Myanmar's finest

Sittwe, Myanmar (the first time);

Sittwe was another stop on my long trip to Mrauk U.  My first impression of it wasn’t stellar.  My traveling companion, Jenna, and I had just arrived and were in route to a hotel on a bicycle taxi when a man appeared beside us on the back of a moto and identified himself as a police officer.  He rode along side of us and inquired as to where we came from and where we were going.  He told us that the entire town is filled with liars and cheats and not to trust a single person.  “They all lie here” he told us.  He said to “remember I helped you.  Remember I gave you advice” and then handed me his card.  He continued to ride next to us for about another 30 seconds and then patted his driver’s shoulder and away they went.  His tone was more threatening than helpful. 

We’d just gotten off a boat from Tuanggok and had to stay in Sittwe for a night.    I don’t want to get into the “situation” here, so I’ll just say that the police are not liked.  The boat we’d just exited was packed to the gills with police.  Besides Jenna and I, there were 2 other tourists.  The rest on the boat, for the most part, were police.  The reason for the great number of Myanmar’s finest was that a large police promotion ceremony was taking place in Sittwe in the coming days.  This meant that Sittwe was hosting large number of unwelcome guests.  The mood in the town was cool if not all together dark and I was happy to board the boat for Mrauk U early the next morning. 

Maurk U;

When your guesthouse host shows you to your room the first time, you never know what’s going to be behind the door.  You might be shown to a large, clean, airy room with a private bathroom and hot water.  The door may stop half swing, bumping up against your would-be bed and requiring you to remove your backpack just to enter (I had one room that was so small that I had to climb onto the bed to make sufficient room to put my bag on the floor).   You may find a room to be perfectly fine only to later discover that the walls are so thin that you can hear the slightest noise from next door.  The later you arrive to a town, and the greater the competition for rooms can be and the less picky you get.  I’ve been lucky though as I haven’t had to sleep fully clothed yet (unlike Guatemala). 

The fact is, at least for me, that as long as the room is clean, I’m satisfied with it.  I can even live without hot water, though I don’t like cursing so early in the day.  The second most important thing is the guest house owner(s).  A friendly, knowledgeable, and accessible guesthouse owner can make a trip.  This is particularly true in a country like Myanmar where processes and schedules are ever changing and rarely intuitive. 

In Maurk U, I stayed at a Hotel called “The Prince”.  The place was good in every way.  It was run by a married couple.  They had one child, a 4 year old girl named Tawn Tawn (spelled phonetically – this is true for all Burmese names in this blog and some English names too).  The wife, whose name I could never quite get, had two siblings that worked there, both younger than she.  Besides the siblings, there were 6 other children that the siblings described as “like sister” or “like brother”.  I have no idea where the “like” children’s parents were and another guest who inquired into the subject received a vague response followed by a fresh subject. 

Everybody there treated us like we were the most important people on the planet.  They all had duties around the hotel.   Even the 7 year old girl, “The Then Way”, helped with preparing our dinner (pealing a small batch of roots with a carrot peeler with surprising skill).  Most of the guests ate dinner together at a large table in the tree filled courtyard, the children running about serving food, tea, coffee, and beer as needed.  After dinner, some of the kids would collect near the dinner table and chat and joke with the guests.  Their days were long.  My room was closest to their home, and I would hear them begin crossing the courtyard to the kitchen at about 430 AM.  Each night I fell asleep still hearing conversations, laugher, and clanking pots emanating from the kitchen. 

We (I and 7 other guests) toured some of the Chin Villages north of Maurk U on the border of Myanmar’s Chin State.  The husband half of our host team lead the tour.  Here we visited a remote river side market and three villages.  In the villages, the older women all had their faces completely covered in web like tattoo.  The custom dated from over 3000 years ago, but had stopped altogether 50 years ago for the reason, if I understood correctly, that the shaman that were tattooing the women were charging a year’s income.  We ate lunch cross legged on a bamboo platform from banana leaves and our guide explained that all of the structures along the river, including the place we were sitting, were washed away each rainy season and subsequently rebuilt. 

Sittwe (the second visit)

We returned to Sittwe after 3 days to a town that barely resembled what we had left.  The mood was lighter and the people friendlier.  The people of Myanmar;

It’s hard to describe just how friendly and warm the people are here.  They’re always smiling, always calling to each other, always laughing.  Even those who appear to live in abject poverty smile and wave and only after greeting you will sometimes turn their palm up asking for a bit of money.  My arm grew tired during a walk in Sittwe as I could barely lower it for all waves I was returning to children and adults. 

I was invited into a shop keepers store (a space smaller than some walk in closets I’ve seen) and asked to sit.  I spoke to him about his life in Sittwe (at 64 he’d travelled very little, and never out of the country).  He had been a school teacher but was now retired.  The chair he sat in nearly filled the store.    Behind him was his living area and kitchen.  His wife sat quietly as he spoke to me and I got the feeling that this was something he did regularly.  He offered me a cigar which I refused, but then asked to purchase a cup of coffee which I presumed they offered based on the cups and coffee packets I saw on the wall behind him.  He seemed confused by my question and we quickly dropped the coffee subject.  He asked me to return to his shop if I were to visit Sittwe again. 

Inle Lake, Myanmar;

My current location is Inle Lake.  My traveling partner for the past two weeks, Jenna, headed to the beach.  She had intended on traveling back to Thailand, but during a layover in Thandwe decided that was the town for her.  Traveling like this gives you that sort of freedom.  So I’m back on my own.  I spent one day on a guided tour of the towns around the lake.  We visited some markets and a Buddhist monastery.  The best part of the trip was a visit to “the floating gardens”, which is a large town with hundreds of homes built on stilts and surrounded by a vast floating farm.  The entirety of the town and the farm area is built on top of Inle lake.  The layout of the town is similar to any normal town.  But, except for roads and yards, they have water and floating gardens.  No stray dogs here.  Each house has a boat beneath it.  The floating farms are made of lake weed and grass and are pinned to the 15’ deep lake bed by long bamboo poles.    The farms go on for miles. 

During my flight to Inle I sat next to a French photographer, Yannick Borit, that is married to a Burmese women and owns a resort here called The Inle Princess.  He invited me to have lunch with him at his studio and to a tour of his resort, which is how I spent my day yesterday.  When I arrived, one of the hotel hostesses brought me to Yannick’s office/studio where we found Yannick sitting on the floor sorting through piles of medication.  “For my guests” he explained in a thick French accent.  I’d gotten the feeling on the plane that he was a man that rarely stopped moving.  He left his medication project and walked behind his large horseshoe desk and asked me to sit.  He showed me some of the photography work he was currently sorting through from a trip to China.  The walls of his studio were covered in large prints of his work.  We discussed his approach to photography and some of his more recent projects while his staff set out our lunch at a table that was encircled by a single hanging bench.  It was the sort of dining area only an artist could conceive of.  He told me that the resort had 47 rooms and about 200 employees. 

After lunch, he brought me on what I believe was his daily inspection routine.  I would need all day in order to give this place any justice in my writing.  It was a beautiful place.  The resort was on Inle Lake.  It had large bungalow style rooms, long bridges over ponds, sauna, yoga room, massage rooms, a beautiful dining area, and a wine cellar.  Paintings and carvings decorated walls, fences, ceilings, and roofs.  The really interesting thing about the place is that all of the wood carvings, all of the paper for the paper lamps, pottery, dishes, plates, tiles, were made on site.  They have a vegetable farm, pigs, cows, goats, pottery facility, wood carving facility, lacquer facility, paper making area, carpenters, and mechanics.  I began to understand why he needed so many employees.  It could be described as an artisan colony with a resort attached.   He and his wife opened the hotel 15 years ago.  It was impressive to see all that they had accomplished there. 

I spent today hiking with some new friends to a cave outside of town.  A monk that lived there invited us into his home and showed us some pictures of his travels to various temples.  My friends and I took turns getting pictures with him and then each gave him a donation.  As a gift, he and gave me an avocado which I, in turn, made a gift to my guesthouse owner.  I imagine most avocados don’t have such interesting histories.  His house was just a tiny room with a bed.  It was located inside the cave.  It was a dark place that I would think would depress anybody, but he never stopped smiling. 

After the cave we hiked south towards a mountain side winery we’d heard rumors of.  None of us had tasted wine in a long time, so we all felt pretty motivated to find the place.  After about an hour and a half of weaving mountain trails and dirt roads and some help from locals, we managed to locate it.  The dining area overlooked their vineyard and the wine was excellent.  We all felt like we’d been teleported to another land.  There, I had my first non-Asian meal of my trip (spaghetti) and some pinot noir.  It was a nice change of pace. 

So, that’s the post.  I’ll be heading home on the 26^th, so my next few posts will be about the process of preparing to leave the country for 27 months.  I’m not sure how interesting I can make such a subject, but I’ll do my best.  I’m looking forward to catching up with friends and family (and walking Gomez).  I hope all is well with each of you.