I'm at a loss of words to describe my experience in Myanmar. I stared out the window on long bus rides for hours and hours, amazed by the simple life these people live and yet are still so content. The amount of smiles and waves exchanged even surpasses that of Japan, which is a lot to say. Another amazing country.
RANDOM OBSERVATIONS:
-Myanmar is also known as "Burma"
-"Mingalaba" means "hello" if you are wondering about the title of the blog. "Hello-ing" does not make sense, but the word sounds like "mingle" so I like it. "Mingalaba" was said so many times throughout my stay
-The majority of people wear white face paint on their face called "Tanaka" (that may be the wrong way to spell it). This is made by crushing up a rock and mixing water in it. It protects from the sun, helps cool you off, and may even be seen as a beauty thing
-For one of my classes I had to observe advertisements and marketing. There were advertisements everywhere, which I definitely was not expecting
-SO many beer, tea, energy drink, COKE (and sometimes pepsi) and coffee ads and many restaurants that sell them. There were many Nescafe's, which I'd never heard of before but apparently is in America also
-There's a lot of traffic and very bumpy roads
-Many many stray dogs
-Although it is a very underdeveloped country and people do not speak much English, the majority of signs I saw were in English and Burmese
-Everything is so cheap! The majority of my large meals were only about $3 max!
-This country has gone through many changes and will continue to go through many more in the upcoming years. I saw roads and buildings being built, so this untouched society won't be as untouched anymore soon
DAY 1
I went off with Mitchi, Meghan, and Madison and went on the one hour bus ride provided that takes us into the city of Yangon. Madison had everything planned out so we decided to follow her itinerary for the day. The ride was very bumpy and we passed many houses that were basically just small unstable huts. I couldn't stop looking out the window. We got to an atm and got some money out, then found "Nescafe" which is everywhere in Myanmar. It was a restaurant that had good coffee, tea and other drinks, so we ordered lemon tea for all of us. It was amazing tea! There were many young teenage boys working there and they all wore coca-cola shirts which I found quite interesting. There were coke advertisements literally everywhere.
We left and then walked around and tried to find a market that Madison had heard of. We finally found it and ran into other SAS'ers there too. Mitchi and I were looking at something and then realized we had lost Meghan and Madison. We tried finding them but gave up after a bit, so it was just us 2. We found a random stand with fresh oranges and said we would each like one, but they started mashing it. It was actually an orange JUICE stand and they then mashed an avocado and mixed it in with the orange juice. Mitchi just had plain orange juice but I tried it with avocado and it was so oddly delicious.
So we didn't know where we were really after we lost the two girls. We knew we wanted to get to the Schwedegon Pagoda but didn't know how far or what direction. We could have taken a taxi but we just wanted to walk around and enjoy the place. So we started walking back the way we came from and randomly ran into Scout, who tagged along with us and also had a map so it was perfect. We ran into other SAS'ers and they said there's a nice lake at "Karaweik & Kandawgyi public Natural Park" you can bike around that they are going to later, so we got a taxi and went there.
There were no bikes. It was a pretty and small lake and we could see the Schwedegon Pagoda from it so we sat down at a café and got some wifi, then started heading towards the pagoda. A young 22 year old man walked with us there because he was going to some place to go pray right by there. He was wearing a "longi" which is basically a long skirt you tie around your waist, and many women and men wore them. There are also monks and nuns everywhere and I found them so fascinating.
We got to the Pagoda and walked up a ton of stairs and paid $8 to go inside. The majority of places does not accept $USD in Myanmar, but we found a few places that did. You have to be barefoot when walking around the pagoda area, and it was just surreal. There was a monk singing the entire hour I was there and there were speakers throughout the whole area and it just sounded so sacred and I felt like I was dreaming. People were meditating and praying in random open rooms, and the main Pagoda was in the center and everything was beautiful and gold. We were there for sunset and it was just gorgeous. It's hard to find words to describe this place! The whole atmosphere was like nothing I had ever seen before and I was fascinated by how these people lived their lives. So after all of that, Mitchi and I went back to the place where the bus dropped us off that morning. We were hungry so we found a random café, then caught the bus back.
DAY 2
The buses left by 7:20am to leave for a field program through the ship I signed up for called "Ngwe Saung Beach tour". There were two different buses going to the resort, and just my luck, we picked the "struggle bus". We didn't have as many people on our bus so we got to spread out more so that was great, but we ended stopping multiple times. We had a scheduled stop at a parasol workshop, lunch, we all had to constantly pee so we stopped 3 more times, our tire got messed up and we had to stop 3 times, then we couldn't find our hotel for a solid 20 minutes after arriving at the beach. We finally got to the hotel around sunset and it was BEAUTIFUL. I was shocked though how there was so much poverty on the way there and even right outside the area of the hotel, but we were ignorantly staying at a resort that felt like we were in someplace like Tahiti.
We got our room and roommate assignments. I got cabin 129 and my roommate was a sweet older lifelong learner from France named Elise. Our room was so nice besides the fact that we never got hot water but it felt kind of nice after being in the hot sun so much. Dinner that night was a buffet at the resort and so good! I went to sleep shortly after because I was exhausted from traveling for almost 11 hours.
DAY 3
We had a great buffet breakfast, then went in the pool and tanned. We went to lunch at a random restaurant close by at 12, then drove for 30 minutes to an elephant camp! I fed them so much sugar cane and they were so cute. We then got on them and of course it was Mitchi and I on one. We got the biggest elephant and felt like we were going to fall right out of the baskets you sit in on them since they are kind of sideways. We walked through the jungle and into the water for about 25 minutes and it was just awesome. I can check that off of my bucket list now!
After elephant riding, we headed back to the hotel. On the way there, we hit the mirror right off of an oncoming truck. The struggle bus was real. So real that we created a hashtag for it: #strugglebussp15. We made it back to the hotel after our driver and the truck driver got everything settled, then gathered people together to go out for dinner since it was not included that night. We found a restaurant about a 10 minute walk down the road that we'd heard was good, so our group sat down. It took literally 2 hours to get our food because they were not used to so many people and we ordered a lot, but the food was amazing and I had nowhere else to be so I couldn't complain.
DAY 4
After eating breakfast, we squished 12 people into the back of each truck and arrived at a school in "Thazin Village". It was a 30 minute drive and the road was so bumpy and there was a roof on the truck but the back was open. That sure was an experience. Everyone was smiling when we showed up and young teenage girls immediately ran over and each grabbed one of us and held our hand and took us to a classroom. There were notepads in there and people started drawing and writing letters in theirs. All the children there had on "tanaka", the white face paint, and I asked to get some. The girl I was with whose name was "Htet Taired Mom" brought me outside and mashed the stone and she put it on my cheeks and nose.
We went back to the classroom and we drew, wrote, and I showed her pictures on my phone (like of a cat) and she would write the Burmese word for "cat". It was fun and we both really enjoyed teaching each other. Throughout the visit, we did limbo with a ton of other people, played frisbee, soccer, watched them dance, sang and tried seeing if they knew any American songs (they didn't), then they served us lunch! We also donated many items to them such as soccer balls, toothbrushes, and I believe even a generator. These kids were all so sweet and they were all so genuinely happy that we came to visit them which in turn made me so happy. I was really sad when I had to leave and 3 girls even kissed my cheek goodbye! They spoke barely any English yet we had so much fun because smiling, playing, and drawing is the same no matter where you are in the world. It's universal.
The rest of the day was hanging out on the beach and walking with Mitchi and Meghan down to another resort where other SAS'ers on the field program were staying. The beach did not have much on it besides a few people riding motorbikes, horses, and some tents trying to sell food and beverages. That night we walked 10 minutes away with the whole group to a farewell dinner right by the beach. It was great food and we had a mini dance party after which included doing the "Wobble". We then all walked back on the beach to our hotel, and there were tables set up outside with about 50 people hanging out.
We had met a few middle-aged Russians in the pool the day before that were there for some business meeting. They lit a huge bonfire and some of us SAS'ers went over to it and stood there and enjoyed the fire. The Russians had some leftover drinks from their business meeting, so the hotel staff poured us all some drinks and we had a fun night sitting on the beach and just enjoying life. A few friends who were not on this specific field program randomly showed up around midnight and I was amazed they somehow found us. SAS'ers really do take over each country we go to!
DAY 5
I woke up around 6:30 completely energized to sit on the beach for the sunrise. IT WAS BEAUTIFUL. We left the hotel around 10:30am and stopped for a great lunch and then a bamboo shop place. On the drive back to the ship, we hit yet another truck's mirror. We stopped and our bus driver and the truck driver got into a heated argument. They left the door open and many mosquito's came flying in and I got bit 4 times (I was wearing repellent but rolled up my long pants since it got hot on the bus..). And lastly, a few people puked on the way there because of how bumpy the road was and/or because they drank the night before. I really was not kidding when I say it was a struggle bus. We were all so relieved when we made it back to the ship!
I had no idea what to expect from Myanmar. It's hard to pick a favorite port but Myanmar may have to be the winner so far. It's the friendly people, the simple life, and the pure happiness I saw in everyone's face that really made me reflect on what is necessary in life versus what is just an unnecessary desire. Myanmar is an amazing country that I first heard of just over a year ago. I hope that more people can become aware of this place and visit someday so they can experience everything I am talking about!
PICTURES
1-A monk that I found hanging around the Schwedegon Pagoda
2-Scout, Mitchi and I at the beautiful Schwedegon Pagoda
3-Me meditating at the pagoda
4-The view right when we arrived at our hotel at Ngwe Saung Beach
5-A friend I made
6-Mitchi and I leading the pack
7-Another photo of an elephant. I really like elephants
8-Directly outside of the elephant camp. I am not sure if these specifically were houses, but I saw many houses that were way smaller than these during my time there
9-The sweetest girl at the school who got me a coconut to drink
10-Me, Myra, Allie, and Madison with our new friends at the school in Thazin Village
11-A shot from the time-lapse I was doing on my GoPro during the beautiful sunrise on the last day at Ngwe Saung Beach. That's me petting a horse and talking to the sweet boy who wanted me to pay him to ride the horse (I had no money left)
12-What many of the buses/trucks looked like in Burma. People were absolutely CRAMMED in and hanging out the back
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