Myanmar had changed dramatically since our last visit in 2004, the first "free and fair" election since the 1960's had taken place and there was an air of optimism with 40% growth in tourism and a bumper peanut harvest this year!
The Burmese drive on the righthand side of the road in cars with a right hand drive, this increases the usual chaos seen on roads in Asia and makies overtaking a challenge. There are plenty of other modes of transport too such as boats, trains, tractors, hand trolleys, water buffalo with cart, scooters, bicycle rickshaws and very very full trucks and buses.
Life is lived on the street with street restaurants, shops and all other roles carried out by the roadsides.
A stroll through the streets of Yangon reveals an industry of fixers and creators that was to become the signature of people we saw in Myanmar. One particularly impressive display was a whole street of pavement stalls piled with broken drills and power tools, the sort of scene that you would see at a civic dump in Britain. Instead of these waiting to be sold on for scrap, as they in the UK, there would be a man crouched busy re-winding the motor coils ready to replace, fix and re-use it.
There was plenty of evidence of traditional values and culture, even in the city. Rice stalks hanging in tree branches brings good luck, and people earn merit by providing passers by with water.
Our initial hotel was ideally placed in downtown Yangon next to the Sule Pagoda, a spire of Gold which was apparently built 2500 years ago. It must be one of the most spectacular centre pieces for an inner city roundabout in the world and made a usefull landmark for navigating our way around noisy and busy Yangon.
At many of the Pagodas we visited we each blessed the Buddha corresponding to our respective weekday of birth by pouring 5 cups of water over the statue's head, and the animal representing the weekday.
We ate in small local restaurants, not wanting to risk the street meals. The shape of the meat items on the end of a stick you routinely see on the street stalls around town tells you that this is not the normal cut of meat you would find in the family butcher back home!
Beyond the Sule Pagoda towers the monument commemorating 4th January 1948 when Aung San's dream of an independent Myanmar was realised. Sadly he was shot before he could see this day and it is sobering to listen to the evidence of British involvement in this assassination (BBC 1997 documentary "Who really killed Aung San?").
Flanking the fence around this monument was an encampment of a protest group who had been forcibly re-housed by the government. We were surprised to see that people could actually sustain this protest and that similar protests had resulted in a u-turn decision from the government.
Before meeting up with our tour group, the three of us squeezed in a peek of the National League for Democracy headquarters and where Aung San Suu Kyi was held under house arrest and then a visit to the national museum where it was noted that at least 5 exhibits in the museum bore a striking resemblance to items in our house - back in Cheltenham!
We met up with our group and had our first meal at Padonma restaurant which means Lotus - very similar to Tibetan "Padme". During this meal we were all very excited as we waited for our friend TinMi to arrive. Apart from her brief visit to England, we had not seen her for the 10 years since leaving Thailand. We managed to spend a few hours we spent with her, catching up on news. Very lovely but quite tearful for us all.
Our group comprised of American, Swiss, German and British, it was remarkable to see Joe conversing in French to one person then turning to speak German to others while apologising that his language was rusty as he is thinking in Mandarin at the moment!
Our group trip to the Shwedagon was proof of how much Myanmar has changed since our last visit 10 years before. On our visit to the Shwedagon in 2004 we strolled from our hotel to the long covered stairway that is so much a feature of Burmese pagodas, to wander calmly around - the temple complex empty apart from a few monks.
This time we arrived by coach to a huge car park, were jostled into a large lift complex with hordes of other tourists before being free to walk the hot and bustling marble slabs that surround the golden spires. It is a truly remarkable temple and a good reason to stay in Yangon.
Leaving Yangon, we toured Myanmar in a circular arc flying to Bagan, taking a boat on the Irawaddy river to Mandalay, by road to Kalaw the Inlay Lake before flying back to Yangon.
Bagan was a joy for 3 nights, we found peace and good food. We took a hot air ballon ride at sunrise with spectacular views of the 1000's of pagodas and the sunsets were equally beautiful from the crumbling steps of the ancient buildings. This ancient Buddhist kingdom was once called tattadesa or "parched land", good for peanuts and sesame but not a rice growing region.
A horse drawn cart from our hotel in Bagan took us to the Irrawaddy where we boarded a boat for 2 days to Mandalay. Great food came from the little kitchen on board and the mattress and mosquito net on the upper deck was our bed for the night. The river is huge in places and runs like a backbone from the northern Kachin State to the Andaman Sea. We saw a lot of teak logs being transported along the river.
Mandalay had the same busy feel as Yangon but without the tourist infrastructure, nice in a way but not when you are trying to find somewhere to eat! We did however wish we had a similar early morning food markets at home for cheap and fresh food.
It was in Mandalay that we saw how the gold leaf that adorns so many Buddhist temples across Asia is made. A highly labour intensive process of pounding the gold to thin film thickness with an equally complex process for the bamboo backing paper that accompanies each square that is the rubbed on to Buddhist shrines.
Highly talented craftspeople were a feature of Myanmar with paper, umbrella, lacquerware, weaving, silversmithing, boat building and stone and wood carving all produced by hand with great skill and patience.
During our coach ride to the cooler hills of Kalaw we saw that rural housing was largely bamboo shacks on stilts and it is unsurprising that only about 30% of Myanmar people have electricity.
On Christmas Day we had a 12km trek from Kalaw, we stopped in a village for lunch and had fresh mountain grown vegetables and tofu rather than turkey for our dinner.
Although cow-drawn carts are in decline on the roads between towns, they still pull the plough in the fields and there was little or no evidence of powered agricultural machinery.
There was no evidence of a light bulb let alone a power tool at the small family run umbrella factory on route to Inlay Lake. In about 30 minutes we saw the key processes involved in the bamboo and paper umbrellas. The foot powered lathe, intricate hand tools to cut and shape and most impressive of all was the spring clip that holds the canopy up which is entirely made from bamboo. Just as the circular text was developed to enable writing on palm leaves without tearing, the Burmese people adapt and use the raw materials in their environment so ingeniously.
Inlay Lake had numerous stilted villages and floating vegetable gardens, as well as stylish fishing methods!
We saw more cottage industry on our boat trip on the lake from silver work to cigars but the most fascinating was watching lotus shoots being split, a thin sticky thread then extracted and twisted into thread before being woven into 100% Lotus shoot cloth.
We had a snapshot of 4 out of a total of 7 states in Myanmar. While the country is developing fast it still shows scars of its historic colonial rule and recent military control. Everyone in Myanmar seems to work so hard, so it is difficult to comprehend the decision of the colonial British governors to bring Indian workers into the country with the excuse that the Burmese were lazy. This, as well as the influx of Chinese into Northern and Eastern States mean there are 135 ethnic groups making up the union of Myanmar. The task of managing such a vast range of cultures must be a challenge but on the surface people seem to be living harmoniously - where else would you see street markets selling 3D holographic images of the Buddha side-by-side with Jesus Christ and Jimmy Hendrix! The optimism lies in the hard work, creativity and smile of the people although these smiles are sometimes due to a maroon coloured liquid resulting from chewing the infamous beetle nut! Myanmar is now cautiously looking to it's South East Asian neighbours to learn from their mistakes, our friend Tinmi is developing her career as a tour guide and we wish the very best for her and Myanmar in the future and we hope to be back soon.
