Travel tips for single travelers, especially women

This blog grew out of an email exchange with a female friend about traveling alone.

Since writing this, I found these excellent sites on  Couchsurfin.org that sum things up pretty nicely in a general way here and in a more specific way Couchsurfing post & tips here.
Here is a lady talking about how to dress modestly in Muslim countries.
More tips on the Lonely Planet blog here. 

See this site for tips for solo women travelers in Africa.

and more general tips for women travelers: student travel tips for women.

This blog is a little higgledy piggledy, but I think it's better to get it all out than worry about nicieties...

Qu: Are Cambodia and Vietnam fine for single women ?

It's always better if you are travelling with a partner, but as a single girl you can travel pretty well in most Buddhist countries, some countries tend to hassle women travellers more.

But regardless wherever you travel as a single young woman: modest dress, no tank tops, no long bare arms, not mini skirts or short pants. If you look especially sexy be prepared for the attention. What is an acceptable level of 'sexyness' depends on the culture.
If in doubt, see what the local women your age do and copy them.

        For some reason a certain type of traveller acts as though they were totally free of ALL and EVERY restriction and commonsense. Like a dog out of a kennel they go nuts and behave stupidly.   That does not go down well, and is asking for trouble. If you want to do that & just cut lose: there ARE places to do it where the locals are used to it (For example: Kuta beach in Bali, certain places in BKK, etc...every country has them. )

However: I know you well enough to realize you don't want to go that way ;-)

Qu: Cambodia and Vietnam are developing countries..maybe somebody could grab my bags ?

Bag grabbing can happen in any country. Use commonsense. In your own country you don't usually leave your stuff lying around unattended do you ? 

As a traveller: be prepared: Your bag could disappear any time (stolen, lost, misplaced, etc..), so travel in such a way that if your bag is gone, only ONE day's worth of money and things are gone.Passport and big money is best NOT kept in a bag, but in your money belt.

Use three levels of security: Think about how someone who wants your money would think:

They would go for the most obvious and easy stuff first.

Your Wallet.

- so keep only a day's worth of money in your wallet. Always plan for the worst case: so that you could afford to lose your wallet - that means: don't keep credit cards in it unless you use them all the time. I'd recommend: don't use Credit cards at all, use cash. That is if you are a backpacker. If you are business traveller of course, use your cards.

If you try to catch a lizard, you will go for his tail right ?
Well a lizard will drop its tail and run away. The tail grows back over tiime. Your wallet is like the lizard's tail. Something you should be able to sacrifice in an emergency and still survive.

Your passport and money belt should be totally hidden.

A money belt that hangs around your neck, even it is under your shirt, is obvious.

It's like putting a sign on yourself: "Here is all my big stuff!"

It's obvious. A thief will know where to look and what to go for.

I saw a student get relieved of his 'around-the-neck-and-under-the-shirt' money belt just by crossing the road in Saigon. Two guys, on a motorbike, it happened before he even realized that he'd been done over. It was that professional.

         It is best to use a money belt that is down inside your pants in front of your lower abdomen. Use it as soon as you start your travel, in the plane.

Keep your passport always in the money belt, just the same as when we traveled in Laos together.
NEVER open the your money belt in public, go to the toilet or your hotel room to get stuff out of your belt.

Every day, in the morning, in the hotel room, get out the money for the day. Then keep your money belt out of sight, down your pants.
That applies to any country anywhere. No matter what country.

I talked about three levels of security: 

Here is the third one:
Decoys - if you want you can use decoys - multi-levels of security.

A money bag around your neck, worn under your shirt, can act very nicely as a decoy.

A decoy should only have less than 1 days worth of cash in it, and no cards or passport.

Remember it's a decoy, that means: this is what will get stolen first. A thief is supposed to think this is where ALL your stuff is. This is another lizard's tail. Sacrifice something and survive.

You should be able to afford losing your decoy without a big drama. But it should still have something worth stealing in it.

Anyone wanting to steal your money will usually go for the wallet or the decoy around your neck first.

A: Yes in Cambodia i 'm gonna be more careful, unlike how I behaved in Laos.
Yes Laos is safer,

A: I'm going to tell my friends

Don't scare them just say this is your standard way to travel.

Travelling with others

A: His classmate from MBA may join us one more girl from Peru they wanna see as many cities as possible...but I'm not sure I want to follow all of their itinerary.

That's why i prefer a solo trip..pack up- leave anytime i like...

sometimes when you travel with friends you want to have time for yourself and not have to worry about them. You want to go off on your own and do what you like.

Ya for me, i need personal space, I don't wanna smile /deal with ppl all the time on a trip...

In that case what you could do is tell them from the start: I will travel with you for X weeks, or X days, then I will go to this other place and we meet there again, or you go ahead and I meet you
- or you only travel half the time together or whatever
that 's better
- or you let them go for a few days

ya

BUT the important thign is to make sure you tell them from the start, BEFORE YOU GO if you say it while you travel they will prob get upset.
You can make it so you have half the time alone,
- or you leave them a week before they go bakc and you do your own thing. etc etc.. up to your creativity :-)
but make it clear from the start.

I forgot how mcu i spend per day in Laos. I guess the same for Camb + Viet? about max $US20/day inc. accommodation, food, sightseeing...(2008).

Sounds about right, ask around.

• You spend more if you travel bus, etc... extra... if you travel fast and move fast you spend even more. 
• Travel slowly & generally you spend less, all other things being even.
  

Qu: how long to look at a city ? My friends want to do one day per city. 

Sounds really fast.
My preference is 3+ days per city. But be flexible, it's meant to be fun not hard work. If you want a trip that is a mad race to tick off cities and places that is fine, just make sure the others are also into that and like the pace.

Insurance:
Make sure you buy travel insurance. Get the insurance that is cheap and doesn't have all the frills and small crap.
You only want insurance for the big stuff, hospital etc... small stuff you can cope yourself with. Lost clothing and all the usual stuff is not worth insuring in my experience. Too much hassle to get reimbursed. You want insurance just for major medical stuff, for things that cost 1000's of dollars.
        I get basic travel insurance by AAMI Australia (In Australia) - if I get similar travel insurance from the Travel Agent's recommended companies I pay about double (10 days in SEAsia ~ $70 with AAMI, but with travel agents: ~$130, --- in 2009). Travel agent insurance has all the bells and whistles of course. More buttons  than a video remote control :-)
And those agents are great at scaring you shitless with totally unlikely things.... but of course it COULD happen ... anything COULD happen...!

Getting out of 'tourist' mode

Join an internet community like couchsurfing.com, have a look at the site, and use it to meet expats and people who live in the cities you visit. Unless you want to be purely tourist.

yes that's good idea..

Out of tourist mode you see more, and you get out of travel.
In your case you have not yet got sick of being a tourist yet... ha ha ha so enjoy that stage until you feel you want to REALLY find out how life in that place is like.
I've just written a small article on how to get out of tourist mode here. 

Clothes, dress, and the message it gives out to all around you:
Another thing about getting out tourist mode: dress in such a way that the local people think you are living and working there (i.e. an expat), travelling around for holiday.
        In Thailand I know I've hit the right dress level when local people ask me: "where do you work ? how long you been working in Thailand ?"- then I know I've dressed the correct way :-)
- Then I know I don't run around with clothes that scream "TOURIST !!!!! ....come and get me... I'm a TOURIST!!!"
I mean this is really up to you. IF you don't mind that, then dress like a TOURIST. Read the travel tips for women in Couchsurf.com

oh i c..intersting ..not asking more Q for those who don't dress up...

Qu: s/times some local people may take advantage if they know a single girl come here alone...

Yes, good point: there is something to think about, and that is:
Your story - the story you tell others who you never met before:

when you travel as a solo traveller: this is are the best rules I have found (for girls and for guys as well)
 
1)"Travelling alone?" (subtext: Is anyone going to back you up ? Will anyone miss you ? Are you defenceless ? )

Never say you travel alone.
NEVER admit it. Always say you have a friend at the hotel waiting for you, or you are visiting a local friend, and they could not come with you today, or could not come with you this week.
read my story about travel in Morocco
http://heikorudolph.com/travel/morocco10.htm
In Morocco I had not story. I thought I didn't need one. I found out the hard way that even a guy, NEEDS a good story sometimes. 

ya that's what i learned after the Bintang trip...

If you say you are alone then if someone has some bad plans they know that noone is protecting you and they have only ONE person to deal with. Not a good idea. I learnt that one in Morocco. I got pretty good with my story. Had it down neat and very convincing. I even started to believe my own bullshit.

Good :D  you learnt it neh ?

As a girl: NEVER say you are single and alone, it brings out all the weird guys and they stick to you.
Always say your b/f is at the hotel, sick with bad food etc... whatever
- or you are meeting him tonight.
- make it convincing, know the story BEFORE you have to say it. Practice your acting skills.

See this Africa site for tips for solo women travelers: 

http://goafrica.about.com/od/specialinterest/a/womentips.htm

Couchsurfing has a page on solo travel here.


2)Taxi driver: "first time ?" (subtext: does this guy have any idea, any clue about the country?)

Traveller: "yes, first time" (subtext: I know nothing, I'm ripe for the plucking, please take advantage of me.)

NEVER SAY it is your FIRST time, even if it is.
If it really IS your first time: then its best to say it is your second time.
If the person is surprised you don't know much about the country and its your second time then say that you were with your b/f a year ago, or with your family, or you visited a diff part of the country etc...
That makes you (a little) less vulnerable (we hope).

ya coz in da motel in Bintang da receptionist asked me if i were alone, I said 'Yes..' in that night i relaized i shouldn't be too honest . ( touchwood) if he were a bad guy and could come in my room in low season, when almost nobody else lives there... in fact i didn't have to be honest for the motel staff coz my room definitely is for more than 1 person...

So yes i agree so...i was less alert about these as i travelled to Japan....

Japan is very safe  but always use the same rules.
Travel alone is a different story. I feel very different travelling alone than when I have company. Read the links I sent you, they are good.


To get some perspective: What are other risks in life ? such as the risks of death by accident in other ways ?
This site from Oxford has some clear and down to earth information here.
It even gives some very commonsense advice on general lifestyle and healthy living here.

Send me your stories at: HeikoRudolph AT yahoo.com

Appendix: more links and articles below:

A safe way to carry cash - couchsurfing discussion:
http://www.couchsurfing.org/group_read.html?gid=1949&post=3018268

See this site for tips for solo women travelers in Africa: 

goafrica.about.com/od/specialinterest/a/womentips.htm

and more general tips for women travelers:
studenttravel.about.com/od/womenstudenttravelers/a/womentips.htm

A site for solo women travellers http://www.women-on-the-road.com/

Shoulder holster

http://www.southernbyways.com/shoulder-holster-wallet/

Lonely planets take on things:
http://www.lonelyplanet.com/travel-blog/community/?p=1084

Some ideas of the solo traveller:
If you arrive in a new place and you don’t meet anyone straightaway – don’t panic! here are some tips .... be creative, adventure is not programmable.... .

NYTimes has a nice article of travel tips as well:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/31/opinion/31kristof.html?th&emc=th
thanks for reproduction:

---

May 31, 2009  New York Times

Op-Ed Columnist

Cum Laude in Evading Bandits

By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

One of the great failures of American universities is that they are far too parochial, rarely exposing students to worlds beyond our borders.
If colleges provide credit for dozing through an introductory Spanish class, why not give credit for a “gap year” in a Bolivian village? If students can learn about microfinance while sitting comatose in 9 a.m. lectures, couldn’t they learn more by volunteering with a lender in a Bangladesh slum?
So with summer starting, it’s up to students themselves to self-educate by setting off on their own. I hold my “win a trip” contest precisely to encourage such trips — I’m just back from visiting five West African countries with a University of South Carolina student. Yet when I encourage students’ wanderlust, questions invariably arise: Will I be safe? How do I avoid robbers and malaria?
In response, here are 15 tips for traveling to even the roughest of countries — and back:

1. Carry a “decoy wallet,” so that if you are robbed by bandits with large guns, you have something to hand over. I keep $40 in my decoy wallet, along with an old library card and frequent-flier card. (But don’t begrudge the wallet: when my travel buddy was pickpocketed in Peru, we tried to jump the pickpocket, who turned out to be backed by an entire gang ... )

2. Carry cash and your passport where no robber will find it. Assuming that few bandits read this column, I’ll disclose that I carry mine in a pouch that loops onto my belt and tucks under my trousers.

3. Carry a tiny ski lock with a six-foot retractable wire. Use it to lock your backpack to a hotel bed when you’re out, or to the rack of a train car.

4. At night, set a chair against your hotel door so that it will tip over and crash if someone slips in at 4 a.m. And lift the sheet to look for bloodstains on the mattress — meaning bed bugs.

5. When it gets dark, always carry a headlamp in your pocket. I learned that from a friend whose hotel in Damascus lost power. He lacked a light but was able to feel his way up the stairs in the dark, find his room and walk in. A couple of final gropes, and he discovered it wasn’t his room after all. Unfortunately, it was occupied.

6. If you’re a woman held up in an isolated area, stick out your stomach, pat it and signal that you’re pregnant. You might also invest in a cheap wedding band, for imaginary husbands deflect unwanted suitors.

7. Be wary of accepting drinks from anyone. Robbers sometimes use a date rape drug to knock out their victims — in bars, in trains, in homes. If presented with pre-poured drinks, switch them with your host, cheerfully explaining: “This is an American good luck ritual!”

8. Buy a secondhand local cell phone for $20, outfit it with a local SIM card and keep it in your pocket.

9. When you arrive in a new city, don’t take an airport taxi unless you know it is safe. If you do take a cab, choose a scrawny driver and lock ALL the doors — thieves may pull open the doors at a red light and run off with a bag.

10. Don’t wear a nice watch, for that suggests a fat wallet and also makes a target. I learned that lesson on my first trip to the Philippines: a robber with a machete had just encountered a Japanese businessman with a Rolex — who now, alas, has only one hand.

11. Look out for fake cops or crooked ones. If a policeman tries to arrest you, demand to see some ID and use your cell phone to contact a friend.

12. If you are held up by bandits with large guns, shake hands respectfully with each of your persecutors. It’s very important to be polite to people who might kill you. Surprisingly often, child soldiers and other bandits will reciprocate your fake friendliness and settle for some cash rather than everything you possess. I’ve even had thugs warmly exchange addresses with me, after robbing me.

13. Remember that the scariest people aren’t warlords, but drivers. In buses I sometimes use my pack as an airbag; after one crash I was the only passenger not hospitalized.

14. If terrorists finger you, break out singing “O Canada”!

15. Finally, don’t be so cautious that you miss the magic of escaping your comfort zone and mingling with local people and staying in their homes. The risks are minimal compared with the wonders of spending time in a small village. So take a gap year, or volunteer in a village or a slum. And even if everything goes wrong and you are robbed and catch malaria, shrug it off — those are precisely the kinds of authentic interactions with local cultures that, in retrospect, enrich a journey and life itself.
•
A reply from  Couchsurfing is here:
http://www.couchsurfing.org/group_read.html?gid=15&post=3051679#post3054067


.

romance of the peony lantern - old japan

his story is beautiful, full of vivid characters and has haunted me for many years. So now I present it here, it is not my work, it was written by Lafcadio Hearn, published 1899, in Japan in a book called: In Ghostly Japan

A Passional Karma

--This is the story of the Ghosts in the Romance of the Peony-Lantern:--

I
There once lived in the district of Ushigome, in Yedo, a hatamoto (1) called Iijima Heizayemon, whose only daughter, Tsuyu, was beautiful as her name, which signifies "Morning Dew." Iijima took
a second wife when his daughter was about sixteen; and, findingthat O-Tsuyu could not be happy with her mother-in-law, he had apretty villa built for the girl at Yanagijima, as a separate
residence, and gave her an excellent maidservant, called O-Yone,to wait upon her.
O-Tsuyu lived happily enough in her new home until one day when
the family physician, Yamamoto Shijo, paid her a visit in company
with a young samurai named Hagiwara Shinzaburo, who resided in
the Nedzu quarter. Shinzaburo was an unusually handsome lad, and
very gentle; and the two young people fell in love with each
other at sight. Even before the brief visit was over, they
contrived,--unheard by the old doctor,--to pledge themselves to
each other for life. And, at parting, O-Tsuyu whispered

the story is at:  http://tengra.wordpress.com/2009/04/24/the-peony-lantern/

It is available in project Gutenberg at: http://www.archive.org/details/inghostlyjapan08128gut and http://www.archive.org/details/inghostlyjapan00unkngoog Many thanks to the people at Project Gutenberg -see end of file.


'dance me to the children who are asking to be born....'
           - Leonard Cohen

Hyco's web-updates - blog - here!

questions frequently asked of expats

Interesting blog I came across:
http://bearshapedsphere.blogspot.com/2009/04/expat-life-those-pesky-and-repetitive.html

impressions of Myanmar 2005

impressions of Myanmar 2005

Think not that dreams appear to the dreamer only at night:
the dream of this world of pain appears to us even by day.

(Yoru bakari Miru mono nari to Omou-nayo!
Hiru saë yumé no Ukiyo nari-kéri.)
OLD JAPANESE POEM.- Tx by Lafcadio Hearn 1899

Atmosphere: What makes a beautiful dream different, what makes it beautiful ? Is it the events that take place in the dream ? It's more than that, - its an indefinable quality that permeates everything that happens in the dream. It soaks all through the dream.

Travelling in Myanmar was like that for me. The people there are no worse or better than here, but the atmosphere in that place is of ancient antiquity. Ancient ways of knowing and thinking, of feeling and being. Travelling in Myanmar, I smelt the past, felt the old ways soak through my skin, the influence of old kingdoms that rose and fell there over thousands of years. Tantalizingly just out of reach. I can't tell you what it is, as in a dream that quality is intangible but FEELS real.

There is an old and ancient knowledge buried in Myanmar.

What draws me to Myanmar is the ‘different-ness' of it. It is truly a hidden “island”, where the modern ways are only slowly slowly seeping in. No MacDonalds & such, no internet, no mobile phones, no rampant commercialism, well….not yet. The week has 8 days there. Numerology is important, 35 and 75 Kyat (money) notes were common a few years ago. The whole country switched from driving on the left to driving on the right overnight, because the top man said so. He said so because his fortune teller told him to take the country to the right.... so goes the story anyway.

(NB: actually there are mobile phones but SIM cards cost USD$4000, yes that's four thousand, phones cost the same as here, income average is ~USD$30/month)

Going to Europe or North America is different from Australia, of course, yet compared to Myanmar, its only a different room in the same house. Myanmar is a different city, - ‘different' in that indefinable way.... which will not stop me from trying to tell you about it, trying to convey something of that ‘otherness' that ‘uniqueness'.

Looking back Myanmar has always brought out strong passions and feelings in me. My first chance of visiting Myanmar was just after high school. I passed it by. Then age 40, confused at heart, I bit the bullet and followed a strange urge to go there ‘come what may'. When I left for Myanmar I hoped not to return to Australia for a long time, to live in Asia perhaps all of my life.

I'd travelled and worked in Asia and Japan, but on my first day in Myanmar, I just wanted to hide in the hotel room, take a taxi to the airport and fly back to Bangkok. I was shocked at myself. What had come over me ? Where was the experienced traveller I thought I was ? Gone! It was a classic case of culture shock. I was amazed at myself, after travelling for years in Asia, here I was a dithering wreck hiding in the bed.

Once I got a grip on culture shock, I was hooked. The place was so amazingly different. It was hard to believe it was real, that such unique otherness still existed in this modern world.

There was Bagan the dry desert land with more temples in one place than anywhere in the world with an atmosphere that is almost eerie.

It was in Bagan (and later Mrauk-U) that I felt and saw in actual real life, children playing, people walking, evening cooking smells, scenes of such domestic peace and beauty, my 'perfect' idea of a peaceful, happy life, like a memory of real happiness come alive for just an instant. There was no hurry, no pulling, no discontent, no yammering and so on... etc... it was people just being and doing their thing,... alive and swimming in ancient energies.... rare special moments...

400 years ago, Mrauk U was a glorious powerful capital rivalling London and Amsterdam with a navy of thousands of ships. Now November 2005, this city is an ‘old grandmother', basking in the sun, bringing up lots and lots children, in a quiet backwater village broken up by canals and waterways every 30 meters. Curious, laughing, smiling children are everywhere. I am a white foreigner, of the same ‘type' as those colonial masters that dominated the country for hundreds of years. Yet I can walk safely anywhere, explore the alleys, the back roads, and people smile at me, children shout greetings, and then go back to their games. No one begs. They are busy, they have their own lives. They are not like children in the modern world. There is no anger and rebellion of the type I know from my own country, no such ‘lost-ness' that I can see and I think I'm good at spotting it by now.

At 6:30pm when its totally dark the electricity for the whole town comes on. At 9:30pm the lights flicker three times. It's the signal. Five minutes later all lights everywhere go out. Only torches and candles and car batteries running love voltage neons provide bare minimum lighting. Walking along the road, I whistle and sing loudly, bicycles, cars, ox carts pop up in the pale light out my torch beam as I walk 1km back to my hotel room.

I sit in the evening sun, on a bridge over the many many waterways of Mrauk U, writing in my diary. A man comes from his house, brings me a torch as the light fails, so I can keep writing. “Would I like to join them for dinner ?”,

I feel afraid for the people here, they do not know the world I come from, they do not know what is waiting out there beyond their borders. I want to protect them.... - how ? what can ‘i' do ? perhaps that's just arrogance....

After a few days there I sleep deeper and feel healthier than I can ever remember.

There are festivals and fairs in Myanmar all the time. In the evening everyone in town streams to a field by a waterway. Nothing else to do, I follow. Slapstick comedy, acts on a stage, singing, dancing, more singing. I surprise myself by enjoying it. Food stalls, games of chance and skill. I can't see any other foreigners here, yet I can just mingle and be part of the scene. I get surprised looks for a moment then people just continue. I've never felt a part of a group of people like this before. Looking around I see how one lady prepares the Betlenut leaves with lime and spices. The people here have something special, they ARE in it, they swim in it. I feel as though I've gone back to the world of then ancients that Chiron talked about in the 1998 Gathering. This was real, I was in the midst of it – I was dreaming a waking dream....life is a dream after all.

It seems corny to say I felt ‘love' for everyone around me, for their lifestyle, for them as they are – again that feeling of wanting to protect them, knowing what the modern world will do to this place when it gets in. Sooner or later it will come and take from them something precious they don't even know they have and give them something else they thought they wanted, but which will turn out to be empty and pointless in the end. It seems to be the way we humans learn...

I stand in the darkness, only cooking fires and small battery powered globes to light up the teeming fairground. I watch the surprise on the faces of people when they suddenly realize that here is a foreigner in their midst. We smile at each other and they move on. I have the sense that they are even pleased to see a foreigner who wants to come to their fair. I don't want to talk to anyone, its enough to just be here, observe, feel part of it all. Strange how its possible to be totally private in the midst of a sea of people in a fair filled with sound and the smells of cooking fires. In Australia, I love sitting in busy Cafés writing or drawing, left alone but in the middle of it all.

There is not space to tell you about the family I got to know at the fair ground, and then met them again in town the next day. No time to talk of the time in the local restaurant when a group of University students on an excursion invites me to join them. A tiny lady student in fine silks with exquisite poise and confidence approaches me in perfect English and helps me order from the many choices on the menu. She loves showing off her English to her friends and explains the dishes to me.

The next day I happen to walk past a shop selling brass images of Shiva, the Buddha etc.. . Tourists from small minivans pile out and into the shop. A leather faced hawker offers me ‘special discounts' for his brass figures. A pickup truck (a ‘Ute' with benches and a roof in the back) full of local people is waiting next to the minivan. He offers his wares to the people waiting in the truck. They pass the figures around looking at them. One of the them is a young monk, he looks at the figure of Shiva and shyly longingly runs his thumb over her chest in an absent minded dreamy way. The woman next to him saw it and she elbows him in the side and tells him to behave himself. Everyone chuckles. He quickly passes the brass statue on. No big deal. No one's bought anything.

The tourists pile back into their van. I keep going. The pickup chugs past me. I pretend not to see the tourists in the van, its part of the unwritten rules of the road, tourists must ignore each other, each pretending that they are here alone, the first and only ones to discover this exotic location. Anyway I look down on package tours and they probably look down on grubby backpackers doing it dirt cheap.

“Mandaly”, you have often appeared in my travels. The former Royal Capital Mandalay is where the Mahamuni Buddha lives, one of the great sacred images of Burma. Literally covered in inches of pure gold leaf, his picture can be seen dangling from many rear view mirrors and sitting on family altars. I felt a question was asked of me there, and I made a promise.

Two years later I was back again and didn't do what I'd been asked to. Energy lashes can be very painful, very real.

I'd visited Mandalay at other times and each time I'd refused to go into the Royal Palace. Finally in 2005 it dawned on me that I was supposed to visit that Palace (talk about ‘thick' and slow in ‘getting it'). Once I entered I knew I had lived there before. I found out much that still gives me lots to think about.

Then there is Mount Poppa, the steep rock peak rising straight out of the ground, a temple on top (of course). It was a picture of Mt Poppa that made me first really decide to travel to Myanmar. This is where the guardian spirits of the whole country live. The center of an amazing tradition of medium ship. In this country: every village has a spirit medium. Centuries of customs are built around it. The statues of the guardian spirits there seemed more alive than any I'd ever seen. I made sure I was on my best behaviour around them.

Then there is Moulmain (Mwalamine) that city of those old songs, city by the sea. The name alone was enough to draw me there – a name of myth and legends – back in 1999, I suddenly realized that it was really possible to hop on a plane and go there....! The train that takes you the 250km from Yangon to Moulmain has to go at a jogger's pace. The tracks are so uneven that the carriages bounce from side to side, lifting you off your hard wooden seat and slamming you down on the next bounce while you are still in mid air. Any faster and it would all just jump off the tracks totally. When I finally arrived, 12 hours later and after crossing a broad river by ferry, its as though time had stood still and I almost expected the British East India company to still operate there. Cars came by every minute or so. Old decaying colonial buildings by the sea. At 6am precisely, everyone in the whole hotel clears their throats thoroughly and deeply. Without prompting the owner lends me an old English inspirational book of 1944. It had some simple advice in it that is still with me. Did I have to go to Moulmain for that ? did I really look that much in need of inspiration ?

The great Shwe-Dagon Pagoda of Yangon is huge, impressive, it has something special about it. Pictures of the Shwe-Dagon, Bagan and Mount Poppa were what first called me to Myanmar.

The old old city of Pyay, at the crossroads of river and highways - I'd passed it by many times believing other's stories that there was ‘nothing much to see there'. “Yea sure !“; don't believe other's stories! History, ancient kingdoms and the feeling that of all the cities in Myanmar this one most spoke to me. This one was a dream within a dream. There is nothing I can pinpoint, but there was a lot to feel. I could live there for two years. I'd like to. I've offered it to the ethers.

I felt safe in that country, safer than in any modern Western country. Nearly everyone I met spoke English. Of course you need to keep your wits about you. The Burmese are a sophisticated people, who had common laws, female/male initiated divorce and equal sharing of property for women when the British Colonists did not even allow their women to vote or own property.

In no other place in the world (including Europe, Australia, USA) have I seen such a natural balance between men and women in daily life. Gender seems not to be an issue.

Everyone comes & goes to the teahouses and sits and drinks tea on small stools.

Every little hill has a Buddhist stupa on it, monks in dark orange and nuns in pink walk everywhere.

You ONLY hear Burmese language music, Western pop music is translated, even if the melody is from The Beatles or Madonna, the words are Burmese.

Most important but hardest to talk about are the people I met on my first visit in 1999. Some have become friends I've visited every time since, they make the visits special.

Sitting in Yangon on the roof garden of my hotel (USD$8/night), the one and only FM radio station in this city of 9million plays music of 90 to 70 years ago before closing down at 10:30pm. One night the music took me back to that time of the British Raj, - going to fancy balls in Rangoon, officers and ladies. So much has happened since then. What will others look back on in 80 years time ? when I too am long gone and just a memory evoked by the warm evening breeze.

I should point out: satellite dishes abound everywhere. Radio is old technology. No one bothers. Its all propaganda anyway, only Short wave BBC and Voice of America carry any news that Burmese take more seriously.

There is so much more... and not enough space to write it all down.

Politics: Mention “Burma” and likely images of the beautiful ‘princess' Aug San Suu Kyi unjustly imprisoned by a beastly military government spring to mind. In the English speaking world this image is promoted as a clear cut case in which we can safely judge who is ‘wrong' and who is ‘right'. It is the country who's government everyone loves to hate. Feel the need to vent some self righteous indignation and want to ‘do your bit' for justice in the world ? Then just thunder against the ‘evil dictatorship of Burma'. No need to look deeper, everyone will agree with you and nod sagely. Myanmar (Burma) is the ‘bad boy', the whipping boy of SE Asia against whom we can all let out our rightful indignation.

....Truth and further truth...

Most tourists I met were Europeans, where the political correctness regarding Myanmar is not as strong as in the English speaking world.

Myanmar showed me that once the ancient world did exist. Even Myanmar only holds a pale shadow of those times, but it still has much that is lost to the rest of the world. I hope not too many people rush to visit, and that those who do, do so respectfully. It too is changing fast.

Only in Yangon was I bothered by beggars, where many tourists are there can the beggars be found. The Burmese are proud that no one starves in the streets in Burma.

Those who are interested to see actual photos of Myanmar in 2005 go to:

http://heikorudolph.com/ and click on the link: “ Myanmar Nov2005 pictures ”

Stories and pictures of travels Myanamar can be found on the link: Stories of Myanmar 2005 just below.

Travel tips : travel in Myanmar can be slow & tough unless you fly a lot (and that too is slow-ish). Major roads can be just dirt tracks, a day or two on a bus or a boat is nothing unusual. If you go: take your time, take your own food, don't hurry, go slowly. Don't expect Western comforts, timetables, or customs. Read the Lonely Planet guidebook, or something similar. If you still have questions: email: heikorudolph (at) yahoo.com

This is one man's impression, it's not politically correct, its not scientifically correct, its not even trying to be !

Based on Heiko's travels in Myanmar (Burma) from 13Nov to 10Dec 2005.

NB: Myanmar is the old name for Burma. When the British Empire invaded (colonized) the country for economic reasons they changed the name to ‘Burma'. ‘Yangon' is the old name for what the British called ‘Rangoon'.

- - - o o o 0 0 0 ( O ) 0 0 0 o o o - - -

© 2003 heiko rudolph

stories of Myanmar 2005 - airline ticket saga

stories of Myanmar 2005

The airline ticket sage - or -the ultimate free market economy.

---ooo000(O)000ooo---
This story is worth telling:
For once I'm the first customer through the door. The agent's computers are still booting up and I'm already asking them about flights to Sittwe. Lovely and charming they do their best, but its clear I'm too early, so I go and surf the net around the corner.

"Sorry Sir, the flights are all booked out. Today is full moon holiday, you will find that many businesses are closed”.
"Really, nothing I can do ? pay a bit more ? special 1st class ?"
Nothing can be done. Even standby is dicey and if I get a seat it would cost the full published fare of $90 instead of $78.
They try to help me: "Here is the Myanmar Airline office address, you can try there".

Off I trot. Past the US embassy. If they were paranoid before, they went one up from there. Signs of NO PHOTO, NO VIDEO plastered every 5 meters. I have the feeling I'm being monitored just walking by on the other side. A tension exudes from that immaculately kept building and its antenna farm on the roof. All around the same vintage Myanmar Government buildings are in advanced stages of decrepitude, water damage, boarded up windows at ground level and open glassless windows further up. Freshly washed shirts of the public servants hang from the windows. People live here, their whole lives take place in the office. Home away from home.

Its hot, trees and decaying buildings in the lazy heat. I love that atmosphere, its got something I really enjoy, much prefer to the clean skyscrapers of my won world. But then I have a nice cool hotel room to go back to.

"Postcards, one thousant Kyat, everything!", and she lets go of the packet of cards which drop concertinas ground. Two little Indian girls, wiry, thin and alive like quicksilver, look at me. Their faces painted with the Thanaka everyone puts on their cheeks. Smiling I shake my head, I've seen this routine too often.

On second thoughts, their English is perfect: "Hey do you know where the Myanmar Airline office is ?"
Eagerly they point to a building and run ahead to show me. Instantly I have guides. The older taller and darker one takes me to the front, they wait outside. I wander up to the second floor and realize I’m lost. Looking down the long grand stairwell to the front door they are still watching me so I beckon them up. They race up to stand beside me in the deserted building. Then a government official in her 'government official shuffle' comes past. I make a gesture and they ask her in Burmese her for the ticket counter.

Down we go again. It’s a vast hall, old and disused furniture in one corner, the ceiling is 3 times the usual height, the whole building has seen better days.
In the corner is a small group of people.
A helpful guy comes across to ask me what I want.
I know he's after a commission, but I need someone to navigate for me. We zip out around the building and into another large hall, full of people waiting in the semidarkness.
He tells me I need to buy a form for 200Kyat. Then they need my passport, and a photo.
No photo ? no problem, we photocopy from your passport.
" 50 Kyat for photocopy please!". (NB:200Kyat is an hour's wage for many people, a day’s wage for some)

Mr Helpful is now filling out forms for me, writing things down, ushers me to the other counter across the hall and explains that on special days like this, the counter is usually only open between 8:30 and 9:30am. Now being late, a small late fee will be payable. The exact figure disappears in the gush of babble but the figure ‘five’ surfaces occasionally.

The girls meanwhile give me warning looks, they tell me: "Too much money". I'm touched that they would bother to warn me about being ‘screwed’, but then I know what's going on, I'm here to get what I want. Of course that means special ‘admin fees’ are applicable. In my country they charge students $200 for late enrolments, so ok I'll pay late fees.

Forms and things move back and forth, but I'm in good hands, Mr Helpful my attorney, is managing it all for me. Naturally there will be a time of reckoning at the end.

The girls are now shushed away, the Helpfull doesn't trust them. They knew me first (by one minute) and thus have a prior claim on me and are more loyal to me than to him.

As we walk round back to the other hall the girls manage to tell me: "You pay too much". I smile, I know, I'm being 'screwed'. But do I want to take a bus for 12 hours and a ship for 2 days ? Let me try here a bit longer. I'll have to do enough bussing in the next 3 weeks, I'm sure. Flying is a luxury even for me. I’m "Mr Moneybags" in the eyes of the Burmese, but even I can't afford too many flights.

Now the real business starts. Mr Helpful handles everything, asking me for the money, the passport etc.... He carefully writes down the serial number of the $100 bill. I have to pay a total of $90 here, that's only for the ticket of course. Commissions come later. No one is that helpful without a good reason.
A small problem, they don't have $10 change, only $20 or $5 or those dreaded FEC's. (Foreign Exchange Certificates, that travellers hate with a passion, and call monopoly money). FEC's have only just been discontinued. When I inform Mr Helpful of this fact and refuse to accept FEC's he fully understands and does not try to push it.

I pretend to have no change either, because often someone nearby or another room will be able to help, perhaps they don't want to walk round and get it. Lets test this first.
Its clear there really is no $10 change to be found.
Ok, much as I hate to do it I pull out my special stash of $1 dollar bills. (one dollars are very useful to give to people looking for a 'present').

Mr Helpful now writes down the serial number of every single bill. I help him by cycling through the wad as he writes.

Two other Burmese women with wads of dollars and FEC's stand around waiting. They are the agent's runners, holding lists of names. Maybe I'm kicking somebody off a fully booked plane ? Should I withdraw ? how guilty do I want to feel ? The guilt attack lasts 2 seconds, I'm over it. Their problem, if they sell me a ticket I pay and go. Basta.

Ok I get my ticket.
We leave.
I give Mr Helpfull 1000 Kyat, about one US dollar.
He explains that because the time was after 9:30 and we have to pay a late fee to the officials in the other hall he will need 5000 Kyat. “Ah there it is”, I knew we'd get to this part eventually.
He thinks the 1000Kyat is for him in addition to the 5000 still to come.
Taking back the 1000 I just gave him I count out another 3500. I've run out, or so I tell him.

Through the window, I can see the wiry little girls are shaking their head and mouthing warnings, silently mouthing something to the effect of: "You are being screwed". I know that. That's the deal I entered into.
Just to test him I stay with the "I'm out of money" routine. I show him my pockets. He gets agitated and explains that the money is really not for him, oh no, of course not. Its for the officials in the next hall.
"remember, I promised them for the late fee", he laments. The front door security guard comes round and some other guy in a uniform.
They tell in Burmese, him to stop this game, but eventually national solidarity wins out and they reluctantly agree to hold their tongues and let things proceed.

"Ok", I suggest,"How about I walk round with you and we pay the official in the next room ?"
Now he starts to look worried.
Aha, so he's not keen on sharing I see.
Do I imagine it or is he starting to sweat ? The security guys have also understood and seem to enjoy it.

All right, time to end the charade it would only be power play from now on.
What's another $1 after all ? who cares in the end and it I always knew it was going to cost me. At least here its out in the open.

Anyone looking rich, Burmese or foreigner, all have to pay these individual bargaining charges. This is after all true market economy: You pay what the market asks. The price depends on how desperately you want it and how much of the supply there is. Simple. Its like this all over the world.
Enterprise bargaining in its purest form. The rich pay more, they are in a higher tax bracket. In a country with effectively no income tax, this is the way it works..........so I fish around in my bag and produce some more 500Kyat bills.
Everyone is happy.
Smiles all round.
A happy deal.

In my 'civilized' country they do the same thing in other ways. Surcharges, levies, laws, certificates of compliance, taxes... whatever you call it, it all adds up to the same thing.

Outside the girls wait. They are upset with me for letting myself get ripped off.
"Don't you know you paid too much ?” the older one scolds me like a wife telling her husband off the 100th time.
“Why did you do that ? My brother tells me he can get tickets for foreigners for $35."
I laugh. Here a little street urchin is telling me off for paying too much. I'm touched, or almost, because I know there is another debt to pay, they too need to have be paid for their help.

We walk round the block and chat away. In the doorway of a bookshop I sit down. We’ve been through quite a sage together, that merits asking each other’s names. They are "Gekai, and Curija", 12 and 9 years old. They are lively and chatty with shining eyes and really into their 'work'.
I think: “Photo time!”. I figure we know each other well enough to get some good close up facial shots without embarrassment. As I thought they don't mind, they smile for the camera and quite enjoy it. I ask Gekai to take my photo. She’s never held a camera before but she picks it up fast. Most adults don’t understand and press the shutter the minute I show them how. Gekai waits for me to get into position, then ‘click’!

It occurs to me that these girls would know what is going on all over town. They tell me where the Myanmar Five Start Line (shipping line is). No one else, neither agent not Government Tourist bureau could tell me so far. Not only that, they even find it on the map for me. Being able to read a map is a real skill. I’m impressed.
They show off their French, Japanese, Spanish and Italian and I can make out what they say. English is what they are best in.

Right! I decide to face the question of remuneration for their help.
"How about I buy a set of postcards from each of you ?"
"2500 for the whole set".
Ooooops the price has gone up a little bit…
More back and forth dickering and discussions. This is normal, one has to barter like this. I'm impressed that I've managed it so far, in the old days I would have blown my top long ago and stalked off, sitting in a bus for 12hours and boat for two days instead.
"You didn't understand my English right" she tells me with a serious face.
"I always said 5 cards for 1500Kyat".
I wonder if she realizes she is doing the same thing as Mr Helpful ?

"The money will go to my school, half of it and the other half to me and my family" she explains. She must been through this routine with many foreigners.
I think: ‘Yea sure it will dear, sure’, but I say nothing, just smile.
The push and pull goes on a little longer and I end up paying them something but in the end I hand back the cards. Don't need them, don't want more stuff to carry.

"These girls really know their English" I remark to a passing Burmese man, entering the bookshop.
"and they are good business people too !"
"Oh yes, they are Indian, that's why, its in their......." and he searches for an appropriate word.
"Genes" I venture... but he doesn't know that word.
"Its in their culture..."
"yes that's it".

NB: There is a long and angst ridden history of Burmese VS Indians. Indians were
kicked out of the country in the 1960's. Its the usual story of one suppressed ethnic group becoming too "successful" i.e. 'more equal', and using their success and the power of money to in return push the people of their host country. Same archetypal story in various guises can be seen played out all over the world, the Chinese, the Jews, the Africans, anyone different etc. etc...
We walk back, Gekai and Curija are happy and chatter away. Now they suggest I go to the ferry terminal and cross the river.
"have I ever been across the river?", they ask.
"No".
Walking along they point to a new multistorey house being constructed. One of the few construction projects I've seen in Yangon. Plenty of half-finished high rises, but no new building at all.
"There used to be a spirit in that house" they tell me.
"there was bomb went off in it". I'm not sure if I heard right. "Really ?" I try to sound disinterested. I'm not a good liar I've been told so many times. It seems this happened a few months ago, though that is unlikely as the building is halfway finished already. Interesting source of intelligence I think. Not a deliberate move but an interesting discovery. Hm....

At the ferry terminal I get the now familiar treatment, the privileged treatment of, "stand aside everyone here comes a Mr Moneybags and he's about to ‘donate’".
Why do I feel like a lamb led to the slaughter again ?
I know it’s a game and decide to go along a bit further.
Oh I see, I'm being taken to the manager of the ferry service, one trip is, I am told, $1USD. Wow how cheap! Privilege tax again, in the West the rich are best at avoiding tax, here there is no such escaping.

For you, Mr Moneybags, its only a dollar (1200Kyat). What's a dollar after all ?
I smile and decide to go another time, not accompanied by overheads in the form of guides and managers of the ferry service.
On the way out check what the locals are paying. They hand over 50 Kyat and are getting change from that. Another time, there is limit to how much Mr Moneybags can stand in one hour.
It occurs to me that I the smallest note I've ever handled was 200Kyat, for most 200 Kyat is a significant amount of money. I've not yet graduated to the 50Kyat or below category. Its almost unthinkable only taking 50 Kyat from a foreigner or a rich Burmese. Here they have a great system of luxury tax, GST, VAT, with inbuilt means testing set within a framework of enterprise bargaining setting. Perfect for the neo-liberal economists.

I've not entertained any serious illusions about Gekai and Curija. I'm more interested to watch how they operate, getting a first hand view of real experts at work, able to see the moves as they unfold.
Fascinating. I imagine this at the corporate level, suit and ties and boardrooms. That's what I'm told it takes these days.

I ask what they usually do during the day. They exchange meaningful looks and tell me they actually go to school, but today is the full moon holiday. I have the feeling they’ve learnt from experience that this is the best thing to say.

Ok time to go and eat.

At the corner, I change my mind, I turn back and decide to follow up the lead about the new building and what happened there.

This is too good to let go unquestioned, its a also a new avenue I'd never thought of before.

When I get back to where the girls first latched onto me, I see them in action on a European couple.

The lady is all taken aback by their cute looks, and excellent English. The young one is still smiling, the older one, Gekai, is smiling for the effect, but when she thinks no one is looking I see her eyes aren't smiling. She drops the smile like a mask. This is work.
Curija is still young enough to be caught up in it all totally. Gekai is her teacher.
"Can I take your picture ?", the lady asks.
"How much to take your picture ?"
I'm horrified and whisper to her that picture are 'free' and not to give them new ideas. I feel a liberty to whisper like this because Gekai had been whispering in Burmese to her understudy whenever they needed to steer me in a certain direction. Little instructional directions in Burmese that the foreigner couldn't understand. I usually got the gist of their whispers.
The lady is all google eyed.
She has herself lined up with the girl and the husband takes a photo.
Then she offers them a pen, its a nice one, with a clip and a fancy design. They smile and take it.
Realizing there are two of them and only one pen, she adds: "you have to share it between the both of you" she tells them.
"Yes we share".
She must have read about giving pens in her guidebook. Burmese kids are supposed to want them.
The couple leaves.

"Here you want the pen ?" they offer it to me with a bored look.
They really don't give a fig for the pen. I take it.

Not a good time to talk about other stuff, we decide to call it quits and I go to have a delicious meal the “Golden city Ghethy restaurant” for $0.80. A good morning’s work.

---oooO(O)Oooo---
“You wouldn’t believe…blah blah….” I tell the hotel manager my story when I return. I’m proud of myself for having managed to get a ticket the day before, on a public holiday.
“We have air ticket service here, ask the front desk”, he tells me.
“Yes, I checked, but YOUR price, is much higher than the travel agent, ninety dollars!”.
He smiles at me, “and the travel agent can’t help you, right ?”
I only nod.
“how much did you spend this morning?”.
I laugh with him, he has a good point, “I paid quite a bit more” I admit, “but it was worth the experience”.

“We can do your booking anytime”, he tells me, “no extra commissions, just ninety dollars”, he smiles at me. We both laugh, considering how much extra I had to pay Mr Helpful and the others.
“But I’m leaving tomorrow morning, today is a holiday”, I try to salvage some of my achievement, ”that’s why I went to the airline office direct”. I still feel that this being not my country, I did pretty well.
I’m not really serious, I know my face gives me away, it’s just something to do on a holiday.

He smiles at me,“anytime”, he tells me, “day or night”.
I raise my eyebrows, “what, even the night before ?”.
“Even at 3am in the night. Same price, all included”, he smiles at me, in a matter of fact way. I believe him. The hotel is well run, safe, clean upfront and honest in all their dealings. I’ve stayed here 3 years ago and we remember each other. I trust them.
“Hmmm….”, and as I walk back to my room, just to make doubly sure: “anytime?!”.
“Anytime”.
I nod to myself and file the information away for future emergencies. A vision flashes past me: I see myself as the ‘Old Hand of Rangoon’ who knows how things work around here and who arranges things for distressed tourists, but especially pretty damsels. In a nonchalant offhanded way, a few whispers and a couple of arrangements and all is fine. ‘Old hand’ rides off into the sunset, “ahhhh, forget it, it was nothing….”. Everyone wants to be a hero. I’ve seen too many movies.

I remember once reading a quote by Charles Lamb: “The greatest pleasure I know is to do a good action by stealth and have it found out by accident.”
---oooO(O)Oooo---

Pyay

Pyay, a young couple hiding behind tree, 2 men hiding watching the couple.
In front of me: Military signs on a guard house. Inside the compound are buildings and 5 tall antenna masts, painted red and white, wires running from one to the other 30 highers up. Satellite dishes pointing in various directions. Only a dog lounges at the entrance, no humans in sight.

On my right a little rise and a narrow footpath. ‘That’s an interesting path’ and I walk up to to get a better view of the Irrawaddy river and the 1.5 km long bridge crossing it below. I’m high up on the banks of the river.

A large tree on my left. Surprised I notice a young man and his girlfriend, sitting very close. I look away and walk on a bit to the edge of the hillock. Another narrow path leads a long way down to a monastery, then the road and then the river.
‘Click’, I’ve finished taking my photo. I’d better leave them to it and walk off away from them. As I get close to a large concrete block, two skinny, wiry Burmese men gesture to me, fingers on their lips they wave their hands and shake their heads.
A small hesitation and stop, look around me and walk back the way I came back to my spot by the edge. Pretending to take another picture, to hide my agitation.
My thoughts run wild:
‘Do I warn the couple about the peeping Tom’s ?
Should I get involved ?
Hey, this is none of your business Heiko !
Yea but they’re spying on them’. I feel upset and a outrage.
‘Will the couple get into trouble ?
Naw… this is Burma, they’re not that uptight about sex here’.
Anyway how would I talk to the boy and girl ? Gesture to the concrete block and make big eyes ? Shout and expose the 2 men ? I’m being observed by 4 people right now. All of them want me out of here.

Heiko, don’t poke your nose in other people’s business. After all it’s not a robbery or a mugging’, and I walk past the couple without looking at them.

The guard house is still empty. Here is a foreigner walking right past a large communications facility. No one is watching. The path takes me on. On my left between the trees is a the ground falls away and a meeting hall floats amongst the trees. It must be a monastery.

Everything is very quiet, its hot but there is another tension in the air.

Continuing on,a beautiful 2 storey house stands on the very highest point. A long driveway leads up to it. Verandas circle the building on all four sides. It looks like a ‘stately home’ of Britain. Old pine trees on three sides it. It is in good condition. But the people who live there, gather firewood from the surrounding undergrowth on a cart crudely made of old car tires. They are not rich people, yet their house is fitting for a Governor.

I end up at the corner, right on the highest outcrop, is a lookout point. Directly in front and below me is the bridge and the river. This bridge is the only link to the Western Rakhine states for hundreds of kilometres.

A young couple sits in on the stone wall, holding hands. A few motorbikes are parked but their owners are nowhere in sight. Lovers lane Burmese style.

The road from the bridge cuts a deep chasm through the embankment on my left. On the other side enormous high voltage towers carry the power to hills and the Western states. It feels eerie, deserted and yet, there are people in hiding everywhere. We don’t greet each other here, this place is different.

I sit on a brick and concrete ruin and let the wind cool me down. Its easy to zone out here. Ants force me to move to another spot.

Teashop in Pyay,
I sit in the teashop in Pyay, Mr Potheí very efficiently looks after me. He has adopted me two days ago, when I, the foreigner, first sat down in his shop and the novelty of it brought 4 young men crowding around my table, looking at me, talking to me, practicing their English.
Now, the staff don’t bother to notice me in any special way, I’m only another customer, I feel like an old hand. This is a good way to be, I sit down and order flat Indian bread and the thick orange tea with a layer of condensed milk at the bottom. Since meeting him 2 days ago, it is always Mr Potheí who looks after my requests. As one of the young runner boys in the shop it gives him status of sorts. He’s not shy or worried about speaking simple English to me. Mentally I see him 30 years on, middle aged, giving orders to his staff in a teashop or restaurant. Even at 10 he has the air of a leader.

Chapter 3:
A Burmese Fairy Tale. A Burmese woman speaks out

Like many Burmese. I am tired of living in a fairy tale. For years, outsiders portrayed the troubles of my country as a morality play: good against evil, with no shade of grey in between. A simplistic picture, but one the world believes. The response of the west has been equally simplistic: it wages a moral crusade against evil, using such magic wands as sanctions and
boycotts.
But for us, Myanmar is no fairy-tale land with a simple solution to its problems. We were isolated for 26 years under socialism and we continue to lack a modem economy. We are tired of wasting time. If we are to move forward, to modernise, then we need everyone to face facts.

That may sound like pro-government propaganda, but I haven't changed since I joined the democracy movement in August 1988. I have lived most of my life under the 1962-88 socialist regime - another fairy tale, this one of isolation. In 1988 we knew it was time to join the world. Thousands of us took to the streets, and I joined the National League for Democracy (NLD) and worked as an aide to Aung SanSuu Kyi.
I worked closely with Ma Suu. As we all called her, for nearly a year. I campaigned with her until 20 July 1989. when she was put under house arrest and I was sent to Insein Prison in Rangoon, where I spent nearly three years. I have no regrets about going to jail and blame no one for it. It was a price we knew we might have to pay. But my fellow former political prisoners and I are beginning to wonder if our sacrifices have been worthwhile. Almost a decade after it all began, we are concerned that the work we started has been squandered and the momentum wasted.

In my time with Ma Suu, I came to love her deeply. I still do. We had hoped that when she was released from house arrest in 1995 that the country would move forward again. So much was needed - proper housing and food and adequate health care to begin with. That was what the democracy movement was really about - helping people.

Ma Suu could have changed our lives dramatically. With her influence and prestige, she could have asked major aid donors such as the USA and Japan for help. She could have encouraged responsible companies to invest here, creating jobs and helping build a stable economy. She could have struck up a constructive dialogue with the government and laid the groundwork for a sustainable democracy. Instead, she chose the opposite, putting pressure on the government by telling foreign investors to stay away and asking foreign governments to withhold aid. Many of us cautioned her that this was counterproductive. Why couldn't economic development and political improvement grow side by side? People need jobs to put food on the table, which may not sound grand and noble, but it is a basic truth we face every day. Ma Suu's approach has been highly moral and uncompromising, catching the imagination of the outside world. Unfortunately, it has come at a real price for the rest of us. Sanctions have increased tensions with the government and cost jobs. But they haven't accomplished anything positive.

I know that human-rights groups think they are helping us, but they are thinking with their hearts and not their heads. They say foreign investment merely props up the government and doesn't help ordinary people. That's not true. The country survived for almost 30 years without any investment. Moreover, the USA, Japan and others cut off aid in 1988, and the USA imposed sanctions in May 1997. Yet all that has done nothing except send a hollow 'moral message'.

Two westerners - one a prominent academic and the other a diplomat - once suggested to me that if sanctions and boycotts undermined the economy, people would have less to lose and would be willing to start a revolution. They seemed very pleased with this idea - a revolution to watch from the safety of their own country. This naive romanticism angers many of us here in Myanmar. You would deliberately make us poor to force us to fight a revolution? American college students play at being freedom fighters and politicians stand up and proclaim that they are striking a blow for democracy with sanctions. But it is we Burmese who pay the price for these empty heroics. Many of us now wonder: is it for this that we went to jail ? Unfortunately, the Burmese fairy tale is so widely accepted it now seems almost impossible to call for pragmatism. Political correctness has grown so fanatical that any public criticism of the NLD or its leadership is instantly met with accusations of treachery: to simply call for realism is to be labelled pro-military or worse. But when realism becomes a dirty word, progress becomes impossible. So put away the magic wand and think about us as a real, poor country. Myanmar has many problems, largely the result of almost 30 years of isolationism. More isolation won't fix the problems and sanctions push us backward, not forward. We need jobs. We need to modernise. We need to be a part of the world. Don't close the door on us in the name of democracy. Surely fairy tales in the west don't end so badly ?

Ma Thanegi, a pro-democracy activist and former political prisoner, lives in Yangon.
From the Lonely Planet guidebook on “Myanmar, (Burma)”, January 2000, 7th edition, pages 30,31.

Yangon(Rangoon), Myanmar (Burma)

Atmosphere: What makes a beautiful dream different, what makes it beautiful ? Is it the events that take place in the dream ? It’s more than that, - its an indefinable quality that permeates everything that happens in the dream. It soaks all through the dream.
Travelling in Myanmar was like that for me. The people there are human and no worse or better than here, but the atmosphere in that place is of ancient antiquity. Ancient ways of knowing and thinking, of feeling and being. Travelling in Myanmar, I smelt the past, felt the old ways soak through my skin, the influence of old kingdoms that rose and fell there over thousands of years. Tantalizingly just out of reach.

There is an old and ancient knowledge buried in Myanmar.

What draws me to Myanmar is the ‘different-ness’ of it. It is truly a hidden “island”, where the modern ways are only slowly slowly seeping in. No MacDonalds & such, no internet, no mobile phones, no rampant commercialism, not yet. The week has 8 days there. Numerology is important, 35 and 75 Kyat notes were common a few years ago. The whole country switched from driving on the left to driving on the right overnight, because the top man said so. He said so because his fortune teller told him to take the country to the right.... so goes the story anyway.
(NB: actually there are mobile phones but SIM cards cost USD$4000, yes that’s four thousand, phones cost the same as here, income average is ~USD$30/month)

Going to Europe or North America is different from Australia, of course, yet compared to Myanmar, its only a different room in the same house. Myanmar is a different city, - ‘different’ in that indefinable way.... which will not stop me from trying to tell you about it, trying to convey something of that ‘otherness’ that ‘uniqueness’.

Looking back Myanmar has been a place of strong energetic ‘stuff’ for me, even though my actual time there has been short. My first chance to go to Burma was when travelling in SE-Asia just after high school. I passed it by. Then age 40 I bit the bullet and followed a strange urge to go there come what may. When I left for Myanmar I hoped not to return to Australia for a long time, to live in Asia all my life. I’d travelled and worked in Asia and Japan, but that first day in Myanmar, I just wanted to hide in the hotel room and take a taxi back to Bangkok. It was a classic case of culture shock. I was shocked at myself after all the that travel, here I was a dithering wreck almost hiding in the bed. After getting over that, I was hooked. The place was so amazingly different. It was hard to believe it was real, that such unique otherness still existed in this modern world.

There was Bagan the dry desert land with more temples in one place than anywhere in the world with an atmosphere that is almost eerie.
It was in Bagan (and later Mrauk-U) that I felt and saw in actual real life, children playing, people walking, evening cooking smell, scenes of such domestic peace and beauty, they were my 'perfect' idea of peaceful, happy life, like a memory of paradise come alive for just an instant. There was no hurry, no pulling, no discontent, no yammering and so on... etc... it was people just being and doing their thing,... alive and swimming in ancient energies.... rare special moments...

There was Mandalay where the Mahamuni Buddhi lives, one of the great sacred images of Burma. Covered in inches of pure gold leaf, his picture can be seen on many rear view mirrors, family altars, temples. I felt a question asked of me there, and made a promise.

Two years later I was back again and didn’t do what I’d been asked to. Energy lashes can be very painful, very real.

Then there is Mount Poppa, the steep rock peak rising straight out of the ground, a temple on top (of course). This is where the guardian spirits of the whole country live. The center of the traditions of medium ship. Every village has a spirit medium. Centuries of customs are built around it. The statues of the guardian spirits there seemed more alive than any I’d ever seen. I made sure I was on my best behaviour around them.

Then there is Moulmain (Mwalamine) that city of those old songs by the sea. The train that takes you the 250km from Yangon has to go at walking pace. The tracks are so uneven that the carriages bounces from side to side, lifting you off your hard wooden seats, and slamming you down on the next bounce while you are still in mid air. Any faster and it would all jump off the tracks totally. When I finally arrived, 10 hours later after crossing a broad river, its as though time had stood still and I almost saw the British East India company to still operating there. Cars came by every minute or so. At 6am precisely, everyone in the whole hotel clears their throats thoroughly and deeply. The owner gave me an old English book of 1944. It had some simple advice in it that turned me around and is still with me. Did I rally have to go to Moulmain for that ?

The great Shwe-Dagon Pagoda of Yangon is huge, impressive, and most of all it has the full power of the people behind it. Pictures of the Shwe-Dagon, Bagan and Mount Poppa were what called me to Myanmar in the end.

Three times I’d visited Mandalay and refused to go to the Royal Palace. Finally in 2005 I entered and I knew I had been there before. I found out much.

The old old city of Pyay, at the crossroads of river and highways - I’d passed it by many times believing other’s stories that there was ‘nothing much to see there’. “Yea sure !“; don’t believe other’s stories. History, ancient kingdoms and the feeling that of all the cities in Myanmar this one most spoke to me. This one was a dream within a dream. There is nothing I can pinpoint, but there was a lot to feel. I could live there for two years. I’d like to. I’ve offered to the ethers.

I felt safe in that country, safer than in any modern Western country. Nearly everyone I met spoke English. Of course you need to keep your wits about you. The Burmese are a sophisticated people, who had common laws, female/male initiated divorce and equal sharing of property for women when the British Colonists did not even allow their women to vote or own property.
In no other place in the world have I seen such a natural balance between men and women in daily life. Gender seems not to be an issue.
Everyone comes goes to the teahouses and sits and drinks tea on small stools.

Every little hill has a Buddhist stupa on it, monks in dark orange and nuns in pink walk everywhere.

You ONLY hear Burmese language music, Western pop music is translated, even if the melody is from The Beatles or Madonna, the words are Burmese.

Most important but hardest to talk about are the people I met on my first visit in 1999. Some have become friends I’ve visited every time since, they make the visits special.

Sitting in Yangon on the roof garden of my hotel (USD$8/night), the one and only FM radio station in this city of 9million plays music of 90 to 70 years ago before closing down at 10:30pm. One night it took me back to that time of the British Raj, going to fancy balls in Rangoon, officers and ladies. So much has happened since then. What will others look back on in 80 years time ? when I too am long gone and just a memory evoked by the warm evening breeze.

I should point out: satellite dishes abound everywhere. Radio is old technology. No one bothers. Its all propaganda anyway, only Short wave BBC and Voice of America carry any news that Burmese take seriously.

There is so much more... and not enough space to write it all down.

Politics: Mention “Burma” and likely images of the beautiful ‘princess’ Aug San Suu Kyi unjustly imprisoned by a beastly military government spring to mind. In the English speaking world this image is promoted as a clear cut case in which we can safely judge who is ‘wrong’ and who is ‘right’. It is the country who’s government everyone loves to hate. Feel the need to vent some self righteous indignation and want to ‘do your bit’ for justice in the world ? Then just thunder against the ‘evil dictatorship of Burma’. No need to look deeper, everyone will agree with you and nod sagely. Myanmar (Burma) is the ‘bad boy’, the whipping boy of SE Asia against whom we can all let out our rightful indignation.
....Truth and further truth...

Most tourists I met were Europeans, where the political correctness regarding Myanmar is not as strong as in the English speaking world.

Myanmar is only a pale shadow of those ancient times, but it still has much that is lost to the rest of the world. I hope not too many people rush to visit, and that those who do, do so respectfully. It too is changing fast.

Those who are interested to see actual photos of Myanmar in 2005 go to:
http://heikorudolph.com/ and click on the link: “Myanmar Nov2005 pictures”

And in parting: travel in Myanmar can be slow & tough unless you fly a lot. Major roads can be just dirt tracks, a day or two on a bus or a boat is nothing unusual. If you go: take your time, don’t hurry, go slowly. Don’t expect Western comforts, timetables, or customs. Read the Lonely Planet guidebook, or something similar first.

NB: all views expressed are those of the author and not of anyone else.

© 2003 -5 heiko rudolph