Welcome to Myanmar
January, 2010
Copyright 2011, all rights reserved, by Bob Frazee
Myanmar, formerly Burma, has just recently, and very slowly, being opened to tourists. The military dictatorship is relaxing its control although some things are still difficult. It is a wonderful country filled with many new sights and very friendly people. The fact of the matter is this: Our main trip was to Thailand (2 weeks), with a pre-trip to Myanmar (7 days) and post-trip to Cambodia (6 days) and the best part of the whole excursion was the 7 days in Myanmar.
Some people think we leave
Minnesota because of the weather |
The fact is, my passion is to visit
exotic cultures and ancient civilizations |
After traveling for three days which included only a brief overnight in Bangkok, Thailand, we headed for Myanmar (Burma). I knew I was in the land of enchantment when, at the Bangkok international airport we were greeted by . . .
Green faced demons |
White faced monkey |
A fat little guy with
four arms and
an elephant's head |
A 30 foot tall Giant |
Red and green men pulling
on the head of a serpent |
Other men pulling on the tail |
What did this all mean? For four weeks I listened and learned what I could but it was not until I got home that I was fully able to understand some of the mystic stories about this ancient land. It is all explained in my story of The Birth of Ganesha
Today its called Myanmar but we grew up knowing it to be Burma. The British gave it that name when it took over about 1885 or so. Prior to that time there was basically the kingdom of Bama and a lot of little tribal areas. The British, who were in Thailand, had taken over the bottom half of the country but the King of Mandalay had given the rights to mine rubies to the French.
Of course the British couldn't have any of that so they found a store clerk, dressed him up to look like a king and sailed up the "Road to Mandalay", the Ayeyarwaddy River. [You may remember the Bing Crosby & Bob Hope Move "The Road to Mandalay" made during WWII - it was interesting to learn that the river is called the road to Mandalay.] When the people of Mandalay saw what they thought was an invasion force lead by the king from the south they threw down their arms and the war was over without a shot being fired. The British sent the King of Mandalay into exile in India and the French were kicked out.
As I traveled through Myanmar and Thailand I again started to think about the arrogance of the western European powers in thinking they "owned" the world and could just take over anything. The name of the country was changed to Burma because that's what it sounded like to the British. The capital was changed to Rangoon because it was on the seacoast and that's what Yangon sounded like to their ears.
As you can see from the maps Myanmar is surrounded by India, Bangladesh, China, Laos and Thailand. Its borders are basically the mountain ranges with lots of fertile plains in the middle. The country is rich in oil, natural gas, fertile lands to grow rice and gems.
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Politically things have not been stable. Most of the countries in this area were heaveily settled by the Chinese and Myanmar is no exception. The Japanese invaded during WWII because of the rich oil fields. After the war the British moved back but were eventually expelled and since then there have been a number of governmentts. The current military dictatorship took over with very harsh methods in the 1962. They overthrew a socialist government and kicked out the communists. There was an election in 1990 and the pro-democratic party, the National League for Democracy, won an overwhelming victory. It was denied power by the military and Daw Aung San Suu Kyi - who recently won the Nobel Peace Prize - has been under detention for the past two decades. She is barricaded on a peninsula in the lake in Rangon and has no contact with the outside world for 25 years.
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Watch the newspapers because there have been a number of news stories about Myanmar lately. The military says it will allow limited elections this summer (2010) and it will release Daw Aung San Suu Kyi in September. The National League for Democracy has said it will not participate in the elections because it would be the same as recognizing the seizure of power by the military in 1990. The party maintains it is the only legitimate power in Myanmar and urges everyone to stay away from the polls. Of course this line if thinking is puzzles me because it just opens the arena for the current government to get elected and stay in power.
When we were in Myanmar we could tell there were lots economic limitations but didn't see a lot of military presence like we saw in China. Only recently has Myanmar opened up to tourism so it was like going to a country that had been asleep for the past 50 years.
There is a movie about the 1990 revolution called "Beyond Ragon" which may interest you if you want more information about the military take over.
I knew from the moment we landed in Yangon and discovered that we were in a different time zone - but it was only a half hour behind Thailand - that we were in a land with an exotic culture. It was wonderful!! Then we met Lennie, our OAT tour director for the next five days. Burmese by birth, he attended college in St.Louis, MO, and spoke very good English.
The first thing you note in Myanmar is that the men wear long skirts called Longii. Lennie says they are airy, cool, simple to wear and comfortable.
As we took the bus from the airport to our hotel he gave us a history lesson and make it clear that there is "bus talk" and public talk. Certain comments he made on the bus to Americans only - the driver didn't speak English - couldn't/wouldn't be repeated in public. Another thing he told us is that it is illegal for Myanmarins [spelling contest: how would you spell it?] to possess American dollars. Banks and hotels could have them but only long enough to make a currency conversion. As a tour guide Lennie was our banker and currency conversion kiosk. There were no ATM machines and no banks for us to exchange money ourselves. I guess it was acceptable for Lennie to came into the bank with a stack of US currency to make a conversion. So, when we got on the bus at the airport Lennie gave everyone an envelope containing $50 in Myanmar currency and he told us to reimburse him when we got the chance. So Lennie became our currency exchanger and it was really nice because we could always get cash when needed. It is obvious that if a country which wants to encourage tourism it has to make currency exchanges easy. I guess one problem is that this is an "official rate" and a market rate. We were restricted to the official exchange rate. There were actually places in the country where street venders would not take U.S. dollars which gives some idea of how tightly controlled it is. [In Cambodia the readily available ATMs dispense US dollars and the dollar is readily acceptable everywhere for any purchase. In Thailand merchants and taxi cab drivers want the Thai Baht but it is easy to exchange dollars or get the local currency from the available ATM.]
(Editor's note, 14 June 2010: My pages of our trip to Mynmar are still being construction so come back again.)
For more information about our travels write to
Belli.
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