Military Myanmar

My o My o My. Where do I begin? First off, please accept my sincerest apologies for not having written in what feels like decades. It is amazing how dynamics change when you don’t have 7 days at sea before your next port. We went from Incredibly India and in three days we were in Myanmar, four days after leaving Myanmar, we were in the amazing country of Vietnam. What I usually do when planning my writing for the country is take a full day at sea to absorb all that I just experienced and then go into writing about it and the writing can take anywhere from 1-2 days. Needless to say, we didn’t really have the time at sea for that to happen for so many reasons. The ship has been bustling with activity during these short trips to our next port and of course, not to mention the school work (?). Well, we must begin because there is much to catch up on.

Location Update as of yesterday, March 31, 2006 at noon local time (12 hours ahead of EST):
Latitude: 10 degrees 12 minutes N
Longitude: 107 degrees
Average Speed: 11.1 k
Distance to Hong Kong: 871NM
Sea Depth: 20m, 65.6 ft
Sea Temp: 29 C, 84.2 F
Air Temp: Same
ENE winds at 13 knots. Overcast with calm seas. Good Visibility.

Location update as of April 2, 2006 at noon local time (13 hours ahead of EST):
Latitude: 17 degrees 38.5 minutes N
Longitude: 111 degrees 55.8 minutes E
Average Speed: 12.8 k
Distance to Hong Kong: 314NM
Sea Depth: 1616 m, 6254 ft
Sea Temp: 29 C, 84.2 F
Air Temp: 28 C, 82.4 F
Calm winds with a swell height of 2-3 m (6-9 ft). It was hotter than hell out there; I think I lost ten pounds from sweating while laying out for an hour and a half today.

OK, and so it begins.

We left India and traversed the Bay of Bengal for three days. For the beginning part of that journey, once again the waters of the sea boggled my mind. Obviously, bay waters are going to be much calmer and flatter…but it was like nothing I could of imagined! A stunning green-blue, gem like color that reflected the rays of the sun with great power. About 100 Nautical Miles off the coast of Myanmar, the waters took a drastic change in color. What a repulsive site it was, the water went from that cool, peaceful blue, to a hideous dirtier than dirty, the water was an opaque, thick tanish brown. Of course this was because we were approaching the mouth of the Yangon River, and we would be going 32 nautical miles up that river to the Thailawa Port, 45 minutes from Downtown Yangon.

Our ship was alongside a little after 1700, however, the boat didn’t clear until 0400. Customs and immigration in that country were incredibly ridiculous; they required 6 pieces of paper work from each student in order to obtain entrance into their country. Now, there are a few things you must know about Myanmar (Burma) before we continue. Burma has been under military rule since 1991. The opposition leader, Ang San Sui Khi, has been under house arrest for the past 9 years and there is no end to that in the near future. The country held democratic elections and her party won more than 80% of the vote in 1990. The military didn’t like the idea of losing their power and having there be a democratically elected parliament or leader so they just took over. There is no rule of law, there is no due process; there are no human rights, there are no civil rights. What the military says goes, and that it is. If one of the SAS students was to bear witness to a brutal beating in the street of a civilian by a military officer, there is nothing one can do. Before getting off the ship, there was a lot of question and concern as to why Semester At Sea even goes to this port. We are dumping money into the hands of these brutal governmental leaders who have cut themselves and their citizens off to the outside world. Coke and Pepsi as well as every credit card company pulled out after the military took over in the early ‘90s. And yet, we, as observers of the world are visiting and supporting this vicious regime. There were professors on board that made strong arguments about why we should go and why we should not be going to that country. I tended to agree with the ones who said we shouldn’t be going; what I can say is this: I’m thrilled I had the chance to go there, however, it was very unfortunate that I was a partner in supporting this military government.

On with the good stuff.

Now, the ship was docked 45 minutes from the city. This is unlike every port we have been in where there are things either right off the ship or no more than 10 minutes walk away. There was a shuttle bus that left every two hours, and there were cabs you could take. The cheapest cab I found was $10USD, but that only happened once – the rest of the time it was between $12-15USD for one of the bumpiest, most uncomfortable rides of your life. Myanmar only gets about 10 new cars imported each year, so all of the cabs had no padding really, and were all from the ‘80s. And my god, I thought potholes in NYC were big, no chance. There were spots that looked like meteors had slammed down into the road and then were filled with big rocks. Most times, cabs and busses would avoid them, but if they couldn’t over them they went.

The first day was that of exploration and adventure. Exchanging the currency was probably one of the most exciting parts of the trip. The currency is called Kyats (chats) and its largest bill denomination was a 1000k. Now, the official governmental rate of exchange is 6 kyats to 1USD. The black market rate: 1100k to 1USD. Thankfully, no one uses the official rate. So, when you exchanged 100USD, you got a wad of cash that weighed you down. You received 110 bills of 1000k each. It was great. What felt even better was that you could drop a grand like it was a drop of water and not really bat an eye!

Anywho, the shuttle took us into town that morning and we were dropped off at the Trader Hotel, the biggest and most popular hotel in Myanmar. It’s also where SAS kids stayed on the Yangon overnight trip which made it easy to stay in town when you didn’t feel like trekking all the way back to the ship. So, we got out and exchanged money and decided we were going to head to the Scott Market. It was Adam, Margaux and I and we knew Scott Market was the place in Yangon. It was just up the street about 10 blocks or so and it was a nice walk. With little children running you to you, pulling on your arm asking you to buy ten postcards for a dollar, or ten mini paintings for a dollar. There were food street vendors, nothing like you’d see in NYC or Boston. They were peeling and boiling corn on the cob, frying fish, melting ice and filtering it through gauze and reselling it in plastic water bottles with labels on them. There were fresh fruits and veggies, meats and fish and even crickets. We made it to the market, but didn’t have much time because Marg needed to be back to the ship for a trip she was going on. So we were at the market for a bit then went onto lunch where we had some fantastic food. I had a flat noodle dish with vegetables. Of course we had to try the local beer so that added to the authentic cultural fun. It was tough for me to even each with chopsticks though coming from India where I old ate with my hands. We ordered three dishes, 6 large beers, and a soup and the total bill was about 13USD. It was great. We were thrilled.

We found a cab back to the ship and that was an experience in it self. We asked him to put on some music, well, little did we know in went the tape and out came blasting Shikera. Remember her, what was that like 2000, 01, 02 or something? Yeah, we thought it was the funniest things ever. Our driver was loving it. Mind you, on the ride back you pass over two bridges, trough several rural villages, by street side type shops, and sports fields - what we’d consider a dirt parking lot. The weather is about 85-90 plus degrees and of course none of the cabs are air conditioned, vinyl or fabric seats and seats with absolutely no cushion left. So it wasn’t the most comfortable ride of your life.

After going back to the ship for a bit, I went back into town to visit the Sheadagon Pagoda. The largest pagoda in Myanmar - it was home to the Sheadagon itself, which has 2,100 diamonds on the top of it with the largest diamond weighing in at 78 karats. These diamonds are on top of this massive gold temple, which looks like an upside down top. There is an umbrella on the top covering them and you cannot see them at all from above or below. This pagoda amazed me. It was the first I’d ever been to so its not like I knew what to expect. I got dropped off by myself in a cab and had to climb about 500 plus steps to the top of this campus. I checked my shoes at the counter when I first walked in and proceeded up the stairs. As soon as I got to the top and walked outside I was truly stunned. It was like a village of buildings, structures, gazebos, shrines, statues, sculptures, and everything else under the sun. I learned quite quickly that you are to walk on the white marble flooring and not the gray or black ones. If you didn’t, you’d have blistered feet by the time you were done walking around.

So there I am, just walking around in amazement not knowing what I’m looking at, not even sure what to take pictures of. Out of know where I made eye contact with this older local gentleman who immediately came up to me, shook my hand, and introduced himself. His name was Win. He spoke wonderful English and began to just question and talk with me. He asked if I would like him to walk around with me and sort of give me a tour of the massive campus like pagoda. I nervously, but willingly agreed. He began pouring out all of the knowledge he had on me. He was in his 50’s, a teacher at a missionary school with a bunch of catholic women, and has two children and a wife. He married later in life at 35, and his wife speaks no English. She was from a lesser-educated family than his. Buddha after Buddha he had me posing and taking pictures for me, telling me about the pose, why what is what. He took me to spots where he had seen professional photographers take pictures of people in order for me to get the best pictures possible. He would hold my bag and water bottle when he took pictures of me. His knowledge was overwhelming. He would tell children to stop and pose for a picture for me, which of course they loved doing because I could show them the pictures after I took them. At one point he made a comment to me and asked what religion I was. I sort of shrugged my shoulders, and his response was, “O yes, I understand. Human rights, freedom of religion.” He continued to drop sly political comments about his country the rest of the time we were together. It was unfortunate that I was not able to engage in official discussion about politics with him, fore if we had, and a government official had found out, he could have been imprisoned or worse, killed.

He had me doing traditional things that Buddhist people did on a daily basis. One of the most important things to a Buddhist is their day of birth, not date. I was born on a Tuesday, therefore the Buddha and animal that I was to worship was the lion. There was a Buddha and special lion for Tuesdays. I went over to it and in front of each day’s shrine, there was a constant bowl of running water with little votive size cups to fill with the water and pour onto the Buddha, Lion and post. You were to pour five cups on the Buddha’s head, five on the lion and three on the post. This was to ensure good health and a positive future. There were several times when he stopped me at a spot where it was the best place to say a prayer. He prayed for my health, friends and family many times. Of course me being a sort of non-religious, more spiritual, agnostic person, it was still quite nice and moving at times.

One of the most interesting this about this place was that it was immaculate. Partly because 6 times a day there are lines of about 15 or 20 women sweeping. There are a total of four lines that follow each other. At noon and six they go around with the men spraying water in front of them and the women following behind with mops. The lines were straight and broke only when someone wasn’t smart enough to move out of their way. It was an impressive and strategic procedure. After watching the sunset from this beautiful pagoda, it felt it was enough after two and a half hours. From there I went back to the Trader Hotel for some dinner and met up with a few people. After that it was onto the 2100 shuttle back to the ship.

We were able to turn this shuttle into a party bus though. We begged our guide and driver to stop at a liquor or beer store to pick up a few things for the ride home…needless to say, it was a great bus ride.

The following day I had a Semester at Sea trip to be apart of. We left the ship at 0800 to take part in a Meditation and Monk Feeding Ceremony. I have mixed feelings about this event. We arrived at the meditation center and toured the facilities. While doing so, we walked into rooms where hundreds of people were mediating. Now, this is where my mixed feelings come about. I chose to take no pictures of this because we were totally intruding on their space. How rude and typical of a tour bus of Americans to go up into peoples faces while they are meditating and take pictures. I was disgusted with how my fellow peers were acting. For me, it will be a memory with pictures in my mind; not snap shots on my digital. We all did have a chance to meditate ourselves. It was a guided meditation, but difficult to understand what he was saying because his accent was so thick. I’m sure it would have been much easier to understand had we all spoke and understood Burmese…but god for bid, Americans know any other language besides English? One of the most eye opening things about this entire voyage is that the majority of people from other countries speak at least, at least two if not three to five languages.

After our meditation session, it was onto the monastery for the feeding ceremony. Now, Monks can only eat twice a day - before dawn and then again before noon. They are only allowed to each food, which has been given to them, which is why they roam the streets and stores looking for donations and hand outs. This is NOT considered begging; far from it really. It is a religious practice that has been going on for thousands of years. Monks are only allowed to each food that is given to them. Each time Semester At Sea goes to this monastery, it pays for the food that we feed them. There were two lines of about 500 monks each…I kid you not. They came up and we first poured a huge bowl of rice into their food containers. They then got several different kinds of meats, some vegetables and a samosa. What bothered me was that I wanted to smile at them and try communicating but they could not even say thank you, let alone look you in the eye or at your face. That would be considered wrong while being apart of monk hood. You must stay very humble and know that you are a worshiper of Buddha and you are doing your best to resist desire and lead a simple life. After the monks came about 500 more nuns. The age range of both the monks and the nuns was from 4-20 something. You could come and go as you pleased and you were not required to stay a monk or nun for any amount of specific time. It is not like a priest hood where you are tied down for life. Part of the reason there were so many young monks and nuns was because most of them came from impoverished families that could barely feed their children. When you are a nun or a monk, you are guaranteed at least one, if not two good meals a day – at no cost to you family.

After filling their dishes, they went into their dining hall where they had to wait for everyone to get their food before they could start eating. Another words, it would royally suck to be first in line. They allowed us to go into the dining room and be apart of their prayer. That was fine with me. Again, I chose not to take pictures of videos unlike many of my embarrassing and immature colleges on this trip. Students were in the faces of these monks taking pictures of them while they tried to enjoy the last meal of their day. I was disgusted and couldn’t even stay in the room. I went outside and played with local neighborhood children who loved posing for pictures because you could show it to them after. Of course they wanted dollar bills after each picture you took of them, but if you give one out, you have to give ones out to all of them. Very rarely do you give to begging people in these countries because if you do, there is going to be another homeless or poor person that sees you give to that person and you will end up being followed for the next 10 blocks getting poked, pulled, and yelled at.

We finished that mid-afternoon and a few of us decided to head to some of the market places to and explore more of downtown Yangon.

The following evening, we went to a traditional dinner and dance performance. It was on a lake in this massive double dragon type boat. There were over 200 of us that went, so you can imagine the size of the facility, and we were only on one side of it. There were seven different dances that were done for us, including some impressive puppet dancing. We were severed a wonderful meal of traditional Burmese food, most of which included meat but I filled up on rice, lots of mixed vegetables and some delicious eggplant and fresh fruits. The lat dance number was participatory. In addition, there were ladies dancing around with silver buckets filled with water using a stem of leaves to drip and wipe water on your shoulders. My guess is that it was a blessing of some sort. They ended up giving the buckets to some of the students, I got one, and needless to say people got drenched. By the end, no one had a dry shoulder and most were soaking wet. It was great fun.

There is a lot of fluff in there that I will choose to leave out. Of course normally of course you’d be getting every juicy bit, but in the interest of time considering we just got to Hong Kong and we are just waiting to get off the ship, I’m going to try to get through this as fast as I can.

Our last night in Myanmar was quite interesting. We had gone out for a last night on the town and were hoping to be able to stay with a few folks at one of the many hotels people were staying at. After enjoying ourselves for a bit, we decided that we should just go back to the ship. There were originally five of us until this person that none of us likes and is a total dumbass decided to randomly join our group. So, he sits in the front seat and then five of us cram in the back. Keep in mind it is a 45 minute ride back to the ship…Frank, Margaux and I on the seat with Kayla on top of Frank’s lap and Carrie lying on top of Margaux and I. It was one of the most uncomfortable and painful rides of my life. Now, along the way there are two tolls and two bridges that have to be crossed. Each one is also a military checkpoint. At the second checkpoint, to our luck we were stopped and surrounded by at least six military officers with large guns and flashlights. Now, remember that dumbass I mention earlier…the whole ride he had been complaining about how he had to take a piss. Well, he felt the need to open the door and say to us, “ Do you think it would be inappropriate to ask for a bathroom?” We nearly killed him. He shut the door and waited patiently while our driver was interrogated. He had to get out his papers and show them to one of the officers. They then made him get out of the car and follow him a big ways down to talk more and check out more of his paperwork. Again you have to remember, that he could have been shot right in front of us and there was nothing we could of done. We could have been witnesses to a brutal beating and done nothing about it. Thankfully, they allowed him back in the car and he was able to continue on driving. We would of loved to have thrown the dumbass to them as bait to beat on, but we didn’t want to risk it anymore. It was a horrifying and sobering experience.

There could be many reason why he was stopped and interrogated. We assume it was because there were six of us piled into his cab and it was past two in the morning. We overpaid him and thanked him very much. What scared us was to think what happened when he goes back through that check point on his way back into town when he doesn’t have cab full of American’s….

Unfortunately, the next day on ship time was 1130. This was because there was a ship that delayed our docking time and because of it we were not able to turn the boat around and dock. In this port they do not have tugs strong enough to help our ship swing around when the tides are against us so that meant we had to leave earlier in the morning in order to have the tides on our side to swing the bow around and head back down the river towards the sea. We did head back into town for two hours the following morning to get some last minute things as we do in every port. The last day is always crunch time.

Myanmar was an incredibly memorable experience. There was a lot that bothered me, but there was also a lot that inspired me. I know I am certainly going to be joining the “Free Burma” Campaign as soon as I get back to the States, as I would encourage all of you to do. The upside to us visiting the country was that hopefully it made the regime realize that they could attract more than the 600,000 or so tourists a year if they had a more connected, welcoming country. The people are some of the nicest in the world; all I could wonder was why. They knew damn well they were being repressed and yet they led happy and wonderful lives. The military had great ways of keeping its citizens on its toes. Every 6-9 months they would brutally murder someone in a more than public setting to inflict fear and instill oppression against its people. It is place I hope to visit again when its people are lead by a democracy and share common rights with us Americans. Countries like these are certainly eye-openers for all that we, as rights-bearing citizens take for granted.