For me there are two countries that really stand out. The first is India, for a million reasons.  It has that marmite quality of love it or hate it.  You speak to one person and they regale you with experiences of diarrhea, theft, con artists, torturous bus journeys, cockroaches and people who would steal the breath from a dying man.  Then you talk to the next person who has been to the same places and they tell you of the greatest, loving caring people you could meet, acts of supreme kindness and generosity that bring a lump to the throat, and food so delicious you start slavering at the very thought of it.  I am in the second camp.  Great people, great country, great food and a scale of beauty and diversity it is hard for a boy from a small Island called Britain to grasp.

When I think of India I am fascinated by the colours, the  immense sweat and grime, dirty streets,  and more people in the scope of my eye than I knew could fit.

When you get off the plane you are thrown into the heat, the dust and the smell of people in all their raw reality.  The food, the sweat, the rubbish, piss and shit and perfume of people living, sleeping, breathing, farting and fucking on top of one another in a crowded city.

People flow in every direction, walking, running and jostling their way through the heaving sweaty mass.  Shouts, laughter, revving engines, growling rickshaw motors, and unknown phrases spat to and fro surround you.

The smell of sweat and spice concentrates the raw odour of humanity through the heat of the pavement.  You have to find the rhythm, the ebb and flow of the crowd and your place in it.

The streets are part of life; not just walkways but homes, kitchens, shops and beds.  Streets seemingly sweaty and damp with their own perspiration lubricate the friction of difficult lives played out on their surface.

India can be tough but just like anything worthwhile, to find the hidden gems you have to search in strange places.

The other place I answer as my favorite is Myanmar.  I won’t repeat the content of the many posts we have already written about Myanmar. It is again probably a marmite experience.  A happy, smiling, warm people who seem to approach their everyday life with a calm determination that belies the hardship that is forced upon them by an oppressive military regime.

A people who have every right to be depressed, angry, resentful and uncaring are in fact just the opposite.  Their country is beautiful beyond words.

As I sit here in our lovely guest house in Bangkok enjoying the free wifi and overpriced veggie food I read yet another depressing story about the continued suffering of the people of Myanmar.

Myanmar is one of the poorest countries in the world and has negligible state spending on healthcare and education.  However the Military leaders have recently banked nearly $5bn in offshore accounts in Singapore.  This money comes from the gas pipeline project in Myanmar operated by French company Total, and as this article argues Total are complicit in supporting the military junta.

Maybe I have too much time on my hands to think at the moment but things don’t seem right with the world.  Yet again here we are with something that should anger, offend, distress and disgust every single one of us, but it doesn’t really.  We know it is wrong but some sort of weird mental process takes place that makes us quickly forget the anger and disgust and go back to our comfortable lives, afraid as ever to rock the boat.

Are we really more concerned with preserving the status quo and maintaining our economic stability than with standing up for the basic rights of our fellow human beings? Maybe we are… I am still here enjoying overpriced pumpkin soup and posting this blog on the free wifi.

But one sight and sound transcends this.  A sight and sound that no oppression or military junta seems capable of dampening or controlling: big broad brimming smiles and chirpy “hellos”.  Not reserved “hellos” like the ones you get from fellow walkers on the footpaths of the English countryside or on the promenade at a seaside town but committed, cheery and genuine “hellos” that make you feel warm and wanted here.

Hearty, happy, spontaneous “hellos” that seem to bring a new and deeper meaning to the word.  “Hellos” immediately followed with deep confident smiles that you can bathe in for a few seconds and return with a confidence that would scare the average commuter on a damp grey Wednesday morning in London.

Smile though your heart is aching
Smile even though its breaking
When there are clouds in the sky, youll get by
If you smile through your fear and sorrow
Smile and maybe tomorrow
Youll see the sun come shining through for you

Nat King Cole

Buddhist Monk Boy

We are now back in Thailand, so thankfully we can finally write freely about the sights and sounds of Myanmar…

Burma is an exceptional country of many paradoxes. Beautiful, friendly and warm. Yet extreme poverty and real tensions evidently bubble under the surface of happiness. For a country so ridiculously poor it is an incredible irony that the Burmese landscape is so wonderfully rich, lush with colour and texture, and so under-exploited (not necessarily a good thing). Burma is green (velvet felted hills, majestic banyan trees, plush grasses), Burma is gold (stunning pagodas, glittering gold leaf), and Burma is unspeakably beautiful.

Despite its immense scenic beauty, what makes Burma is its people. A cliché perhaps, and one that is often used to describe the people of struggling countries, but one which is more true here than anywhere else I have ever been. Children rushing, running, skipping to the doorways or windows of their homes just to say hello or blow a kiss or wave a wave or smile a smile at you. Just to see you. Just to know you are there. This is a country that suffers so, so much but has a people who remain fundamentally strong and loving and display an overwhelming sense of humility and humanity.

The people here want tourists to visit. They want to share their stories and their country, and they want to hear about the world beyond their own impenetrable borders. Last night we spent three hours or so with a Buddhist monk and his brother who chatted to us in depth about the political situation here. Both had been involved in the 2007 demonstrations and had been hit and shot at by the police. Both were adamant that it was important for outsiders to come and see their country, to hear the stories and to support the local people.

I understand the reasons many people choose not to visit at this time. However, the people truly suffering here are not the ruling elite, the military leaders and government officials. It is every man, woman and child fighting every single day just to live and be comfortable. And it is they more than anyone who are affected by the lack of on-the-ground international involvement, tourist dollars and inward investment.

Yangon

In Yangon, the former capital we stayed both at the beginning and end of our time here at The Motherland 2, a fabulous hostel with extremely attentive and helpful staff. Amazing air con in rooms ($15 for an aircon double including breakfast, $13 for double ensuite, $10 for double) with lovely big comfortable beds. But hard pillows. Everywhere in Myanmar seems to have hard pillows.

The tea houses in Yangon are fantastic places to wile away an afternoon, sipping on tea, nibbling on samosas and buttercake and chatting to the local men (they are nearly always men). Our favourite was run by a cool little teaboy, who could not have been more than 10 and displayed the charm and service levels that would put most waiting staff in the UK to shame!! He was incredibly attentive and would give me a gift of packet of lilac scented lady facial tissues each time we visited. Soooo cute. Will thought he had a crush on me. I just thought I had a particularly dirty fissog.

Lake Inle – Nyuangshwe

Lake Inle is a huge big lake in the centre of the country, South of Mandalay. Nyuangshwe is billed as the traveller town of Lake Inle, but is still considerably low key. We saw maybe a dozen or so other Westerners whilst we were there for 3 days. We were lucky enough to be here during the once a year Phaung Daw Oo Paya Festival where golden buddha images from pagodas are ferried around the lake in a huge gilded barge shaped like a hintha (the golden swan of Burmese legend), and where every night fireworks and firecrackers are let off in the street, lanterns are lit up and children dance and sing everywhere. I say fireworks are let off in the street, but we actually saw several examples of fireworks being let off in people’s hands. Several health and safety laws breached. But much fun had. Makes up for missing Bonfire Night this year.

Boy on Boat, Lake Inle

We spent a day out on a boat, which we shared with a lovely French couple (both ex bankers, both having given up their jobs to go travelling) for 15,000 K. We were up at 5.30am having brekkie in order to get to the festival happenings which kicked off at 7am. We headed to a sort of Burmese Glastonbury festival, complete with sticky mud, trance inducing music and food stands selling whole chicken heads (including cartoon-like combs and eyes). Somehow we resisted those poultry treats. The rest of the day was spent chilling out on the lake, watching the amazing boat races where the men paddle the oars with their legs. We visited floating villages, golden pagodas, umbrella making workshops, cigarette making workshops, silverware workshops, boat making workshops, workshop making workshops, every kind of workshop, saw the poor long neck women of the Paduang tribe (reminded me of the ridiculous and sad plight of the hottentot women freakshows of the past – should so not be encouraged by tourists. Unfortunately we were dragged there but we did not take any photos) and ended with the Nga Hpe Kyaung / Jumping Cat Monastery. There we chatted to the monks for a while before being treated to a display of catty acrobatics.

We got talking to a really lovely guy in Nyaungshwe who we would meet up with each night for Chinese tea and snacks at one of the local teahouses where the object of his unrequited affections worked. She was very sweet, but blatantly not interested in him. It was quite painful to watch each night as he attempted to woo her!!! One thing that really strikes you here is how wary people are of talking about politics or the government. In Cuba, or Beijing, if you get to know someone a bit it isn’t long before you both feel comfortable enough to gently test out a conversation about the political climate. But here it is quite different. People are quite understandably reluctant to talk. And we would never push. There are many questionmarks about Burma around that which you do not see, do not hear, are not allowed to go near. The silence is unbelievably loud.

Cheap Eats

Lots of restaurants here offer free desserts at the end of your meal which is a lovely touch. And in one place, Aroma 2 in Bagan we were even offered cigarettes as part of our inclusive Indian thali meal. However, now that I am a responsible non-smoking 30-something, I declined. One of the very best meals we had, and perhaps the best value meal I have ever had, was at Sam’s Family Restaurant in Kalaw. There we paid the equivalent of £1.25 each for a three course meal of dried mustard soup, vegetable curry and rice and naan, and fried bananas and sugar as well as coke, water and delicious all-you-can-drink sesame tea. Another great meal was at the Golden Kite Restaurant in Nyaungshwe where the spirited and rightfully proud owner told us about how an Italian woman had helped him start his Italian restaurant by setting him up with a pasta making machine and a basil cutting she brought over from Rome. The pizza he created was amazing, particularly for Asia where at best ‘Italian food’ tends to only vaguely resemble Italian food. A pizza I had in Bagan, par example, tasted like sick.

Brand Decisions

As you would expect, there are very few Western brands here. The whole time I only saw a smattering of Nestle (who’d have thought they’d ever be in such a country eh?!!), saw some Pringles and some Cadbury’s Eclairs that looked like they’d hung around since about 1987 on sale, and I saw a Marlboro umbrella. There are quite a few Eastern technology brands in Yangon though – Samsung, Lenovo, Canon. A monk told us that the French company Total has been here for many years despite pressure to withdraw.

The Road is Long

Bus journeys here are tough. Or, rather, character building. They are worse than India by a long way. The “roads” are terrible, suspension barely exists, exhausts smoke out black dust, and journeys of 300km here take 18 hours+. And you are lucky to get a seat, often having to instead spend long, long, long journeys either standing or sat on a small (and I mean small) plastic child’s chair in the aisle. And if you do get a seat, more likely than not it doesn’t recline. And more likely than not the person’s in front of you does. Patience and stamina are prerequisites for survival. Bus journeys here kind of remind me of the bus journey Kathleen Turner takes in Colombia at the beginning of Romancing The Stone, only about five times worse. And without Danny DeVito.

Back to Burma

I will definitely be coming back to Burma. It is a country too beautiful, too welcoming, too heartwarming, too giving to be forgotten or put to one side. The Burmese people deserve more.

Some PS’s

Ps: The malaria tablets are doing funny things to my faculties. I have had some rather weird and disturbing dreams since taking them. The first I have already mentioned in a previous post, the one where Will gets us into massive drug deal with the Thai underworld. And since then I have also dreamt that I was drink driving on the wrong side of the road in Burma, got arrested and thrown in prison. And also that I was witness to and complicit in the coverup of the drowning of a baby in a lake. That one in particular really wasn’t very nice. Then last night I dreamt that my brother Simon was getting me to do drugs whilst we were supposed to be looking after 3-year old Eve. Very very strangerous. There seems to be an ongoing theme of drugs violations and prison. Hmmmm. They say you dream the opposite of what is really real, so hopefully I will continue to be the upstanding and responsible citizen that I have always been. And, Clare – don’t ever worry about me looking after Eve, it was Simon’s stash after all.

Pps: I had my first real English food craving the other day, what I like to call a “craveaway”. I suddenly, and for no real reason at all had an intense longing for a cheddar cheese and cucumber sandwich. I sat for quite some time dreaming about what type of butter I would want inside, and exactly what make of bread it needed to be. All rather obsessive.

Ppps: But not as obsessive as some… Will is obviously missing work a lot and has got a bit keen with recording our expenses. He has spent several hours drawing up an elaborate excel spreadsheet with Beautiful Mind type formulas all over it (including Variance vs target, Variance vs target carry forward, Variance vs budget and Variance vs budget carry forward, graphical presentations of over and under performance vs target, and a detailed expenses category analysis, as well as conditional formatting in green and red which he says is particularly important). It’s quite scary. I on the other hand continue to overspend wonderfully and buy nice things which look pretty. Some things don’t change.

Pppps: Promise we will upload some photos again tomorrow as we now have amazing wifi connection in Chiang Mai. Check again in next couple of days for Burma pics et al, xx

Will reckons my sponsorship deal with Billabong may not transpire after all. He says it’s much more likely that I’ll get picked up by Bongabill, the stoner surf shop. Sadly I think he may be right. But I’m gonna keep trying and when we hit Gisborne Nick is gonna be very proud to be associated with the new surfer chick in town when all his pro surf mates wonder who this amazing new talent is who’s rocked up to the reef. Probably literally rocked up on the reef more like, but gotta keep the dream alive…

We are now in Bangkok after flying here on Air Asia (which, by the way, is surely the best budget airline in the world…?) Weather a bit ropey but having a wonderful time. Staying at the rather lovely Chatrium Suites where Will got a fantastic lastminute.com deal which has enabled us to carry on celebrating the bday (bdays last for a week). And because they stuffed up our booking and tried to fob us off with twin beds, they then upgraded us to a mahoosive two bedroom suite with a huge lounge and kitchen area and two large bathrooms, river views and stunning setting. So, if anyone fancies a quick flight over to Thailand then you are more than welcome to kip at ours!!

Our first night in Bangkok I dreamt that Will got involved in a large drug deal and wanted us to try some of the finest Thai hard drugs. He agreed to purchase a gram of smack and a gram of cocaine from some rather seedy Thai underworld characters. When I raised some doubts and questioned him about the idea, he told me to relax and chill out and not worry about maybe spending the rest of our days eating bugs in the Bangkok Hilton. Thankfully it was just a dream. Don’t worry mum, the drug deal didn’t come off and we are still safely installed in our lovely Chatrium Suite.

First night we hit Khao San Rd which was as mad as ever. Then Yesterday we took a boat and the v efficient Sky Train into the centre of town and did a bit of shopping around the malls at Siam Square and then hit the weekend market at Chatuchak, where I purchased three rather lovely small T-shirts for the bargain price of 150 Baht (about 3 squid). Unfortunately with no changing facility at the market it’s a bit pot luck as to what you come away with and I may have slightly overlooked the size of one of my new tees. With much pulling and tugging I did manage to get it on, but it wasn’t a good look. Later in the evening Will stretched the T-shirt for me by trying it on himself (photo to follow – quite disturbing in a sort of early Take That Could It Be Magic? kind of a way). Yesterday we also got wonderful and cheap (300 Baht for both of us)dim sum in Chinatown for lunch and then eased ourselves into the afternoon with a relaxing Thai massage.

Today we have so far just been to the Myanmar embassy to start sorting our Visas for travel there in the next couple of days. Really interesting process – dusty old counters that look like they haven’t seen a cloth since 1986 to scramble your applications together on, old school style glue complete with dipping straw to stick your passport photos onto forms, broken chairs haphazardly thrown about the room everywhere and inquisitive interrogations from the officials (why do you want to go to Myanmar? How long are you going for? Have you been before? What do you do? What is the name of your company?). All as I guess one should expect. Fascinated to see what Myanmar itself is like if this is the state of a government office!! We now have to wait two days for our applications to be processed. Just about to book another Air Asia flight to get us there as you can only get across the borders by flying right now. I heart Air Asia.

xx