Lost in Asia: March 12th - 18th Early Days in Myanmar

Arriving back in Kathmandu, I'd intended sending some trekking gear back to the UK as I couldn't envisage using it again and didn't want to throw it away, but the post office in Kathmandu was closed, so I took it with me to Myanmar.

My itineray involved taking a flight from Kathmandu to Kuala Lumpur, and then a a connecting flight to Chiang Mai in Thailand. Both of these were with a budget airline, Malindo. The final leg of the journey involved flying with the national carrier, Myanmair Airways International, from Chiang Mai to Yangon.

So when I arrived in Chiang Mai and waited to collect my luggage from the baggage carousel, and only one of my two bags materialised, reality dawned that something was not quite right. To paraphrase Morrissey, I'd heard of other people's luggage going missing, but now it had happened to me! I made my way to one of the Thai airline offices and explained the non-arrival of half my luggage to the general disinterest of the seated staff, who carried on chomping through their late lunch, while I helped one of the team compose an email to somebody else in Kuala Lumpur to try and identify the lost luggage through a haze of physical and mental exhaustion. So I arrived in Yangon feeling very uneasy about the missing backpack ... was it still in Kathmandu, or in Kuala Lumpur or somewhere else? This was made worse by the airline failing to update me as they had promised to do later that evening. The next couple of days were spent in a state of limbo until Malindo Air finally managed to find the backpack, which had been at Chiang Mai airport all along, but had somehow become detached from its tag. You never come to appreciate the value of those mundane tags until they become detached from your belongings!

Despite the missing luggage (miraculously i had a change of clothing to facilitate a much-needed shower), I ventured out of the hotel room when I could muster enough energy, and some aspects of Yangon life were quite striking in comparison with the places i'd visited before.

The extreme dry heat was such a contrast to the cool air of Kathmandu, and it took a fair degree of time to become accustomed to it, although it generally felt quite oppressive, and was to remain that way for most of my time in Myanmar. Similarly the variety and quality of fruit sold on the street markets was so interesting and tasted so superior to what is available in the UK: papaya, mangoes, grapes, melons, bananas etc but also fruits i'd never seen before, such as dragon fruit, and other fruits whose English names I have yet to discover, but were delicious nonetheless.

I'd anticipated reaching the downtown area of Yangon, where the hotel was located, from the airport by public transport, and was surprised to find that there was no easy access to a bus service that facilitated this (although I later discovered the location of a bus stop that was a good 25 minutes walk from the arrivals lounge, and not sign-posted), so like most visitors to Yangon, I used the pre-paid taxi service.

There are a great many taxis on the streets, mainly Toyoto Corollas, with many of the public buses looking quite dilapidated and extremely overcrowded. Most of the taxi drivers delight in eating 'paan', a confection of betel nut and tobacco, which is a fairly addictive stimulant. Generally taxi drivers would spit the red concoction out of their mouths after a short amount of chewing, and this would leave lasting and unpleasant-looking stains on their teeth. Paan is popular in India too, but it seemed less so than in Myanmar.

The multi-ethnic composition of Yangon was also very striking, and the downtown streets were reflective of this in the appearance of Hindu temples, mosques, pagodas and the odd church. Similarly the generally-dilapidated colonial buildings were a striking reminder of the long-standing British connection, and some were quite attractive in a haunting kind of way. Another interesting aspect was the relative absence of Western chain stores, with the exception of Samsung, which seems to have cornered the market in smart phones and associated paraphernalia across South Asia.

The use of thanaka, a finely ground bark that is applied to the skin as a form of sunscreen, is widely used by mainly females of all ages, but also young boys. It made me think about cultural differences in perceptions of beauty in the West and in Myanmar. I hadn't seen thanaka used in either India or Nepal, but here it was liberally applied and often used to create patterns, such as leaves, on women's faces. In the West, the application of thanaka would perhaps be thought of as unattractive, but here it was worn with grace, and I came to admire the cultural independence of thought around perceptions of beauty which thanaka seemed to represent.

Similarly I came to appreciate both the elegance and practicality of how people dressed. Men traditionally wore 'lunzhis', a kind of skirt wrapped round the waist and tied with a double twisted knot at the front, and given the extreme heat made a comfortable and practical change from walking around in long trousers.

Over the following weeks, as I spent more time in different parts of the country, the variety of patterns worn by women from diverse ethnic communities became more apparent. It made me think about cultural norms around dressing; in the West, men wearing skirts would be held up to ridicule, but in Myanmar they have none of the gendered baggage around clothing, and I found that quite refreshing.

I did purchase a lunzhi for myself, although palpably failed to wear it with the same degree of elegance as the Burmese guys who patiently tried to teach me how to wear it. Somehow I seemed to run out of material when tying it, and at times it felt quite tight, which seemed to defeat the object. The nadir of my relationship with the lunzhi was reached when I fell over it climbing a few stairs on the way to breakfast a few weeks later in Bagan, resulting in a slight cut to my hand. It remains a mystery how the lunzhi, as worn by Burmese guys, can be raised to just below knee height without creating numerous folds. Clearly further tuition was required!

I also visited the Shwedagon pagoda, built between 6th and 10th centuries and the most sacred of all Myanmar's pagodas as it is said to contain some of the Buddha's relics. I visited in the day-time, when it soon became incredibly hot and hence painful to walk barefoot around the giant stupa, and at night, when it was much more comfortable to be there and easier to contemplate its immense beauty. The daylight photos seemed more authentic than those taken in the evening, lit by electric light. The ornate teak carvings of the roof structures were realy impressive. The Sule pagoda, considerably smaller and unfortunately situated in the middle of a busy roundabout, which spoilt its appearance, was also really impressive.

I hadn't realised the extent to which astrological beliefs hold sway amongst Theravada Buddhists. At both of these sacred sights, as well as at the Botataung pagoda, there were separate places for devotees to worship an effigy of the Buddha in accordance with their day of birth (there were two separate shrines for those born on a Wednesday i.e. midnight to noon, and from noon to midnight). Each mini-shrine depicted the animal associated with the birth day, as well as stipulating the devotees' lucky number, and worshippers would annoint the Buddha's effigy, as well as the sacred animal, with holy waters.

The central focus of a large pagoda surrounded by smaller structures that had been donated by families which housed effigies of the Buddha were in stark contrast to the pagodas I'd seen in Nepal, where the key focus is on the stupa. Both of the guides at Sule and Shwedagon pagodas complimented me on being born on a Tuesday, which meant that my animal trait was the warrior-like lion, something I share with The Lady herself, Aung San Suu Kyi, which is about as good as it can get in Myanmar! My lucky number is 8, and I was born under the constellation of Mars, hence my apparent warlike sensibilities.