked, “Where is the engine? Our train doesn’t have an engine.” Unlike the trains we have taken throughout Europe, there is no separate car for the engine. This was more like a streetcar or a subway car, where the engine and the car are all one unit. We had some serious issues with the lack of power when we were trying to make it up the steeper slopes, and, in fact, we slid back a few times. We even thought we’d have to get out and push on one notable occasion. Have you ever been on a train that needed to downshift for hills?

The trip itself, except for being a bit too long, was glorious, traveling through endless terraced rice paddies, interspersed with golden wats. Whilst in England (BTW, you can use a word like “whilst” only when discussing places like England), we learned that the difference between a hamlet and a town was that the latter had a church. Well, whatever the Southeast Asian equivalent, there are NO hamlets in Thailand. No matter how small the village, there was a wat and sometimes a large (read: 50’) golden Buddha, sometimes looking like it was sitting in the middle of a rice paddy. Our destination, the city of Chiang Mai, apparently has over three hundred wats. Suffice it to say, we did not try to see most of them.

We arrive late (12 hours was an underestimate of the time), and find our way to the doorstop of my friend Ken, who recently moved here from the Bahamas. We explore the cultural and natural sites of the area, including the highest mountain in Thailand. There are beautiful waterfalls, and we are puzzled by the origin of all the water up here. There are no lakes or glaciers on the mountains. The mountains look different in this part of the world. I don’t know how to describe it, but they look Asian.

Our family took a two day trek through the hill country, visiting the local hill tribes, and staying in their huts. Many tribes from the surrounding area, including Burma (Myanmar), China and Laos, have fled their homelands for freedom to maintain their identity here. Most of the villages have no roads to them, the only way to go from village to village is by hiking (now, some risk the steep slopes with motor scooters. They lived without electricity and running water until recently, although the town we visited had satellite dishes in evidence. After the trek, we took a bamboo raft down a beautiful river, with towering vegetation and an occasional elephant on either side.

Having ridden on horses, camels and ostriches, we decide that our repertoire of animal backs would not be complete without a trip on the top of a pachyderm. It is an amazingly comfortable ride, almost akin to being on a small boat rocking on gentle waves. Unfortunately, our “vessels” got hot and cooled themselves off with a bit of a shower. We were all drenched.

On our last day in Chiang Mai, Ken, Siena and I took a Thai cooking course. We made, and ate, a 6 course meal. The food was easy and quick to prepare, and, if I may say so, a-roi, which means “delicious” rolling the “r”, in Thai. After, we hopped on the night train back to Bangkok. Of course, “night” would imply that the train left and arrived during the night. We left at 4:30 p.m. and pulled into the Bangkok train station at almost 9:30 a.m.

Sawadi- caa (hello, good morning, good evening, and goodbye, spoken by a woman, in Thai. Men say sawadi- cap, if you are not forceful enough with the “p” it is a sign of not being manly…)

The Beatties