December 2011 | Dave's Notes

Notes on Burmese Hospitality

Day 9 New Years Eve in Bagan. Dinner with Mar Mar San.

Night, Saturday 31 December, New Years Eve, Nyaung U.

When Burmese invite guests to their house to heat, the guest eats alone and the remainder is eaten after by the family (the large extended family) – this ensures that the guest eats enough. My Burmese hosts cannot afford to eat much curry so they eat a lot of rice with just a little curry for taste (This was information sourced from Mr Wintun @ Weatherspoons).

The remainder of the food at Mar Mar San’s would be shared by 7 adults and 2 kids.

Burmese hospitality is generous to a fault, but it is their way.

[The family sat quietly watching the television whilst I ate alone. Mar Mar San would tend to my needs with stewed chicken and curried vegetables. There was too much food served for me, but not enough for 3. And there were more waiting their turn to eat. Awkwardly, I withdrew from my meal, unsure of what gratitudes were expected for hospitality such as this. I took my bicycle and MMS walked with me down the dusty track, back to the road to Nyuang U. Walking away at a harried pace, shame spurned my departure, set off-balance, unsure of the protocols that I imaged must come with such welcomes and farewells. And with that I rode back on the dark roads from Old Bagan back to the place where my bicycle was hired. Then suffering the strangeness of the new years eve, I wanted to spend the last hours in Nyaung U at a favourite place, Weatherspoons. ]

I was not invited to the tourist table congregating for NYE. Frankly, a little hurt, but glad not to endure bland conversation til ears bled. Still, not as bad as the Australian crew @ Xmas eve.

Spending NYE writing this story.

Spending NYD on 12 hour hell-bus to Inle Lake. 5 am lift off.

Art of Travel.

Day 9 Bagan. Dealing with the postcard mafia.

It becomes difficult to count each dollar that you spend and time will tell if I can waste another dollar after this trip, there is a difference between needing nothing, needing something and needing the perfect thing. The perfect thing, hard to reach, hard to acquire, hold, give away.

Saturday 31 December, New Years Eve, Sunny.

No matter how persistent a hawker pursues your custom, it shall not make up for the deficit in quality or utility, but erodes the value of true artisanship, supplants the potential for artisans to exist.

Burmagirl

Mar Mar San, near the Shwe San Daw Temple, Old Bagan, Myanmar.

22 years old, birthday in June. Likes chillis, hot weather, learning languages. Left school in Year 10 to run the family business.

8 siblings, 4 married, youngest sibling is 7 years old, a girl. Wants to travel to Bangkok, wants to buy a motorcycle. Refuses to pursue tourists, but lets themm choose to buy or not. Pretty eyes, a clefted chin, white teeth.

Rode my bicycle to “A little bit of Bagan’, internet, lunch, got superglue from staff, mended sunglasses with superglue fixed glasses with electrical tape. Went to the toilet, put glasses in breast pocket but no hook to hang my bag, so I rest it on my lap. When finished, tried to tie longgi but when I flicked my bag around it caught the glasses in my pocket and twang! they somersaulted into the freshly laid toilet bowl.

Rode out past the golf course, lovely shaded grove, but the temples south west are being reclaimed by nature. By nature I mean, putting greens and fairways.

Long ride in the sun down road to New Bagan. Stopped at “Royal Golden Tortoise” lacquerware workshop (email: muehein5@gmail.com). Looked, talked, could not find a nice piece for cheap. As I went to leave, was invited back inside for tea and conversation.

Hosts requested that I find a book in Bangkok, “Burmese Lacquerware” by Fraser Lu, published in Thailand by Orchid Publishing ~ 10 years ago.

Gave gift of their ‘best quality’ lacquerware bowl.

Myanmar people work on good will. People are taken at face value. Gestures of kindness seem extended for no reason or karmic value. It is dangerous when transactions are in karmic currency…

The Postcard infantry.

Kiki told me to watch the sunset away from the tourist clutter at Shwe San Saw and go to the temple Gaw Daw Palin. The postcard kids called to me as I rode past. They led me up to their temple and played Myanmar checkers/ Noughts and Crosses.

3 Pieces each. Pieces can only move one node at a time. First 6 moves are free = 3 moves each player. First to make an array wins!

Kids with cameras – take two cameras & give 1 to the kids to share around. Their curiosity and ability to learn is a spectacle in itself. Bring a sound recorder. Be prepared to fend off their calls to buy postcards after. Be prepared with pens or time permitting, bring something for them to play with from home. They are precisely like you. on school break, trying to make a dollar, talk to strangers, have some fun.

Fled from the kids, minus 4 pens and K300 lighter per person (8) + K1000 for Chi Chi and 13 postcards added to inventory..

Rode as fast as I could to Shwe San Daw temple to meet Mar Mar San but accosted by Dider and cheeky girl. Succumbed to pressure and bought 3 baubles and a bronze and palm leaf adorned box for K5000. A bad purchase. Went back to Mar Mar San’s amongst the tmples. Climbed the temple that her father is the guardian for. View of all the big temples near by. Went back to eat dinner at her place*. Afterwards, rode back to Nyaung U and ate chocolate cake at Weatherspoons.

* For return or package delivery- Materials for decorationof MMS house. Consider helping MMS to travel. Write postcard for MMS and PPL in bagan.

@ Shwe San Daw, became a money changer for the hawkers trying to change money to THB to MMK. Now have +270THB.

Bagan: Solitude and Myanmar Trivia.

Day 8, Beautiful Bagan by bicycle.

Friday 30 December, Sunny. Yesterday’s travel mates have been lost to their own journeys. Who abandoned who? Mutual or not? What is the price of thing? Is the value purely commercial, or is there a moral value of a deal? Does a common decency affect the price? Do arseholes pay more or less and is there a …. My tour guide at Mi Pagoda says: Myanmar, 2013-14 Asian Games, ASEAN Chair. 2015 Join ASEAN free trade zone. Govt predicts 25% increase per annum. Oct 2010- March 2011 – 1 Million tourists. Silk weavers in Inle reportedly make K15,000 per day, with up to 3 girls working on the one cloth. one intricate cloth reportedly takes 6 weeks to make. That equals about K500,000. 2100 rooms in Yangon 1000 rooms in Bagan 5000 Rooms required for the asian games. Ordinary labour (painting, building) only pays K2500-4500 per day.

Dinner at Weatherspoons, with Japanese man who works for Fujifilm TFT Technology. Send postcards to:

Mar Mar San, Near the Shwe San Daw Pagoda, Old Bagan, Myanmar.

Cruising the Irrawaddi River

Day 7, The dull river cruise. An amazing dinner in Bagan.

Cruising down the Irrawaddy with westerners is boring, we’re all boring, plugged into our ipods, pointing our big camera lenses at the wildlife, reading our guidebooks on the deck. Tourists get tired of waving pretty quickly, 2 hours after the excitement of leaving port (in Mandalay) is overcome by sleepiness. We stop at a village to take on extra passengers. The women wade up to the cruiser to sell bunches of bananas, hoiking them at the boat, presumably at the people who float Khat notes back to them. Kids scream at the passengers to throw them chocolate or pens – it’s a game… for everybody, It’s so disconnected, so distant , safe, cold.

Thursday, 29 December, cloudy.

Dining for 1, solo eating, has it’s downsides. No exchange of ideas, no awkward silences shared, no flirting, laughing, maybe some sobbing, sniffling, a candlelight to keep one company. When inspiration does take hold, the floodgates open, unleashing torrents of pure potential crashing into the tranquil scene below, but not tonight.

Weatherspoons — they didn’t charge me or the tea leaf salad, because I didn’t eat all of it!!!

Rejected & being rejected.

Abandonment is a fact of life and in the case of travel, a necessity.

Notes on Mandalay

Day 2 Mandalay

Wednesday, 28 December, Raining.

A wedding procession today went past as I sat in the tea house. One speeding, honking jeep with a great golden flower adorned, offering bowl strapped to the bonnet, followed by the bridal party sitting in the tray of a lorry, on plastic deck chairs. The rain falls in mist and the umbrellas shield the important people.

The food in Mandalay is a mixture of Chinese, Shan, Indian. Each distinct, but available in the same restaurant or teahouse.

All people here, men, mingle in the teahouse, staffed by boys young as 10. Maybe younger, like in Dalla township. Grotty little 7 year olds who like playing with fire. The gentleness of the people in mandalay make me feel like the most stuck up person in town, even when I’m being as nice as I can be. The people laugh at my jokes easily enough which is a consoling feature of travelling alone here. I feel grotty for pointing out the price of an umbrella marked K300 less than the mentioned price, about 40c difference that is nothing ot me but the vendor laughs and corrects her offer. $1.75 for an umbrella.

Forgot to visit the Zey Cho market today, slept a lot. I have caught a respiratory infection. Every other tourist guide I’ve met seems to have. Hacking and spitting ( no betel juices).

Cancelled the day trip with Maungko due to rain and discovered last night that I spent too much cash on souvenirs. Spent the day wondering how I will stretch $200 over 8 days, judging by current form, $25 per day. That the trouble with last minute scheduling.

Notes on Food.

Alternative ways to serve food. –

Yangon teahouse puts everything on your table, like automatic Yum cha. Normal YC requires that you mob the dumpling cart lady as soon as she emerges from the kitchen. Here, you pay for what you eat, endless tea, K2300 < $3.

Most locals will not spend K1000 on afternoon tea, let alone dinner.

Indian, meat and three veg. The staff keep refilling the rice, veg, soup until the customer says stop. K3300.

Dish out fresh soup and curry veg with a ladle at the table. Add vegetable salad nibbles and 3 kinds of pickle.

Roast corn and turnip/yam on charcoal, street-side vendor. Served piping hot, break up the yam for foreigner (who doesn’t know how) so he can eat it.

Tea houses, Gold beaters, Stone cutters

Day 5, Mandalay

Tuesday, 27 December.

If you hear music in the street, 9 out of 10, it’s a lottery ticket vendor.

Morning tea with Mongol, my motorcycle taxi driver. First stop buddha carving, then gold beating.

Gold beating –

1 ounce of gold gets heated and pressed 7 times until it is 20 feet long and 3/4 inches wide.

A 3/4 inch square is pounded until it is 2 inches square.

3/4 inch square is cut again and pounded until it is 2 inches square.

Dinner time is the hardest time, when you have nobody to share a meal with. Nobody to share your stories with.

The Train to Mandalay.

Day 4 Yangon with Min Zaw. Overnight train to Mandalay.

Taxi drivers can make 15-25 thousand Khat per day, which Min Zaw says is good money. The government moved to Napitaw 1 year ago and Yangon is quiet now. New roads are very good from Yangon to the administrative capital. Prices are higher now in Yangon than in Bangkok.

The Train to Mandalay

She bucks like a rodeo bull. 16 hours overnight sleeper car, bed No.1 Only thing served by the wait-boy is chicken and fried rice. Met Rene H and Debbie L in beds No.3 and 4. Bankers from Singapore. Said UN ruined East Timor (for tourists, hahaha.). Their tour guide was going to holiday in Australia. First time Rene ever had a tour guide who could afford to holiday in Australia.

Notes:

Mandalay – Sikhs, Muslims, Chinese, Buddhists, Shan.

Shan noodles, cold greasy but tasty – K600.

Coffee + 3 cigarettes – K300

Motorbike minimum K500

Walked the streets that Monday night.

Amerthyst stones, teardrop, grade 3, high facet(?)

2x8mm , 2×9, 1×10 K300,000 ~ $380

Textiles: longgi K10,000, Chin Design K10,000

Min Zaw and Mr Hla, a tour of Dalla township

Day 3 Yangon. A lesson in disaster aid money and real estate.

Sunday, 25 December

Went to teahouse with Min Zaw and Mr Hla, guides sculking around Sakura Tower/ train station.

– Yangon is better since 8 months

– Money changers on the street are cheats.

– Min Zaw works on donation

– His dream is to work in BKK and Tokyo Shinjiku.

– Went to Dalla Township by ferry

– Met Coco, rickshaw boy, a very skinny muslim of 22 years.

– Land prices have soared the last few years in Dalla. 40 square metres was $1000, now $15000.

– Japanese NGO paid for repairs to houses (after Cyclone Naga)

– House price $3000 USD for a timber shack.

– Monastery/Orphanage has 118 boys – see business card.

– They educate and pay for education of boys all way through university.

– No craft trade in Dalla except for pottery, most live there and commute to Yangon for work.

– Donghi needed to gain favour with the locals.

– You foreigner, you purdha, You donghi, you very good!

– Ferry $2 return Yangon-Dalla-Yangon.

– Only foreigners take rickshaw. locals use motorcycle, 500 Khat, very quick, the roads are new and concrete and increase the land value. Some main roads are awful.

– Purdha = very happy (man)

– Min Zaw like books about other places, 31 years of age.

– Mr Hla speaks Chinese and is a wood carving master of marionettes at Shwe Dagon Pagoda.

– Mr Hla says ‘don’t pay for train ticket in Mandalay??

— Min Zaw says Arunapura has silver working shop, wood shop.

– Min Zaw is hopeful for the future of Burma, waiting for 2015 when they can get visa to ASEAN countries.

Xmas Eve with Australians

Day 2, Xmas eve celebrations, and the inevitable downward spiral towards KTV Karaoke.

Sunday 24 December, XMAS Eve.

Suffered through the Xmas eve with a cohort of young Australians. Vow never to do that again.

Walked aimlessly around the Muslim Quarter of Yangon, east and south of Sule Pagoda – dinner only 1800 Khat. Internet cafes are everywhere, tourists her and there but hardly Bangkok or Luang Prabang. People stare but not with intensity.Went with young Australians to Mr Guitar for them piled 7 into a cab to go to KTV, closed already, went to 2nd KTV, full of expats, invaded their booth, but they left shortly after. I should have followed.

Notes —

Didn’t want to be alone for Xmas eve so when I found the crew of Aussies at the Guesthouse door, I waived better judgement and went along with them. Seemed the thing to do.

Mr Guitar was an upmarket (for Yangon) karaoke bar with a live band playing western music. Local etiquette seemed to be to quietly sit in booths and sip whiskey. Etiquette was utterly ignored, the sweetness of the houseband was overcome, as Aussies + beer + music = screaming. Cranberry’s Zombie is a standout. I have it on record.

When we assailed the group of westerners at the number 2 KTV karaoke place, found an Ausaid, utterly wasted trying to maintain her ex-pat crew through the tail ends of a nasty night on the drink. Then she invited the young Ausrtralians into her booth, and it was all over bar the shouting.

Never again.

Walking the Ruined City

Day 2 Myanmar, tours with Yvette. Food, drink, pagodas.

Saturday 24 December, Sunny.

Walk around all morning. Paper street near the Pagoda. Up and around til the railway station. The tool market near the Chinese shrine. Down to the cinema block on the other side. Tin Tin movie is showing. 5 or 6 movie houses all clustered together towards the river there an old Army HQ, fenced off with barbed wire. Built 1889-1892.

Pic 102-368 Paper Street

0302-0324 Tea house w/ Yvette

0326 0330 Checkers with Rocks

P1020363 — Exterior shot of Monsoon Restaurant, evening time.

P1020375 — Army HQ, note the clock face missing 4,7 and 9.

0331-0354 Shwe Dagon Pagoda

0306 Monsoon Restaurant

0356-3560 – Feel

0369-0372 St Marys

Passport Control, Yangon.

Day 1 Myanmar, Yangon, Airport

Landed in Yangon in a A320, but we touched down in what appeared to be a cow paddock. The smell of people wafts over me as i approach passport control. For a moment it is like papaya and oil in my nostrils.

Saturday, 24 December. Sunny.

Beyond customs is a small gathering of taxi drivers with red stained smiles, that same woody fruity breath. I don’t wait to settle on their high price but I know it is now a race between me and the fellow travellers on the plane. I give into the badgering of John, a short but well fed fellow with a red stained smile and laughing buddha eyes. He has his own driver and a rusted out van of which I am the sole passenger. There seems to be only cars, bicycles with sidecars and no motorbikes in Yangon. This is the town where Corollas and Sunnies come to die, their rusted out, held together with electrical tape, suspension coils with no memory of the youthful spring. Used by date already 20 years past.

I meet a girl, Yvette, at the Okinawa Guest House, a single serving friend. We walked around to a tea house where the food is laid out before you and take what you like — different from the Yum Cha in HK where you chase the lady with the cake cart. Cigarettes are bought by the piece, laid out in a holder , like the cake. Price for 2 ppl – 2700 Khat.

The food looks and tastes like Cantonese cake but there are also friend vegetable samosa. Yvette is a hotel consultant on vacation, American-born, chatty and energetic – it’s easy to follow her around for the day, a camera always appearing every few minutes to snap a few pics.

The Shwe Dagon Pagoda campus is huge, towering above the rest of the city. The guide, Win, is chatty but boring, the Pagoda is magnificent but gaudy – gold leafed and shimmery. A thousand images of buddha sit or lie in shrines around the base of the pagoda. LED lights flashing and swirling like so many street food carts.

Amazing pagodas of old, tea carving that are startling in their complexity, and new pagodas, shiny mirrors adorned, or tin sheds that betray an austerity and an absence of craftsmanship but built none the less because a rich man sponsored(willed?) it into existence.

The taxi drivers are so reluctant to bargain to local rates, adding 50-100% to the fare. But we go to Feel Restaurant for some buffet Myanmar food. The sweets are chinese (mooncakes) and indian (gulag jamon). The curries spicy and oily.

The beggars, though young and desperate are disposed to converse after a failed sale with talk of the their city and lives, most come from over the river to hunt for tourists – all of them sell postcards and can’t go to school, which apparently costs 3 dollars per semester. The old buildings surviving from the British are stately high ceilinged palaces, falling apart, rotting away.

The Strand is Beautiful. (no pictures, sorry.)

A study of surfaces

The streets of Hong Kong and Kowloon make an interesting study of the use of tiles on the outside of buildings. It is a study of public spaces and how people interact with that space.

I think this is something special about the buildings of last generation’s HK. Tiles preserve the integrity of the brick and concrete from the rain and humidity, lending lustre and gloss to materials that would otherwise blacken with soot and mould and stain with the grease of close urban spaces, say nothing of the dire, unimaginable! consequences of feeding animals in private areas.

It seems the presence of tiles are everywhere. Uniform square mat tiles, combinations of colour that echo the tastes of times past or the historical traits of luck and prosperity. Some time in the past, this green pictured above held some meaning, just as the colour of the red and ornate building below and the newer, black and severe building juxtaposed.

It seems like a sensible idea, but one that I hadn’t thought about much whilst living in Bangkok. The wet and humid conditions in this part of the world are a safe harbour for mould and scum to accumulate in the corners and crevices. The people accept the appearance and condition of the public space, at least here in HK, there has been a notion of defiance against decay. Check out the ruined plaster mouldings on the colonial buildings in Yangon to compare.

And there is evidence that the designers of these spaces were interested the possibilities of this medium. Imagine, this simple design below that has a modest resonance with the work of Piet Mondrian. There is a restraint of artistic endeavour (or of limited imagination, who can say), that says that the humble tile is a vulgar thing, so common and useful and everywhere.

Here’s a shopfront with a 2 tone circular tile pattern. Most tiles you see are the small square profile.

HK Xmas Milonga

The last time I was in Hong Kong was a dozy 4 hour transit stop on the way to London Heathrow. That was 2007, 2 months before the big jump to Thailand. This time I wanted to see Hong Kong itself, see the tango, stay in the city. But now it was December 10, and I didn’t know what I would be doing, nor where I would be staying for the 4 nights, amended to 7 nights, that I would be staying here.

The flight from BKK was flying towards dusk. Below us was purple cloud reaching toward the orange sunset. The clouds seemed settled at a uniform altitude, the ripples in the cloud seen from above was so intricate, it looked like a great woolen blanket cloaking the world.

I knew that when I landed, there would be a Christmas milonga somewhere in Tsim Sha Tsui. That much I had booked. 3 classes and a Grand Milonga ticket with Carman via email. I liked the idea of this romantic notion, of travelling light, with only a suit and a pair of dance shoes. I wanted to see if the Hong Kong of my imagination were anything like the Hong Kong of reality.

Finding a bus from HKG to Kowloon was confusing. I remember the bus taking us to another bus station, but I was not sure where to alight. I was struck by the colour of the city, the way the buildings illuminated the world, like toys.

What surprised me was the cold. On this night, people in the street were looking up into the sky, to see the lunar eclipse, a blood moon gazing back from that cloudless sky. I took a picture with my camera.

Intent on dancing, searched around for Middle Road and found the Mariner’s Club, the venue for the evening. I walked up a flight of stairs until I found a bathroom and changed into my suit before stepping into the milonga one floor above. I was greeted and seated and watched on amazed at how well presented everyone was. Ray the tall American was in a tux as were many of the men. I was at a table of nice people, strangers, and a shyness came over me. But I stayed and got up a few times and watched the performance by Diego and Graciela.

As night ended, I stepped outside alone to discover just how cold HK could be in December. It was 2:00am and I didn’t have a clue where I would be sleeping, but I thought if I could find a place called Chun King Mansions, I might be okay. A sense of optimism prevailed.

I walked back to the main street and turned left and walked 50 paces. A middle eastern guy was standing suspiciously outside a plaza entrance, minding his phone.

You want a room? he asked.

Yes, I said.

150 Dollars.

Okay, I said.

He lead me around the security grill, into the lobby and up the escalator. Then down a flight of stairs and through a rabbit warren until we came upon a door, which he opened. Inside was a bed against the wall upon which lay a rudely awoken fellow, middle eastern. He chatted to the other guy for a moment and then opened a door behind him to a room, my bed for the night.

By a dumb stroke of blind luck, I had fumbled a room in Chun King Mansions.