Yangon Airport looks like an early James Bond set, one that has been gathering dust and getting gradually more dilapidated for decades. Boarding passes get hand-written and the aircon conked out when I was there, changing the terminal climate from glacial to stifling in minutes. I wasn’t convinced that I would make it out of Myanmar until the plane to Bangkok actually left the ground. The sense that something could go wrong was omnipresent throughout my stay in Myanmar. Not only is every piece of infrastructure in a state of disrepair, the many authority figures administer a set of shifting incomprehensible rules and are not particularly open to negotation. Foreigners need to pay a US$10 departure tax. My twenty dollar note had an infinitesimal tear (we’re talking a one millimetre tear here…) on one side and hence was rejected as payment, a problem as I had absolutely no more cash and no means of getting any. It took twenty reasonably tense minutes and a few extra airport officials, including one with a gun, before my note was accepted. Keeer-razy.
Anyway, one hour on the plane and boom! Bangkok! Bright lights! Hyperstimulus! Consumer Culture! Fast moving traffic. I wandered through the ritzy Siam Paragon Mall near my hotel making conversation with myself about the products like some sort of demented DeLillo character. Oooh, look, I didn’t know that Philosophy made a Margarita bodywash, aren’t they clever. M.a.c girls, all around the world, they all look like beautiful space freaks. Mental note, Apple shop. I’m not even going to look at the marked-down Cacharel shirts and Camper shoes. Gee whiz, walk-in Balenciaga! I’m far too grotty to cross that threshold. Hello Haribo! Haribo GOLD! And so it went on. Nothing like a re-immersion in global consumer culture to make you feel right at home…
Showing posts with label Burma. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Burma. Show all posts
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
deserted ancient city blah blah blah
Cycling around Bagan in the low season is a lark! The reason mid-May is the low season for tourists in Burma is because it’s smack in between the hot season and the rainy season. The weather is supposed to be either very hot or very wet and possibly both. I managed to miss the rain and was lucky enough to have a fair amount of overcast weather to take the edge off the heat. There were about twenty foreign tourists in the area when I was there – half of whom were in a single tour group – which meant that most of the pagodas and temples are entirely deserted. Bagan covers about 42 square kilometres and comprises 2500 temples, pagodas and stupas. That means about sixty buildings per square kilometre. It’s AMAZING. Riding down dirt tracks, avoiding flocks of goats and pot-holes, there are pagodas to go. You can climb to the top terraces through dark passageways and stare out over plains and palm trees trying to count the lotus tips on the near horizon.
Yes, that's me looking slightly windswept and overheated on top of a temple. Note many more in the background. This photo was taken by the keymaster of the temple whose lunch I interrupted. In spite of the bright light outside, you need to take a torch firstly because there are exciting hidden passages and stairways to clamber through and secondly because there are so many paintings inside dark corners of the buildings to see. Although there has been a little reconstruction work done – smoothing out of terraces and repainting of Buddhas – Bagan hasn’t had the full UNESCO treatment. This is undoubtedly a bad thing in terms of cultural preservation (and possibly injury avoidance) but it does mean that you can indulge in nineteenth century explorer fantasies (if you happen to harbour them) and explore and speculate the terrain with very little explanatory infrastructure and few prohibitions. The whole experience - temples, heat, isolation, goats - was a little hallucinatory. Hence, perhaps, the post-colonial nostalgia for nineteenth century nostalgia for ancient civilisations.
This is the tallest temple in Bagan, That Bin Nyu. As far as I know, the Bagan temples have not provided the locations for any adventure films.
Yes, that's me looking slightly windswept and overheated on top of a temple. Note many more in the background. This photo was taken by the keymaster of the temple whose lunch I interrupted. In spite of the bright light outside, you need to take a torch firstly because there are exciting hidden passages and stairways to clamber through and secondly because there are so many paintings inside dark corners of the buildings to see. Although there has been a little reconstruction work done – smoothing out of terraces and repainting of Buddhas – Bagan hasn’t had the full UNESCO treatment. This is undoubtedly a bad thing in terms of cultural preservation (and possibly injury avoidance) but it does mean that you can indulge in nineteenth century explorer fantasies (if you happen to harbour them) and explore and speculate the terrain with very little explanatory infrastructure and few prohibitions. The whole experience - temples, heat, isolation, goats - was a little hallucinatory. Hence, perhaps, the post-colonial nostalgia for nineteenth century nostalgia for ancient civilisations. 
This is the tallest temple in Bagan, That Bin Nyu. As far as I know, the Bagan temples have not provided the locations for any adventure films.Saturday, May 19, 2007
Beers of Myanmar
I may be way out of line in making this claim and if so, I will happily be corrected. Nonetheless, I venture forth. I do declare that I have sampled no less than THREE beers which have not sullied the palate of my good friend Fil of the Czechlands, a man who has tasted more beers than anyone else I know, a man who has traversed continents in pursuit of an elusive new drop, a man who has diligently recorded the attributes of many thousands of beers. To the fund of common knowledge, I humbly present the following, available, I believe, only in
a)
This is the standard b)
This ale is reasonably punchy, I must say. 7% alcohol content, a little bitter, very pubby. It’s a little bit rough around the edges: a big gulp makes me wince and can bring tears to my eyes. c) Spirulina Beer.
The ads for Spirulina Beer show a glass full of dark green liquid. Fortunately this is not the case when it is poured out of the bottle. The beer is not undrinkable nor is it very good. The label declares that it is an anti-ageing drink which will help the drinker stay young forever, presumably due to the spirulina. I’ve given pretty short shrift to the health-giving claims made about spirulina. I think with Spirulina Beer, we have another snake oil situation and it’s all revealed in the fine print. This beer has 0.5% spirulina content and 5% alcohol content. That means there is TEN TIMES more alcohol in this beer than spirulina. If
There are plenty of draught beers available as well – Dagon, ABC (‘An Easy Beer’), and my personal favourite, SKOL (‘It means Cheers.’). These are served in beer stations, sites of homosocial exchange if ever there were. Blokes, sitting around, drinking beer, smoking cheroots, chewing betel leaf, and apparently singing karaoke late at night. There’s definitely a ‘No Sheilas’ vibe to beer station culture. I didn’t see any women in the beer stations after about seven at night, and certainly no foreign women ALONE. This particular anti-patriarchal battle was one that I could not fight on my own. I did, however, spend a fairly boozy final night in
Coffee?
This is the best coffee Myanmar
Coffeemix three-in-one sachets. That’s instant coffee, instant milk, and instant sugar all in the one convenient sachet. The only alternative to Coffeemix that I’ve encountered is pretty dire and tastes like coffee grounds recycled fifteen times and wrung through an old sock with a bit of dishwater added to balance the flavours. A shop in Nyaung U advertised espresso in the window but their machine was broken. It’s almost, at a long and desperate stretch, a relief to find a sachet of Coffeemix at breakfast.
You just open the sachet, tip it into a cup, pour over hot water and hey presto! Coffee! Or something like that.
I don’t think I have ever been so under-caffeinated in my entire life. I drink gallons of Chinese tea with meals. When you order black tea here, it is actually black, so strong and tannin-tart that it is pretty hard to drink. Tea with milk is usually the same with a bit of powdered milk stirred in. If you’re really unlucky, you score a three-in-one tea sachet which is very bad news. I think if I drank a decent cup of coffee, I wouldn’t stop jiggling for days. I also think I would be very happy. A strong cappuccino from a café would be ideal but I’d cope with stovetop espresso, I’d cope with a cup of plunger coffee, I’d even cope with a cup of Blend 43, for crying out loud. If the traveller must (yawn) face the challenge of breaking habits and redefining her comfort zone, the caffeine situation is certainly amplifying the challenges for me.
Coffeemix three-in-one sachets. That’s instant coffee, instant milk, and instant sugar all in the one convenient sachet. The only alternative to Coffeemix that I’ve encountered is pretty dire and tastes like coffee grounds recycled fifteen times and wrung through an old sock with a bit of dishwater added to balance the flavours. A shop in Nyaung U advertised espresso in the window but their machine was broken. It’s almost, at a long and desperate stretch, a relief to find a sachet of Coffeemix at breakfast.
You just open the sachet, tip it into a cup, pour over hot water and hey presto! Coffee! Or something like that.
I don’t think I have ever been so under-caffeinated in my entire life. I drink gallons of Chinese tea with meals. When you order black tea here, it is actually black, so strong and tannin-tart that it is pretty hard to drink. Tea with milk is usually the same with a bit of powdered milk stirred in. If you’re really unlucky, you score a three-in-one tea sachet which is very bad news. I think if I drank a decent cup of coffee, I wouldn’t stop jiggling for days. I also think I would be very happy. A strong cappuccino from a café would be ideal but I’d cope with stovetop espresso, I’d cope with a cup of plunger coffee, I’d even cope with a cup of Blend 43, for crying out loud. If the traveller must (yawn) face the challenge of breaking habits and redefining her comfort zone, the caffeine situation is certainly amplifying the challenges for me.
Perhaps of limited interest outside the family circle…
Pyin U Lwin is famous for gardens, fruit, flowers, and plants. I went there to check out the Botanical Gardens on my birthday. All said, they were pretty great, even though the 270 varieties of orchid in the orchid garden weren’t in bloom. A bamboo garden with 70 stands of bamboo. Lots of big trees. My first encounter with the takin, a beast which is like a cross between a moose and a buffalo. And how strange, petunias advertised as exotic foreign drawcards.
The temperature in Pyin U Lwin is much lower than in
Pop pop strawberry jam! Hoo-rah!
Incidentally, the area is also renowned for its fruit wines. I sampled grape, strawberry, and pineapple wines and decided to take home a leetle bottle of sweet damson wine. To be honest, it tasted like booze made in a bucket, a cheap and rocky port, but I still found myself able to quaff a few drams in the interests of research. Damson wine is, however, definitely a safer option than the super cheap
Hard Boiled Egg Mystery Cracked!
I struggled making small talk with an Englishman called Derek during a break on the long bumpy bus trip to Bagan from Mandalay Myanmar 
I asked Derek what kinds of bird he thought they were and he replied with unexpected vigour, ‘Definitely NOT quails, their legs are too big.’ It turned out that Dezza was a quail fancier and had kept them as pets for many years. The tasty little hard-boiled eggs sold in the markets are, according to my man, definitely and without a doubt, quail’s eggs, and probably the eggs of the Chinese Painted Quail. So now I know.
I asked Derek what kinds of bird he thought they were and he replied with unexpected vigour, ‘Definitely NOT quails, their legs are too big.’ It turned out that Dezza was a quail fancier and had kept them as pets for many years. The tasty little hard-boiled eggs sold in the markets are, according to my man, definitely and without a doubt, quail’s eggs, and probably the eggs of the Chinese Painted Quail. So now I know.
That's Shan, not Sham
The Shan province of Myanmar lies in the east of the country and borders Laos and China Myanmar
Each bowl of Shan noodles I’ve eaten has been a happy variation on a theme. A cold few dollops of chicken or pork in an intense thick garlic, tomato and chilli sauce are plonked on top of a bowl of hot fresh rice noodles. Next up, spoonfuls of coriander, roasted peanuts, sesame seeds, spices (szechuan pepper and five spice…maybe), little bit of sugar, little bit of salt. On the side, loads of Chinese tea, lime, a little bowl of sour pickles – cabbage or some random greenery in vinegar – and a bowl of soup to slurp or to drizzle over the noodles. The soup is A-M-A-Z-I-N-G. The first time I ate this dish, I thought the crockery was dirty due to the swirl of black gritty stuff at the bottom of the bowl. Not so. What I thought was just a plain ol’ onion and chicken stock with a bit of floating shallot and coriander is that, but it is ladled over a big spoonful of ground pepper (white and szechuan, I think…) which turns it into something worthy of rhapsody. The soup stretches out the sauce, lubricates the noodles, turns the spices and nuts into a paste. It is not out of the question that one of the white powders sprinkled on top is MSG. That, or cocaine because this is a pretty delectable and moreish dish. I’ve resolved to keep eating Shan noodles, to keep asking questions about ingredients, and to discover the secret. Oh yeah, RRP $0.50AU.
Each bowl of Shan noodles I’ve eaten has been a happy variation on a theme. A cold few dollops of chicken or pork in an intense thick garlic, tomato and chilli sauce are plonked on top of a bowl of hot fresh rice noodles. Next up, spoonfuls of coriander, roasted peanuts, sesame seeds, spices (szechuan pepper and five spice…maybe), little bit of sugar, little bit of salt. On the side, loads of Chinese tea, lime, a little bowl of sour pickles – cabbage or some random greenery in vinegar – and a bowl of soup to slurp or to drizzle over the noodles. The soup is A-M-A-Z-I-N-G. The first time I ate this dish, I thought the crockery was dirty due to the swirl of black gritty stuff at the bottom of the bowl. Not so. What I thought was just a plain ol’ onion and chicken stock with a bit of floating shallot and coriander is that, but it is ladled over a big spoonful of ground pepper (white and szechuan, I think…) which turns it into something worthy of rhapsody. The soup stretches out the sauce, lubricates the noodles, turns the spices and nuts into a paste. It is not out of the question that one of the white powders sprinkled on top is MSG. That, or cocaine because this is a pretty delectable and moreish dish. I’ve resolved to keep eating Shan noodles, to keep asking questions about ingredients, and to discover the secret. Oh yeah, RRP $0.50AU.
free fall
I’ve returned to Gravity’s Rainbow after a bit of a pause and am now immersed, infuriated, confused and completely SOLD. It’s a strange and masochistic satisfaction, being halfway through a very difficult book and knowing that you’ll have to return to the beginning and read it through again a couple of times before the pieces start to fall into place. It’s hilarious, perverse, paranoid, encyclopediac, schizoid and dazzlingly labyrinthine in terms of plot. I have no idea what the hell is going on. I desperately want to have a long ranty boozy conversation about this book with someone so I’ve been sitting in public places reading with the cover on full public view. Thus far, no one has walked up to me and started to enthuse. Now if I see people who are reading books that are particularly excellent and they don’t look like they will bite, I usually go and earbash them. Why will no-one come and talk Pynchon to me? Pynchon readers are freakazoid cultists, for crying out loud! I have questions… If I had full-time net access, I’d probably be plugged into Spermatikos Logikos or whatever it is called (actually quite good Pynchon fansite accessible through the really quite good The Modern Word) trawling through all the allusions that space cadets mourning the passage of modernism have gathered in their spare time. Doesn’t anybody study Postmodernism anymore? It can’t have gone out of fashion that quickly. I mean, I was teaching a course on Postmodernism last year and Pynchon was on the syllabus.
The closest I have come to a Pynchon chat was with a nice young feller sitting next to me on the bus who read the back cover when I went off for a wander. ‘Your book sounds a bit interesting,’ he said on my return. I think the blurb about the coincidence of Slothrop’s sexual conquests and the flight of the V-2 bombers is what got his attention because when I started rabbiting on about Pynchon, his eyes glazed over reasonably quickly and he started fidgeting in a purposeful manner with the controls of his iPod. Honestly. If some big dumb square-jawed American college jock walked up and said, ‘Pynchon, dude, aaaawesome,’ I’d be happy.
Hopefully by this stage, I’d be at the whiskey blurry phase of the conversation and then I’d really start to speculate about the great faceless polyvalent complexity that is the War, the possible putative mysterious controlling force of the narrative and History and then try to find some contemporary analogies…the event an always deferred eventuality, a delayed reverberation of its own consequence. And then I’d confess my recurring daydream that I sit next to TP on a plane and recognise him from that early Navy photo and the James Bone expose and play it cool about the whole secret identity thing and he knows that I know and we get on like a house on fire and it’s all really knowing and we have a long convoluted cryptic conversation which turns into a mutual admiration session and then we become friends and hang out from time to time and exchange slightly obscure but vital emails and I have to somehow keep it under my hat that Thomas Pynchon and I are Great Mates, Chums in spite of Chance…
Monday, May 14, 2007
really still alive
I'm having an unprecedented level of success with this computer so I'm going to post a dodgy hotel room photobooth number of myself to prove to all that I really am alive and well! Classy, I know but martinis aren't available for love or money in this town.
Vast numbers of photos to come. If my Cambodia slide night will be called Wat Rocks Which Rubbles, my Myanmar night might be called Super Stupa Stupor... Enough! I'm off to have dinner with my new Burmese mates...
Two wheels good
Cycling in Mandalay
Hazards
- Hiring a bike with no brakes.
- There are more pot-holes than roads.
- Forgetting that the traffic moves on the right hand side of the road.
- Cows.
- Exhaust pipes from trucks and pick-up trucks which exude foul black smoke at about head height. No regulation of exhaust fumes, it would seem. Hey, I’ve stopped smoking. There’s plenty of room in my lungs for exhaust fumes.
- People carrying building and plumbing supplies on bicycles – ie long planks and pipes. Nearly lost my head a couple of times.
- Lurching buses whose movements follow a logic set down in an alternate universe.
Perks
- Time to say hello to everyone.
- Most of the cars and motorbikes are pretty antiquated and don’t go very fast.
- No hills.
- Being offered rubies and jade for sale when you hire the bike.
- Lots of old ladies to tailgate and hence stay alive. Same principle as crossing the road behind a nun in Rome.
- Opportunity to mentally note the bars which sell that little-known Mandalay speciality, Spirulina Beer. It’s dark green.
- The approach of the buses and indeed all motorised vehicles is heralded by lots of beeping.
After sitting down for eleven days and meditating, some strenuous activity was in order. I hired a bike from my friend Mr Htoo and rode to Amarapura, the nineteenth century capital of Burma, about an hour’s ride away from Mandalay. Many pagodas around a lake and an incredibly beautiful old bridge, U Bein’s Bridge, about 1km long and leading to small fishing villages.
Ridiculous sunset scenes of water, fisherfolk, stupas and pagodas, mountain range backdrop, small boats. Riding to one of the pagodas, a woman approached me and started to chat. She lead me around the pagoda and before I knew it, she had invited me to her house down the road, grabbed her husband and got him to give her a lift on his bike to show me more palaces and pagodas and then ride back to Mandalay with me. Ko Kyu and Jujeh took me out to dinner, bought me traditional Burmese sweets, introduced me to their friends and escorted me back to my guesthouse. I don’t think there are too many lessons in Burmese schools about stranger danger. I think being a woman travelling alone attracts particularly sympathetic attention (‘ah, so you’re a spinster…’) but I’m nonetheless still a bit startled by all of this friendliness.
Hazards
- Hiring a bike with no brakes.
- There are more pot-holes than roads.
- Forgetting that the traffic moves on the right hand side of the road.
- Cows.
- Exhaust pipes from trucks and pick-up trucks which exude foul black smoke at about head height. No regulation of exhaust fumes, it would seem. Hey, I’ve stopped smoking. There’s plenty of room in my lungs for exhaust fumes.
- People carrying building and plumbing supplies on bicycles – ie long planks and pipes. Nearly lost my head a couple of times.
- Lurching buses whose movements follow a logic set down in an alternate universe.
Perks
- Time to say hello to everyone.
- Most of the cars and motorbikes are pretty antiquated and don’t go very fast.
- No hills.
- Being offered rubies and jade for sale when you hire the bike.
- Lots of old ladies to tailgate and hence stay alive. Same principle as crossing the road behind a nun in Rome.
- Opportunity to mentally note the bars which sell that little-known Mandalay speciality, Spirulina Beer. It’s dark green.
- The approach of the buses and indeed all motorised vehicles is heralded by lots of beeping.
After sitting down for eleven days and meditating, some strenuous activity was in order. I hired a bike from my friend Mr Htoo and rode to Amarapura, the nineteenth century capital of Burma, about an hour’s ride away from Mandalay. Many pagodas around a lake and an incredibly beautiful old bridge, U Bein’s Bridge, about 1km long and leading to small fishing villages.
Ridiculous sunset scenes of water, fisherfolk, stupas and pagodas, mountain range backdrop, small boats. Riding to one of the pagodas, a woman approached me and started to chat. She lead me around the pagoda and before I knew it, she had invited me to her house down the road, grabbed her husband and got him to give her a lift on his bike to show me more palaces and pagodas and then ride back to Mandalay with me. Ko Kyu and Jujeh took me out to dinner, bought me traditional Burmese sweets, introduced me to their friends and escorted me back to my guesthouse. I don’t think there are too many lessons in Burmese schools about stranger danger. I think being a woman travelling alone attracts particularly sympathetic attention (‘ah, so you’re a spinster…’) but I’m nonetheless still a bit startled by all of this friendliness.
Post-hermitage
Ten days silent meditation did do me the world of good but if someone had opened a portal to anywhere in the world at almost any point on the way through, I would have leapt through it. There were mango and banana and tamarind trees everywhere, all sorts of interesting geckos and lizards and tropical flowers, a mountain range topped by stupas in the background… and yet I was sending loud mental messages to my sisters, the only people who had any chance of contacting me, to call and somehow bail me out. My notebook is full of loud complaints and what-the-hell-am-I-doing-here musings, but now that they are in the past, the process doesn’t seem quite so onerous. Let’s say that I felt extremely deprived of many things precious to me (eating after noon, talking, caffeine, protein, dairy, reading, sugar, alcohol, gluten, hot water, mattress, music, eye contact with other people, shared cultural inhibitions about burping, farting and spitting) although not unaware that I had voluntarily submitted to these deprivations and would have to endure them only temporarily. I also felt more conspicuous than I ever have in my entire life, being the only foreigner amongst 150 meditators, the only non-Burmese speaker and hence the only person who benefited from the English language teachings, the only person not wearing a skirt or baring ankles (everyone else was properly attired in a floor-length longhyi), the only one to get an extra banana at meals (the staff were adamant that I needed the extra calories), and, for the first time in my life, much taller than everyone else in the room. Anyway, after all this, when the talking stared, people were extraordinarily kind and curious and welcoming and very excited by the fact of a westerner practising Buddhist meditation. A few of the younger women spoke a little bit of English and helped me interact with other people. I met people from little villages who had never met a foreigner and old ladies and school students and all sorts in between. People were touching my hair and skin and passing around the few family photos I’ve carried with me. I reckon the Pike sisters could make it big in this country. It was pretty overwhelming. Under other circumstances, I’d be a little unnerved by lots of people I’d never met before taking my hand and telling me to be happy but it seemed less strange in this environment.
And what else? I did discover that I have a grot threshold, news which my family and perhaps those who have been fortunate enough to share dwellings with me will no doubt rejoice in. After thirty years, I have reached a point where I ardently wished to return from filth. My clothes were filthy and rank washing water left the body wearing them even filthier. The fans and aircon in the meditation hall in which I spent 12 hours daily conked out pretty regularly making for a pretty stinky environment. Previously, I’ve maintained a homeopathic attitude to grot – good for the immune system – and argued that too much attention to cleaning can stimulate OCD and other pathological behaviours. Domesticity is anti-feminist, cleaning agents are environmentally unsound, hygiene obsessiveness speaks of an alienation from the body… After all this, I actually had visions of a super-clean bathroom with a big bath in the middle of it, thick fluffy towels and endless hot water. This has never happened to me in my entire life. I’m confident I’ll get over it.
Although vipassana meditation is supposed to liberate you from cravings, I found myself dreaming lurid dreams about food. My food cravings are generally pretty consistent, pretty weighted towards the salty and acidic: olives, pickled sardines and anchovies, feety blue cheese with a gritty ammoniac bite, tom yam, taramasalata, lemon juice, salsa verde, poached eggs… the regulars. To my surprise, I was hurled into an entirely new galaxy of culinary desire. I would have exchanged a kidney for a good baguette with some salty French butter and fig jam and a large bowl of sweet milky coffee. Scrambled eggs. Ginger beer. Bread and butter pudding. Gelato. Bratwurst and sauerkraut and mustard. Cold-weather European comfort food, I suppose. The people at the meditation centre were lovely. The people cooking the food were also lovely and I almost cried when a yummy eggplant curry was served for lunch. That said, I’ll be avoiding lentil stodge for some time. I never want to know what is in Burmese cordial. This was all I consumed after midday each day (until I realised on Day 6 that I was also eligible for a lump of palm sugar) and tasted like a supersweet medicinal mouthwash. I’ve really been enjoying the Myanmar Lager since I left. It’s a nice drop and I believe it’s brewed here in Mandalay.
And what else? I did discover that I have a grot threshold, news which my family and perhaps those who have been fortunate enough to share dwellings with me will no doubt rejoice in. After thirty years, I have reached a point where I ardently wished to return from filth. My clothes were filthy and rank washing water left the body wearing them even filthier. The fans and aircon in the meditation hall in which I spent 12 hours daily conked out pretty regularly making for a pretty stinky environment. Previously, I’ve maintained a homeopathic attitude to grot – good for the immune system – and argued that too much attention to cleaning can stimulate OCD and other pathological behaviours. Domesticity is anti-feminist, cleaning agents are environmentally unsound, hygiene obsessiveness speaks of an alienation from the body… After all this, I actually had visions of a super-clean bathroom with a big bath in the middle of it, thick fluffy towels and endless hot water. This has never happened to me in my entire life. I’m confident I’ll get over it.
Although vipassana meditation is supposed to liberate you from cravings, I found myself dreaming lurid dreams about food. My food cravings are generally pretty consistent, pretty weighted towards the salty and acidic: olives, pickled sardines and anchovies, feety blue cheese with a gritty ammoniac bite, tom yam, taramasalata, lemon juice, salsa verde, poached eggs… the regulars. To my surprise, I was hurled into an entirely new galaxy of culinary desire. I would have exchanged a kidney for a good baguette with some salty French butter and fig jam and a large bowl of sweet milky coffee. Scrambled eggs. Ginger beer. Bread and butter pudding. Gelato. Bratwurst and sauerkraut and mustard. Cold-weather European comfort food, I suppose. The people at the meditation centre were lovely. The people cooking the food were also lovely and I almost cried when a yummy eggplant curry was served for lunch. That said, I’ll be avoiding lentil stodge for some time. I never want to know what is in Burmese cordial. This was all I consumed after midday each day (until I realised on Day 6 that I was also eligible for a lump of palm sugar) and tasted like a supersweet medicinal mouthwash. I’ve really been enjoying the Myanmar Lager since I left. It’s a nice drop and I believe it’s brewed here in Mandalay.
Nice country, shame about the government.
I have met so many friendly Burmese people that I am coming damn close to that sweeping paternalistic generalisation: the people are all just lovely. Expressions like this usually make my blood run backward because of their generality, because the loveliness of the people is sometimes offered as a redemption for bad living conditions, because they are so often used by wealthy Westerners about very poor people from developing countries and tend to fetishise sweet little others. So let me say that I have had the privilege to meet many kind and hospitable Burmese people and have not encountered any nasty, aggressive, hostile or rude people. There’s a fair amount of haggling over prices but all is conducted in good humour. Wherever I have been, I have met people who are keen to chat, to practice their English, to see if I am OK, to help me out. Hot topics: the weather in Australia, religion, family, will I return to Myanmar, Burmese food. Random acts of charity abound and I have been completely overwhelmed by the kindness of strangers. People have invited me into their homes, led me around pagodas, given me lifts and gifts (I had to say no to a caramel coloured four week old kitten, alas), helped me order food and generally made my days very merry.
Obviously though, not all Burmese people are friendly and compassionate because the government stinks. Almost twenty years after Aung San Suu Kyi was elected to government, she is still under arrest. The military government is completely corrupt and inefficient and seems utterly disinterested in the welfare of the people. Electricity supply is sporadic at best and hence there are plenty of generator shops and fix-it supplies for sale on every corner. The out of sight (and smell), out of mind principle does not govern sewage or garbage disposal. There’s reasonable but not drinkable water supplied in the cities but not in the countryside. Most of the bottled water is sold by government run businesses. Health care is non existent. Education is difficult to access, especially for people in the villages. A kind of freedom of religion exists on the condition that there is no intervention in political matters by religious leaders. There is no freedom whatsoever of political communication. Ten thousand politicians are in jail. There are a million troops in a nation of 56 million people. Mail can be confiscated randomly. The government controls the banks and can and do requisition people’s money whenever. You see forced labour gangs supervised by military police fixing up the roads. Everybody I have met works very very hard to maintain a low standard of living. It’s horrific. Some people will come right out and condemn the government straight away but having heard stories of people being reported to the police for talking politics to foreigners, I’m reluctant to bring the topic up. There are very faint visible echoes of big bad global culture, but very few. Some knock off clothing, 80s rock styling (a band call Iron Cross are the big Myanmar rockers, a guy called Jojo told me), weird ads, but not much else. Myanmar has restricted trade relationships with ASEAN nations and a wide open door to China. Diplomatic relationships have just been re-established with North Korea too. Belching trucks from China roll down the highways to the ports in the south of Myanmar and there are, people tell me, more and more Chinese businesses popping up, legitimate and illegitimate.
Anyway, there is a school of thought which says that travel to Myanmar entails tacit support of this regime. I don’t entirely agree but I do think that it is important not to be a completely passive voyager through the country. It would be hard to do so as people are very chatty and it’s pretty hard to ignore the signs of a completely dysfunctional system of governance. Indeed, outside government buildings and businesses there are all sorts of very sinister signs which could have been scripted by Orwell. I’m definitely not game to take any photos in these places as there are generally armed military cops nearby and I stick out like a sore thumb. Outside Mandalay Palace is a big one which reads ‘The Tattadaw (army) will never betray the interests of the Nation.’ Outside the Defence Training Academy in Pyin U Lwin, 'The Triumphant Elite of the Future.' On the way to Amanapura, on a billboard outside a government owned cigarette factory is a very chilly list of ‘The People’s Desires’, written in Burmese and English. ‘Destroy internal and external influences which jeopardise the stability of the nation.’ The stability of the nation, of course, means the stability of the inherited military regime – the current leader is the son of the man who led the coup in the 1960s. Even though the US and other parties in the Coalition of the Willing don’t trade with Myanmar and issue stern injunctions about regime from time to time, it’s not hard to concoct some cynical responses to the pro-democratic rhetoric impelling regime change elsewhere. Idle conspiracy theorists could start by considering Myanmar’s significance to US military-industrial interests and relationship to China and go from there.
Obviously though, not all Burmese people are friendly and compassionate because the government stinks. Almost twenty years after Aung San Suu Kyi was elected to government, she is still under arrest. The military government is completely corrupt and inefficient and seems utterly disinterested in the welfare of the people. Electricity supply is sporadic at best and hence there are plenty of generator shops and fix-it supplies for sale on every corner. The out of sight (and smell), out of mind principle does not govern sewage or garbage disposal. There’s reasonable but not drinkable water supplied in the cities but not in the countryside. Most of the bottled water is sold by government run businesses. Health care is non existent. Education is difficult to access, especially for people in the villages. A kind of freedom of religion exists on the condition that there is no intervention in political matters by religious leaders. There is no freedom whatsoever of political communication. Ten thousand politicians are in jail. There are a million troops in a nation of 56 million people. Mail can be confiscated randomly. The government controls the banks and can and do requisition people’s money whenever. You see forced labour gangs supervised by military police fixing up the roads. Everybody I have met works very very hard to maintain a low standard of living. It’s horrific. Some people will come right out and condemn the government straight away but having heard stories of people being reported to the police for talking politics to foreigners, I’m reluctant to bring the topic up. There are very faint visible echoes of big bad global culture, but very few. Some knock off clothing, 80s rock styling (a band call Iron Cross are the big Myanmar rockers, a guy called Jojo told me), weird ads, but not much else. Myanmar has restricted trade relationships with ASEAN nations and a wide open door to China. Diplomatic relationships have just been re-established with North Korea too. Belching trucks from China roll down the highways to the ports in the south of Myanmar and there are, people tell me, more and more Chinese businesses popping up, legitimate and illegitimate.
Anyway, there is a school of thought which says that travel to Myanmar entails tacit support of this regime. I don’t entirely agree but I do think that it is important not to be a completely passive voyager through the country. It would be hard to do so as people are very chatty and it’s pretty hard to ignore the signs of a completely dysfunctional system of governance. Indeed, outside government buildings and businesses there are all sorts of very sinister signs which could have been scripted by Orwell. I’m definitely not game to take any photos in these places as there are generally armed military cops nearby and I stick out like a sore thumb. Outside Mandalay Palace is a big one which reads ‘The Tattadaw (army) will never betray the interests of the Nation.’ Outside the Defence Training Academy in Pyin U Lwin, 'The Triumphant Elite of the Future.' On the way to Amanapura, on a billboard outside a government owned cigarette factory is a very chilly list of ‘The People’s Desires’, written in Burmese and English. ‘Destroy internal and external influences which jeopardise the stability of the nation.’ The stability of the nation, of course, means the stability of the inherited military regime – the current leader is the son of the man who led the coup in the 1960s. Even though the US and other parties in the Coalition of the Willing don’t trade with Myanmar and issue stern injunctions about regime from time to time, it’s not hard to concoct some cynical responses to the pro-democratic rhetoric impelling regime change elsewhere. Idle conspiracy theorists could start by considering Myanmar’s significance to US military-industrial interests and relationship to China and go from there.
Delicacies of Mandalay
I’ve been very worried about getting sick in Myanmar and so my eating has been a little less adventurous. I am more worried about getting sick here than anywhere else. I’ve got very little money with which to bribe officials and the absence of any Western NGOs and aid organizations, not to mention aid-trade partnerships means that Western medicine is a long way away. By a long way away, I mean Bangkok. I’ve seen the hospital, I’ve seen the derelict Mandalay medical school, I’ve seen a clinic with a sign outside reading ‘Creative Health Care’ and believe me, I do not want to have my stomach pumped in this country nor do I want any needles inserted into any part of my body. Given that everything which is vaguely related to the modern world – technology, machinery, cars – seems to be at least ten years old and delivered via an overheated truck from China, I think I am also pretty keen to give the pharmaceuticals a pretty wide berth. Somewhat cautious eating, then, to avoid creative health care. What does this mean? It means a set of non-binding limits: I’m a little reluctant to get stuck into too much meat; after meeting some med students who told horror stories about the bugs which live on the feet of flies, anything which has been a home to flies for a fair amount of time is off the menu; unwashed fruit and veges are verboten; ice from street-stalls to be avoided. I’ve been a bit shy about taking photos about street food and couldn’t upload them anyway… but will do so when I reach the tech-metropolis of Bangkok next week.
* Boiled eggs get sold everywhere on the street. Unlike in Cambodia and Thailand, these do not appear to be the eggs of hens but of some far smaller squawker. The eggs are the size of quail’s eggs and are speckled to boot but somehow, I don’t think that is what they are. Boiled at least to buggery and hence probably beyond salmonella, they could be pigeon’s eggs for all I know. Excellent, sold with a little bag of salt, and at 4 for less than 10c, a very reasonable snack.
* How can anything that has been deep-fried in a wok on the side of the street harbour any bacteria? Women sit by the street cooking little veggie patties which are like pakoras: corn, spinachy lentils, peas, chickpeas all held together with chickpea flour, served with chilli sauce. Also extremely cheap (10c each) and yummy with deep-fried bananas for dessert as a bonus. The deep-fried bananas are not for the faint of heart. Fortunately, I am extremely sturdy of heart. The bananas in Myanmar are excellent.
* I was invited for lunch with the family of my lovely friend Daw Ton, a woman who I met on vipassana. Daw Ton and her family presented the epitome of Burmese hospitality. I was served a dry tomato fish curry crunchy with little bones and fins, okra in sour soup, mixed veges, pickled beansprouts, sweet pumpkin curry… and the piece de resistance? A curry made of congealed chicken’s blood. Congealed chicken’s blood resembles dark red tofu in appearance and texture. Oh, these people were so kind and hospitable! There was no way I could refuse the main course of the meal so I thought that I would just deal with the chook matter and eat it first off with a big smile and then move on to the rest. Of course, this was understood as a sign of great enjoyment and more and more was piled onto my plate. This was endurance eating. What can I say about congealed chook’s blood? It’s not as bad as it sounds, but the bad sound of it blurred my capacity to objectively taste it. Quite bland and very rich. I could never get excited about black pudding, one of my father’s favourite things and I can think of about fourteen million other things I’d rather have in a curry than congealed chicken’s blood.
* Street sweets. These definitely break the no flies rule but are so yummy that a little flexibility is in order. Rice noodles – flat sheets or vermicelli – wrap up little portions of supersweetness like nut paste, pounded beans, soaked coconut which are then drizzled with sugar syrup and fresh coconut.
* Toddy juice. I’m still not actually sure what this is. I think toddy fruit is the fruit of some sort of palm tree and toddy juice is the sappy liquid inside the fruit, like the juice of a coconut. I have a feeling that palm sugar and jaggery come from the toddy palm but am not 100% sure. The juice was like very thick slimy coconut juice, much sweeter and with a heavy fruity aroma. Cold and with a hefty tot of alcohol, I’m sure it would be delightful. This drink was served to me by my friend Mr Le Min who told me that the thick heavy juice ferments through the day and turns into a beery alcoholic liquid by the afternoon. Whether this is true or not, I have no idea but Mr Le Min is a model dhammist with no reason to lie.
* Condiments ahoy! Pickled tea leaves are big news in Myanmar and I personally feel that their fame should spread. Fresh green mango pickles, the salsas of Burmese cuisine, are also pretty ubiquitous and mighty darn good. Finely sliced green mangoes in vinegar (I think) with sliced onion, green chilli, oil and miscellaneous spices. Balachaung is the standard chilli condiment to be sprinkled on everything. It consists of chilli, shrimp and tamarind, all deep fried until crispy together. The veggie version of this gave some crunch and oomph to many many stodgy vipassana curries but even balachaung could not reconcile me to the congealed chicken’s blood.
* Really excellent Chinese food. Food from the Shan state of Myanmar has lots in common with southern Chinese food and seems pretty popular. I was taken to eat excellent Szechuan steamed buns and dim sum with iridescent chilli sauce and coffee made with carnation milk.
* Boiled eggs get sold everywhere on the street. Unlike in Cambodia and Thailand, these do not appear to be the eggs of hens but of some far smaller squawker. The eggs are the size of quail’s eggs and are speckled to boot but somehow, I don’t think that is what they are. Boiled at least to buggery and hence probably beyond salmonella, they could be pigeon’s eggs for all I know. Excellent, sold with a little bag of salt, and at 4 for less than 10c, a very reasonable snack.
* How can anything that has been deep-fried in a wok on the side of the street harbour any bacteria? Women sit by the street cooking little veggie patties which are like pakoras: corn, spinachy lentils, peas, chickpeas all held together with chickpea flour, served with chilli sauce. Also extremely cheap (10c each) and yummy with deep-fried bananas for dessert as a bonus. The deep-fried bananas are not for the faint of heart. Fortunately, I am extremely sturdy of heart. The bananas in Myanmar are excellent.
* I was invited for lunch with the family of my lovely friend Daw Ton, a woman who I met on vipassana. Daw Ton and her family presented the epitome of Burmese hospitality. I was served a dry tomato fish curry crunchy with little bones and fins, okra in sour soup, mixed veges, pickled beansprouts, sweet pumpkin curry… and the piece de resistance? A curry made of congealed chicken’s blood. Congealed chicken’s blood resembles dark red tofu in appearance and texture. Oh, these people were so kind and hospitable! There was no way I could refuse the main course of the meal so I thought that I would just deal with the chook matter and eat it first off with a big smile and then move on to the rest. Of course, this was understood as a sign of great enjoyment and more and more was piled onto my plate. This was endurance eating. What can I say about congealed chook’s blood? It’s not as bad as it sounds, but the bad sound of it blurred my capacity to objectively taste it. Quite bland and very rich. I could never get excited about black pudding, one of my father’s favourite things and I can think of about fourteen million other things I’d rather have in a curry than congealed chicken’s blood.
* Street sweets. These definitely break the no flies rule but are so yummy that a little flexibility is in order. Rice noodles – flat sheets or vermicelli – wrap up little portions of supersweetness like nut paste, pounded beans, soaked coconut which are then drizzled with sugar syrup and fresh coconut.
* Toddy juice. I’m still not actually sure what this is. I think toddy fruit is the fruit of some sort of palm tree and toddy juice is the sappy liquid inside the fruit, like the juice of a coconut. I have a feeling that palm sugar and jaggery come from the toddy palm but am not 100% sure. The juice was like very thick slimy coconut juice, much sweeter and with a heavy fruity aroma. Cold and with a hefty tot of alcohol, I’m sure it would be delightful. This drink was served to me by my friend Mr Le Min who told me that the thick heavy juice ferments through the day and turns into a beery alcoholic liquid by the afternoon. Whether this is true or not, I have no idea but Mr Le Min is a model dhammist with no reason to lie.
* Condiments ahoy! Pickled tea leaves are big news in Myanmar and I personally feel that their fame should spread. Fresh green mango pickles, the salsas of Burmese cuisine, are also pretty ubiquitous and mighty darn good. Finely sliced green mangoes in vinegar (I think) with sliced onion, green chilli, oil and miscellaneous spices. Balachaung is the standard chilli condiment to be sprinkled on everything. It consists of chilli, shrimp and tamarind, all deep fried until crispy together. The veggie version of this gave some crunch and oomph to many many stodgy vipassana curries but even balachaung could not reconcile me to the congealed chicken’s blood.
* Really excellent Chinese food. Food from the Shan state of Myanmar has lots in common with southern Chinese food and seems pretty popular. I was taken to eat excellent Szechuan steamed buns and dim sum with iridescent chilli sauce and coffee made with carnation milk.
definitely wiser
Yes, today is my thirtieth birthday. I was a bit worried that I hadn't made it to the cusp of my third decade without really experiencing the marrow of life. Today, all that changed. I took myself off to a mountain town called Pyin U Lwin to visit the National Botanical Gardens of Myanmar. Very nice, very nice. Anyway, I walked through the walk-in aviary and admired the peacock chicks underfoot and the hornbills overhead. When I got to the signs explaining what birds were in this huge aviary, I was ecstatic to discover that I had been flapping around in the same cage as... wait for it... a GREATER ROCKET-TAILED DRONGO. It's all downhill from here.
Thanks to everyone for lovely birthday emails. Systems are a bit dicey this end so I won't be in full response mode until I reach the buzzing technopolis of Bangkok on the 19th. I leave Mandalay tomorrow for Bagan (ancient capital sacked by Kublai Khan...) having spent a really fantastic time here and made lots of friends. When I arrived in Myanmar, I wanted to leave immediately. I am now extremely keen to return. Will post more if possible...
Thanks to everyone for lovely birthday emails. Systems are a bit dicey this end so I won't be in full response mode until I reach the buzzing technopolis of Bangkok on the 19th. I leave Mandalay tomorrow for Bagan (ancient capital sacked by Kublai Khan...) having spent a really fantastic time here and made lots of friends. When I arrived in Myanmar, I wanted to leave immediately. I am now extremely keen to return. Will post more if possible...
Saturday, May 12, 2007
possibly the longest ten days of my life
Weeee-eeell, after a challenging start to my trip to Myanmar, I made it all the way to the Dhamma Mandala Meditation Centre in the foothills of the mountains outside Mandalay. Somehow, and at this stage, I actually have no idea how, I made it through eleven days of silent meditation. Now that I've returned to the dust and noise of Mandalay, I feel pretty darn good, perhaps even calm and (you will so rarely hear me say this...) peaceful.
But who wants to hear about being uplifted by a wander along the path of dhamma? No-one! You want to hear about the trials of eating fourteen million variations of lentil stodge (but only before noon). You want to know that I had a complete meltdown on the first day and begged to leave and was somehow convinced to stay. Or perhaps you are interested in the fact that I now know for certain that it is impossible to chew the tip of your elbow? Those transgressive types might ooh and aah over the fact that I broke many rules. I wrote in my notebook in the bathroom. I took anti-malarial tablets all the way through and started taking painkillers on the last few days when sitting crosslegged on the floor for twelve hours a day and sleeping on a plank started to take toll.... So much whining I could do. I don't think I am entirely cut out for the ascetic life. Probably one of the reasons that Noble Silence is instituted is to keep people like me quiet. Had I posted this blog on Day 6, it would have been one long moan.
Anyway anyway, I struggled mightily with the meditation for most of the way through but the people I met when the talking started were extraordinarily kind and I was overwhelmed by the friendliness and goodwill of everyone there. I've made some friends in Mandalay and am going to sally about town with them. Will no doubt have vast amounts more to say about the retreat, the lovely people, the dictatorship... but right at the moment, my brain is slightly addled and my readiness to ramble inanity might just get the better of me. Furthermore, my belly is empty, and I need to eat something. It's afternoon, and this will be the first time I've eaten solids after midday for eleven days. Woo-hoo! And if I can somehow avoid a lentil stodge surprise, all the better.
But who wants to hear about being uplifted by a wander along the path of dhamma? No-one! You want to hear about the trials of eating fourteen million variations of lentil stodge (but only before noon). You want to know that I had a complete meltdown on the first day and begged to leave and was somehow convinced to stay. Or perhaps you are interested in the fact that I now know for certain that it is impossible to chew the tip of your elbow? Those transgressive types might ooh and aah over the fact that I broke many rules. I wrote in my notebook in the bathroom. I took anti-malarial tablets all the way through and started taking painkillers on the last few days when sitting crosslegged on the floor for twelve hours a day and sleeping on a plank started to take toll.... So much whining I could do. I don't think I am entirely cut out for the ascetic life. Probably one of the reasons that Noble Silence is instituted is to keep people like me quiet. Had I posted this blog on Day 6, it would have been one long moan.
Anyway anyway, I struggled mightily with the meditation for most of the way through but the people I met when the talking started were extraordinarily kind and I was overwhelmed by the friendliness and goodwill of everyone there. I've made some friends in Mandalay and am going to sally about town with them. Will no doubt have vast amounts more to say about the retreat, the lovely people, the dictatorship... but right at the moment, my brain is slightly addled and my readiness to ramble inanity might just get the better of me. Furthermore, my belly is empty, and I need to eat something. It's afternoon, and this will be the first time I've eaten solids after midday for eleven days. Woo-hoo! And if I can somehow avoid a lentil stodge surprise, all the better.
Saturday, April 28, 2007
slight retraction
Well, it turns out you can access hotmail in big, bad Yangon if you follow the gamers and find a shadier looking net cafe which has a proxy server. I need to keep reminding myself that anything that looks legit is most likely run by the government and therefore dodgy as hell. Strange place. There's a technology time lag of about a decade and I doubt that there will be any communication between my gadgetry and the machines of this country.
My long held plan to catch the train to Mandalay has, alas, run aground. In the first, the railways are owned by the govt and deserve a big fat boycott. There are special foreigner prices on the train and it costs about three times as much to train as to bus. And finally, I made my way to the station to make some enquiries and floundered. I made lots of friends at Yangon Station but alas, the dream of a common language did not materialise and, unable to find out anything at all, I'm resigned to the bus.
I fear too that I won't be able to stay till the end of my Myanmar visa, and not just because the place has put me a little on edge. I perhaps could have worked out before I arrived that there is absolutely no way of obtaining cash here. Credit cards are accepted at one 5 star hotel in Yangon and they offer cash advances at 7.5% interest (plus local bank charges)... There are no ATMs and no Western Unions and lots of extra special prices for foreigners... So it might be back to Thailand sooner than I had thought.
On the sights and sensations front, I did visit the Schwe Dagon Pagoda which was dazzling. Literally, because it is covered in gold. I discovered that because I was born on a Saturday, my Burmese lucky animal is that dragon and this pleases me no end. Right! Off on the road to Mandalayeeo.
My long held plan to catch the train to Mandalay has, alas, run aground. In the first, the railways are owned by the govt and deserve a big fat boycott. There are special foreigner prices on the train and it costs about three times as much to train as to bus. And finally, I made my way to the station to make some enquiries and floundered. I made lots of friends at Yangon Station but alas, the dream of a common language did not materialise and, unable to find out anything at all, I'm resigned to the bus.
I fear too that I won't be able to stay till the end of my Myanmar visa, and not just because the place has put me a little on edge. I perhaps could have worked out before I arrived that there is absolutely no way of obtaining cash here. Credit cards are accepted at one 5 star hotel in Yangon and they offer cash advances at 7.5% interest (plus local bank charges)... There are no ATMs and no Western Unions and lots of extra special prices for foreigners... So it might be back to Thailand sooner than I had thought.
On the sights and sensations front, I did visit the Schwe Dagon Pagoda which was dazzling. Literally, because it is covered in gold. I discovered that because I was born on a Saturday, my Burmese lucky animal is that dragon and this pleases me no end. Right! Off on the road to Mandalayeeo.
au revoir phnom penh, bonjour yangon
We-eeell, I've just arrived into the heat of Yangon and thereby moved to a country which is even higher up than Cambodia on Transparency International's list of dodgy nations. The official government exchange rate is almost a third of the blackmarket rate. Change your US dollars with the government and you receive 450 kyat. Change them on the blackmarket and you get 1200 kyat. Crazy. I also find that access to hotmail is restricted as it violates national web policy. If you want to email me, try my usyd account for the next few weeks... For some reason, I can't access hotmail, but I can post slightly narky comments on a blog. Again. Crazy. Things will probably be a bit silent for the next little while (even though I have much still to post from Phnom Penh) because internet access is hard to find and USB ports seem like a long shot. The virtual silence will correspond to actual silence as I'll be on vipassana in Mandalay from the 1st to the 12th of May. And then? Prolixity beckons!
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