Burmese Daze

Our arrival in Burma (or Myanmar as it is now known) coincided with the rearrest of Aung San Suu Kyi, the democratically elected leader of Burma who was imprisoned by the government after winning the last election and was due to be released from house-arrest during our stay. More elections are scheduled for 2010, and it would be very convenient for the military government if she could be kept safely in prison until after the poll. The Burmese government heavily censors all forms of media but we kept ourselves informed of current events through the internet, as the kids in the internet cafes can easily hack through the government filters. Locals often talked to us about the situation and were amazed at how much international coverage the story was getting.

In Mandalay we went to see the Moustache Brothers, who perform traditional Burmese dances but are more famous for openly telling anti-government jokes as part of their show. Two of the three brothers have spent several years in jail and they are blacklisted from performing in public places, so the show now takes place in their own home. Our only contact with military government (except maybe plain-clothes secret police) was when we had our passports checked in the middle of an overnight bus journey by some very drunken soldiers, who excitedly showed us their jar of beetles they had caught to cook up for a midnight snack. Yummy!

Next we headed to Bagan, a plain filled with ancient Buddhist temples. We hired a horse-cart and driver for the day and rode around stopping at countless temples and pagodas. Inside the temples we saw amazing wall paintings and Buddha statues and in some we were able to climb to the top for views of hundreds of spires stretching out into the distance. The peaceful atmosphere at the temples was sometimes shattered by hordes of local children hassling us to buy postcards from them, or, their favourite trick, asking for foreign coins for their 'collection' then selling them back to other tourists. However there are over 4000 temples in Bagan, so there were plenty of quiet places to escape to.

Burmese buses always seem to leave or arrive at strange hours, and the bus from Bagan to Inle lake was no exception, leaving Bagan at 3.30am (why?!?). There seems to be a conspiracy to make foreigners sit at the back of the bus, the least popular seats as the ride is bumpier and the legroom is often used to store luggage. On this occasion we shared the back row with some containers of spare petrol needed for the journey (in Burma petrol is rationed and so most of it has to be bought on the black market), and the fumes coming from these made the journey more unpleasant. To add to our woes, the rainy season had kicked in and our bags, which travelled on the roof of the bus, got soaked through in a downpour. Despite all of this the bus is the most interesting way to travel as you really get to see the country and chat with some interesting locals, such as the two Burmese traditional dancers we got chatting to on our bus to Bagan.

In Inle we made friends with a couple of Mexican girls called Vanessa and Perla and the five of us took a boat trip out onto the lake together. The villages around the lakeshore are home to women who weave cloth from lotus stems, Karen women who stretch their necks with an increasing number of gold hoops, and lots of water buffalo. The lake is also used by fishermen who stand at the front of their boats, sometimes rowing with one leg hooked around the oar to give their arms a rest.

There are thousands of monks in Burma, and every man has to become a monk sometime in his life, although for most it is only for a few days. They all wear orange robes, have shaved heads, and carry big orange umbrellas, presumably to stop their bald heads from getting sunburnt. We have visited several monasteries on our trip, but the one on Inle lake was our favourite by a long way, as the monks have trained the resident cats to jump through hoops held about a metre off the ground, and they were happy to demonstrate this when we visited. We got chatting to one of the monks there, who gave Graeme tips on how to to train cats to jump through hoops and answered our questions about Buddhism, although the only subject he really wanted to chat about was last night's Champions League final between Man U and Barca.

Many of the tourist sites in Burma have a $10 entrance fee that goes straight to the government, and we put a lot of effort into avoiding paying this. We missed out on seeing Mandalay Palace, but in Bago we discovered that government workers finish work at 3.30pm and you can visit after that time without paying the $10 fee. In one of the smaller temples at Bago, we came across the whole Magwe Division football team, who were sleeping and training in the temple before they played Bago division in a few days time.

We were very sad to leave Burma, and Thailand now seems over-touristy and the locals unfriendly by comparison. Many of the Burmese people we met urged us to come back again in 2010 when elections are scheduled, especially after Debbie told them that she used to work in elections. We definitely hope to return one day, and can only hope that things will have changed for the better when we do.