18th March – 24th March 2017
When the pilot landed in Yangon airport, he announced the local time was 7:15pm. I looked at my watch.
“He’s got that wrong!” I said to Em. “That’s not possible”.
Of course the pilot was right. Where did my confusion come from? Myanmar is not 6 hours ahead of GMT. It’s not 7 hours ahead. It’s 6 and a half; I didn’t know there were any countries that set themselves to be half an hour into a time zone. It wasn’t the last time Myanmar surprised me.
We have to confess we were nervous about visiting Myanmar (formerly Burma). After years of international isolation, it only opened up its borders to tourists in 2010, and so is not yet set up like countries such as Thailand for backpackers. As such, it is considered something of a final frontier in South East Asia, a place where you can go and experience an Asia almost untouched by western influences.
Travellers were now racing to get there, before everything changed and visiting Myanmar was not quite so cool anymore (whilst in Bagan, we overheard some people complaining how they thought Myanmar had changed and was already too touristy. I really dislike this attitude for reasons I won’t rant about here).
Anyway, it turns out we were boldly going where… lots of people have already been. It wasn’t as challenging as we thought to get about. There were ATMs everywhere, internet connection was generally pretty good and there are now travel companies set up to help organise what you would like to do.
Having said all that, the change is gradual and we have to admit being in a state of culture shock for the first few days. We had our first “Why the f*ck are we doing this?” moment in Yangon, the city in which we arrived.
We found Yangon (Rangoon in old money) quite overwhelming. The traffic is absolutely mental; I’ve never seen anything like it, it takes hours to get across the city in a car. No one has a license. It’s made even more dangerous by the bizarre decision to drive the cars on the right, whilst having cars that are all right hand drive; you can’t see when you pull out! It was very hot, the buildings are all crumbling, the pavements are treacherous and lots of rats roam the streets at night.
It didn’t really help that we stayed in a dorm, which wasn’t great. When we arrived at the hostel we found a bunch of 15/16 year old kids shouting at the TV in the common room; they were watching what seemed like the Burmese Oscars (and they were getting well into it). Turns out these kids were in charge of running the hostel, cooking and cleaning, with no adult in sight. We also had a couple of weirdos in the dorm (including one Australian bloke who tried to make out he was some kind of international gemstone smuggler).
On the first day we visited Shwedagon Paya. I’m not really one for temples, but I’ll admit was impressive. I had to wear a longyi to enter the temple (a traditional skirt still worn by most males in Myanmar).
In the afternoon we met up with one of my old work colleagues, Alison, who showed us round the city. She took us to Kandawgyi Lake. We walked the (extremely rickety) boardwalk around the lake, and was a nice break to the hustle and bustle of the city. We also visited some rooftop bars for some cocktails (okay, I never said we were hard-core travellers) and went for some really nice food at Wai Wai restaurant. It was great to catch up and she gave us some good advice for the rest of the trip!
On the second day, we took the circle line around Yangon. For something close to 40p, we got a 3 hour train ride out of the city centre. It was really interesting watching all the locals go about the daily business, as well as all the hawkers that jump on and off at the stops selling their wares, which included fruit, popsicles and edible insects. Some of the locals seemed quite interested in us and asked us where we were from. One guy bought us a bag of insects to try (probably for his own amusement; our faces at the sight of the bucket of these things must have been noted). I got peer pressured into eating one of the bugs but Em resisted (see video below).
They tasted like salted rice cakes; crunchy on the outside, soft on the inside (so a bit like armadillos, according to the old Dime Bar advert).
We also visited Bogyoke Aung San Market, park, and went to see the Chinatown district. By the time we had to leave to get our overnight bus to Inle Lake, we felt we had seen enough of the city and were glad to move on; 3 days was far more than needed.
Our overnight bus to Inle Lake had been sold to us as a “VIP” bus. Although skeptical, we were pleasantly surprised by it! It was comfortable, had a screen put into the seat in front on which you could watch movies, and we got drinks and snacks. The journey was 13 hours long, but we managed to get a reasonable amount of sleep and the journey wasn’t too arduous.
Inle Lake provided some much needed relief from the crazy Yangon. We were lucky enough to be treated to our tour of the lake by Emma’s friend Liz who happened to be on holiday there at the same time as us.
As we made our way out onto the lake we passed some local fisherman, using a traditional (and very unusual) method to catch their fish. This involves balancing on one leg on the edge of the boat and using an oar strapped to the other leg to paddle around. Simultaneously, they hold a net in the lake and slap the water with a stick to scare the fish into the net. It must take an extraordinary amount of skill to do; I’m not sure I could even balance on the edge of the boat without falling in.
After seeing the fishermen we headed to some of the stilted villages and floating gardens the lake is famous for. We stopped at a few villages, each of which seems to have specialised in a particular craft in order to provide an income for the community.
The first village we visited specialised in weaving. They used machinery that looked like it came from an old Victorian workhouse; it really was incredible to watch. The weavers use thread taken from a lotus stem to produce some incredibly expensive garments; they actually now import silk from China to mix in with the lotus to make the cheaper stuff!
We also visited a blacksmiths, a village that produced Burmese cigars and another that makes boats for the lakes.
The floating gardens were almost as impressive as the villages. The gardens are created from making a kind of mat from the natural vegetation of the lake, and anchoring it in place with bamboo poles. The gardeners then grow all sorts of crops on these mini floating mats, which are then harvested, eaten or sold to the other villages.
We had lunch at a restaurant on the lake. Our guide told us it was her birthday and insisted on paying for the meal. Considering she is probably quite a lot poorer than us, we felt awful, but she absolutely insisted. At the end of the tour, still feeling bad about this, I decided to give her a massive tip to compensate for paying for the meal. Although worried she would see through my not so cunning plan and refuse the money, she thanked us and went on her way.
Although we didn’t like Yangon, we really enjoyed our time on Inle Lake. We would have liked another day to explore the countryside around, but we had booked a coach to Bagan and so had to move on sooner than we wished.
(Posted by Ben)
Emma & Ben... Far From Home 