Burma - More Things We Have Learned

As we continue to quietly sail down the Irrawaddy River we pick up more information about Burma.
1. The Irrawaddy River rises 50 feet in the rainy season. In the delta region it can rise 200 feet.

2. Many villagers on the banks of the river have to move their homes, their belongings and their livestock every 6 months. Then they return a few months later when the rain stops.


3. 60% of the population of Bagan works in the tourist industry.

4. The tourist industry is down by 80% this year, and some say it is down by up to 90%. The people of Bagan are really hurting, as is the rest of the country.

5. On our one hour drive back from Poppa to Bagan, we saw exactly three other cars.

6. We have been traveling for 9 days now and have seen very few monks.

7. Many workers who we talk to in the tourist industry, tell us directly that they hate their government.

8. There is a pension for people over 65, but it consists of a few dollars a month, and no one can live on it. Consequently yet another burden is placed on the workers – they have to support their parents in their old age.

9. A phone line, believe it or not, costs $5,500 to install. A cell phone costs over $2000 and can only be bought on the black market, which in this case means buying one from a government employee.

10. Electricity is cheap, but who cares, if you can hardly ever get it.

11. Men and women of all ages wear a skin cream made from the bark of the Dhanakhar tree. It protects from the sun, and helps against acne and wrinkles. It is a yellow color and the women and children paint it on to their faces every day.


When boys get old enough to feel self conscious, they stop wearing it in the day time. But most everyone, including the men, put it on at night. We have been commenting that the Burmese have wonderful skin, and if this is the reason for it, we have to get some! But maybe it’s too late!

Poppa - Dinner and Politics

We buy a bottle of Champagne, which a Boy named Sue has never tasted before. He takes to it like a duck takes to water, and demolishes the best part of the bottle while we are still working on our first glass. We do nothing to stop him, as his reluctance to talk politics disappears with each glass he consumes. He tells us that this Hotel would normally be packed at this time of year. Last year every hotel in Bagan was filled and there weren’t enough cars, drivers, and tour guides to go round. This year the Hotels are empty, and the tour guides and drivers are struggling to find work. He goes on to say how life is getting harder every year for the people of Burma. He, and most of the educated people, are fed up and really angry. But the poor and uneducated are not interested in politics. He claims that when the demonstrations were going on, the government actually rounded up the people from the countryside and offered them food, soap and shampoo if they would gather in the streets and shout pro government slogans, which of course they did. Buddhists believe that what ever happens to them in this life is a direct result of how they behaved in their last life. So a hard life is just seen as a penalty that must be endured, and not as something that can be changed.

We revisit the discussion of education, and he tells us that University is little more than a joke. He went to University, and all he had to do was go for one month each year for 3 years and then he got his degree. He said it was really just a party for the one month a year and he gained very little from it.

If you want to be a tour guide, you have to attend another school. The exams at the end of this course were difficult tests on your language skills, history skills and knowledge of architecture as it applies to the Stuppas and Palaces. However all he was taught in the classes were the rules and regulations that the government has put in place to regulate tourism. Consequently only one in seven passes the exam.

As the bottle of champagne empties, a Boy named Sue gets more and more depressed and ends the evening by saying that if things don’t get better soon, he will try and leave Burma and live somewhere far away, where he will be able to send money home to support his family. He is a bright, intelligent and hard working young man, and one that most countries would want to keep as a valuable asset. But we have the feeling that the Generals would not be upset to see him go.

We admire what he has achieved, and are sad for him. His life is going to be hard, and the only reason for that, is that he was born in Burma.

Poppa

We leave Bagan reluctantly. The last two days have opened our eyes to the wonders of Mynamar, and the small town of Bagan is infinitely more charming than Yangon. We could, and hopefully will, return and spend much more time here.

Today we drive for an hour to the mountain town of Poppa, where there is a temple on the top of a huge rock, with fantastic views, which can only be reached by climbing 770 steps.


There is also a Spa Hotel well known in Myanmar as a wonderful place to relax. We view the sights,


and the charming town of Poppa and then get to the hotel in time for lunch, an afternoon by the pool, and a massage and body scrub.Life can’t get much better than this.

A Boy named Sue has come with us on this trip as our guide. We are just staying one night in Poppa and so we are surprised to see a Boy named Sue arrive with a suitcase nearly as big as ours. But, as the day wears on, the necessity of a large suitcase is made evident by the number of changes he makes during the day. We count no less than 4 different outfits during the one day. He also has some super cool shades that he wears, but his eye sight is so bad he can’t actually see anything with them on, so he is constantly switching back to his regular glasses.

We soon realize that we are the only people staying at the Hotel. A Boy named Sue leaves us alone during the afternoon, but we invite him to join us for dinner. This is an extremely poor country, where many people are dressed in rags, so it seems incongruous to see a Boy named Sue appear for dinner in a very trendy pair of ragged jeans with worn cuffs and manufactured holes