We arrived at the Yangon international airport in the
morning with little sleep. The main
building of the airport was old, but inside of it was renovated and very clean. There were no lines at the immigration or
customs. There were ATM inside. We learned that ATM’s appeared only in the
beginning of 2013. Previously there was
a real problem for people getting their money out of their accounts. In some places, clean and straight dollars
are accepted. We paid $4 for a shared 30-minute
taxi ride to the downtown of Yangon. It
was very interesting to see a lot of men wearing skirts and a lot of girls
wearing yellow make-up on their cheeks (a natural sunscreen from a tree bark). We instantly felt that we are in a different
country. There were no motorbikes on the
streets. People riding bicycles or
people being ridden in bicycle taxis was a more common view.
We arrived at Roxana’s apartment on the 11th
floor. We found Roxana on the
couchsurfing.com. She lives and works in
the beautiful apartment in downtown. Her
father and her son also live with her.
Roxana also has two girls working in her travel agency and one man
working for her personally. The man
served us breakfast, took care of her son and did family’s laundry. Roxana had another apartment about 40 minutes
walking distance. It was free for a
moment and she let us stay there. The
apartment was very simple. It had a big
empty living room with a balcony. The
bedroom was built inside the living room.
The bedroom walls had windows to 3 directions: outside and the living
room. No windows had nets, but the
mosquito net was covering the rollout beds in the bedroom. There was an electric table-top stove in the
kitchen and a little refrigerator. The
bathroom had a squat toilet and a bucket, which could be filled up from the
tap. The shower and the water reserve was
in the other room.
The first day we had a good rest before going out to dinner. On the way to downtown, we passed a beautiful
Pagoda (a Buddhist monument) on the lake, as well as a child shitting on the
sidewalk. The dinner was served by boys
in those long traditional skirts. The
dinner and the service were great. We
noticed that everybody in the restaurant drink tea. The thermos with tea was on each table. Some people drink their tea from the plates
(my guess, the tea cools of faster this way).
Some people were eating their rise dishes with no utensils. Burmese food is influenced by Indians and
Chinese. A lot of times the Burmese dish
is cold, which can be mixed with warm rice.
The second day we took a circular train around Yangon. The ride was 3 hours. Dangis and I sat on the steps, so we could
better see what was happening outside.
The windows and doors were always open.
Mostly locals were on the train.
There was a women with a naked boy who was sleeping on the dirty floor
for a while. Later a lot of people came
on board with different greens, which some of them are grown in the water like
rice. People outside of Yangon live
poorly, in the houses weaved from leaves or tree barks. Locals seemed very warm and friendly. A lot of kids and adults waved at us passing
by their homes. We also noticed that
some girls have their heads shaved.
Maybe that way they don’t need to wash their hair and brush. Or maybe that way they get rid of lice. Or maybe that is a tradition. We saw some girl monks with shaved heads and
pink outfits. There are a lot of monks
overall in the country.
Also, we noticed that a lot of men and even some men have
read teeth from chewing tobacco. The
tobacco is being sold everywhere on the streets, packaged in leaves. There are a lot of streets in Yangon that
have people selling all kinds of things, from clothes to food to painting
supplies.
In the evening, we went to the biggest Schwedagon
pagoda. I have never seen so much gold
in one place. It is ironic, that a
country with so much precious stones is so poor. The atmosphere in the pagoda is very
uplifting. I was wondering how anyone
can meditate with so many people wondering around. But as soon as I closed my eyes, I could feel
very strong and good energy with the bells and children singing in the
background. On the way to our apartment
from the pagoda, we entered a little street with no tourists. We decided to eat at a little family
restaurant. The son was called to
translate that we would like something with no meat or fish. We were served the meal we ordered plus
vegetables, soup and tea. Everybody was
watching us eat. As soon as we finished
the soup, they brought us a second cup each.
They brought us more vegetables, since they noticed we liked them. The whole experience was great. We felt like movie stars a few time with
people watching us and taking pictures of us.
The third day all of us stopped by the Roxana’s place. She offered us breakfast again and even gave us a private tour of the downtown. We learned a lot about Burmese culture from her. We tried some local foods on the streets. When we got back to her place, she helped us make plans for the upcoming days. It is not easy getting information about travel in Myanmar. This way we spent all day with Roxana and our new Israeli friends. We learned that Roxana is a Muslim. Her husband is a Budhist. Her father went to a missionary school. During our 3 days in Yangon, we saw a mosque, synagogue, catholic and Lutheran churches and Hindu temple besides Buddhist temples and pagodas. Yangon appears to be very cosmopolitan city.
Later we went to an art gallery Pansodan where
we met our friend from yoga classes in Samui.
Yasemin is from Germany, but she works in Yangon. It is always great to meet people in
different countries. After Yasemin had
to run, we stayed longer to have some food, drinks and talk to other
foreigners. The gallery owners (Burmese
and his Canadian wife) have a gathering on Tuesday nights for everybody. We had so much fun. I loved Yangon. I was not really ready to leave it. The next morning we left to see Golden Rock.
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