From Burma to Myanmar

by Lydia Laube

  From this street it was a short walk to the huge Bogeye Market, known formerly as Scott’s Market. Both sides of the road it faces are solidly fenced and the only access to it is via a high overpass approached by a wide set of steps. On the overpass three old beggars sat at intervals—one man and two women. I gave them all a contribution. On my way back I was appalled to see a foreign man photographing one of the old women, shoving a huge telephoto lens into her face. Outraged, I berated him for his insensitivity. He looked embarrassed. I am not sure he understood what I said, but there was no mistaking the content. Walking on, I passed the other old woman and she gave me a conspiratorial smile and wave.

  On the ground floor, inside the main entrance of the extensive market, were many jewellery stalls. Most of them stocked over-the-top pieces decorated with rubies, sapphires and other precious stones. Burmese rubies have always been considered the world’s best and I wouldn’t say no to a bucketful of any of the other gems either. There were also stalls belonging to goldsmiths, devoted only to gold jewellery.

  I bought a sandalwood fan from a young girl who was walking about offering them and a longii, the ankle-length skirt worn by all local women. The traditional ones are woven and the material is fairly heavy and stiff, too hot for me in this climate. I bought a lighter polyester sort, and a pair of scuffs. The shoes I was wearing were about to die. They would not be going home with me.

  I saw two tourists in the market. There were not many around the town. Last evening I had passed another two on the street, but, apart from those at Motherland, these were the only Western foreigners I saw the entire time I was in Yangon.

  Then I went looking for lunch. I had not lost my usual enthusiastic appetite, but, fortunately in view of the lack of public conveniences, I had lost the need for loos. You sweat excess fluid out instead.

  In a nearby street I found an Indian working man’s cafe and sat down at a communal metal table. This place was alive with activity. All the cooking was done at the entrance in huge pots or on grills. It looked very down market and I was an oddity, foreign as well as a woman.

  I ate a bowl of sweet and sour chicken and it was great—the same as in the QPH only with more frills. I got several side dishes of carrots, cucumbers and onions.

  I gave to two more beggars. A young man without legs and a young woman sitting with two small children on the steps of an overpass. Her naked children looked sick and she did not ask, just looked in my eyes.

  Taxiing the short distance back to the hotel cost a couple of dollars. It beat walking in the heat. After a rest, I went off to collect my new glasses that had only taken a few hours to produce. Then I walked down to the market along a street, the pavements of which were now lined with evening street sellers, spilling out onto the road almost into the traffic. There was a lively mob looking at mobile phones. Then came a stretch where sellers of used books had set their wares out on blankets on the footpath. I spied George Orwell’s Burmese Days and snapped it up for a couple of dollars. William Arthur Blair, as he really was, lived for many years in Burma (his family were here for generations) and wrote Burmese Days, his first novel, while living in Kachan.

  Further on were sellers of all manner of mechanical bits and pieces. I bought a small pair of long-nosed pliers for a few cents. I had forgotten to bring mine. Those and a tiny screwdriver are essential equipment for a Travelling Plumber as well as for fixing all manner of problems like broken suitcase handles.

  By now I was beginning to get my bearings and I knew that if I walked back along this road I would hopefully come to my hotel. It was a long way among the evening crowds, but I had all the stalls to divert me. Dark clouds were gathering and a cool wind, a harbinger of coming rain, brought relief. I bought bananas, yoghurt and cheese from sellers along the way, and that was dinner.

  Later that evening I watched from the wide window of my fourth floor room as a terrific storm blew in, bringing heavy rain that pelted down for hours.

  After another fine breakfast I tried the hotel’s internet room, but the internet was missing in action. Murphy got there first. So I read the paper in the foyer and had lunch in the dining room to fill in time until I could take a taxi to the shipping office. There, the manager produced the two tickets for my cabin, shook my hand and sent me off with two bearers of my luggage. I followed these jaunty boys out along the wharf and onto the boat where they dumped my stuff in my cabin. A big wooden barrier stood across the steps that led up from the lower deck to the cabin deck. A gent who looked like the purser examined my ticket and let me pass. I gave the porters their agreed fee. At least there were no arguments here when a price has been settled. It was the same with taxis, none of whom had meters, but it would be a trap for the unwary to ride in one without first setting a price.

  The cabin was superficially clean but oh so care-worn and shabby! There were stains galore from the mould and heat of the tropics. There were two beds, each with a pillow and a blanket, a table between them, a fan, and a window each side of the door that opened onto the deck outside. The windows had insect screens, adequately supplied with holes big enough to allow the mosquitoes in, while the holes in the screen covering the door were big enough to let in a horse. I had to sleep with everything shut to avoid malaria. The purser/attendant came along and sprayed my cabin heavily with insect spray, which almost did for me never mind the mosquitoes. I escaped out onto the deck to let it settle. He then produced a sturdy bright green plastic stool for me to sit on. The breeze on deck was a relief.

  The port was excitingly busy. Another ferry was double parked alongside us and I watched people coming and going from it, unloading their cargo of sacs of rice. The cargo for our boat was being carried on men’s shoulders from the waterside, through open wooden hatchways in the deck, down into the hold below.

  The boat had three decks including the one I was on. The cabins occupied one end and the other consisted of open space containing rows of wooden chairs for deck passengers. Between where the stairs came up were two small rooms—a toilet and a shower. They were both secured with padlocks to which I was given a key. The third deck above me was the top deck, with the captain’s quarters, the bridge and more deck passenger space.

  Shortly the attendant produced a large bottle of water for me and said I could order a meal from him too if I got hungry. A young man who spoke some English came to chat to me. He was seeing his girlfriend off and said she would look after me if I needed any help. I was the only foreigner aboard and I didn’t find anyone else who spoke English.

  I was sitting on the deck reading a book and waiting for the boat to leave when I heard myself addressed. Looking up I felt a jolt of fear as I saw a stern face and a police uniform. I was about to be interrogated! I had to state my name, nationality and destination. I smiled a lot and tried to look harmless. I seemed to pass inspection and the police moved on searching for more suspicious characters trying to flee to the countryside.

  4 Looking eastward to the sea

  Around five o’clock, pretty much on the scheduled time, two loud blasts of the horn announced our departure. We edged away from the wharf and inched our way out into the stream of the Yangon River. Loaded to the gunwales with cargo and deck and cabin passengers, we set off towards the setting sun, now partly obscured by dark clouds.

  The trip down the Yangon River to the Bay of Martaban took several hours. Soon it was dark and there was nothing else to see so I went to bed. I made a toilet call beforehand and entered the door on which was, I thought, a sign that read toilet. Inside there was only a big metal tub of very brown river water, a plastic dipper, a lot of rusting pipes, and a hole in the floor. Confused, I used the floor and did a lot of sluicing. Coming out I met the purser who pointed out to me that the loo was next door. I think the sign on the door must have said bathroom. How embarrassment!

  I was asleep when, around eleven, we stopped at a town and much noise and activity followed. Cargo and passengers came and went. I slept again. There was no swell and the
boat made little movement. I had expected more especially after we reached the bay.

  Around dawn we stopped at another town. The delta region now was on both sides of us. Largely uninhabited, everything was very green, mostly low trees and palms, although now and then I saw rice paddies. When there was a house, it was rustic—built of wood and bamboo—sometimes with a boat tied to a pole beside it. The river craft we passed were many and varied—small wooden skiffs rowed by a man standing on a raised rear platform using a pair of oars crossed over in front of him, long barges low in the water with freight, big motorised canoes with lines of passengers sitting in them, and large riverboats similar to ours.

  An hour later we stopped in another town and there was the usual bustle of freight and passengers coming on and getting off the ship. In mid morning we stopped at another town where small boys swam around us. I thought we had arrived. The young girl who had been appointed my guardian came to say goodbye and wish me happy travels as this was her home town. She told me that Pathein was another two or three hours away yet.

  It was a long but pleasant trip with a lot to see. I could lie on my bed and watch the passing scene through the open door, or sit on the deck on my plastic stool. Then the boat entered the Pathein River, one of the many mouths of the Irrawaddy that make up the delta and slowly navigated up it to Pathein town. It became hotter as we chugged along at low speed, and heavy clouds moved in threatingly. The Irrawaddy is one of three big rivers that run through Burma. One of the most navigable rivers in Asia, it enters the sea here at the Bay of Bengal.

  At three in the afternoon we arrived at Pathein, known as Bassein in the time of the British. The centre of a major rice growing area, it is Myanmar’s fourth biggest city and the most important river port outside Yangon.

  I hired two of the porters who had surged aboard looking for custom. They took charge of me and my bag and bundled us into two trishaws, after first herding me into the immigration office on the wharf to have my details recorded.

  It was either motorbike or pedal power here. There were no taxis. My entourage pedalled off. It wasn’t far to the La Pyat Wun, the hotel I had booked with my new mobile. It was okay, but considering it was supposedly the best accommodation in town, it was nowhere near flash. The staff was nice though.

  I was shown one room with a window that looked onto a wall and asked for another. The second was better and had much more light. I had to forgo hot water for the light though. This floor was too high for the hot water to reach. Whatever. Who needs hot water when the weather is so hot? The first thing I did was take a shower, cold or not. Walking up the street afterwards I passed many shopfronts hung with the umbrellas and beautiful hand-painted parasols of all colours and sizes that Pathein is famous for. An umbrella aficionado, I was in heaven. There were even shops where umbrella menders sat repairing them.

  Then I went looking for food, which developed into a quest that wasn’t all that easy. The hotel had no restaurant and finding a place to eat was a problem. But finally I came across a sort of cafe where I persuaded the cook/proprietor to feed me. It took some convincing that what I wanted was food. I wonder what he thought I was there for—sitting at a table, napkin at the ready, bib tied on, knife and fork clutched in hand, and salivating! There was no menu. With a lot of pantomime I managed to get through that I would eat chicken. Big mistake. I had not noticed as I came in from the street that in the open shopfront there was a glass case containing lumps of unidentifiable meat that had obviously sat there all day in the heat. It turned out to be the aforementioned chicken and this was to what the cook now applied his attentions. Extracting an unsavoury looking chunk of this roadkill, he moved to a nearby piece of sawn-off tree stump that served as a chopping block and gave it a good seeing to with a cleaver.

  The resulting unappealing mess was taken away out the back somewhere. After a long time, a huge pile of greyish noodles topped with a couple of quail eggs for good measure was plonked in front of me. It didn’t taste too bad but it wasn’t too good either. Worried about the gastro I was risking, I asked for a beer hoping to maybe disinfect my stomach with alcohol. They had no beer but I had noticed in Burma that no one will say they don’t have an item—they just send a boy off to get it. So in time a can of Myanmar beer was produced. As beer goes it was perfectly acceptable.

  While I sat there eating in the open front of the café it began to rain heavily and I watched sheets of water deluging down, cascading off the roof of a shop across the way, hitting its plastic awning, pouring into a bucket inadequately trying to collect the runoff. This ended the day for me. I slept as soon as I went to bed until a pack of dogs woke me howling and fighting in the street under my window. There were lots of dogs everywhere I went in Burma and most seemed not to belong to anyone.

  After slowly getting up the next morning I set off in search of breakfast. Black coffee turned out to be a rarity. Three places I tried attempted to give me packets of the abominable three in one—coffee, milk and sugar. I’d sooner take poison. The owner of the place where I had eaten last night gave me a smile and a wave as I went past. How could he forget me? Wherever I went I was regarded as an oddity.

  After a long walk and lots of attempts, I found a restaurant, or so it was labelled. Here I was fed a huge plate of noodles mixed with various bits and pieces, and, after three attempts, I did get some proper local black coffee.

  From Pathein I decided to travel west by bus to a beach on the Bay of Bengal. With the aid of my hotel’s lovely receptionist, I went in a trishaw to the bus station. Everyone denied that the bus station was where the guide book vowed it was—instead I was taken in quite another direction. Located in a muddy swamp, the ticket office (a rough wooden box) lurked amid dilapidated old buses. Here I was given the unpleasant information that there was no air-con bus. The signs I had seen advertising these buses in the main street were only for the Yangon bus. I asked for the other bus station but was told that this was it. There was no other. I didn’t believe them. I set off again on foot following the directions I had been given to a place that served lunch. It was a long way and all my wanderings thus far had been performed in spitting rain.

  When I found the lunch place, I was happy to find it had good food. There was even a menu. I ordered hot and sour chicken. Reading the list of chicken dishes, one item stopped me in my tracks—‘Fried Person’s Nose’. The ‘Next Pig’s Ear’ was also a bit curious.

  My guide book map showed their alleged bus station close to where I was then, so I decided to walk there. Coming across the local police station, I stopped and asked a group of young men outside it—isn’t anyone old in this country?—the way. They conferred and sent me off again. Following their directions I ended up back at the first bus station where I had to shamefacedly admit that they had been right. There was no other bus station.

  Sloshing and squelching—do not bring your best shoes to Burma—through black horrible mud to the wooden hutch of an office, I negotiated for a seat on a bus to the beach at Ngwe Saung. They showed me the bus in question as it stood in the yard. It was no Greyhound but it looked reasonable. Though I guessed it would not be so good looking by the time it had been loaded with cargo and people. I was also shown a seating plan, and, hopefully, was reserved two seats—one for me and one for my bag.

  I trishawed back to the hotel. The rider and I agreed on his asking price of five hundred but it was so much work for him in the muddy broken streets that when I got there I gave him the five, then took it back and gave him a thousand. The smile split his face. Now he is sure all foreigners are quite mad. A whole thousand! Diamond Jim I am not. This was the equivalent of ninety cents.

  Then it was R & R after a cold shower—this was the time to have it, hot and sticky after several hours outside. Later, with more directions to another restaurant, which I found after only one false start, I ordered a dish of chicken with bamboo shoots that managed to transform themselves into carrots between the menu and the plate.

  The next m
orning it was not so hard to find breakfast, but I had to give up and drink poisonously sweet milk coffee as I ate two plates of unidentifiable stuff rolled in batter. After a leisurely pack, I discovered to my amazement that this out-of-the-way place had free wifi. I used it down in the lobby (it, like the hot water, didn’t climb stairs) until it was time to leave for the bus. At this exact moment a storm blew up and it started to rain, but with the aid of two trishaws my bag and I made it to the bus station relatively dry.

  To my surprise my seat had been reserved and I had no hassles fighting people off it. The bus left only half an hour late and only two passengers had to sit in the aisle. My seat was in the front close behind the driver. It was a bench seat and really only big enough for one person by Western standards. The driver and I were separated by a bit of waist-high battered tin. My bag was put half out of the open window next to me on the seat. It was good that the rain had stopped now. Everyone on the bus gaped at me when I got on, but I faced them and said ‘Minggala ba’ (hello, blessings), and received smiles and replies in response. A latecomer indicated that my seat needed another occupant but was told by the other passengers, I think, that I had paid for it. (Or perhaps that I had a communicable disease.) Whatever, I was left alone.

  On the front seat opposite me sat a Burmese man who seemed to be trading and delivering stuff along the way. I saw him handing parcels over and collecting money. When he got on the bus he had shooed off a woman already sitting on the seat and the poor woman then had to travel squatting on the tiniest wooden stool I have ever seen, just five centimetres off the ground. Later a sack of rice was loaded on and she sat on that.