Day 11

Despite the hell that was traffic the previous night in Bangkok, Miriam managed to get into the Hua Mak area where I was staying. We got up around 7 to get our things ready for Myanmar. We managed to get to the airport surprisingly with a little extra time and our flight ended up being delayed by 25 minutes giving us a little more than two hours at the airport, but we managed to have a bunch of snacks making the wait all okay.

Unlike the giant crowd at Saigon, the large amount of folks crowding outside the Yangon airport were much calmer. As always in Asia, the taxi drivers seemed to think they could name a “fair” price, but I wouldn’t have that bull and made sure our fare was greatly reduced. Taxi and these other forms of transport have been trying to pull these marked-up tourist prices on me but I am not letting my wallet get burned either here or elsewhere.

A note on driving in Burma. While most of the vehicles have the wheel on the right-hand side, some are on the left-hand side. However, the roads are designed like those in the States with people driving on their right-hand side. The ridiculous mix of all this throws you off but you don’t necessarily feel unsafe until you hit areas with poor infrastructure and such.

The amount of Bengali things in Burma have made it pretty easy to identify what’s good to eat out in the streets. I have been able to find so many Bengali and Arab snacks and juices that I had as a kid growing all around the place. Points to Burma for the nostalgia.

Also Burma has legitimate deodorant available. Learn, Korea.

But on a more serious note, Burma is going through a number of problems. Not only is its democracy strongly under question, but also it is suffering from an ethnic crisis. I will be approaching this later in a TYG piece, but here is a review of Myanmar’s shady politics.

What is more so baffling is to be walking around these streets and seeing that people manage to coexist. It is comforting knowing the crisis does not represent the feeling of the Burmese at large, but it is troubling seeing that with such crises occurring elsewhere in the country does not seem to break the image of everyday comfort and pleasantness that just oozes around downtown. How these things will evolve is something I clearly cannot answer, but I do wonder how long people can keep up the guise.

To end on a more comedic note, Miriam and I went to the movies to watch a Thai teen-comedy, “Rock Angels”. The poster looked very cheesy and the movie was so terrible that it was actually good. Thailand is very homosexually open and so to see a comedy of this nature may be a little troublesome to certain folks and the poor English translation will definitely not help that case. The irony here is that homosexuality can lead to imprisonment here in Burma but yet, one can watch a comedy where gay people are openly cracking jokes on one another and other people, too.

Day 12

I believe there are no touristy shot glasses to be found in Rangoon. I can find shot glasses and touristy little trinkets but no cheesy shot glass that says Rangoon or Myanmar on it. It is especially frustrating since we went through tons of bazaars and markets already without really trying since Rangoon has plenty of them around downtown.

Sigh.

However, in terms of sights we passed by I’ll start off with what seemed disappointing.

Near People’s Park, the government erected the Martyr’s Mausoleum. It was one of the most disappointing tributes I have ever come across. It looked like a poorly painted half pipe. If this is how Burma chooses to honor its democratic heroes, I have a poor outlook on Burma’s future.

Supposedly, there are only a handful of Jews in Rangoon but we went to the only synagogue in town to learn a bit more. The Musmeah Yeshua Synagogue has been around since the British colonization of Burma. I didn’t believe it until I read it there, but the place was also established by Iraqi Jews. Small but a continuing enclave of a little sector of Burma.

We also visited Aung San Bogyoke’s house. The supreme general was the face of Burma’s democratic movement and Aung San Suu Kyi’s father. Unfortunately, his fight ended early after he was assassinated by WHO. The house was rather modest but full of objects picked to pretty much frame in an inquisitive light.

Last but not least, the Golden Pagoda aka the Shwedagon Pagoda, holiest site in Myanmar, I’ve heard. Felt a little weird to see so many folks vending and laying out various goods at this holy site. I cannot grasp it, I don’t think I’ll accept it anytime soon. The actual maintenance of it was in the midst of an upgrade as you could see scaffolding everywhere and the golden leave of the pagoda itself looking torn. Somehow, after only spending a couple minutes there, it was an hour and a half later.