And jeez su bay

We board a morning bus for the dry hot plains of Bagan tomorrow morning. 5 days in Nyuangshwe may have been a bit much, however, we seem to be doing fine. The Nyuangshwe market day on Tuesday was very fun, but imagine my delight when we asked where the next market was in the five day rotation and Moogee, our sweet bright, funny travel gal, told me it was waaaay at the end of the lake in the village of Thaung Tho. "Not very big market, not many visitors." This was the market I'd wanted to see because the LP described it as "off the toruist track" and well worth a visit because the surrounding hill tribe villagers come down for this one. Yeaaaaa! So we bundled up in the early morning fog and met up with our boatman, a different one, the other one's brother, Jojo, and headed for the bridge over the canal where the boats wait for lake tours with their little chairs, heavy blankets and umbrellas tucked away in the back.
The lake was shrouded in a chilly mist, neither shore visible and its glassy surface broken only by the tat tat tat of boats as villagers motored past us heading for Nyaungshwe and the faint sillhouttes of the legendary leg rowing fishermen of Inle deploying their conical nets. We saw no other toruist boats this early as we headed for the south end of the lake and the long narrow canal that connects it to the second lake, Sankar. Sankar is a protected area, only open to visitors with permits and a Pa-O guide. Thaung Tho sits just north of this area, a small market, sparsely visited by tourists because it is small and takes so long to get to. As we motored and motored endlessly, our butts numb and faces frozen from the cold, we approached a narrow canal that looked too narrow for our boat. It was clogged with reeds and hyacinth. I turned to our driver with alarm. With his cheek bulging from a wad of betel nut, he smiled and nodded, which I took to mean this was the place, or okay you crazy farang, now I'm going to dump you in the reeds and take your fleece jacket. As I turned back, I drew my breath at the sight before me. On the hill was a temple with literally hundreds of stupas glistening gold in the morning sun. Spread below on the banks of the lake was a field of red, orange, and blue head wraps of the Bao women and a parade of gaily adorned ox carts. The excitement of the market reached us as our boat made its way through the narrow passage parking next to hundreds of other boats along a high berm that led to the shore. To be continued...

Mingalaba

The Manau Kwa Tha hotel, guesthouse, sits at the far edge of town, across from the Police Station, just close enough to the main back packer/flash packer strip through the center of Nyuangshwe township at the north end of Inle Lake to make walking everywhere okay, except at night when that walk back in the dark is full of potholes and a scattering of motorbikes plus the occasional horse cart and gigantic Chinese truck. Nyuangshwe is not a hustle bustle place, but rather the embarkaration point for trips on the lake, which spreads out like a giant shallow pond at the foot between two mountain ranges in the Shan hills of northeastern Myanmar. It is cold at night, Bellingham cold, huge heavy Chinese blanket cold, wearing a beret at night cold, thinking maybe we should be at home with the furnace cold, but by 10 or so in the morning, the surreal mist burns off and it heats up fast. We plunged right in, booked a lake trip the day after we arrived. For the ridiculous price of $17, we took off through the water hyacinth clogged, tall reeded canals for the lake. It took about a half hour to reach the actual lake and what a sight it was! Our boatman steered us out the mouth of a canal and there was Inle, spread before us, flat, calm, clear, the water plants and the shallow bottom easily visible as our craft sped out into a vast water covered plain. The canals themselves offered ample bird life...white egrets, some sort of bird I mistook for a giant kingfisher, but on closer inspection, decided it wasn't, and others I wasn't quick enough to catch with either binoculars or camera. I'll have to consult a Birds of Asia book at home or on the web if we get a good connection. There were crows aplenty, lovely white dabbed blackbirds and hundreds of swallows as well as ducks and small gulls. We were on the tourist package...it can't be helped...and in the end, turned out to be just fine. Our first stop was a small market close to Nyuangshwe. There are five rotating markets around the lake...each day at a different village. Most are thronged with camera popping tourists and this was no exception, but it was interesting, mildly. Then on to the lake itself and the famous leg-rowing fishermen. The young ones who lurk near the entrance to the canals eagerly pose for the cameras, but as you venture further out, you see that the Intha, the tribal people who live on the lake, actually fishing and going about their business while you go about yours...bringing much needed revenue into an impoverished country by being a tourist...I'm sorry...you just can't avoid it, and this area is so beautiful, it's no wonder people want to come here. Our boatman did his best to steer us through areas where there were no other boats and that was awesome. We steered through village after village with stilt houses and real "streets" of water. It was truly fascinating. Our next stop was the weaving village. It's on the water too. The boats are docked at a small pier and up you go where an English speaking guide deftly explains the weaving processes that are actully in session (not just put on for the tourists). They weave the fiber of the lotus root and it is just scrumptous, with a price to match. I didn't get any, but I did get a Shan longyi for myself, which one of the ladies made up into a wrap skirt while I waited. Their silk is woven from thread brought in from the northern Shan hills and is done in a heavy, drapey weave. They also do local cotton and the girl was very helpful when I asked about natural dyes. She said they don't use naural dyes, but purchased fiber-reactive ones. The colors were irresistable, however, I did manage to restrain myself and purchased modestly. After a nice visit and many photos, we moved on to the cigar making place where Muzzy purchased a small supply, actually, probably more than he wanted, but I wanted the boxes they came in. What makes all of this different than other trips is the fact that it is all done on the water, this great plain of water with its own life carried on in small dugout canoes steered by men, women, and very young children. Even the cats have adapted to life on the water. I am glad we opted for a private boat. Our young boatman, who kept caging cigarettes from everyone, even asking me to get him one, did an admirable job, slowing down to allow Muz to take photos and waiting patiently while we got in and out of the boat.

Out to Inle Lake

Nyanyshwe Market

Intha Fisherman

Cheroot Making

Lunch was next on the agenda...unremarkable as is much of the food up here. I think I am a bit full of fried rice and fried noodles. I am writing from the only wifi place in town and they have those big crepe like pancakes with various toppings that travelers like...yummm...almost a roti. After lunch, we explored the temple and headed for the barn. I used an umbrella for the ride back and probably should have done so on the way out. I am a bit of a lobster gal today.
Today was market day in Nyuangshwe and with some artful sign language and much encouragement from Mr. Muzzy, I enlisted the help of a young Bao tribeswoman and another older respectably dressed matron who directed me to the one stall selling Bao tunics and jackets. They are unremarkable to anyone but a dyed in the wool fabric costume junkie like myself, but I got a tunic that fit and a jacket from which I can make a pattern. I love it! The expereince of shopping was worth more than the 10,000kyat I spent on them, about $12. The market was noisy, crowded, full of chillis and veggies and flowers and eels and chickens in modest headless chicken poses and all the other things that Asian markets contain...when you engage in conversation, the first thing you are asked is if you are married, how old you are, if you have children...it is the same all over Asia and I love it.

Market Day Nyuangshwe

Scales

We are nearly midway in our journey...doing okay. The guesthouse/hotel here is fine, Mr. Muzzy and I are navigating the roads okay, taking photos, exploring side roads, resting and reading and laughing a lot. The one mishap is that I have left part of one of my mollars in a traditional Shan food house. But as a veteran of these teeth tragedies, Mr. Muzzy assures me I will survive.
You know...we are sending these little self-indulgent missives out into the universe...feel free to comment! In a couple of days we decamp from the hills and head for the plains of Bagan...by bus, which the sweet young Bao travel lady assures us is very comfortable...where have we heard that before?

Shewdegon Paya

I asked Muzzy, "If a crow poops on you while you are at the temple, would it be considered a blessing?" He answered, "No, I think the monks would say no, it just means the crow pooped on you." We started our circumnavigation of the main pagoda and stopped so that Muzzy could launch his tripod for a blurry crowd shot. I was trying to warm up my cold toes in the early morning sun...Muzzy said, "Look, a bird pooped on my arm. I guess I had it coming."

Monks at Shwedegon

Shewdegon is truly one of the wonders of the world. It's hard not to cry when you first step onto the broad plaza filled with golden Buddhas, stories of the Buddha's life, white and golden elephants, Rama and Sita, neon halos around the Buddha's head and pavillion after pavillion of Buddha in all his aspects. People from all over the world come to this wonderful place of pilgrimage. Families walk together and stop to take photos. Monks chant in the individual temples and give teachings and blessings non-stop. Children run and play, people eat lunch or deliver bags of purchased food to the monks and widows and nuns who wander around, because alms giving is a blessing on the giver. I was reminded of those same teachings from Christ and how here, alms are given without strings attached. You don't have to listen to a sermon, or accept Jesus as your savior...you just give because it is the right thing to do...even if there is that Southeast Asian caveat of making merit. Who cares, as long as we take care of one another. Yup...it was a religious experience, bird poop and all.

The Lost Post

Arrrggghhhh....two lost posts. Muz and I sat up before breakfast composing some sights and tastes for you and they are lost lost lost. It is amazing, however, that we can send email at all! Our second full day and we are doing much better. We have found a great hotel, the May Shan, a Chinese run empire a stone's throw from the Sule Paya on Sule Pagoda Road, sort of a hub of Yangon. The May Shan has it all...just stand ouside for 10 minutes by the generator and the bright red reader board and they will list their ammenities, in almost every language! It truly is great, as close to the New Siam empire as you can get. Our tiny cell-like room with no windows has the best shower we've encountered in SE Asia yet...all the water pressure of Myanmar concentrated in one little hose that has real hot water!!!! Woo hoo! We have made our first visit to the Bogyoke Aung Sang Market, lodged in a huge colonial era building with turrets and gingerbread. Two stories of little shops selling longyi, the ubiquitous men's sarong (and may I say, mighty attractive too....the old men wear them riding high over their paunch and the young men wear them slung low on their hips...sigh...my my my), and all your needs with Myanmar labels and plenty of Chinese branding as well. WE encountered an antique textile shop run by a Chin woman and her daughter and I only wish I had brought more money or that they took credit cards. I bought 3 wonderful pieces and will certainly buy more if I have any money left when we return to Yangon. While this country is still emerging from years of darkness and oppression, and the infrastructure is still a shambles, there is new building everywhere on top of the bones of the old crumbled nation. The people are wonderful and so gracious. Muzzy remarked how it reminded him of India...the crowds, the multi-faceted ethnic population. The Muslim men are easily identifiable by their beards, skull caps and long shirts over their longyi. The women wear full hijab including long black over dresses. I have to gasp at how hot it must be, but who knows? Walking the streets is an adventure in lawsuits. No single stretch of sidewalk is even. The cement is all askew and opens up to reveal scary sewers, lengths of rebar jutting up to add to the surprise of the moveable chunks. There is a mosque just a few doors down from the May Shan, right across from the Sule Paya, which dominates the skyline all around. I was hoping to be able to hear the call to prayer but we are quite insulated in our little cell.
Decrepet busses with completely bald tires rattle to a stop at the bus stop across the broad road in front of the hotel and you can hear the bus boys yelling and exhorting the passengers in loud singsong voices. In the morning the traffic is non-existent, but by the afternoon it is like playing frogger to try and cross the streets. There are lots of overpasses, however, that means lots of stairs...bummer.
We have found a couple of eateries that we like. The first was a recommendation from the LP and by our hotel. Daw Saw Ye, a Burmese style restaurant, quite good, down a little alley clogged with cars and stacks of broken cement and generators. Burmese style means sort of like a cafeteria. You walk up to a kitchen area and point to the dishes you want. We picked a shredded crispy style fish with chilies, pork curry, green beans and the last portion of butter beans. When you sit down you are served a large plate full of rice...looked like long-grain basmati...a plate of fresh veggies...maybe radishes? some greens, an okra looking thing and some sliced cucumber. You get a bowl of sour curry soup with chunks of melon and floating leaves, and then your chosen dishes. It's all quite good. Not Thai, but this isn't Thailand!
While nearly all the hotels serve a complimentary breakfast, our first one, The Garden House, left us bruised with apprehension, so I was determined to eat at one of the tea houses that are part of the Yangon culture. They are not tea houses like we know, nor like coffee houses, exactly, although their purpose is similar...for gathering, conversation, discussion and whiling away hours drinking black tea with sweetened condensed milk and eating little snacks. We found one across the street that serves fresh ground coffee...so strong that tiny little spoon wades around like a duck in sludge and the most wonderful snacks. Yesterday morning Muzzy discovered a curry noodle with egg dish that is very very good...and I discovered the custard. And why not? it's milk and eggs, right? I was all set to order another this morning when the boys started packaging up some rounds of fried bread, fresh from the kitchen. I asked, "Is it sweet?", to which the cute young man replied with a smile and a nod to the other boy who carefully cleaned a tiny saucer and set one of the hot pieces of bread before me. OH MY GOD! Soft, thick bread soaked in egg and sweetened condensed milk and fried in butter. What's not to like? After that, another man came in with a big covered tray on his head. He and the boy started setting out chunks of what looked like cake on small saucers. Of course I kept staring. This was after my second cup of coffee (come on, they're small cups!). Finally, the older man took out some jars of what turned out to be browned coconut, raisins and some nuts, dressed the top of the cake and handed one to me. Another older Burmese man walked by and told me it was sticky rice with coconut milk and palm sugar. Well, I polished that right off and we have a new breakfast place!

Sule Paya

Our favorite tea/coffee shop

The Mosque

All in all, the tide has turned, we've found our travel feet, and are waiting for tickets to Inle Lake either tomorrow or the day after. It will be good to leave the city, but at least we feel a little more at home here. Tonight we go to Shewdegon. Sunset is the best time we are told. And really, despite the inconvenience of travel, the barbed wire around the government buildings, the armed guards, there is a feeling of optimism here. Tourism is up and that means money is coming in at the personal level. This is a a vital, gracious country, full of its own peculiarities, its own way of doing things. We are visitors here, and lucky to be able to do so. We are the intruders, and as such, it is up to us to keep smiling, to be patient and to figure it out. How lucky to step out of our door and look over at the golden glow of the Sule Paya a few steps away. I can only think there are more mysteries to come.

Yangon

Where do I start? Perhaps with the ride into Yangon from the airport, one address in hand, but no reservation. We had no idea we were entering a wild west town, a boom town where every room was twice a much as it was in the guidebook, and not a whit better than they were when we were here 7 years ago. It was broiling hot, the traffic unbelievable and in the midst of the crumbling infrastructure of a fading colonial empire, new building was going on, rapidly, on the bones of the old. Our one hope of a guesthouse was a blowout and after 4 phone calls by the rather bored young woman at the desk, we secured a night at the Garden House. Even when I showed her photos of the Chan Myae we took in 2006 she was unmoved! So off we went with the patient taxi driver. I nearly passed out climbing the stairs of the Garden House, but what could we do...we needed a place to stay and to let the poor cabbie go, so we took it. The same price as the New Siam in Bangkok, but nothing like it, believe me. It was wretched in a way only Burma can be...it all came back in nightmarish flash. The one good thing was that from the 3rd floor window in the common room, the view of the Sule Paya, the 2000 year old temple in the heart of Yangon, was stunning. You could almost reach out and touch it, magnificent! I collapsed in the room sending Muzzy out for water and to change some money. After an hour passed, I was convinced I was a widow, alone in a country where the most I could say was hello (mingalaba) and thank you,if I could remember it. I saw him dead from heat exhaustion, lying in traffic, no one knowing who he was or where he belonged. I started to panic, went down the stairs and looked around the front of the hotel (change money, madam? taxi, madam?) and climbed back up, nearly passing out on the second floor. But he showed up, with two icy cold bottles of water, a wad of kyat, and tales of a wonderful guesthouse just a block away that might have a room for us the next day. Indeed, we rested, got up and went over to the Shan May, and they miraculously found us a room. We moved in today and will stay two nights, hoping to take a flight to Inle Lake for a long 4 or 5 day stay.
It's crazy here...hard to describe. Muzzy says it reminds him of India, and indeed, it is very crowded, dirty, full of Muslims...the mosque is just a few doors down and across the traffic circle from the Sule Paya where all day long a woman sits under a banyan tree with nat houses nailed to its trunk, selling dried corn for the pigeons and another woman sells tiny baskets of birds you can release to make merit. The men, young and old, walk around in longyi, a long sarong type skirt they are constantly adjusting. They look rather jaunty with their crisp short sleeved dress shirts on top. There are Muslim men with beards and skull caps and long knee length shirts over the longyi and Muslim women in full hijab and overdress. It is so hot I don't know how they stand it. And the traffic is crazy crazy crowded, the sidewalks are never smooth and even and things jut up out of the walks and the road at every turn. The busses look like they've been in a destruction derby and the bus boys hop off at every stop yelling and harranging the prospective passengers. It is chaotic, confusing and a little intimidating. And we haven't even left Yangon yet!

Bangkok Farewell

We leave in the morning for Yangon, Myanmar. Time enough for one last breakfast at Ricky's until the end of the month. We revisited the Amulet Market today but the woman with the old postcards was absent. However, out of all the crazy crappy faux antiques, one lovely little gau stood out and I got it for a song...well, maybe not a song, but I was definitely humming a tune as I slipped it in my bag. We took a tuk tuk to Pahurat, the Indian cloth market, where we were unceremoniously deposited at the beginning of one of the warrens of aisles that meander through Sampaeng Lane. Lost, lost, lost, it didn't matter because every once in a while we caught a glimpse of daylight off to the left. Coming to a dead end, we turned left and exited into the street, disoriented, but finally figuring out where we were. It's a miracle to really recognize anything in Bangkok, because there is so much and it all looks very similar. We were not in the buying mood so we took a taxi (god bless air conditioning) back to the New Siam, took a brief shower, grabbed some lunch down Phra Atit, back to the room and hit the bed, sleeping all afternoon. Apparently the combination of intense massage and jet lag finally caught up with us. For dinner, we made it as far as the restaurant across the street at the New Siam Riverside. Jok Pochana was closed for the day and the roti restaurant was closed as well. The Riverside was fine. We sat by the Chao Phraya drinking Tiger Beer and watching the fat little cross-river ferries head home for the night. The Chao Phraya resembles a big sloppy bathtub, but it is a hub of the city, running in an thick, water hyacinth littered ribbon through Krung Thup, the great city of Bangkok. The best thing about the restaurant at the Riverside is easy access to a table by the riverwalk and a front row view of the slow barges heading down the river, the elaborately lit tourist boats taking diners up and down the river to the strains of karaoke or live bands belting out renditions of "Dock of the Bay" and "Happy Birthday". Bangkok is a big, messy, dirty, crowded, confusing city,one that we avoided for years on our trips in and out of Southeast Asia. Lately we have developed an affection for the uniquely Thai version of modernity it offers, as well as the plethora of food and shopping and people watching, from Pantip Plaza with its escalators turned stairways and overabundance of DVD porn thinly disguised as new movies, to the tunnels of Sampaeng Lane and the overload of Chatuchak. We are off to Burma, modern day Myanmar. We'll let you know what happens next and be back for a weekend of serious shopping on the 24th of January.

Jok Pochana

We dragged our pummeled bodies out of bed and headed out for Jok Pochana, dodging street cafes that were springing up by the second. The hyper-refrigerated cake and pastry shop looked tempting, as did the roti shop, but getting to the crossroads of Phra Atit to play dodge car with the lights and traffic was more important. We sat down at Jok Pochana, in full swing with the dinner rush...lots of take out. The food is country style and very popular among the Issan diaspora...workers who have moved from the northern areas populated by Lao refugees and decendants of Lao who were inadvertently converted to Thai when the border between Thailand and Laos was redrawn at the close of the 19th century. They have a distinct language, food, and music, the lilting strains of malam. This is the food we love. In my jet-lagged, massage sodden brain, I mistook the sign for Shisha, 300 baht, for shushi, a delicious crispy fried fish with a spicy sweet sauce over it. Of course the cook had to come over and try to figure out just what the hell I wanted. I was well into my Beer Lao by that time and Muzzy was consummed by getting a photo of the other cook making the spectacularly delcious pak boon fai dang, a flamming concoction that could make a meaningful photograph. I switched gears and ordered the garlic pepper squid that I remembered from our last trip. The pak boon, fried morning glories, arrived with a smokey flavor adding to the oyster sauce and garlic. But the next dish blew us away. Muzzy put away his camera and we concentrated on the fried duck with onions in chili oil with a delicate halo of crispy basil leaves over the top. OH MY GOD...run, don't walk to Jok Pochana, the best kept secret of Bangkok's prodigious street food! We lucked out with one icey cold Beer Leo and one typically warm one...we shared. And now, we are crashing, seriously. More adventures tomorrow. Night All!