Mysitcal Myanmar

You are about to read an entry concerning the most interesting and gorgeous place I have ever visited. Myanmar has by far been my favorite place I have visited, not only on SAS, but in my entire life. The Burmese people are without a doubt the nicest and warmest people I have ever encountered in my travels. I had a wonderful time traveling throughout Myanmar, and I wish I could have stayed longer. I could spend a year traveling through this country and would love every second of it. I believe that the experiences I had in Myanmar, some fascinating and some a little scary, were experiences that gave me a whole new outlook on this mysterious country. Enough of this babbling, let’s get to the story!

The days between India and Myanmar were short. 3 days between the countries, and we were getting packed full of information. Most of the information was about the politics and human rights situations in Myanmar, which I am sure many of you have heard about from either me, or our stellar white house folks back there in the states (catch my sarcasm there?). For those of you who don’t, Myanmar is ranked as one of the worst in human rights abuses. The military junta is the ruling party and is very oppressive and hurtful towards the Burmese people. Politics is never discussed between the Burmese for fear of the fact that the military is always listening. I prefer not to elaborate further on the politics and intentional isolation of Myanmar by the military, nor what my experiences there as far as politics were, because of the fact that this blog is very public, and the last thing I need is for it to magically disappear…

Anyways, SAS went into this country with many mixed feelings of the people aboard this ship. Many people believe that we should not have visited this country due to the reasons I listed above. Many others believe that tourism is the way to open this country up and save the Burmese people. They believe that the sanctions and embargos placed on Myanmar by the U.S. and other nations are doing nothing but hurting the country. I feel this way. I will explain it all at the end.

We arrived in Myanmar the evening of the 16th, around 5:30pm. To get to the port of Yangon (the capitol city), we had to go up the Yangon river, which extends up from the Bay of Bengal into Myanmar. Sailing up the river was unbelievable. The river is about 30 feet deep and very narrow. On either side of us were little huts in the marshlands and sugar plantations. As we traveled up the river, Burmese people in long slender motorized canoes would look up in amazement at our massive ship that was so foreign to them and wave to us. I could also see several large golden pagodas in the city center over the hills. We eventually docked a little after sunset. It was already planned that we weren’t allowed to get off the ship that night because of the length of time immigration would take to clear us. It was scheduled that we would be able to get off at 6am the next morning, so after our logistical pre-port meeting, I hung out with some people for a little while then went to bed to get up early.

I woke up at 5:30 and packed a small bag to go out for the day. If you’re interested, my backpack for day travel consists of a lonely planet, extra camera battery, nalgene bottle with fresh water, sunscreen, sickness medications, bug spray, and a hat if I am not wearing it. I leave extra room for things I may buy (which usually isn’t much). I was only going to go out to the port city of Yangon from 6am to 11am because I had to be back at the ship by 1:30 to meet for my 4 day trip to Bagan. I met with Ryan and Steph and we grabbed the shuttle at 6am outside the ship. Unfortunately the port is 45 minutes away from the city, so it was a long shuttle ride. We got to the city after sunrise, and were let off at the Trader’s Hotel, basically SAS’s home base in the city. Yangon is the Capital of Myanmar. It was formally called Rangoon when the country was called Burma. Many Burmese people still refer to the country as Burma, and either Burma or Myanmar is heard throughout the country among the locals, but only Myanmar is said by the military. We got off the shuttle and just started walking. We really didn’t have any plans to go anywhere. We passed a lake on the shuttle where people were praying around a big golden boat designed like a dragon, so we decided to walk back towards that way to see if we could find it. On our way we found the Sule pagoda, and we took off our shoes and socks and headed in to take a look. Every temple or stupa you visit you must go in barefoot. Myanmar really isn’t a dirty country, which was a nice change from India, so walking through the pagodas barefoot isn’t that bad. Oh yeah, if your getting confused with these terms, let me explain them. A pagoda is the name for either a temple or a stupa. A temple is a building you can walk through, and a stupa is a solid building you can only see from the outside. So hopefully that clears it up. This is all referring to Buddhism by the way, sorry I left that out as well. I am so excited to tell you about my adventures I forgot to give you the important stuff.

Anyways, before we entered the Sule pagoda, we were approached by a Burmese man smoking a large cigar. He asked us if we were the students that were visiting. Obviously our visit had been publicized, which we were wondering if it would be or not. We wondered if the military were going to play it off as SAS accepting and approving of the way the military rules, and they definitely played it off that way. The first question the Burmese man asked us was why our institution decided to come here when the Burmese people are suffering. Since we are not spokespersons for SAS nor want to enter into a conversation of politics which can endanger the Burmese people, we simply walked away. The man followed us and then invited us to his shop at 8am to buy stuff. He did a complete turnaround but whatever. “Why are you coming here, come to my shop and buy stuff.” Weird. Anyways, after visiting the pagoda we were wandering the streets and taking in the crazy sights. Many Burmese people were sitting outside cafes cooking food or selling items on the street. We were the ONLY westerners around and we attracted some crazy looks. Remember, Myanmar only receives 600,000 tourists a year, compared to Thailand which receives 12 million a year. 1% of those 600,000 tourists are American. We are that 1%. I met a few French tourists throughout my stay, but altogether very very very few tourists. So it is really rare for the Burmese to see Americans, and many of them will come up to us to practice their English. One of the first people to approach us after we left the pagoda was a man who asked us if we needed to exchange money. Pay special attention to the next paragraph, it is quite interesting…

The U.S. dollar is worth 6 Kyat (pronounced chat), when exchanged LEGALLY. When exchanged ILLEGALLY on the black market, the U.S. dollar is worth 1100 Kyat! A beer costs about 500 Kyat, so if we exchanged money legally, that would cost us about $80 U.S. for a beer! If we exchanged illegally, then it would cost us about 50 cents. It is a DRASTIC difference as you can see. SAS would tell us in the pre-port that it is recommended that we exchange legally, but they would drop hint after hint that it would be ridiculous to do that. So anyways, when this man approached us on the street to exchange money for 1100 Kyat to the dollar, we happily accepted. He led us down the street into a little street restaurant where it was so dark you could barely see your hand in front of your face. They sat us down, gave us free food and drinks, and the man asked us in a low voice how much we wanted to exchange. We told him and he said he would be right back. He came back about 5 minutes later and pulled a stack of Kyat out of his pocket. He told us to keep all the money under the table. He counted off the Kyat, and we exchanged all the money, literally under the table, and he said to count it when we got outside. After that we left the restaurant, and that was how we exchanged money on the black market. It was a cool experience and that is what everyone had to do. No one exchanged it legally; it would just be stupid to do that. Even hotels exchange it at the black market rate.

So after we exchanged our money, we walked to the lake. It was really cool. We had to pay an entrance fee, which cost us about 50 cents U.S. The two Burmese ladies we had to pay were giggling and trying to talk to us in English. I broke out my trusty lonely planet guide to help communicate, and they eventually found the word they were looking for. They pointed to me and in their Burmese accent said, “Very handsome!” Steph and Ryan found it hilarious and I turned red, said thank you, and we walked into the park with the two women giggling back at the entrance. We visited several temples along the lake, and witnessed some Buddhists praying too. There was a stretch of land that led out to a huge boat shaped like a dragon that was apparently a restaurant. It was still early in the morning, so we walked around the other parts of the park. We found a little outside restaurant that had honey wine, and Steph and Ryan wanted to get some. I am not a wine person, nor someone who wanted to drink at 10 in the morning, so I sat and talked with them while they had a glass of the homemade Myanmar honey wine. Well, one glass turned into two, which then turned into a whole bottle. It’s ok because it WAS St. Patty’s day after all. The bottle cost $2 U.S. Can’t beat that. During the socializing/drinking at the restaurant by the lake, the owner decided to come over and talk to us. We talked about all sorts of stuff, his English was excellent, and it was fascinating to learn from him what Burmese life was like. We did the currency conversion in our heads and figured out that he makes $50 U.S. a month, which is horrible. He has a wife, and 2 kids. He works 5 days a week, in 12-14 hour shifts. The days he doesn’t work, his wife works. He was one of the nicest guys I have ever met, and it was an absolute pleasure to meet such a polite and honest man. I immediately gained an unbelievable amount of respect for him. This is also true for the majority of the Burmese people I met. At the end of our hour long conversation, we gave him a very nice tip, the amount of which was more than he would have made in two days work. I left with a smile.

After our park experience, we grabbed a cab for 2 dollars each for a 45 minute ride, and headed back to the ship. We ate lunch on the ship, and then Steph and I got packed and met in the union for our 4 day trip to Bagan (pronounced buh-gan). I was unbelievably excited for this trip. I had seen pictures and read about the ancient city of Bagan. The civilizations that lived there over 1000 years ago built thousands and thousands of temples and stupas throughout the land. The fact that there were so many of these got me pumped to go. We left the ship around 2pm and boarded the buses for the Yangon airport. We arrived there about half an hour later and got our boarding passes for our flight on Air Bagan. Flying in Myanmar is a big thing, there are like 2 planes at the airport, and most of them are propeller. On the way back we took a jet and it was very exciting for our tour guides. Anyways, we waited in the airport for a while and watched some awful but hilarious Burmese TV. I noticed that it was air conditioned, which was a rare occurrence, and I looked at the air conditioner and it happened to be a Carrier air conditioner. Who would have thought that a Carrier air conditioner would be in an airport in Yangon, Myanmar? My dad would have been proud. So we boarded our plane, which wasn’t air conditioned, and I sweat my ass off for 55 minutes until we reached Bagan. As we flew over Bagan before we landed, the sights were incredible. I could see thousands of temples and stupas throughout the desert like land. When we landed, there were no other planes at the airport, which consisted of one runway, and we pulled right up to these huge gardens that led to the doors of the airport. It was very strange looking. We boarded our tour buses and met our guide, Lin, who was really cool. We got in to Bagan earlier than expected so he said we would visit a temple for sunset. Before I tell you about all the temples we visit, I apologize for not giving the names of them. There are so many that we visited and I just don’t remember the names. We arrived at a huge temple and climbed all the way to the top, barefoot of course. When I reached the top, I turned around and all I could see for miles and miles were thousands of ancient stone pagodas throughout the desert. It was one of the most beautiful sights I have ever seen. I can’t begin to describe to you how many there are. Some of them are small, and some of them are huge. No two look the same. We watched the sun set behind the backdrop of all the pagodas, and then we climbed down and went to our hotel.

We arrived at the Bagan Thande Hotel around 7pm, and we were given our room keys. This was one of the nicest hotels I have ever stayed in. All the bungalows were situated right on the Irrawaddy river. There was a big pool and beautiful gardens. The service was unbelievable; they wait on you hand and foot. In our room there were robes and little slippers you could wear. You bet I wore it. We then ate a huge delicious buffet dinner outside under the stars next to the river. It was really awesome. Since I had been up since 5am, I went to bed after taking a short walk to some temples with Steph.

We woke up at 7am the next day and headed out after breakfast for a visit to many temples throughout Bagan. We visited tons of them, each of them unique and interesting. I don’t have a lot to write about them, but you can see them in my pictures. We spent all morning doing that, and then we visited a primary school in a village. It was really cool to see all the kids and how they were taught in Myanmar. They sang their ABC’s for us in English, and we sang some songs back to them and hung out for a while. After that we ate lunch at a Chinese restaurant (not the same Chinese food as back home). The restaurant was the nicest restaurant in Bagan, and it was right on the river. The food was good and we left there after a while and went back to the hotel. From 1-3 is the hottest time of the day (hits between 100-110 degrees), so they always give us a break back at the hotel to go to our air conditioned rooms and hang out or whatever. Steph and I decided to take another walk outside of the hotel and explore more temples. We found some shops outside of a temple and looked at some t-shirts and paintings. When we were leaving, we heard someone calling our name. We looked up and saw our friend Jim at the top of a really big temple, sitting on a ledge and waving to us. We decided to climb up and see him. It felt like we were in an Indiana Jones movie. We climbed all the way to the top and sat with him on a tiny ledge hundreds of feet off the ground. He was talking to two Burmese teenagers who had followed him up. After a while another guy climbed up there and we began talking to him. He was from Ireland, and he used to work at a bank, said screw it, and now just travels the world by himself. As you can imagine, I found him fascinating and talked with him for a long time. It was awesome just sitting at the top of a temple and looking out at the thousands of other temples. It was so relaxing and I loved every minute of it. After the two Burmese teenagers, Jim, and the Ireland guy left, 2 little kids about 10 years old climbed up to talk to me and Steph. I knew it was only a matter of time before they would try to sell us something, so here is what the conversation was like:

“Hallo!” – Burmese boy
“Hi.” – Me
“Where you from?” - Burmese boy
“United States.” – Me
“Oh. How long you stay in Bagan for?” – Burmese boy
“Two more days. Where do you live?” – Me
“By da river.” - Burmese boy
“Do you like it?” – Me
“Yes I like it very much. All Americans are rich.” - Burmese boy
“Buddy, we are broke college students. No richness here. We have to go catch our bus now; I am going to climb down.” – Me
“Like Spiderman!” - Burmese boy
“Yeah, you know who Spiderman is?” – Me
“Yes!” - Burmese boy
“Do you know who Arnold Swarzenegger is?” – Me
“Yeah! Arnold Swarzeshsuejner” - Burmese boy
“Ok that was a hard name…. Do you know who Batman is?” – Me
“Yeah, Fatman!” - Burmese boy
“Ok, now you’re just making stuff up.” – Me
“Want to buy postcards? 12 for 1 dollah!” - Burmese boy
“Dude, if I buy anymore postcards than what I already have, I could own my own postcard business.” – Me

So we went back and caught our bus, with the usual group of people following us trying to sell postcards, fake rubies, and elephant figurines. We visited a few more temples, then we all boarded pony carts. There were two people per pony cart, and we drove through the desert around the thousands of temples. At each turn there was a new temple, and it was so cool to just ride throughout the maze of them. After that we watched the sun set from the Pyatthada pagoda, which I of course climbed all the way to the top of. I always climb higher than everyone else and they all look up at me hanging off the top and think I am crazy. Oh well. After the great sunset at the pagoda, we headed to a restaurant for dinner. The food was great, and there was a puppet show. Puppet shows are really big in Southeast Asia, and there was one at our dinner the night before too. Steph loved them, but I think they are just plain weird. The music is weird and the puppets are sometimes freaky looking when they dance around. Just one of those things that doesn’t interest me I guess… Anyways, after dinner we went back to the hotel. I went out to one of the tables by the river and wrote some postcards to people. Everyone must have gone to bed early because only one or two of my friends walked by. After my postcards I went to bed.

We woke up early again the next day and went to the markets. The markets were a combination of food and handicrafts. Walking through it and being the only foreigners there was very interesting. Of course, we were hassled and grabbed by every person there to buy things. There was all sorts of interesting stuff, like dead dried fish, weird vegetables, hand rolled cigars, and all sorts of clothing and souvenirs. Jim and I bought two longi’s, 3 shirts, and some souvenirs as well. Remember what I told you what a longi is? It is the skirt type pants that every man in Myanmar wears. With that and our traditional Burmese shirts, we looked damn sexy. Which reminds me, some more old Burmese ladies called me handsome in the markets. It was funny. After our crazy market experience, we got on the buses and began the one and a half hour drive to Mt. Popa. On the way there, we stopped at a small sugar factory/distillery that was just off the side of the road. We watched as a Burmese man climbed up a palm tree and collected the sugar water. They then boiled it under a hot fire, evaporating the water, and then rolled the sugar into little balls of candy. I bought two packets of them, they were really good. They also had a distillery there where several people tried a shot of some of the alcohol, similar to moonshine. They said it was really strong but good. I smoked a hand rolled cigar with some of the cool Burmese people and some friends, then we got back on the bus and continued the drive.

We arrived at Mt. Popa a little later. Mt. Popa is a huge mountain that is really tall, but skinny. Stairs lead all the way up it to a pagoda on the top with breathtaking views of the countryside below. I think this mountain should be renamed Mt. Monkey. There are monkeys EVERYWHERE. We started to walk up the long set of steps to the top when we first encountered the monkeys. They literally are everywhere you look, and you have to dodge them as you walk up. Some of them just sit in the middle of the stairs and chill there, while others are running back in forth and playing with each other. There are people who try to sell you “monkey food”, which is why I now understand why there are so many monkeys. The monkey food is wrapped in a little roll of newspaper about the size of my index finger, and the monkeys tear them apart and eat the food inside. Basically there is monkey food, newspaper shreds, monkey poop, and monkeys all over. Some of them will pull on the ladies skirts to give them food. It is pretty funny. We bought some bananas and threw them to the monkeys who opened them and wolfed it down in about 3 seconds. Anyways, enough about the monkeys. They were really cool though. We walked all the way to the top of Mt. Popa and saw the pagoda at the top. There really wasn’t much up there other than that and a great view, so it was a little disappointing that we hiked that high for not too much. After the hike we went to Mt. Popa resort for lunch, which overlooks the mountain. We had lunch there, and then we returned back to the main part of Bagan. We went to visit the most famous lacquer ware shop in Myanmar, which happened to be our tour guide Lin’s mom’s business. For the first time in the country I saw expensive items. A lacquer ware plate cost about $40. I wouldn’t expect it to be any less than that though because we saw how all of it is made. Each piece of lacquer ware takes about 6 months form start to finish. We saw how the lacquer ware is shaped, then etched all by hand, painted, and the lacquer is applied. It is a very long and arduous process for the people who make it. The lacquer ware really is beautiful stuff though. After the really nice shop, we went to a less nice lacquer ware shop, and I bought two drinking glasses there for $1 each. After that we traveled to the Shesandaw pagoda for another sunset. Once again I got as high as I could on the temple and we watched the sun set against the backdrop of the thousands of temples again. After that we returned to the hotel for a chance to shower and change before dinner. Our guide was extremely excited about the dinner that night and said that they only do dinners like this once a year. He said that we were going to have dinner outside of one of the largest temples in Bagan, and that there would be a show and dancing and music. He was really pumped about it and I finally understood why when we got there.

We left the hotel around 7pm and drove to the Dhammayangi temple. This was to be our “farewell” dinner since it was our last night in Bagan before we flew out in the morning. Everyone dressed up nice and wore their traditional Burmese clothing and longis they had bought around town. We arrived at the temple and it was very dark. We could see under the archway that the massive temple behind it was lit up with candles extending from the ground to the top. There were hundreds of candles on the outside of the temple and it was awesome. We approached the archway and there were two men dressed in a native warrior costume with their spears crossed blocking our way to the temple. We all took pictures of them then our guides said let’s go, and we walked up to the massive ancient stone temple lit up with candles all over it. There was a line of men wearing nothing but cloth longis carrying big flaming torches. It was so cool. We followed them down a path lit by torches along the side of temple to where there was a huge buffet set up with tables with white tablecloths. It was elegance outside in the desert next to an ancient temple lit up by candles. It was one of the most unbelievable sites I have experienced. I couldn’t believe I was there. We ate dinner outside and watched a traditional dance show on the steps of the temple in front of us. There was a whole band next to the stage playing music for the dancers. Some of the drums looked really cool, so I went to go check them out after we ate. One of the guys was sitting down behind a semicircle wall of bamboo about half my size. Along the bamboo were hand drums of all different corresponding lengths tied to it. It was like a really large tom-tom set, with many many more notes. He asked me if I wanted to play, and I sat down and busted out some crazy beats on the hand drums that really impressed the Burmese drummers. Some people from SAS were standing around, and they were like, “Where did you learn to do that?” It was pretty funny. So after my hands hurt from drumming, we hung out for a little while, then went back to the hotel. It was one of the coolest nights ever.

We woke up the next morning early at 5am, and went to the Bagan airport at 6. We boarded the jet that got all the tour guides excited because I guess it is a big thing to have a jet in Myanmar, and we flew the 55 minute flight back to Yangon. When we got to Yangon, we boarded the buses and went to visit the huge reclining Buddha. I don’t remember the exact length of the Buddha statue, but it is huge, and it lies on its side. There were tons of people there praying to it, and it was a pretty cool experience to see how they worshipped such an interesting object. After that we went and visited the Shwedagon pagoda, the most religious site in Myanmar. It was amazing. The grounds and temples around it were all marble and gold. The pagoda itself is pure gold at the top, and is also encrusted with several huge rubies, diamonds, jade, and all kinds of other precious stones. There were tons of people there, most of them praying and practicing their Buddhism. After that we went to the Trader’s Hotel for lunch, and when we got there we saw all the other trips were having lunch too. It was pretty cool that they all ended at the same time and came back on the same day. So I got together with lots of friends who had just come back form other trips in Yangon, Mandalay, Inle Lake, etc, and we all went to the huge market, Scott Market, in the center of Yangon. We walked around; Ryan bought a ton of stuff of course. I bought only one thing, and I love it. I found an artist who had a little shop on the side of the street. Ryan told me he had bought three of his paintings when he was walking around before. I saw one I really liked. It was big, I didn’t measure it exactly. I would say it is about 4 feet tall and maybe 6 feet long. It is of several monks walking through the countryside carrying their alms with a backdrop of temples behind them. Ryan told me the paintings were cheap, but I figured it had to be at least a 50 or 60 dollars. When I asked the man the price of it he told me $20. My mouth dropped, and Ryan told me that if I didn’t buy it he would kick me. I actually got the guy down to $18, because you just have to barter, and he rolled it up, packed it, and I was on my way. It definitely is one of my favorite purchases so far. I am sure the frame I buy for it will cost probably more than double the amount I paid for it. After our shopping, we got tired of the 100 degree weather, so we grabbed the shuttle back at the hotel for the 55 minute ride back to the ship. We got back to the ship; I threw down all my bags from my trip, and took a nice long needed shower.

A few hours later, Ryan, Quinn, Natalie, Liz, and I all decided to go out for dinner and some drinks on our last night in Myanmar. Our ship was scheduled to pull out at 12:30pm the next day, so we figured we would probably just sleep in because there wouldn’t be much time to go out in the morning. We dressed up nice, Ryan and I wore our sexy longis, and we headed out on the shuttle again for the city. We got there and asked around for a nice place to get some food. We saw the voyage videographer, Paddo, and he suggested we head across the street to the sky lounge at the top of this skyscraper. We headed up to the top floor, and the place was really cool. The lights were low, we sat on couches, and there was soft music playing. The walls were all windows from floor to ceiling which gave us a panoramic view of Yangon and several of the lit up pagodas. I actually saw Matt, Tony, and Alex there, but they left shortly afterwards for the place they always end up at in port, the bar. We ordered food, which was really good. We then ordered several drinks afterwards and stayed for a couple hours having fun and talking. Altogether, I had a full meal, 2 Singapore slings, 2 Tequila sunrises, one Mai Tai, one margarita, and ice cream for $22 U.S. It was the best deal ever, and that was one of the most pricy places in the city. After our fun night at the Sky Lounge, we grabbed a cab and all squeezed in for the 45 minute ride back to the port. On the way back, we had a pretty crazy experience. When we were almost to the port, a man in uniform stepped out in the road in front of our cab. Our driver slammed on the breaks and the man waved him to a side road. I looked at the man and realized it was a military officer. I then realized that this wasn’t good. We pulled onto a dirt road where a little stand was set up, and about 15 military personnel surrounded the cab. They all had automatic weapons. Quinn had fallen asleep on my shoulder and I woke her up in case we were to be interrogated or anything. The military personnel began demanding things from the driver. Our driver was clearly nervous, and was searching the cab for all his papers. This is not the first time I had seen this. I had seen the military constantly asking Burmese people for all sorts of papers. Our driver showed them several licenses and permits that they were yelling at him to give them. The many other military men who were around the cab started looking in at us with their flashlights and inspecting things. After about 5 minutes, we were let free. Nothing bad had happened to us or the driver, but it definitely made me nervous, and it was not the first time I had seen the oppression of the Burmese people by the military.

After we returned to the ship around midnight, I unpacked all my bags that I had dropped off before we left for dinner, and I then went to bed. I woke up the next morning, ate breakfast with everyone, and then we pulled away from the port of Yangon around 12:30 in the afternoon.

So now comes my conclusion, but I am not sure how much different it will be than when I started this entry. As I said earlier, this has by far been my most favorite place I have ever visited in my life. I will absolutely come back, and I want to bring people with me to show them Myanmar, or as it is also called, “the golden land”. Many people believe that no one should travel to Myanmar and that tourism is just giving in and accepting what the government does to the Burmese people. I don’t agree with this statement. I believe that tourism eventually will help the people of Myanmar. The more publicity in tourism that arises will open up the eyes of the world to what is happening in Myanmar. Other nations will finally realize that this country is a country that deserves a democracy, and I believe the only way for other nations to realize this is to open this country to the outside world. It is a fact that the military junta does not belong in power in Myanmar, and the NLD and Aung San Suu Kyi are the rightful leaders of Myanmar. I know that Aung San Suu Kyi has consistently said that tourism should not be allowed in Myanmar until a rightful democracy is established, but I believe that will not be possible until the country is opened up to the world by nothing other than tourism. Of course, this is all my opinion and I know there are many people who disagree with it. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but I think that it is safe to say that a consensus among both opinions is that the military junta should not be in power. I promised myself I wouldn’t talk about this but when I get on a roll, it just keeps coming. I feel strongly for this country.

So anyways, that’s Myanmar. I will be happy to answer any questions or concerns you have when I get back. Now to some logistics. My computer is crippled badly. I don’t know when I will get it working again, but until then, I can not upload any pictures online because the software to do that is on my computer. It is not easy to try and fix it when I have limited internet access, supplies, and communication with anyone outside the ship. So be patient for my pictures, once the computer is fixed they will be there, I will be sure of it. I need to get going now. I have a global studies exam tomorrow to study for, and then we get to Vietnam the next day. I will be spending the first day in Vietnam but after that I will be flying to Cambodia! I can not wait. I actually need to go find my lonely planet book for Vietnam right now, I lent it to someone and I don’t remember who….

Until next time, here is a quote to leave you with:
“…life is a series of voyages – some good and some bad – and you can’t make more than one at a time. All the past voyages are just that, and new voyages are mysterious and exciting.” – Frank Bama (WIJM)