Morgalogue

Burma is without doubt one of the most fascinating countries I’ve ever visited. It’s taken me a while, (3 months !) to edit down the gigabytes of photos and screeds of text I wrote about the place but I’m finally there. Well, that’s the irony - I’m not there, I’m now here. Scotland. And I’ve been glued to the BBC website following the protests over the last week with a mixture of excitement and great anxiety. I sincerely hope that the Burmese poeple can win their country back, without great loss of life. Few countries have suffered for as long. I’d love to say I detected the smell of revolution in the air but as my now out of date post says, I felt quite the opposite. No-one I spoke to was able to picture anything but a grim staus quo. Yet a collective dream seems to have come to life. In the interests of giving much needed exposure to a country that seems well off the West’s radar, and at best may contribute to that ethereal quality we call “public pressure”, here’s my tuppence:

 

   

 

Original Post:

“Should you, or should you not go to Burma ?” is pretty much the first thing you’re likely to read about Myanmar. This refers to the tourism boycott proposed by Aung San Suu Kyi, Nobel Peace Prize winner, freedom fighter and democratically elected prime minister of Myanmar, who is once again locked up in her house in Yangon, unable to see her family, or probably most frustratingly, run her country. The Lonely Planet, itself ringleader of a dubious revolution in tourism, attempts to clear its conscience with a “hey, it’s your call buddy” list of pros and cons, safe in the knowledge that you’ve already bought their guidebook. The most obvious con is that the development of tourism not only finances the military regime but to a degree legitimises it.

Possibly what irritates me most about LP’s stance, is that it only thinly disguises the true colours of the independent traveller - myself included. Firstly, we are by nature irresponsible, believing that the rules were made for the masses, not us, the ‘responsible individuals’. And secondly, closer still to the bone - show us a locked door, a country cloaked in mystery, where one of the most ethnically diverse mix of peoples on the planet have been largely shut away from the world for over half a century, where people ’shouldn’t go’ - and you’re practically selling a secret treasure map to a pirate. To complete my self-delusion, I like to think of myself as a moral person and believe going there was the right decision with the benefit of my illicitly gained hindsight. But if I’m honest, I basically couldn’t have said no. Anyway, more about my conscience later.

Myanmar has an amazing amount to be proud of. It’s borders not only enclose a huge variety of terrain, from the Tibetan Himalayas and remote mountain forests of Yunnan and Laos down to the amazing beaches and limestone coastal formations of Southern Thailand but it’s also home to 21 distinct ethnic groups with well over 100 languages ! I had days walking through mountainous tribal regions where I would have to learn ‘Hello’, ‘Goodbye’ and ‘Thankyou’ in 3 or 4 completely different tongues. Having skirted around Myanmar from a few sides now (I write this from Yunnan, China) it seems that the most tribal, wild and ancient part of any country, is where it meets Myanmar.

 

        

 

Before you get your hopes up though, all but a carefully selected few of these areas are technically off-limits to foreigners. I know because I tried. Permits applied for months in advance and $500 fees will get you into some places, but drug wars, armed ethnic insurgencies and a host of areas where the government just doesn’t want you around will keep much of the country hidden from our prying eyes. The regime isn’t highly visible in terms of soldiers, uniformed police and checkpoints but rather more sinisterly, people just won’t take you where you’re not allowed to go. And it’s their safety you’d be compromising (or should I say compensating) if you found someone prepared to take the risk. There’s a nasty statistic going around that 1 in 10 people are still government informers. While things don’t seem quite as bad as they were in the past, the elusive, faceless influence of the junta is (ironically, given his connection with the country), pretty Orwellian. So in some sense, my ability to ’see the country for what it really is’ was impaired by the fact that I only really saw what I was allowed to.

I didn’t see much of anything for the first 3 days. The monsoon rains rolled in behind my plane and I was held hostage in my dingy, Yangon hotel as they thundered down relentlessly day and night with such volume that I had to sleep with ear plugs. I had to change room 3 times as the roof succumbed to the deluge and combined with the humidity, my laundry still wasn’t dry when I checked out in 3 days later in search of somewhere more fancy to celebrate Lidka’s arrival. I showed up at the airport smelling like a sailor though fortunately for Lidka, bathed in the first rays of sunshine.

 

      

 

Yangon (formerly Rangoon) is not a pretty city. The flooded streets cleared quickly but the crumbling buildings of downtown still looked like they needed a wash. In fact, with the tangle of power cables and satellite dishes like fishing nets washed-up on rusty tin roofs and the drilling of diesel generators powering the city through its near constant blackouts, it feels as though the whole city was once submerged and is struggling on with emergency power. Yet this is daily life here.
You can’t see repression, but you do see bold, propagandist sloganeering juxtaposed against chronic shortages - an almost cliché dictatorial image. We changed our money at a watch shop a taxi driver had clandestinely informed me about. Out back, our big dollar note was transformed into a plastic bagful of kyat in accordance with the black market rate of the day. As with electricity or petrol, the government has been effectively sidelined due to its inability to perform. In the last 6 months inflation has again doubled the price of everything in the country, with no change in earnings. I have no idea how people can survive this. The economic crisis would seem to have less to do with EU and US sanctions (Russia, India and particularly China are happily trading) and more to do with things like the regime apparently spending over 50% of the GDP on the military compared with less than 1% on healthcare and education combined.

One thing the government does seem to spend money on is gilt for the countries major temples. The legendary Shwedagon pagoda complex is Yangon’s star attraction and it doesn’t disappoint. I really like the style of Burmese temples. They’re not as prissy and overindulgent as Thai temples and there’s something of the ‘presence’ you feel around all the chintz and tingling bells of Tibetan buddhism. Most of all I like the powerful shape of the stupas (or zedis), like enormous divining rods that seem to invite lighting bolts from the heavens. It’s a simple trick, but building enormous arrays of these things does enhance the ‘awe’ effect. One of the most beautiful moments we had was wandering by ourselves though huge, ruined fields of them near Inle Lake. Many Burmese also believe in the Nat; mischievous sounding spirits that need to be appeased with offerings, a sign that Burma hasn’t completely let go of it’s superstitious, animist past. I saw quite a few little spirit houses with beds made up for the Nat though sadly never saw a coconut wearing a red dress which apparently has something to do with it all.

 

   

 

We headed first up to the city of Mandalay. Like on so many trips, our bus snarled and shuddered for a while before breaking down in the middle of the night. While the driver worked miracles with a towel, a brick and a couple of ancient spanners, Lidka and I were invited to shelter from the rain in the front porch of a local house. The guys were sat around an old stove playing guitar and were desperate for us to sing one of our songs. We couldn’t think of anything they’d know until out of nowhere they came up with “I just called to say I love you” by Stevie Wonder. We’d just cobbled some chords together and sung a triumphant chorus when the bus cranked up and we rushed off, waving like old friends. I have a new found love of this song.

The impression I got of ‘Burmese people’ (or I should say of the Barmar and Shan folk I met), was of a warm, down to earth people with a dry sense of humour. They’re not as excitable as the Thais and with a level of common sense in dealing with foreigners that Thailand just seems genetically challenged in developing, despite considerably more experience. Maybe this is a trace of the now almost invisible British influence. Probably due to the complexity of their history, outwardly, they’re not stoically proud of their ‘national culture’, yet there is an undeniable character about everyday life. They get through gallons of tea every day, chatting and smoking around miniature tables on miniature seats in tea houses and street stalls. At night, fumbling around in the power cuts, you hear guitars and singing teenagers sitting out on the street. There’s a neighbourly, easy going-ness about life that seems noble to me in the face of such obvious hardships. Life goes on.

 

   

 

Political satire and stand-up comedy fused with dance and cabaret is actually a traditional entertainment format that stretches back hundreds of years in Myanmar. Only the present regime have lost their sense of humour. We went to see the Moustache Brothers, an infamous ‘A-Nyeint’ troupe to check it out.

I’d read about an A-nyeint performance in Aung San Suu Kyi’s memoirs that her party had organised as part of the celebrations for a national day. Despite ubiquitous harassment and paranoiac scrutiny from the junta, they were finally granted a licence to hold the celebration for 1000 people in her garden. The party was a great success and seemingly intoxicated by the spirit of it all, the a-nyient troupe opened their show with some political comedy that pretty much announced that tonight, despite the obvious consequences, they were going to perform true to the art handed down to them by their fathers and make fun of the government. Within a week, two of them were beginning prison sentences that lasted 5 and 7 years and ensured that they would never be given performance licences again. It brought a tear to my eye, imagining the atmosphere at this gig. Not just the courage and rebellion of it, but the fact that it was restoring an older order and rightful Burmese tradition - and not a freedom song, but humour ! Man, that crowd must have laughed.
It was my great pleasure to find out that this was the Moustache Brothers. Now reunited again, they have found a way to get round their blacklisting by ‘demonstrating’ an a-nyient show to tourists from their home in Mandalay. They are old men, who clearly still depend on the show for a living, performing to a handful of backpackers every night. Lu Zaw and Par Par Lay don’t speak English so you are left only to wonder at the price they’ve paid for their art. The show itself doesn’t shy away from the politics that got them locked up, they milk it, but despite an energy and spirit that defies their age you just can’t help feeling that behind the smiles, life is still tough.

Aung San Suu Kyi herself was put back under house arrest a few months later but when she was released several years later she came to their little home theatre to pay her respects and watch a performance (or ‘demonstration’). They have a photo album of the occasion. The near empty room where we now sat was packed. The quiet dirt road outside swarming with people trying to catch a glimpse of ‘The Lady’. You could see her natural ease with the crowd and the looks of sheer joy on peoples faces. Like I said, I didn’t see repression but these were the most graphic images of hope.

 

       

 

After Mandalay we tried to head ‘off the beaten track’ as it’s known by heading up through Northern Shan state towards Hsipaw. Given the restrictions, it was pretty much the only track available. A lucky break came our way in Pyin Oo Lwin though as we haggled in vain to further our passage to the next town. Pick-up trucks, shared taxis and pretty, old horse-drawn stagecoaches pretty much make up the local transport network. The only bus heading our way did so at 6am as we desperately tried to build up some sleep credits after 2 days in sauna-like conditions. Then Francis appeared, a shifty looking guy with whisky breath who looked like he’d slept in his clothes and offered to take us the 4 hour journey on the back of his less than reliable looking moped. For some reason we didn’t immediately dismiss this idea. Before long though he’d thought it through, realised it was an awful plan and instead offered us the bike minus the driver. Technically, renting a motorbike to a foreigner in Burma is still an extremely dark grey area. “We won’t be back for 2 days, it’s OK ?” we said to make sure. “No problem, no problem. If you come back, you find me, you give me the bike !!”. So, without much of a deposit the thoroughly trusting Francis waved us cheerful farewell as I swerved about, practically stalling an automatic.

OK so it wasn’t a Harley, it was a whiny, sputtering, decrepit little thing that a Thai teenager would be too embarrassed to mount, but Lidka and I were so overjoyed at the prospect of cruising the open road, you could practically hear the strains of Steppenwolf. Lidka has been banned from riding motorbikes by her mother since before she was even a teenager so the James Dean flag was flying. I’m completely won over by motorbikes as I’ve said before, it is such a romantic way to travel. The wind was in our hair (as there were no helmets of course), but in a country where most vehicles are ancient and lugging outsized loads, it’s certainly not speed that kills.

We took detours through little villages, chatted as we rode and marvelled at the mountain views spread out all around us. Towns we passed though were largely made from teak wood, adobe, or woven bamboo panelling. People working the fields with buffalos, riding bullock carts, wearing bamboo hats and unbranded clothes … it’s a neat, tidy, older world. Kind of Asian-Amish in style with excellent, functional carpentry all around.

 

   

 

At Kyaukme, local farmer called guided us on a day’s trek into the mountains to the village of Lwe Sar. In the hills practically the only trace of the 21st century are the cheap Chinese lighters people use to light their cigar-like cheroots. The Paulung people aren’t what you’d really call ’tribal’ in appearance, aside from a few strange tattoos that ’insure’ their limbs against injury. They have excellent (again, to me a little Amish-like) teak and bamboo villages and till the land into terraces as they have done for centuries.

Shan state contains the biggest ethnic group outside the dominant Barmar culture. Our guide was Shan, as is his wife, he says, though she’s from neighbouring Yunnan in China. If he wants to visit his inlaws he can be there in a day’s travel he tells us and despite not possessing a passport, most of the time they’re just waved through. “We’re all Shan” he says. This is strength of ethnic identity you see all over Burma. The word Shan is a bastardation of Siam (Thailand) where the group stem from and in China they are known as Dai (from Thai). Yet these borders, I don’t know how many hundred years later, seem slightly artificial to them. I’m amazed, coming from a country where Gaelic can’t seem to be kept alive, that these 100 languages and cultures remain happily distinct. The government of ‘The Union of Myanmar’ does seem to be trying, (behind the tourist gloss of ‘unity in diversity’) to make everyone tow the Burmese (Barmar) line. Shan state now has no schools permitted to teach in the Shan language. This kind of torment only seems to increase separatist desires among the states. Democracy, whenever it is finally won, seems certain to face some pretty tough challenges.

 

   

 

Even with no-one but the trees and the birds to overhear us, asking about the regime still felt taboo. Presumably communities here are tight enough not to have to worry about ‘denouncements’ from hidden informers but still, it was as if people didn’t want to get into the habit of talking about it. What I did manage to garner over the course of the trip verified what I’d read - villages used as forced labour to build roads, bridges, airports and hotels, many connected to the governments recent tourism drive. The army commandeering livestock and land from villages at will. The constant bribes or ‘tea money’ people have to pay to keep the wheels of the greedy bureaucracy (itself badly underpaid by central government) turning. Ach, it’s all on the web, I’m just reciting.

After a long day trekking and drinking tea with just about everyone we met, we made it back to the main road and waited for a bus back into town. Men and women carrying their hoes, sickles and bamboo lunchboxes came in from the fields and stopped at the bus-stop to smile and inspect us. Lidka built up quite an audience giving a presentation of her photos on the little screen. Our guide translated as one woman looked on, awe-struck “Beautiful. Beautiful lady. When I am re-incarnated, I want to come back as a foreigner”. By far the most profound statement of the trip.

Our little motorbike did us proud, sputtering in to Pyin Oo Lwin just ahead of a menacing thunderstorm. Unfortunately as I sloshed around identical mud streets looking for Francis’ cherry wine factory to return the bike, it died. He met us at a cafe and after fronting him some ‘guilt money’ he left, still more concerned about our trip than the future of his bike. We felt pretty terrible.

 

   

 

We split the remainder of Lidka’s time between Bagan - a vast, atmospheric plain littered with Buddhist pagodas, some say rivalling Ankor Wat - and Inle Lake. Inle Lake is home to several groups - Shan, Pa O, Intha and the Padaung who are one of the famous ‘long neck’ tribes who lengthen their necks with zebedee-like brass rings. Unfortunately their home in Kayah state at the foot of the lake is currently off-limits due to heavy fighting. The Intha actually live on the lake in large villages on stilts. They’re pretty industrious too. We went on a boat trip around silk weaving factories, silversmiths, blacksmiths and the like. There’s also bars, restaurants, temples and shops all lining the crafty little water streets. Everyone has their own little teak canoe to get around. Like an alternative reality I’d prayed for aged 10.

Their main industry believe it or not though, is farming. I have no idea how it all got started but an enormous acreage of the lake has been converted into meticulously maintained floating vegetable gardens. There is some kind of floating ’seaweed’ as they called it, that occurs naturally and forms beds which are then covered with rich topsoil. They’re apparently buoyant enough to be stepped on, but I suppose the true innovation about farming on water is that you can effortlessly glide around the beds filling your canoe with vegetables and then take them directly off to market. Floating markets, of course. The lake is pretty shallow for most of the year but does rise by as much as 2m in the rainy season. Each bed is tethered to bamboo poles lodged into the lake floor and rises with the water level. It really is pretty clever stuff. And apparently they’re the best tomatoes in the country.
 

      

 

Part 2 will be along soon …