Monkeyrockworld

Trying to type on a bumpy, scenic mountain road from Mandalay to Hsipaw. We had quite a few interesting days lost in the bustle and hustle of Myanmar’s two biggest cities, Yangon and Mandalay. We visited the Shwedagon Paya at sunset, and it was the stuff of legend: just plain beautiful, colors melting in the dark, surreal lights coloring the tiles and a circular array of monks, some tourists, locals and beggars, all together sanctifying the night. Stuck in the middle of Yangon, one of the busiest cities I have ever been, Shwedagon Paya is like an oasis of greatness, a monolith of golden grandeur.
A monk approached me. I think he was totally high, his eyes were watering grey, melting pupils and light altogether. Possibly a fake one, someone trying to steal draped in that dark red vest.

The next day in the morning Lorenzo and Carlo flew in from Bangkok after their stint across central SE Asia and finally the group reunited, and we were ready to set off, so without losing any other days we bought tickets for the 13 hours night bus ride north to Mandalay and the rest of this amazing country. To the contrary of everything said about Burmese buses, we found ourselves in a pretty comfortable, clean and nice air conditioned bus, the only 5 foreigners among a truckload of shiny, dark skinned Bamar faces. The ride was totally ok, with the usual bumpy sleep, but the main north-south highway is a breeze, nothing to compare to the almost featureless roads existing in central Myanmar. One of the funniest sides of it is the fact these people are REALLY religious and a plasma screen hanging from the ceiling above the driver’s head was broadcasting visual hymns to the Buddha at the most unpleasant wee hours of the morning. Plus, the Burmese seem to have an highway fix for 3.30 am fish soup breakfasts, and yes, you have to leave the bus and sit in the restaurant, no matter how. This said, it was certainly not the best but not even the worst of my night bus trips, and here we are in Mandalay’s dusty highway bus station, inconveniently located some 7 kilometers outside of the city centre.

There seems to be a mafia of pick up drivers and every scarce traveller is screened and assaulted, but the reason is quite clear and understandable: the Burmese need money, oh god, if they do. At first I found this attention quite annoying, people coming to you smiling just to be part of your wallet, snick smiles and red beetle nutted teeth waving for the next car parked just next by. Later, after visiting a few supermarkets and stores, and realizing that yes, whenever they can you will pay more for transportation, I also realized the prices are very high. In a country totally eradicated from International standards, a place where inflation is their own unique thing, people are struggling to put together a thousand kyats a day and that’s exactly the price of a watermelon. So it’s totally understandable how the whole population seem to agree on a double tiering price system and wherever you go, that’s the unwritten one. You have to know it from day one in Myanmar, the people are the sweetest and the most open minded, but as they keep their mouths well shut about everything political, so they do about everything local,. Unless you really push for it. It used to get on my nerves, but when you stop and think how our sense of reality and freedom is just one million light years ahead of this, you draw one single conclusion: there’s no other way for Myanmar to be, in this moment being. And all of the expensiveness of it compared to other Southeast Asian tourist giants like Thailand or Laos just makes a justifiable exception. We are not in Disneyland, here.

Having fun with some of the best selling products in Mandalay

Mandalay is dead compared to Yangon, but it’s still an enjoyable city, although over polluted by motorbike exhaust and foggy air. The core of it is dominated by the old palace, and on the left wing the downtown starts. It’s plant is totally British, it’s grid like, and I’d say Manhattan like, with its streets and avenues crossing numbers and corners like crows on a fresh corpse. Exactly as hot and smelly. Smashed by the night ride, we roam like living dead in the heat and don’t do much for all day, reserving the different sightseeing visits for an unknown point in the future. People are drinking in restaurants at the side of the street, and we meet Alessandro in the Royal Guesthouse, a Burmese guy speaking a very good Italian. It might sound incredible, but we heard so much Italian spoken in Mandalay as we never did anywhere before. It turns out there is a Catholic Church teaching Italian and Computer science, but… why? Honestly, I don’t know. There were some Italian tourists around, but mostly, our is a dead language, but alive enough in Mandalay that Kit Yeng was bored to death all the time because all what she was hearing was, errr…. ITALIAN!!!! I asked around and discovered that one of the first generals in charge of the city’s jurisdiction was an Italian… strange world. Apart for the Italian invasion, we decide to swerve north east and leave Mandalay and its chilled chaos for later, and finally dive into the most interesting place in the country: the Shan State.

This is where all of that nice Indian food and chapatis we ate come from...