Burmese Days

In the days leading up to our docking in Burma, after hearing lectures on the political situation here, about the health situation, and the human rights situation there was a lot of talk on the ship that sounded like "Why are we coming here?" The democratically elected, but under house arrest leader of Burma, Aung San Suu Kyi, has strongly discouraged tourism. She doesn't want the legitimacy that tourism gives the current regime, and argues that very little money spent here actually winds up in the pockets of the people. The Burmese can be jailed or worse for talking to tourists about anything the junta deems questionable. You can't carry a laptop, cellphone, walkie talkie, pda into the country without it being confiscated because they think most westerners are spies and the the US is ready to launch an attack on them any day. There's a trade embargo against Burma and we aren't suppose to buy anything here anyway. The water here is so foul that we can't take on extra and are under water restriction until we get to India, so on top of everything else everyone stinks and has greasy hair.

Our port in about an hours drive down a bumpy, narrow road to Yangon. There's a shuttle every two hours from the ship to town and back again. When you're on the shuttle to Yangon here's what you see out the window, women and children hauling rocks beside the road, flooded markets with people walking around in chest high water, golden and jewel encrusted giant pagoda, stray dogs, garbage piles, giant golden and jewel encrusted Buddah. All Burmese men are expected to enter a Buddhist monastery at some point in their life, and there are many many many monks that you see out and about. Many of the schools here are Buddhist and the students learn meditation along with all of their other studies. So if you're educated it was probably a Buddhist education. Things just don't add up here. There tourist slogan should be "Myanmar: Land of Contradictions."

We're very restricted in where we can go, and what we can do, and that makes me and a lot of people quite reticent. The amount of hassle and interrogation just to get out of the port is a little nerve wracking. One of our students went to a touristy place on her own, and ended up in a very spooky experience trying to get back to the ship and ended up having to walk more than a mile in the wee morning hours down a pretty sketchy road. Most people went to Mandalay and Bagan either on their own or with the group. I figured I've never been to Burma before so anything that I see will be something different. But I sort of see the value in the structure of an SAS death march tour now that I'm at loose ends here.

The abandoned colonial feel is similar to Vietnam, and the Burmese people are warm and fun (though they will openly point and laugh at you, it doesn't seem mean spirited). There's a lot of English spoken, no big surprise, I guess. The main attraction here are the Buddhist pagodas and and other religious monuments. They are all magnificent, golden, shining things with precious jewels and neon. Tacky, you'd say, if they weren't so dazzling. There are swarms of Burmese at all of them praying and meditating and making offerings. Our tour guide for the city orientation was a Baptist, though. The markets are bustling and colorful but much less hectic than in Vietnam. I'm really in a quandary about spending money here, on the one hand embargoes don't hurt the people in power and I would like some of my money to go to the people here who need it so badly, but Suu Kyi has said that all of the tourist money goes directly to the junta. I've bought some things from kids in the street and made donations at temples but I don't know how much further I really want to go.

So basically here's how I've spent my time in Burma. Day One: City Orientation, Shwedagon Pagoda, Suli Pagoda, Market, Lunch, Reclining Buddah, History Museum, Strand Hotel Lobby. Day Two: Walk around the port, read "Time Travelers Wife," cocktail hour, bed. Day Three: Burmese Cuisine cooking class, finish "Time Travelers Wife," bed. Day Four (today): Updating blog and this evening a traditional dinner and dance performance. Day Five (tomorrow): Looking at local pottery and riding in the back of trucks (I would back out of this but I'm one of the trip leaders).

Really, though, I probably needed the break. I've not been feeling myself lately (sad and harried and anxious) and maybe just a few no pressure days will get me back in the swing of things. There's not much opportunity for down time and not a lot of privacy either just in general on the ship and when we're in port that's just amplified. I don't know how the people who are going to Mandalay and Bagan here and then turning around in India and doing Delhi, Agra, Jaipur are going to manage that.

Four students were "disembarked" in Myanmar for various reasons. As far as I know this is the first time on this voyage that anyone has gotten kicked off (a student left in Japan for medical reasons). Evidently in the past when rich kids have gotten kicked off they've just followed the ship by plane and met up with their friends in port. That may have only happened once, but it's part of SAS legend. Mary and I are continuing to plug away at the re-barcoding project. I'd say we're about a third of the way through. We've been helping more students with accessing UVa databases, but it's still a very small number. I'm going to make a big publicity push between India and Egypt and try to set up some times to teach drop-in library instruction classes. The difficulty is that the internet is so unpredictable and trying to use screen shots and power point just isn't effective at all. The best time to schedule classes would be 5:00AM when no one is online, but I don't think I'd get any takers.