After spending a year teaching in Thailand, I longed to travel with only my quirky self to keep me company. My journey started in Myanmar where temple cycles and village treks exposed me to the past and present of this intriguing nation. I returned...
Yangon was one of those cities I stayed in just a little too long. Its cozy nature lured me to sit in tea shops, ordering hearty and spicy noodle breakfasts at lunchtime and sipping teas so sweet they could induce diabetes.
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I wandered for hours to find out that random national holidays rendered my long walks to museums useless, only to turn around, open up a map and venture on. My only requirements were water and food. I saw the infamous Burmese ATMs, which were popping up like fast food joints in North America. Okay, I saw three or four, but they were supposed to be rare in the country according to guidebooks and the blog-sphere.
From my observations, Myanmar was a land of contradictions. On the street corners, women and men sat next to fold-up tables with telephones at least two decades old, acting as portable phone booths. Even the rotary dial telephones, which used to be so fun to use but a pain if redialing was necessary, made an appearance. On the other hand, kids stopped and occasionally asked to snap photos of me with their brand new cell phones.
At mall entrances, security searched Burmese people while a foreigner walked right in with just a smile. In downtown Myanmar, young monk beggars approached foreigners for donations because they knew it was a high traffic area for tourists. I guiltily gave to the first one, but to the subsequent five, I simply smiled and apologized, trying to keep to my budget.
The contradictions even applied to major political aspects. The former twenty-year socialist leader who won Burma the title of Least Developed Country and severely restricted the freedoms of their people, Ne Win, and the Nobel Peace Prize winner who spent over a decade under house arrest, Aung San Suu Kyi, both had homes on the same urban lake.
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Four days into my trip, I still stayed in Yangon. Even my Malaysian dorm mate, suffering from food poisoning, was surprised that I had stuck around this long. Today was another Myanmar holiday, which meant no buses available. My grandmother and mother always believed everything happened for a reason. At this moment, the events I couldn't control actually worked out in my favour.
While travelling, some people were easy to connect and others made me happy I chose to travel alone. The same questions become the stock conversation with travellers.
