7 August 2010…..After many discussions, much research and considerable soul searching Julie and I agreed one of the ‘must see’ places to visit while we lived in Asia was Myanmar.  In fact, before we embarked on this journey we followed the general global protocol and called the country Burma in deference to its historic and pre-dictatorship days.  But whatever you call it, the country had a strong, if not somewhat controversial, pull to it as a destination and we finally decided to go.  

So what’s the big issue?  Well, since 1962 it has been a military dictatorship with an appalling record of human rights and the ultimate bad-guy reputation of calling an election in 1990, losing it in a landslide and then declaring the whole exercise null and void.  Their constant suppression of the people they are supposed to support and their brutal record against some minorities, forced labour, control of media, corruption, you name it and these guys probably excel at it.  In short, it’s a shocker.  

So why did we go?  Well, when you dive into it you learn a few extra facts.  First of all, it is listed as the 14^th poorest country in the world which is particularly galling in a region of such growth and optimism and in a country with enormous natural resources, proud history and rich agricultural lands.   

Regardless of what the bad guys are doing, or maybe even more so, the individual people in the villages, shops and restaurants need outside people to spend money in their businesses to help them survive.  So the more money visitors can spread around the suffering people the better.   

The final statistic that convinced us was that if you plan and spend your holiday appropriately, mainly by avoiding government airlines, hotels and tour organisations, only about 20% of the money you spend goes to the government.  The rest all flows into the grateful hands of the locals.  So at that rate and with some careful planning we figured its good to go.   

I read somewhere that Myanmar (or Burma, whatever, but we did adapt the modern name to the country, more on that later) is the same as Thailand 75 years ago.  I’m not sure if that is good or bad and I’ve got no idea about Thailand 75 years ago but our first impressions were along those same lines.  

Chaukhtatgyi Paya – now that’s a big reclining Buddha!

Yangon (or Rangoon, again, whatever…) is said to have 6 million people but if its true they were well hidden.  Our first impressions as we drove from the airport to the Central Hotel in the downtown area was that there was almost no traffic on the streets, none of the hustle and bustle we are used to in Bangkok (which admittedly sets a very high bar for hustle and bustle) and all of the buildings, vehicles, roads and general infrastructure were run down and in an old tired state.  

Local ferry service across the massive Irrawaddy River

 The first rude shock of Myanmar (and to be honest, there hasn’t been too many) was that the government (which is really the control-freak military) has successfully cut off their country from the rest of the world by not providing any international networks for mobile phones and 

Julie hanging out with a nat

seriously limiting (and censoring) access to the Internet.  So suddenly and unexpectedly we had no way to contact our kids or family, no way to keep up on work activities via the Blackberry, no way to check the Giants scores or the Australian election campaign. Nothing.  From a technology point of view I felt we had gone back to the 60’s and the feeling of isolation was very disconcerting.  

They do gold very well at the Shwedagon Paya

As we started our day what became clear very quickly to us was that the primary support these people lived on and fundamental strength of their lives was their Buddhist religion and how it intermingled with their strong and glorious history.  And we got the first taste of this repeating theme in Yangon.  

When it comes to tourists in Yangon, it’s all about temples.  Or you can call them pagodas or wats or stupas or chedis.  But we tried to adopt what the locals call them which is the large temples (the Thais would call them wats) are called payas and the specific stupa or chedi (the pointed cone-shape structure that dominates all payas) are called zetis.  And believe me when I say that Myanmar has a lot of payas and a lot of zetis.  

Shwedagon Paya was overwhelming