Yangon, Myanmar (Burma): The Golden Land

We went and visited Myanmar Jan 31st- Feb 5th.  We wanted to be out of the country during the elections because that was the reason that all the demonstrations have been happening in Bangkok.  I should mention that you need a VISA to visit Myanmar but it is pretty easy to get.  

A couple hours before we left for the airport, the demonstrators started shutting down all the streets so that no one could drive anywhere because they were trying to stop the elections from happening.  We didn't hit any of that stuff luckily but we got to the airport 4 hours early because of it and they wouldn't let us check in until 4:30.  So we decided to go have some lunch.  Jason ordered a drink that came in a pineapple.  I looked good but they used an unripe pineapple so it didn't taste that great... bummer!

We used Nokair to fly to Myanmar.  It was about an hour flight.  And this airline is great and tailored to families!  They had a play area in the airport and they gave kids crayons and a coloring page when we got on the flight!

We flew in at night so when the taxi was taking us to the hotel in Chinatown, we were very impressed with the area (we didn't know what to expect).  We get to our hotel... and I wanted to cry.  It looked so trashy and gross.  We get up to our tiny room with no window and 2 tiny twin beds.  The bathroom was all in what looked like a shower.  So you open up the sliding glass door to the bathroom and you see a sink, a soap and shampoo dispenser, a toilet, a towel rack, and a shower head coming out of the wall.

All night long I couldn't sleep because I kept hearing the ding of the elevator and smelled cigarette smoke coming in through the A/C.  Jason and I each slept with one of the kids, I slept with Beckham.  He doesn't sleep well in a regular bed, he still turns around and sleeps upside down.  Well in the middle of the night, he fell off the bed head first onto the hardwood floor.  So I stayed up most of the night making sure he didn't fall off again.

7am came and everyone was still sleeping but I couldn't anymore.  I decided since I couldn't go hang out anywhere in the room where I wouldn't disturb anyone, I decided to go exploring outside.  Turns out there was a early morning market right next to our hotel.  This is when I saw Myanmar in its true light.  It wasn't just our hotel that was trashy, the whole country is... it's a third world country.

This really upset me because out of all the stuff I researched about Myanmar, not once did it come up that it was a third world country!  I couldn't believe that I brought my kids here!  So I said a little prayer that I would see this place in a different light and enjoy our time here regardless of the circumstances.  Which by the way, my church, isn't even here!  This made me sad... I have never been to a place in the world where my church wasn't.  

View right out the door of our hotel.

Market full of all kinds of fruits, vegetables, and meat.

This is a traditional "taxi" called a trishaw.  There are a couple things about this picture that defines the people in Myamar.

1) both men and women wear a "skirt" that is called a Longhi (longee).  The men tie it in a knot in the front and the women kind of wrap and tuck it.

2) See that stuff on the woman's cheeks?  It is called Thanaka.  It is a cosmetic paste made from ground tree bark.  They use it as a protection from the sun and it is also supposed to help with blemishes.  Mainly you see it on women and children but men can wear it too.

3)  You probably can't really see it, but this man's teeth are red.  This is from a chew they use called Paan.  It is very addictive and tuns your teeth red from chewing it.  They sell it everywhere on the streets out here.  It looks like red chunks of something on a green leaf painted with white stuff.

Yangon, the capital of Myanmar, is full of trashy gross buildings, beautiful gold pagodas (Buddhist Temples and places of worship), and old European- looking buildings.

We found a really nice park that had some fun playground stuff.  It was so hot thought that all the equipment was too hot to the touch so my boys' favorite place was this dirty water pool.

Myanmar is very controlled by the government.  For a while, many news reporters had to live in hiding for fear of being executed for the things they wrote.  They finally got the freedom to write what they like so newspaper are very important to the Burmese people.

We rode taxi's everywhere.  They were pretty cheap but there was no meter in them so the driver gave you a price and it wasn't very negotiable.  The most expensive was $10 and the cheapest ride was $1.50.  Taxis don't have seat belts, so my kids think it is okay to do whatever they want... really frustrating.  So this time, they were playing in between the front seat and the backseat.  Which by the way, the drivers seat is on the right side of the car but the Burmese drive on the right side of the road. 

We went to a market called Bogyoke Market.  We were expecting something completely different.  This was actually pretty nice.

This is a picture of what used to be the sidewalk until it collapsed.  This is what it looks like everywhere.  In Yangon, there is trash everywhere.  It is super gross.  We would get back to the hotel after being out all day and I would feel nasty and refused to get on the bed until I had taken a shower... which there was no hot water... only cold. There are stray dogs everywhere scratching and biting at their fleas, dirty pigeons everywhere.

There was this one time we were walking and we see this little kid, the age of Beckham (19 months), wondering over to a super busy street.  Jason and I got super nervous... so we stood there and watched.  Turns out he just had to pee.  He pulled down his pants and peed into the gutter!  I have seen several babies not wearing diapers!  I thought no one did, but we saw a few packs in the store so maybe someone does.

People when eating outside at the street vendors would sit at little tables and chairs.  Ones that we Americans would give to our 2 year olds in their play rooms.

There are monks everywhere out here.  There are lots of little boy monks and surprisingly a lot of women monks too.  They wear pink robes and shave their heads as well. 

One of the best parts about this country is the people.  They are kind, honest, hard working people.  We thought that the boys got a ton of attention in Thailand?  I'm not sure if the Burmese have ever seen a white baby before because people were lining up to get their pictures taken with my boys.  This made things very difficult because Will and Beckham were very sick of all the attention and became VERY grumpy if anyone came near them.

Bad picture... cute little boys.  Their mom was taking pictures of my boys so I thought I could take pictures of hers. ☺

We visited the Shwedagon Pagoda which was beautiful!  We had to pay $8 or 8000 khats to enter and take off our shoes and walk around outside the whole time we were there.  Luckily the tile wasn't too hot!  There were these bell gongs that a worker said we could bang.  I'm not sure why but I noticed that everyone banged it only 3 times, no more than 3 nor less than 3.

Shwedagon Pagoda

Another part of the Shwedagon Pagoda

There was a little organic restaurant right next to our hotel.  This is shaved ice that we ordered there.  The name was called "Strawberry Snowflake".  It was pretty good.  I think it was shaved milk because it wasn't clear like shaved ice water.  It was covered in a sweet sauce with cut strawberries and strawberry ice cream on top.  We didn't dare eat anything from the markets outside so we only went to restaurants recommended on Tripadvisor.com.  So we spent more on food that probably most people do.  One day, we went to the mall to get out of our tiny hotel room because the kids were going crazy being stuck in the room with no tv and the internet wan't fast enough to stream Netflix.  So we took a taxi to this mall which ended up being super trashy and gross looking.  But on the top floor were a couple restaurants.  They all had menus at the front door so you could see what they had without going in.  While standing there, a HUGE cockroach comes walking by and went under a cooler of the restaurant that we eventually went and ate at.  I was super grossed out!  This cockroach was at least 2.5 inches long not including his antenna!  So we sit down on a lumpy, dirty bench at a gross table.  I wanted to puke but I was trying to be positive.  I was glad when the meal was over and we could leave that place!

Strawberry Snowflake we ate at a restaurant that has "Organic" as the only English on their sign out front in Chinatown.

Burmese money called khats (chats).  5000 khats is roughly $5.

Funny story.  Taxi drivers don't really understand where you want to go.  They ask you for a map but if you show them the map on your phone, they don't get it.  So it is best to show them where you want to go written in Burmese because no matter how hard you try to say it in a Burmese accent, they don't understand.  We learned this when we tried to go visit this place.  This is Chauk Htat Kyi Pagoda.  I told them I wanted to see the white Buddha laying down (after I tried pronouncing the name of the pagoda many times and showing the name to them.  By now there were several people surrounding us and the taxi driver trying to figure out what I wanted...)  I would do the universal "sleeping" sign language (put my hands together near my ear and lay my head down) but that didn't help either.  So I kept repeating white Buddha and sleeping Buddha.  Finally the light bulb came on in their heads... and they took us to the wrong place.  I gave up trying to visit this place because it was impossible to describe when Jason found it in a free travel book that had the name written in Burmese!  YAY!!  So we tried it again and the taxi driver took us to the right place!  This Buddha is AMAZING!  It is supposedly taller than the Statue of Liberty.  We think it is better than the one in Bangkok because it has color (not just gold) and you can see the whole thing at one time and not in between huge pillars.

There is not much else here but the huge reclining Buddha so the boys got bored quickly and started running around.

There are pigeons everywhere like I said, and people feed them here like we would feed ducks at the park.  Beckham was obsessed with them and loved to run after them and make them fly away.

We passed by an area where there were pigeons and a lady came out and gave Will some corn to feed the birds.  Both Will and Beckham had a blast!

Right after the pigeons, we took a taxi to go see a marionette show.  This is a Burmese tradition that is dying.  So the man standing on the right, decided to devote his life to fixing that.  He had a theatre but because of government regulations and other stuff, there was a storm that caved in the roof of his theatre and destroyed all his puppets.  So he now does the shows in his living room which I might add is in the worst part of Yangon I had seen.  Not worst as in dangerous, but worse as in run down and poverty stricken.  All the puppeteers learned the trade from their parents and their parents learned from their parents, etc.  So the man on the right whose name is Mr. Htwe, who used to be a sailor as a profession, is now teaching his children the technique of puppetry.  His son is right next to him and his daughter is the 2nd from the left. 

Will was entertained for a little bit but got bored and Beckham played games on my phone the whole time and probably glanced up and smiled a couple times.  At the end, we got to take pictures with the puppets and Will thought it was hilarious that the puppet put his umbrella over his head.

We also visited Kandawgyi Lake which has this cool boat thing in it.  The boys had fun throwing rocks in the super green water and there was also a dinky playground and a tiny zoo which entertained the boys for a bit.  Especially since they got to feed the rabbits.

We also got ice cream while at the lake.  It wasn't very good, it kind of tasted like bland frosting.  But it was cold and we were hot so it was much appreciated!

This really is a school bus!  I saw it packed with kids one day while driving.

I was so glad our time in Myanmar was over, but kind of sad at the same time.  I was going to miss the people but coming here made us appreciate Thailand so much more!  We came home and were so glad that we had our "huge" apartment when a month earlier we were complaining that it was tiny.

There are so many other things I want to write about Myanmar, but I think this post is already too long... maybe I will write another one later. ☺