myanmar/burma

*After three days in the country, I'm still not sure whether to call it Myanmar or Burma. The government changed the name in 1989 to Myanmar, but the government was also a corrupt military junta that slaughtered thousands of people--so take from their decisions what you will.

 Rocky and I recently set up a babysitting exchange with some friends. He's been telling me for while we would have to go to Yangon/Rangoon for business, I was willing (twist my arm) to tag along. We decided on a weekend a few weeks in advance and made sure both our friends were going to be in town. 

Then, last Monday Rocky called me and said he was going this weekend and asked if I wanted to come. I answered, "Yes! Wait, let me call Nicole, I'm pretty sure Jonny's out of town." 

He was and wouldn't be back until the next week. We contemplated how this would leave her with five kids under five, two of them babies, then said, "Better her than us." and bought the plane tickets. 

Friday morning we took the I hour and 5 minute flight to Yangon. Here are some of our pictures and things we learned. 

 I've wanted to go to Burma for while, to pin point an exact time--probably since the 2007 protest marches. 

Quick history lesson (feel free to skip this and just scroll down to the pictures) Burma has been called the "golden country". It is rich in natural resources--gems, oil, teak, natural gases etc. yet is one of the poorest countries in the world.

It is rich in history. There were various empires and kingdoms throughout the history. Some religious and devoted, some brutal and warring, some both. They famously razed and conquered the Siam capital of Ayutthaya. By 1885 the British had seized control of Burma and it became part of the British Raj.

After the Second World War, they were granted independence and Aung San, the war hero, was put in charge of drawing up a constitution and forming a government. When things were finally going well, one of the generals who felt left out and wanted to rule, hired a group of men who went in to the government offices and gunned down Aung San and nearly his entire cabinet.

After that things never really got going for Burma. A series of mismanagement resulted in a military coup in 1962 with the crazy general ruling for the next quarter of a century. After the horrible student protests of 1988, he stepped down but left the military junta in place and the corruption continued.

In the last few years things have changed quite a bit. Aung San Suu Kyi (the nobel prize winner who was under house arrest for over 20 years) was released as well as many other political prisoners, elections were held and enough human right violations were dealt with that the U.S. and almost every other country lifted their sanctions.

Yangon, the biggest and most modern city of Myanmar, seems as if it's stuck in a time warp. Half way brought to the modern day. They have electricity (downtown, at least), as of three months ago--atms, cell phones, loads of khaki clad, retired, European tourists. But halfway stuck deep in the past. Most the men wear the traditional longyi (sometimes with a samsung galaxy tucked in the back), most children wear no shoes and it's normal to see people cooking food over coals in two sided shacks right in the middle of the city.

We stood out, even more than we stand out in Bangkok, people often asked us where we were from and after we said, "America." They would say, "Good country" "Rich country" or the most common, "O-bam-a!" 

After finding out we were from America one taxi driver turned on the song, "Halo" and sang it out loud. (Which was much better than non stop "Gangnam Style" in one taxi--I guess if they're playing this in Burma, no one's safe.)

My first stop (Rocky was in a meeting) was the house were Aung San Suu Kyi was held under house arrest. 

 It's completely fenced and you can barely see anything. I showed the address on a map to the driver and he took me there no problem. I had just read, in a biography of hers, that the author tried to get taxi drivers to take him there five years ago and no one would.

As we were driving away he told me, "My country's government is a good government. Clean government."

 We're not sure what this building was. It was huge and had several buildings in the complex, a few in use but most empty.

 A lot of colonial buildings built during the colonial period are now in near ruin--this one was downtown so it was doing pretty well.

 The taxis were their own kind of awesome. Rocky and I guessed they were between 20-40 years old. I didn't realize it yet, but this one was one of our best--the worst of course being the one we had to push start twice.
The strangest thing to us about the city of Yangon was the lack of scooters. Rumor has it, at one point a government official's car was hit by a scooter and they were banned. Now there are just cars and bicycles. We did see one Ferrari, which probably couldn't have looked more out of place as it pulled up alongside a 'people mover' loaded with 20 plus people.

 The roads are at least three times as wide as most of the sois in Bangkok. There is still a lot of traffic downtown but everywhere else the streets seem ghost-like wide.

 The Schwedagon Pagoda is pretty impressive.

 Our Thai friend told us the gold came from Ayuthaya. 

 As we walk by, children call out, "Hello" or "Goodbye"

 Rocky wanted me to include this picture as an idea of Beetle's next Halloween costume. 

After a day spent walking around, we dined on some hot pot soup.

We thought we were supposed to cook it but every time we tried to put something into the pot, the waiter would hurry over and take the tongs away. It was delicious--even if we couldn't stop them from adding the fish balls.

The next morning we took the morning flight to see the Kingdom of Bagan. Then we realized we'd only bought one way tickets...