Burmese Days...in Myanmar

We’re headed south, away from Yangon, Myranmar, down a long channel, before we turn west toward India. The sunset just a few minutes ago was spectacular, even though Dianne is sleeping and I’m staying in our cabin, not venturing out to the seventh floor forward deck where most of us station ourselves with cameras for port comings and goings. Our five days in Burma (the name of the country before the military dictatorship changed it to Myanmar in 1964) were punishing in many ways, not the least of which was the heat and high humidity. More stressful were constant sights of poverty in a country that is suffering from nearly world-wide economic and political sanctions. But the people forge on, usually staring us down as 700 of us descended on their country, for many of them had never seen a Westerner.

A love hate relationship is how Dianne sees it, loving the people, hating the government and the repression forced on the people. That makes daily interactions with the people, of which we had many, like walking on egg shells, careful to ask good questions, but not to push the people into dangerous territory. The story, told again and again in such modern profiles of Burma as Karaoke Fascism and Finding George Orwell in Burma, not to mention Orwell’s earlier Burmese Days, reminds us that engaging the people in a discussion of Suu Kyi, Nobel Laureate and currently under house arrest in her home on University Avenue, could get them killed. We’re constantly reminded that in 1989, when elections overwhelmingly demanded that the military withdraw from government, they refused.

Our five days were filled. Compared to Vietnam, Burma is three or more decades behind in development. Most of the infrastructure, streets, houses, hospitals, schools, even monasteries, is under terrible disrepair. The compulsory Buddhist education for all young in the country further isolates the people and makes them vulnerable to the whims of the government, which likely makes decisions based as much on astrology as on a will to power.

Our schedule was: day one, city tour. This included an introduction to the history and culture of this 5 million person city (with almost 60 million in the country), by an excellent guide. We stopped at the Colonial Building, Sule Pagoda, a local tea shop, the National Museum, the Bogyoke Aung San Market, the Chauk Htat Gyi Reclining Buddha, and finally, the spectacular Shwedagon Pagoda, towering 326 feet above Yangon. Day two, we spend with 1000 Buddhist novices, an amazing encounter between fifteen of us from the ship and a selection of young girls and boys in robes. Dianne and I sat on the floor of a large room, each with about 20 novices, engaging them in song, conversation and laughter for almost three hours. My group is one of the pictures I’ve included. Then we had a tug of war, mostly tugged by the children, then a cane ball toss, snacks and then sad goodbyes.

Day three, we traveled 35 minutes from our port to Thanlyin Village to sample “local life.” Originally a Portugese outpost for adventurer Philip De Brito, this town of 40000 has a local market and very friendly people. We talked to as many people as we could through the able services of our guide, who learned his excellent English from a mission school. He is a Chin, one of the seven ethnic minorities, who lead much of the opposition to the current government.

Day four was a free day. We took an early shuttle from the ship to town and walked all day. We met a wonderful couple who own a shop in the large city market; Dianne bought some native tapestries from them. On the final day, today, we took a five hour tour of handicraft factories, including Naga Glass Hand Blowing Factory, the Green Elephant Rattan Factory, a tea shop stop, and a woodworking block where the artisans were making elephants and buddhas. Burma is a country, really like all the others, that we fell in love with.