Burma- Day 1

Feb 25^th

Mingalaba!

In Burmese this is a blessed hello. Although our first day in Burma was only about 5-6 hours long, Myanmar was truly an eye opening and amazing experience. Because of the Government, our time we were allowed to dock in Myanmar went from 10am to 4pm. Which means that we were not allowed to even leave the ship until dinner time. People who had field labs and programs were let off the ship first. Some USA diplomats living in Mayanmar came onto the ship and talked to us about the country, getting money, food and more. It was funny when they did Q and A because Desmond Tutu asked a question and it was about the a political issue in Myanmar and the diplomats explained what they knew and told us we shouldn’t bring it up., but then looked at him and said he could probably just do whatever he would like. On our way off of the ship we ran into him and asked if he had been to Myanmar before and he said he hadn’t and said he was going to be having a meeting today with someone he’s been waiting to meet for a long time which turned out to be Aung San Suu Kyi. A Nobel peace prize winner in Myanmar. Look her up! So at around 6:30pm we finally got off of the ship and were allowed to get on a  bus. Since our port was literally in the middle of nowhere, we had a 45min to an hour drive into the city. So SAS gave us a bus service to and from the city during certain times. We took our seats on the bus and ventured off into out of the port.

Within minutes we got to see some real Myanmar. We saw the beautiful fields, with gold pagodas shining in the distance, we also got to see the small shacks on the side of the road. The 45 minute ride from the countryside to the city was amazing and eye opening. We saw rice patties, cows, horses, small towns, shops and lots of traveling monks. It reminded me a lot of Guatemala in the poverty and the scenery. I was so overwhelmed with awe that we didn’t have to go far from our ship to see what we had been anticipating to see.

We arrived in the city of Yangon around 7:30 as the sun was setting and our first goal was money exchange. We were told the best exchange rate was at a local hotel. We took a taxi there for less than 3 dollars and exchanged our money. We were lead in the direction of a local eatery. It was authentic Burmese food, which was amazing. I had a curry beef dish with rice and we all shared different appetizers. It was really neat because we had to go up to where they made the food and point at what we wanted and they made it and brought it to us. They didn’t speak a lot of English so we tried out best to get the food we wanted. But we pretty much just went with the flow since we really just wanted Burmese food. It was very good and fresh.

After this we went to see the Shwedagon pagoda in the middle of the city. It is the tallest building and one of the oldest. It is magnificent. Not only because of the religious rituals and practices that go on here but because it’s a great landmark and a lot of thought/detail was put into this thing. We paid our foreigner fee and enjoyed the atmosphere, the candles, the people, the chants and the great weather. In the middle of walking around we were approached by what looked like a monk, he asked where we were from and if we would like to see his monastery. There was 5 of us and we agreed, I mean how cool is it that a monk actually wanted to show us his monastery.

We should have said no thank you. Oh well.

But we followed him, we got to an exit on the other side of the pagoda and he asked us to get our shoes on (when you enter almost any religious site you take your shoes off and walk around barefoot). We didn’t have ours nearby so we asked if it was close enough to walk barefoot, he said yes so we followed him. We were all pretty excited and still in lala land over being in Myanmar and now actually interacting with a monk! We ended up walking across traffic and a good 10 minutes, barefoot to a nearby pagoda where he showed us around, pointed to English and told us to read it and showed us how to pray. In the Buddhist tradition in Myanmar you also find the weekday you were born written over a Buddha which is a certain animal, for me I am the elephant. You pour water over Buddha for the amount of years you’ve been alive +1 or good luck which was cool (I know that it was real because my friends are Buddhists and said this is what they do). We left the pagoda and on our way back is when we were scammed. He asked for a donation. Which 1) we found out after that Buddhists cannot ask for money (which I should have known from my Buddhist studies but it never hit me) and 2) we were fine with because he had been so nice and welcoming. We all pulled out 1,000 Kat (chat). He shook his head and said no. we persisted to try and give him only 1,000 and he said no “5 USD and I’ll bring you back”. As confused tourists we all gave up and gave him 5,000 kat (almost 6 USD). So the “Monk” made almost 30 US dollars from us (25,000 Kat). Which in a country which the average person makes less than 2,000 a day… he made bank.

For the most part we shrugged the event off of our shoulders. It taught us a lesson of trust. It was good in a way this happened because we realized it could have been worse and we need to be more cautious and less trusting even in group and even to figures we would consider to be trustworthy. We left the Pagoda and had one last stop before the ship. We went to the area that my friends mom grew up in. it was near the Chinatown section of the city. It was crazy to get there because it was a very run down area and everywhere there were holes In the street from the sidewalk crumbling (a pretty normal thing we saw overall on the city). She took some pictures and then we walked back to where the bus would bring us back to the ship. Me and Bridget went to bed pretty early since we wanted to make our second day full. Kim was going to “wing it” and travel with our friend Angela for the next few days around Myanmar so she stayed up to plan with her when they would be leaving.

 

Jesu timbale (Sounds a little like Justin Timberlake and means thank you)

 

Love

Casey