Steve and Cathy's Blog

This is going to be a busy day. Our excursion, Golden Glory of Yangon, begins at 8:15 and will last all day. We board our bus around 8:30 and begin the slow trek during the rush hour into the city. We learn that one of the reasons that the traffic is so bad is that the railroad that parallels the road is in terrible shape. We will be talking about the condition of the country’s infrastructure later in this post.

Our guide is named Wah Wah, and she is a wonderful representative of the Burmese people. She explains that she is from the mountainous region of the country but moved to Yangon to work. She was born in 1962, just when the military staged a coup and took over the government. From then until 2011, they ruled with an iron fist, instituted socialism, appropriated private property, and ran the country into the ground. Wah Wah politely refers to it as a period of “mismanagement.” The military finally had to give ground, as the country was verging on collapse. The governmental structure is an odd one, as the military still retains a good deal of control, answerable to nobody.

As always, we receive a torrent of information, and I will now have to resort to Random Fact mode in order to relate some of what we heard.

• 51 million people live in Myanmar. There are seven primary ethnic groups, but 130 different ethnicities have been identified.
• 80-90% of the people in Myanmar are Buddhists.
• The country was named Burma by the British, who came in 1824. There were three Anglo-Burmese wars, the first in 1824-25, the second in 1852 and the third in 1885, which is when they finally took complete control of the country. [I don’t know why they called them “wars.” They were invasions.]
• Relations between the Brits and the indigenous people were never all that great. The British pretty much looked down their noses at the Burmese people, going so far as to refuse to take off their shoes when entering temples, a mark of great disrespect.   It got so bad that, in 1942, the Japanese were invited to take over the country just to get rid of British rule. That didn’t quite work out, and three years later, on August 15, 1945, the British took control back. Three years later, Britain relinquished control and the country became independent.
• In 1989, the name of the country was changed from Burma to Myanmar, and Rangoon became Yangon. As with many former colonies, the renaming continues.
• During the fifty years of military dictatorship, the country was quite isolated, and this is reflected in the speaking of English. The oldest folks speak British English. People that grew up during the period of international isolation speak no English. But the young people of Myanmar do speak English with American or Canadian accents and idioms because the country has opened itself up to tourism since 2011.
• We are in the middle of the hot season, where the temperature reaches 40 degrees Celsius. I will have to get around to converting this.
• The country is rich in natural resources. There are jade mines in the north, teak forests (somewhat depleted), ruby mining in the Mandalay area.
• There have been civil wars for generations, mainly due to the number of ethnicities and the fact that the country borders so many other nations. Things are getting better, and will continue to get better as the country progresses.
• Because of the military government mismanagement, Myanmar has missed out on the prosperity that has come to so many other Asian and Southeast Asian nations. One positive affect is the number of British colonial buildings left. They are in tough shape, but there is an effort to preserve the best of them.
• The military dictated that no building in Yangon could exceed seven stories, so there are few high-rise buildings. The ones that have been built since 2011 are practically empty as there are so few rich people able to afford them.
• The country is finally getting some outside capital investment, hence the high-rise buildings and a couple of five-star hotels in the center of Yangon. When the military ran the country, no one in their right mind would invest in Myanmar. This is fortunately changing, slowly but surely.
• Rice is grown in great abundance in the delta region around Yangon. Another wonderful example of the socialist paradise that the military created was that, prior to their takeover in 1962, Burma was southeast Asia’s greatest rice exporter. In the ensuing glorious fifty years, the country became a net importer of this important staple.
• There are no coins for money. It is all notes.
• 80% of the roads are in bad shape. Wah Wah stated that this was the result of military government corruption where the generals’ cronies got rich and resources were squandered.
• There are thousands of stray dogs in the Yangon area. Somehow they get enough food to live, and they are everywhere.
• The primary languages are Burmese, English and Chinese. Because of all the different ethnicities, Burmese is the language that people use to communicate among themselves.
• During the military dictatorship, China was the closest ally, and the country still maintains a close relationship with China.
• Unemployment is still a problem. Many young people head for Malaysia or Thailand for jobs, creating a “brain drain.”
• The northern region of Myanmar is a huge poppy-growing region. Much of the world’s heroin comes from there. Attempts at eradication of this problem have been only partially successful due to the poverty.
• Even our guide warns us not to eat the street food. There are thousands of street vendors, but our digestive systems are not strong enough to tolerate the stuff they serve.
• They drive on the right in this country. Apparently, with little or no preparation, the military decreed that all should drive on the right instead of the left the way most British colonies were set up. The result was pure chaos.
• To this day, most of the cars imported into the country have right hand drive, necessitating that many people have a driver and a “navigator” that sits on the left. I never did learn why the cars have right hand drive, but I speculate that they are almost all used cars from other countries because they’re cheaper.

The first place we go to on our excursion is the Shwedagon, just as we did last night. We spend an hour or so there. Fortunately, it is before the heat really hits, because, of course, we are barefoot. The stone tiles really get toasty by mid-day. [There were even more families and small children this time and it was a bright sunny day so the gold leaf stuff was so brilliant it almost hurt your eyes. I’m glad we saw it at night and day. Unforgettable place.]

Our second stop is the National Museum. I am not quite sure why we are stopping here, as our time there is about thirty minutes. Our guide gamely leads us around describing the exhibits, but the main thing Cathy and I want to do is use the rest rooms.

Next comes lunch. This is at the Shangri La Hotel, which is a very high-end American-style hotel built in the last few years. Lunch is a huge buffet full of delicious local dishes, including many wonderful desserts. We spend about an hour and fifteen minutes there; time well spent. [They had raw oysters and clams on ice but I was afraid to eat them. We had Indian stuff like dal and rice and curries and spicy spinach thing, yummy yummy as the waiters on the ship say. The hotel was really nice, upscale. We used the ATM , always exciting when they work ha ha, and wandered around a bit. We heard that it costs $130/night. ]

The next stop is at the Bogyoke Aung San Market, with hundreds of small shops. The most fun gift we buy is a longji for Brian O’Dell. His birthday is on March 13^th. A longji is a very comfortable “skirt” that men wear in place of pants. [ It was really dark! I think there aren’t a lot of power plants in Myanmar.]

The fourth stop is at Kandawgyi Park, where the Kraweik Royal Barge is located on a lake there. This was built from 1972 to 1974 and is a two-story concrete and stucco replica of the Pyigyimon Royal Barge. It is quite a remarkable structure, and now serves as a conference center and buffet restaurant.

Our last stop is at the Chaukhtatgyi Monastery to view an enormous Reclining Buddha. The Buddha’s head reaches a height of 2 ½ stories and is lying in the classic dying position. It is 217 feet in length. Construction of the original began in 1899 and was completed in 1907. It fell into disrepair, and was demolished in the 1950s and a new one constructed. It was consecrated in 1973, and is one of the most revered Reclining Buddhas in Myanmar. It is quite a sight, despite the peculiar setting inside a steel girder building.

It is now nearing 5:00pm, and we have been in Yangon traffic for an entire day. Our bus driver must have the patience of Job, and he is quite skilled at maneuvering our huge bus in constant traffic.   The only saving grace is that motorbikes are not allowed in Yangon; otherwise it would be even worse. We recollect that it took us almost two hours to go from the ship into the city this morning, so we do not relish another two hours of stop and go traffic.

But we are in luck! I don’t know who arranged it or how they did, but we have a police escort for the 17-mile drive back to Thilawa Wharf. What a difference. We are at the ship in less than an hour, for which we are eternally indebted to the Myanmar authorities.

We have learned a great deal today. Myanmar is a nation that is awakening slowly but hopefully surely from a fifty-year nightmare. If ever there is an example of the depredations of the socialist, autocratic form of government, this is it. I cannot comprehend how a sentient human being can advocate such a system of government, a system that fails over and over every single time it is instituted. This has been an unexpected part of our education on this journey. Actually seeing, for ourselves, the waste of human talent and the misery that socialism engenders is heartbreaking.

This country of wonderful, friendly, kind people may finally be able to join the rest of Southeast Asia in the booming economy that we have seen elsewhere. They aren’t out of the woods yet, as the military still has way too much unanswerable power and civil strife still exists in certain regions of the nation. But the people have finally gotten a glimpse of what life might be like if they continue on this new path, and the leadership that the country is under is instituting reforms a fast as they can. May they be granted all the good fortune they deserve.