me-yen-mar

that is the proper pronunciation of the country in which i currently
am. today is thursday night, and i've now been in myanmar for three
days.

but before i talk about my time in myanmar, let me back up and talk
about my time leading up to this port.

we were only at sea for one day between leaving india and arriving to
myanmar, and in that day, they (being the faculty and administration
of this ship) tried to fit in as much education about this country as
possible. kevin mcgrath, whose full title i'm not quite sure of but
he's some sort of ambassador or diplomat from vietnam who previously
lived and worked for years out of myanmar (which he calls burma), is
our interport lecturer for both myanmar and vietnam. he spoke a lot
about this country, and i wont' bore you with all of the details, but
the things that he said that most stood out to me were:

"as you probably know, the official name of burma was changed to
myanmar in 1989."

and

"i'm sure you all have heard of burma's most famous leader in exile,
aung san suu kyi."

as he was making comments like these, i kept thinking to myself, "no,
i don't know and i haven't heard of." i know that history and
current events were never things that interested me in high school or
college, but good grief did i feel a bit silly to hear about all of
national events that have taken place in this country during my
lifetime that i don't know about (that made me think back to my
conversation with the high school kids in the township in south
africa and how astonished they were to find out that news about
africa was rarely reported in the us daily news, so maybe my
ignorance about myanmar/burma isn't entirely my fault.) regardless,
i learned a good amount of introductory information over that day at
sea.

here are the highlights of the things that i've learned that some of
you (besides my dad, who i would guess knows a good amount of
this...right dad?)
*myanmar has been under civil unrest since approximately 1962
when general ne win took over and began a socialist government.
*in 1989, after ne win had resigned and the formal socialist
government crumbled, elections were held, during which the national
league for democracy party won an overwhelming number of the seats,
much to the dismay of the governing junta, who refused to recognize
the elections. the country since has been ruled under a military
regime.
*around this time, the ruling government officially changed the
name of the country from burma to myanmar because they felt that the
name burma was left over evidence of the time during which burma was
under british colonization.
*aun san suu kyi, daughter of the country's independence hero
and leader of the national league for democracy, lives under house
arrest for most of the time since 1989.
*the US has a gazillion embargoes and sanctions against myanmar,
and most government officials refuse to recognize the name change.
*basic civil rights that we americans take for granted, such as
freedom of press and freedom of association and freedom to assemble,
are prohibited in this country.

interesting facts, eh? i thought so.

so this is where i currently am. myanmar or burma. either way, it's
the same place.

we arrived here on tuesday, a day earlier than originally expected.
we sail up the yangon river to our port in thilawa, which is
approximately a 45 minute drive to downtown yangon. we didn't pull
up to the side of the dock until around 10am, at which point the
customs and immigration officials climbed aboard. we were warned
that this immigration process was going to be one of the longer
ones. it wasn't like brazil, where the officials needed to do a face-
to-face and see every person on the ship, but they did need to
process the visa applications and put the visas in each of the 900 or
so passports. by the time the ship was cleared, it was a little
after 12 noon, and by the time we (my peeps and i) were even close to
ready to get off the ship, we were waiting for the 2pm shuttle
(because of the distance between the port and downtown, the tour
agency has shuttle buses running to and from every two hours). while
standing in line, i realized that all i really wanted to do was sit
around and hang out. fortunately, a number of other staff members
had the same idea, so instead getting off of the ship, we spent our
first day in myanmar resting on the mv explorer. it was glorious!

day two in myanmar was a bit more exciting than the first...at least,
it was a bit more adventurous. karen, chris and i took the shuttle
in to town and began to wander around. before we could walk down the
street, we were approached by a man asking if we wanted to exchange
money. the currency of myanmar is a bit confusing because there are
three official currencies: FECs (federal exchange certificates),
kyat (pronounced "chat") and US dollars (weird, right?) even though
you can use dollars, we had heard that you sometimes get a better
rate if you use kyat, so dave bargained a good exchange rate, and
money exchanged hands. i gave him $50 and he gave me 61,000 kyat!

we first headed to scott market and roamed around. we immediately
learned how crazily inexpensive things are in this country...but more
about that later. after wandering for awhile, we ran into dave,
and the four of us jumped in a taxi and headed to the green elephant,
a traditional burmese restaurant. it was a great restaurant. the
ambiance was very relaxing. though the seats are all outside, there
is a roof over the tables with ceiling fans, so there was a nice
breeze (this is important when you're in myanmar because it is HOT
here.) we had a nice leisurely lunch, and when we were done, chris,
karen and i headed to the shwedagon paya.

shwedagon paya is a buddhist pagoda that is home to more buddhist
statues than i could count. it really is a magnificent sight, and i
really enjoyed the time we spent there. we had a guide, which was
nice because i walked out of there knowing a lot more information
than i would have if we had just wandered around. chris was clearly
getting a bit bored, but i didn't let that deter my learning. while
walking around the pagoda, we saw more monks than i could ever have
imagined. every myanmar male is expected to spend at least part of
his life in the monastery, so it is not uncommon to see monks of all
ages. and it is apparently not uncommon to see them everywhere.

that night, we met up with a small group of other staff members to do
dinner before heading back to the ship. it really was a great day,
and i was really surprised at how few cues i saw around town that
would lead you to believe that this country is being run under
military regime. besides the fact that no one will talk about
politics out of fear of who is listening and what will happen, you
might never even know.

so that was the beginning of my time in myanmar. i've since had two
more days to play here, and i definitely want to share, but since i
have plans early tomorrow morning, i should probably get myself to
sleep.