Myanmar

So after the highly anticipated reuniting of myself with my friend, Natasha, in Bangkok, after all day of wasting time (I literally watched Al Jazeera English for like 5 hours- its better than CNN, FACT), we flew the next morning to Yangon, the capital of Myanmar.

We were met at the airport by a middle-aged man, Khine, who she had contacted through Couchsurfing. After we checked into our hotel, we had breakfast with him and then arranged to meet the next day.

A roadside stall in Yangon

After a nap- we had only slept 2 hours the night before (Bangkok will do that) we met another couchsurfer, Andreas from Zurich. He was hosting a guy from Oklahoma, Zach, who mentioned a rock concert in town that night. After some wine and cheese at Andreas's place- yes wine and fancy cheese, Ah expats- we went to check out the concert.

Arriving late, we thought we might have missed it, but walking through the park we started to hear the music and as we hiked up over a small rise, we saw the crowd. About 10,000 strong in the middle of a park in Yangon, truthfully a very politically controlled city, shirtless, tatoos, piercings, belting out every word verbatim with the long haired metal rocking band. The music was rocking, the crowd was rolling.

After standing on the fringe and watching for an hour, I had to join in and was welcomed near the front of the crowd by gangs of young shirtless Burmese men, proud to have a foreigner in their midst. It was a great night out.

Burma, and especially Yangon, struck me as an obvious intersection of Indian and East Asian cultures and peoples. The first day I felt like I said, "Man, this is just like in India!" about a hundred times. Even the faces of the locals look like a graft of Indian and Chinese features. Very bizarre. But the people are incredibly friendly. They have that reputation and I think they live up to it very well.

The next morning we had breakfast and met Khine again. He took us all around the city, walking, showed us a few sites and answered all of our questions. He even took us to an apartment rented out by a Belgian man, also a CSer, which houses two young Burmese women whose educations he is now sponsoring. Khine asked me to teach them English and I ended up quizzing them on their geography. It was a pretty cool experience.

Khine is an incredibly generous and knowledgeable man. His siblings live in Britain, Australia and Singapore, but as the oldest he had to make the money early on and so he remains in Myanmar. Although he hinted quietly and indirectly that he doesn't like the government (open dissent is still brutally punished) I think he is an ardent patriot and enjoys living in Yangon, and helping travelers.

Our second morning, Natasha and I decided to take a bus that night to the old colonial capital of Mandalay, 16 hours north. The bus ride was long and horrifically uncomfortable, but c'est la vie, and we arrived in one piece.

I'm sorry to say we didn't do much sight seeing in Mandalay proper. The first day we headed to see a famous ancient bridge in a neighboring small city, Amarapura, which itself is very old. Pagodas abound here and Natasha made sure to photograph them all.

Riding atop a mini bus in Mandalay

Famous ancient U Bein teak bridge near Mandalay

We got a ride back to town from a huge family who shared the back of a pickup (I'm talking 12 people) and they insisted we share the front with the driver and wouldn't allow us to pay. "We are all brothers under God," he told me. There are still many christians in Myanmar, a residue of colonialism.

Twelve happy faces in the back of a pickup!

The next morning I got up super early and went for a walk around the gorgeous palace wall and watched the sun rise over it. Unfortunately I forgot my camera, but the views of the city in the dawn light are beautiful. Lines of young monks march on sides of streets, accepting alms of food from people who apparently have prepared large amounts of food just to feed them. This must be pretty common because I think nearly all Burmese men spend time in a monastery during their life. Khine did also.

Later that morning we took a shared taxi an hour up to the hill station of Pyin U Lwin (yeah I could never pronounce it either). The weather was much cooler up there (its like 95-100 in Mandalay and not much cooler in Yangon) and Natasha immediately complained about the cold. I think it was like 70 in the shade. VERY refreshing.

Gold villager handicrafts on sale in Pyin U Lwin

Dusk in Pyin U Lwin

The small town doesn't have much to offer other than its quaintness. Colonial buildings, few tourists (like everywhere in Burma these days) and pony drawn carriages straight out of Cinderella made our short stay very worthwhile. This was our favorite place in Myanmar.

In a pony drawn carriage in Pyin U Lwin

Another overnight bus- this one slightly more comfortable because we simply did not allow the people in front of us to recline their seats, even though they got REALLY pissy about it- and we were back in Yangon. More walking around in the heat, and we went to use the internet.

While Natasha and I were discussing flights for my return visit to Saigon, she realized she didn't have her black leather bound notebook. Now that wouldn't be a tremendous loss if she didn't keep ALL her extra cash in it ($900) and even her flight ticket from Bangkok back to Ho Chi Minh City.

The rest of the afternoon and evening we retraced our steps of the day, I grilled her with questions and, I hate to say, was pretty annoyed that she had been so careless even after my warnings. Finally we gave up, I made her file a police report for insurance reasons, and we met up with Andreas and another German guy who was in town for one night because he works on a cruise ship that was in port and he had the night free.

We had some drinks, went to a club, Andreas hung out with some of the local working girls there that he is obvious acquaintances with, he said something rude, Natasha scolded him, there was awkward tension and then Natasha and I went back to our room.

The next morning we changed hotels and went to go get a new ticket for Natasha at the Bangkok airways office. While she was doing the paperwork, we decided I should run downstairs to the internet office below- the same one where she realized she had lost or had stolen her notebook- and check there. I figured it was worth a shot but knew it was horribly unlikely.

I walked in and asked if we left a book yesterday. I saw a black leather book on the desk and the guy working there said, "This one?" I opened it in slow motion and was relieved to recognize the colorful ink vandalizing the business-intended pages. I found it!

I tried not to make a big deal about how Natasha actually never lost it until she left the internet cafe in a storm ready to go look for it. It was beside the computer the whole time. I never bothered looking because I was behind her and had to rush up the street to catch up after she left.

So the rest of the day we basked in the warm relief of finding her money and ticket. Khine took us to the market and helped her bargain for LOTS of stuff. We had lunch, took a taxi to the Shwedagon Pagoda, the largest and most beautiful in Yangon and a symbol of Burma. After snapping a few photos we drove to the fancy expat wine and cheese store, where Andreas met us and we spent a few hours living the sophisticated life again.

A familiar looking tourist photographing the incredibly huge Shwedagon Pagoda in Yangon

Natasha is the biggest cheese snob I've ever heard of. Its incredible how its all she eats and how little time goes by before she feels she has earned herself a meal of cheese (maybe 12 hours).

The next morning we flew back to Bangkok and headed to the market where again she was a gift purchasing monster. It was impressive. That night was the big CS meeting that Natasha had been working a month to plan. We met about a dozen couchsurfers at the bottom of the Baiyoke Tower, the tallest building in Thailand.

We took a ride up to the revolving observation deck on the 84th floor and had our free drinks on the 83rd. The rest of the night was spent drinking and dancing with our CS friend, Charlie from Cameroon, DJ'ing until 2 am. Hung over the next morning, and Natasha with a bad stomach virus, our last hours together were not beautiful but I know we will see each other again in Saigon in 4 weeks.

Observation deck, 84th Floor, Baiyoke Tower, Bangkok

I'd wrap up better but I gotta run to the bathroom. I arrived today in Malaysia and something I ate (maybe all the deep fried bread) had done my stomach in.