BURMA (official name is Myanmar): Friday, March 17- Tuesday, March 21

There are a lot of issues surrounding our traveling to Burma as the political situation is harmful to the people that live there. They are ruled by a military regime that controls pretty much all of the wealth of the country and allows no human rights. They rule over the people even though there was an overwhelming 80% vote in 1990 for the National League for Democracy to take over. The regime installs fear in its citizens by randomly “inviting them to guest houses” where they are harshly tortured. There are severe consequences for speaking about politics that keep most silent and prevent any improvement in their situation. (By the way, the country’s official name is Myanmar which was put into place when the regime took over. The opposition that favors a free country call it Burma still.)

Our tourism here is looked at both positively and negatively by critics. Some say that we only give money to the regime and weaken the stance of the people by creating an even bigger divide. People that do not advocate traveling here say that our money is going primarily to the government that will use it to strengthen their weapons and install more fear in their citizens. Others say that tourism to Burma is the only way to get the word out of the injustices occurring here. We can put our money in the right places by shopping at local businesses and supporting the people. I side with the later since I believe that nothing could ever improve if no one ever traveled there since their situation would be in the dark. There needs to be a sufficient level of tourism that allows enough to see the situation, but not so many that a lot of money is being filtered into their economy since uninformed travelers could put too much money into the regime’s hands. I encourage anyone who is interested in Burma’s situation and helping them, or at least spreading the word, to travel to this fascinating place.

So after that depressing note, Burma is definitely my favorite country on this trip so far. The people are the kindest, most welcoming I have ever met. The country is beautiful and rich with culture. Since they are kept so poor, even though they have an abundance of natural resources that the government takes all the profits from, the majority of people live in bamboo houses without electricity. Docking the first night took quite a few hours since we had to drive up the Aeyarwaddy River to get to our port. The sights on the way were spectacular as the sun was setting and I could see small bits of smoke from the people conducting their daily burns. Green fields took up the majority of the land that I could see and small bamboo huts were scattered as were little patches of trees. I saw two tiny fishing villages on the river that had little row boats. I felt like I had gone back in time to when there was no modern technology including electricity.

As we got closer to the port, I saw many huge stacks of logs organized into types with colored dots on the end. I had heard they are one of the biggest exporters of lumber and it became very apparent right then (if you know me well enough, you know I’m not such a big fan of deforestation). They had a welcoming committee there for us that had a big banner hanging on the dock and a few locals that looked very intrigued (they looked even more so later than night when we were doing Ballet on the back deck and they were watching from the dock).

We were able to get off early they next morning, so I got off at 6 with Amelia, Kate, Sheila and Shea and we met up with an RD, Mark, then went into the city of Rangoon (Yangon is the official name). We went first to a local teashop where we had tea and lots of Burmese breakfast (yummy, semi-spicy noodle dishes) for 50 cents each.

We walked around the streets and got many stares as they aren’t very used to seeing tourists, then walked onto the gardens in the center of Rangoon. Years ago, the military regime shot thousands of their citizens there for standing up against the government. That started the time of intense fear in the citizens. Now the gardens have a huge monument in the center and beautiful flowers and greenery planted all around. The military regime has set up the city to look like there is no poverty by pushing the poor to villages so that tourists only see cleanly, prosperous places.

We walked around the city a little more by the riverfront and to a couple Buddhist Pagodas. One of the pagodas was right by the gardens and had lots of worshipping and praying areas. There were lights around the gods’ heads and many different details. The other was centered on a huge Buddha that was about 150 feet tall. The pagodas were very interesting and pretty, and are covered in gold leaves at many sections. My favorite thing about going to the pagodas is getting to see the monks. There are monks everywhere in Burma, and they are so cute (the little boys especially) with their shaved heads and red cloths draped around them. Any man here can become a monk at any time for any period of time. They can also leave the monkhood and come back many times in their lives without following the monk rules during their times of leave. I think it’s a very interesting concept and religion.

In the afternoon, I went on an SAS trip to see the local markets. We started at a different temple that had an adjacent market for monks. They sold all the things monks need and things that people could use as offerings when they worshipped in the temple. (Not a good idea to have to go to the bathroom when you are here as they are even filthier, smaller holes in the ground than India and you have to pay to use them.)

Then we went to a local teashop where we had some kind of coconut/rice cake and a choice of honeydew or avocado juice. They have some interesting foods here. Next we went to Scott’s Market with is somewhat local, but there are some places semi set-up for tourists. Their prices are still incredibly cheap (the GDP here is less that $1 per day per person) so I bought some local art (the US government will fine up to $11,000 for importing unoriginal, unhand-made goods into the US from Myanmar).

After Scott’s Market we went to Chinatown, which was super crowded and reminded me of Chinatown in NY City. Markets were everywhere, but primarily centered on food items. One military officer took food from a man’s cart and just kept on walking. It saddens me that people here are so powerless, especially since they are so kind.

The next morning I left for Bagan, the land of 2,000 pagodas. Before leaving Rangoon, we visited the Shwedagon Pagoda which is the biggest one in the city. There was so much details in side the Pagoda and so many different areas that I could have gotten lost. The center, bell-shaped temple stands more than 300 feet and has a 72 carat diamond in the center. While we were there, a Buddhist ceremony was going on where the children have some sort of rite of passage. The children were very dressed up in ceremonial clothes and were carried on their parents’ shoulders. I never really figured out exactly what it was, but it looked very cool.

Our flight to Bagan was very short and so we got there right in time for lunch. Our ride to the restaurant and then to the hotel were amazing. Everywhere I looked there were more pagodas! They were not exaggerating about the 2,000 pagodas. They were all different sizes and shapes, even though most had similar characteristics to them and were made of red brick. They were all donated by individual families back when Buddhism first came to Burma. We went driving amongst the temples/pagodas and got out to see a few. They are all really cool and have some kind of tribute to Buddha in the form of wall art, statues, temples, etc. This incredibly different landscape of a dusty desert ground with ancient pagodas as far as the eye could see gave me a feeling of being in a different world. It felt like I was far off, and indeed I am very far from home, and these moments where it hits me are the most intense. I feel very lucky to be seeing and experiencing all that this trip is allowing me to do.

We ended our day’s tour at a very tall and steep pagoda. There were stairs up all four sides that lead to a thin ledge at the top. We climbed up the 6 inch wide and 2 feet high stairs to the top to watch the sun rise. The climb up was really steep and scary for me. When I got to the top and looked down I got pretty panicky and it took me a while to move, but the view was breathtaking. From the thin ledge, which was slanted from years of erosion, I could see hundreds of pagodas in all directions. The sun was glowing over the distant mountains and illuminating the beautiful scenery. As the sun lowered, more colors came into the sky, but the heavy air from all the burning and blown dust, covered up the sun before it actually set over the horizon.

Our hotel, Kaytumadi Dynasty, was really cute and each room is a bungalow. After dinner that night, a bunch of us bought the dollar bottles of rum (that’s inflated because it’s the hotel’s price!) and drank while watching HBO- weird to see that here.

The next day we woke up early to go to a local market, Nyaung Oo. The stalls were endless and I did get a little lost when I wondered off on my own to explore. The people were slightly confused by me, but very nice. A little girl put their local sunblock, made out of creamed tree bark, on my face. I wondered down a residential street and was invited in to someone’s yard. I sat with them for a while, and one even knew a little English. I talked with him for a bit while other villagers stood around smiling. I still can’t believe how welcoming these people are to complete strangers. I was going to use the one computer in the village that is hooked up to the internet, but the government has almost all sites blocked, so I wouldn’t be able to do anything.

We went on next to the spread out, small village of Phwar Saw. Life there seemed so simple, comfortable and peaceful. We took pictures with the people, but could communicate only with body language. Almost every house had either a cow, chickens, goats or a bull cart. Everything was made with bamboo including houses, fences, plates, bowls and outhouses. We were invited to watch people make goods out of bamboo. Children were running all through the streets and our guide bought them all ice cream before we took off. It is really enlightening to see that so many people live so differently from us and realize how fortunate we are to have it so easy.

We went to a beautiful restaurant for lunch. It was built on the top of a river bank where the river was hundreds of feet below. I could see a couple bamboo huts on the river and quite a few riverboats with paddles.

After lunch, we went to see how the locals make lacquer ware. It is really cool because they use tree sap to get the lacquer that is fireproof, and put all the details on the goods by hand. It is amazing the things that they can create without any machines at all.

Pony carts picked us up from the hotel later and we rode them for a while through the dusty trails and around the many pagodas to Pyatthoda Pagoda. I went to the top ledge, a couple hundred feet above ground and once again was stunned by the view. We watched the sun set until it was covered by the thick air. On the way day, I decided to take a different path into a dark doorway until it got so dark in the tunnel that even my camera flash didn’t light anything, but it was fun anyway. Before heading back to the hotel, we went to dinner where they put on a traditional puppet show. I never knew a puppet could do so many things, but these puppets had 30 plus strings and even their eyebrows and butt checks had individual strings!

On the 20th we had to fly back to Rangoon. I wore my Burmese Longi (long piece of cloth you wrap around like a shirt) and not only did I trip loudly getting into breakfast, but the airport security lady took it off of me to re-tie it in the middle of the airport. Wow, I’m glad I had shorts underneath. At least now I could walk normally so there won’t be anymore tripping.

Back in Rangoon we went to a glass factory where workers showed us how they made things out of glass, sticks and fire. We had a large banquet lunch at a big hotel and went to Scott’s market before leaving the city. Our last stop that afternoon was at a local village where we got rides on trishaws, bicycles with seats on the side. That was really fun and the villagers thought it was hilarious to see tourists on the trishaws.

The last morning, the 21st, I had a local life tour with SAS. It was switched to 7am since we had to be on the ship at 11am to catch the high tide so we didn’t get stuck in the river. The first place we visited was a local town right on the river where we stopped in a random person’s house to see how they made sunblock out of a type of Acacia tree’s bark. It has been scientifically proved to block UV rays, prevent wrinkles and be good for aging (and it’s a whole lot cheaper than our remedies). They also made fish paste at this house. Burmese use fish paste to cook a lot of their staple dishes. Right across the street, a couple men were pumping sand out of the river to use in construction. Little boys were chasing two huge, mud covered hogs with sticks, and gradually more and more people came out of their homes to watch us and see what we were doing there. We wondered further down the street and stopped to watch two women wrap tobacco and a couple other spices up in leaves. These are the local cigarettes, and you can tell what men chew them because their teeth are stained since they don’t have dentists.

We left the small village to go to a bigger village with about 30,000 people. The head man of the village, chosen by the people, accompanied us through the village. That showed to me how important and uncommon our presence was there. We strolled along a main road of bamboo houses and fences until we came up to a monastery. One hundred monks lived in the monastery and we were invited upstairs to look around. The chief monk sat us down and our guide translated for him. He had been a monk for 19 years (since he was 20) and oversaw 1,800 monks in the area now that he is chief. It was funny to see that they had a TV, DVD player and telephone (the chief monk even took a phone call while we were there) because it was a complete mix of the ancient with the modern. His disciples study all over the world, and he will be heading to Canada to study more Buddhism soon. It was quite an honor to talk with two high status members of that village.

I am very sad to leave this country as I enjoy the people so much and it really is beautiful. It will be a very rich and prosperous place when the military regime is defeated. I am glad to have seen a little, but the government stays away from tourists and pushes all poverty out of tourist areas, so while I was not in the villages, I could not tell what was real and what was semi-staged. The government only lets us see what they want us to see. I did get the change to hear a local’s opinion on the regime while in the country, and his only hope was for the regime to be defeated, even though he did not think it would happen in his lifetime. He did not go into detail, but said that all the terrible things we hear of their government (forcing people to relocate, killings, torture, etc.) are true. He believes in his country and told us to encourage our friends to visit Burma because the more people that come and see the conditions the more knowledge will be spread. I know there are human rights violations all over our planet, even in our own country, but it really hurts me to see such a beautiful people, inside and out, oppressed to such a severe level.

ON BOARD/SINGAPORE

On the 22nd, our crew put on a talent show for us. The Union was so packed that you could barely move, but the show was really good. They sang, danced, juggled, and a bunch of other things. It was cool to see the crew on a different level because they are always working. There are 200 of them from 39 countries, most of whom don’t see their families for 10 months while they are on the ship. The next day we had no classes and told our stewards to take the day off for Crew Appreciation Day. We had an emergency drill inside, and it got so stuffy that (since it was storming) two people fainted which made it a real emergency…

We had our first lightning storm on the 23rd, which was very cool to watch in the dark at sea. I had been waiting for those big storms that are always in movies when people are at sea. I was glad that it cleared up though because our sea finally had its sea social up in the Faculty Lounge. It was nice to get a little dressed up after a long time of not really caring at all and mingle with the faculty and staff in the coolest room on the ship and also on the front deck (both are normally reserved for the faculty). That night, for the first time when we were not docked, we could see land (Malaysia) from the ship. There were also tons of boats and fishing lines, but no pirates yet.

The M.V. Explorer docked at Singapore for gas on the 24th while we all still had classes. It was kinda sad to stare out from the boat at Singapore and not be able to get off, but it was cool to see it anyway.

Tonight, the kids on the ship put on a play, then there was the Gay-Straight Alliance Drag Show, which was halarious!!

We’ll be in Vietnam in the morning, and I am extremely excited to see the country and my parents!