Jen and Ted in the SEA

Well hello everyone!

The last week in Myanmar was spent in Inle Lake and Yangon. The last few days that we were there, Thingyan, or Burmese New Year was starting. Thingyan is a large water festival where everyone splashes everyone to wash out the old year and start anew. The festival lasts for 5 days leading up to the Lunar New Year of April 17. We were lucky enough to get downtown with our cousins to the main opening ceremony in front of City Hall. There, we walked around the large main stage and around the VIP area directly in front of the stage. It was obvious that it was a special area as it was outlined by stands of barbed wire about 4 wide and 4 feet high. There were also many armed police men and security forces on the inside of the area to keep the peace as it were. It was obviously a serious gathering. The festivities began with some traditional dancing, singing, and ribbon cutting ceremony and of course the spraying down of many people with water hoses.

During the first major dance, it was easy to see the many uniformed security and police officers monitoring the crowd from inside the VIP area and all around the back of the sqaure. This large public gathering was not going to get out of control. As the festivities warmed up, I moved closer to the barricades and pulled out our small digital camera. I was able to hold it up above the crowd to get a few pictures of the crowd. Because I couldn't see exactly what I was shooting at, I tried several times. The sight of the ONLY camera in and above the crowd drew several glances from security and the public. It was obvious that no one else was taking photos in our area so I started to put the camera away and resume watching the show.

As the first few dance performances were over, the crowd started to depart en masse, away from the center of town and headed towards the buses to escape the large rush of people that would soon ensue. As we headed out, I caught out of the corner of my eye, a small group of security forces eyeing me up. Their eyes stared at me for sometime as we approached. I tried to look away but not before I noticed that they some were carrying rifles and all had batons and handguns. It was soon after we passed that I heard them yell something and they opened fire! The crowd around me, parted leaving me completely exposed and felt my skin turn icy cold with fear as I felt the first barrage pass very close by. The second officer registered a direct hit in my shoulder from slightly behind me but luckily all of this was just with their water pistols they were carrying. I turned, smiled and wished them a Happy New Year and they replied with another huge smile and a third barrage into crowd with water.

Pretty exciting festival huh?

The next few days it was impossibler to walk for more than about 5 minutes before you were ABSOLUTELY SOAKED to the skin from locals on the streetside throwing water or from one of the many trucks, or jeeps with at least about 15 or more people throwing water as they passed by. Yes jeeps with a driver sitting, about 9 people standing in the jeep and usually about 5 more hanging on while 3-4 people sat on the hood and all dancing as they cruised the streets of Yangon. Everyone wants to dance, sing and hug everyone and be sure that everyone is involved in the party. Offers of food, come join, and have a drink were everywhere. The main party area along Inya road was huge. It was almost a mile of temporary elevated stages along the side of the road playing loud, dance music, serving drinks and has 30-50 hoses for the patrons to spray down each other and the people walking or stuck in the inevitable traffic jam that follows. Everyone is in such good spirits it is quite the sight. Not only that, the temperature is about 38C so having cold water thrown on you feels really good.

We were sad to leave but our visa expired and so we are headed back in Thailand and going to Laos for a few weeks. We have some more places to see and places to go but Myanmar (Burma) is a huge highlight of the trip and would encourage anyone looking for a great adventure to consider it.

Other than the above brush with a public shooting, we are safe and sound.

We took an internet hiatus from emailing. It was not our choice but email and internet is very hard to come by, the further you are from a large city in Burma. We tried one day but only managed to get one email and it took one hour. (Even as we type this, email and most of other websites, yahoo, gmail, and msn, etc are "unavailable")

We just finished a week in the beautiful town of Pyin Oo Lwin in the hills outside of Mandalay. This was a very special stop for us as Ted's father, Don was born and raised here!

We wanted to share some of our most memorable stories from the little town...so here is our Top Ten most memorable stories and anecdotes (in no particular order!):

1. The Weather, Flowers and Strawberries - This is the reason that most locals come to spend their holidays in Pyin Oo Lwin (POL). It is at least 6 degrees cooler than the lowlands and the trees, flowers and forests are amazing! It also means that there are more hills and that was good for the cycling legs! The wild and wonderful strawberries are everywhere and are really good. I had a lot of trouble with transporting them as they were so delicate that every time I got them home they were juice! We had a great time visiting the Shan Market everyday to pick up all our favourite fruits (watermelon, papaya, oranges and apples are in season) and veggies (for our picnic!)

2. The People - It's a small town - what can I say? The people were always very curious about us but as soon as we smiled they did too! We especially enjoyed our "haunts" - the places in our "neighbourhood" that we frequented (ie., tea shop, beer stand and all of the shops and houses we walked by each day). We met many colourful characters including the gentleman who now owns the old Fisher house, the boys that always served us wonderful samosas and tea in the morning and a golfer named Joseph. He met us on our walk home one day and visited with us while he was heading to the golf course. We saw him several times after and he invited us to his house. One day we met him again and he took us to his house to visit his family! It was a delightful visit and his children and grandchildren loved our digital camera. We also met a friendly guy who saw that we were lost when we were heading to a hillside pagoda. He told us it was on his way and he rode with us - visiting the whole time! He was 66 years old and still rides a bike everyday!

3. Tea Shops, samosas and sweets - We found a little tea shop in the middle of town and that became one of our favourite haunts. They would always bring out a plate of samosas and that hooked us in! The young boys thought we were funny and were very good humoured. Many times we thought we were asking for regular Myanmar tea and instead we got tea with condensed milk. We tried so hard to learn how to say it properly but to no avail we always got tea with milk (not that we were complaining - it was awesome!). Burfi and indian sweet meats are tops here too!

4. Restaurants and bills - This was by far one of the most bewildering things that we have encountered in Burma. Most restaurants (food centres, tea shops etc) do not have prices on their english menus. Most of the time locals don't use a menu so I guess the menus are for foreigners. The funny part is that we decided awhile ago to not ask the price of an item because many times were were pleasantly surprised at how little it cost. However, the interesting part is that the price of the bill seems to vary significantly! We ate at a great little Indian restaurant and when we asked for the bill, we watched the whole family (staff) confer for many minutes trying to figure out how much to charge us! Sometimes were were pleasantly surprised and sometimes we were stunned! One time the bill came back reading: "lunch = 3600" - that is it - no breakdown or anything. Can't really barter with that can you? We finally agreed that if the restaurant had a door and a menu that had many pages, we should ask the prices!

5. 43 Beers - We took a share taxi to Pyin Oo Lwin on Ted's Birthday (March 29th) and we shared it with a couple from Ireland. When we got to town we met up with them in the market and we decided to go for an afternoon beer. We found a Beer Station that had draft Myanmar Beer (only 0.50$) and we started to visit and drink. We hadn't drunk with the Irish yet and found them to be good and eager drinkers! The boys at the Beer station were a bit stunned by the request for "four more" all of the time. Finally we realized that we should eat something as we had been sitting, drinking beer and eating lehpet (a snack) for 6 hours! When the tab came it said that we had 43 beers! We couldn't argue with them (none of us could count at that point) so we thanked them! We stumbled through town looking for food and singing happy birthday to Ted.

6. The Gaaris - How could any list of memorable things about Pyin Oo Lwin without mentioning the horse drawn carriages that are all over town. This was an awesome way to get off your feet for awhile and watch the world go by!

7. The Kandawgi Gardens - Another must see in this town. The gardens are famous and are just out of town. We had heard that the entrance fee was $2 (as quoted in the Lonely Planet) but we have learned that inflation and other things have drastically changed prices since that book was published. Instead it was $5 per foreigner plus $1 for your camera! That pretty much blew our budget - so it was a good thing we brought our own picnic lunch into the park! Don't get me wrong, we loved the park and especially loved the swans, takins and all of the incredible flora! We took a small break at a bench along a path in the swamp garden and a family walked by. The man stopped and asked us if he "could snap our picture"! We laughed, wondering what he and his family thought of us sitting in a swamp! Welcome Canadian swamp people!

8. Our Hotel - We splurged and stayed at the wonderful Royal Parkview Hotel. We had great service and we were glad to get our daily delivery of fruit and complimentary water! It took us several days to realize that all we have to do is ask and they will help! For instance, one morning we were having our "American Breakfast" - white toast and eggs and wishing that we could have something more regional. All of a sudden the table next to us received Mohinga! We were stunned. We asked the front desk if there was the possibility to have that and she said yes, and produced a long menu of local Burmese and Indian favourites. She told us that we just have to order the night before! The same thing happened shortly after when we were getting ready to watch the movie "Poseiden" (It gets very dark - and sometimes no power and most places close early in Burma so we watch movies before bed) and the channel goes blank (this frequently happens - channels change a lot!) so we call reception and they say "of course, we'll get it back for you!" - Burma is truly fascinating and mind-boggling!

9. Tofu! - Yes, tofu made the list! You might wonder why - it's a funny story! Ted's dad, Don has heard about the wonderful Shan Tofu of Pyin Oo Lwin. He wanted us to find it and learn how to make it. He gave us instructions to visit a local restaurant to learn the secrets of the Tofu business so that we could return to Canada and turn it into a million dollar empire! It's a good idea but that restaurant doesn't serve or make tofu! We did manage to find a Tofu Maker (through our hotel). He spent an hour with us showing us how to make dried strips of Shan Tofu (made of yellow beans or lentils). It was fascinating and a lot of fun....we didn't try as we were scared to wreck some of this delicate tofu!

10. Cycling - No Top ten is complete without our favourite mode of transportation! Pyin Oo Lwin is very spread out so the best way to see it is on bike. We rented "staff" bikes at our hotel almost every day. The bikes were always of varying degrees of "working". We biked down to the Pwe Kauk Falls one day and Ted had to use his "Flintstone" breaks to make it down safely. At the end of the very steep doiwnhill, he used a Runaway Lane into someone's yard a few feet before running into the Ticket Desk barricade at the entrance of the falls! One another occasion, Ted rode a bike where he continually bumped his knees on the handle bars!

So there we go! The Top Ten! We loved our trip to Pyin Oo Lwin and continually are learning more about the country, bartering and ourselves! Sorry to all of you who we would love to email but we are having a lot of problems with our Yahoo! Tomorrow we are off to Inle Lake! - should be a blast!

Mandalay. What a town. We left the beautiful garden capital of Yangon the other day and have been touring around the last seat of Royalty of Myanmar for a couple of days. We had been following the Lonely Planet guide book to find some restaurants and shops and such for the past few days but had little luck. Either places had moved or they were closed. The Lonely Planet redeemed itself though with an author's choice pick for an evening restaurant. A streetside chapati (wheat flat bread) stand. Ohmigod! These things are awesome. The first night in town we went to eat and I had 3 chapatis, chicken curry and dal and a tamarind dipping sauce. Jen had some fried veggies, dal. tamarind sauce and a double fried egg with hers. It was fantastic but it was too much even for me. Last night, we went looking for a place to eat but did not see anywhere that really grabbed our eye so back to the chapati stand we go!

With slightly more self-control, I stayed to only 2 chapatis and Jen had 1. We were getting up very early the next day to ride to the Mandalay Hill that rises NE of town right out of the plains, so we packed up some dal and 2 more chapatis to go. We are probably going to go there for supper again tonight, and likely when we pass through again. A good enough reason to come to Mandalay...for sure!

But there are many more. Today for example, armed with our trusty, and not very rusty, push bikes, complete with fenders, we rode out to Mandalay Hill at 6 am to watch the sunrise. We were able to get there just before sunrise and watch it come up as we climbed the many stairs on foot. At the top we rested and soaked in the beautiful view. After that we decided to head down to the ferry that would take us up and across the Ayerawaddy River to Mingun. A village that has several old temples and what would have been the world's largest Pagoda but it remains unfinished. The world's largest (90 tons) intact, ringing bell is also there. We decided to take some back roads along Mandalay's streets and found ourselves bumping along the alleyways and side streets of the port and sawmill district. The smell of teakwood dust in the air was actually quite nice. We did receive many quizzical looks as I think this was not "typically" part of the tourist route. We looked quizzically back though as we were pretty lost a few times. We got to the Jetty with lots of time to spare so the boat captain pointed us to a tea shop across the street.

At the shop, we created quite a stir as the young boy who came to take our order did not speak english and he was very excited to try to decipher our hand gestures and english. He called to the shop owner who understood we wanted 2 cups of tea only. A few minutes later, a plate of samosas arrived. Yep, that's exactly what we thought. Our burmese/english and hand gestures are getting worse. But it turns out these are put out each morning to the customers and you pay for what you eat. The tea showed up a few minutes later. We were able to understand the price so for us, it was a huge victory! As we left they all were giggling at our "cei zu be" and "mingalahba"'s.

While waiting for the boat to be ready, we watched as the very busy river port was alive and bustling with trishaw drivers, loaders, goats, and pretty much everything else you would imagine. There are many "rustic" trucks in Myanmar and they still have a hand crank start and huge open flywheel on the other side. The trucks are able to haul quite a lot but don't appear to have much for a braking system. One fellow had sand on the back and it was so heavy that he could not get up the little hill to the street on the first try. To keep him from rolling down the hill, a young boy runs beside him to throw rocks under the back wheel to hold him in place! After he went up, a man with hand pulled rickshaw came down the hill hanging on for dear life as his massive load of 45 gallon drum barrels tried to push him into the river. Pretty exciting to watch over tea!

We got to Mingun with little effort and were instantly greeted by many vendors trying to get us to pay for them to guide us, tell us which shop was theirs or buy one of the many souvenirs we had already seen elsewhere. They must have been to Vietnam for training because they used every trick in the book. Ask questions about you to build a relationship, send their really cute kids to visit with you while you walk and failing that, pretty much follow you till you bought something. It was here we decided to take the 174 steps and free scramble to the top of the Mingun Paya ruins to escape. It was very peaceful. In light of this new found peace and quiet, we sought out further refuge from vendors. So we went walking through their village which is off the tourist track then stopped for tea at a small local shop at the village edge.

After the hubbub of the vendors died down, we headed back out onto the road where Jen said, " We should take a Ox cart ride back to the boat". I couldn't have been more suprised to hear those words come out of my wife's mouth. Animals in a harness, made to do work for humans, and us riding not moving under our own power. I could not believe it. It was a lovely, bumpy ride that was made to feel very authentic as the ox pooped as they walk only inches from the edge of the cart. Thank goodness for the clever design.

After seeing the rest of the sights we went for a beer at a small restaurant overlooking the river. Three young boys greeted us upon our arrival and promptly made their way to clean up a chair for us. After we sat, one of them who spoke very good english got us a beer and the Lonely Planet phrasebook ( which has had very few phrases correct when I use them) actually had one right for once. The boy saw that we wanted peanuts too and he understood! Two language barriers broken in one day. Definitely time to quit while we were ahead. The boys, Toos, his cousin Cho Cho, and friend Kyaw Zin, all started talking to us and were quickly telling us stories. How at 12 years old, they were going to Mandalay University to study engineering. It was fun so they laughed at our burmese and visited with them back and forth for quite some time. At one point, they came back with a cigarette and offered it to us. This wasn't the first time we were offered cigarettes by kids while eating in Mandalay! We also had a small lunch before leaving. At the end of it all, we could not help but pay the exorbitant price they charged us because it had been so entertaining. We were also likely the only customers that day as ours was the last boat to leave the shore.

All that before 1 pm today. Following this hectic schedule, we are heading for home or a beer station before returning to have chapatis again tonight for supper. If you weren't sure, Mandalay is a very cool place.

We are in the Motherland as Ted calls it! We arrived in Rangoon on Tuesday and were overwhelmed with the welcomes and generosity!

Our day books are very full with social engagements and therefore we haven't had much time to email! Let me give the run down!

First of all, Ted and I love the beautiful parks and the city of Rangoon...it was great to get out of the Backpacker world of Bangkok! Yangon (Rangoon) has a lot of the old British architecture and the parks are immaculately maintained. As is the Shwe Dagon Pagoda (the most famous Rangoon landmark)...We are just a short walk to the Pagoda!

The first day, Diana and Megan (Ted's second cousins) picked us up from the airport and helped us with some organizational things (ie., you can't change money at a bank , you must go to a Money Changer and they only deal in currency as high as 1000 kyats = $1 US....It was very interesting!). They took us on a brief tour and out for lunch! They are wonderful ladies and they were so excited to see Ted and meet more family! Diana works as a Travel Agent and Megan is a lawyer.

The next day we went to their house for lunch and met their older brother Robin. They spent the entire morning making us some of the best food ever! (Shrimp curry, mutton curry, pennywort salad and many others... before serving great banana pudding and congyabaung - a great glutinous rice dish). We had a great time sharing pictures and stories! The meal was typical Burmese (I think we were there for 4 hours!). That evening we went out with our friend, Kya Kya's sister and husband (Melody and Than Tun) and had more wonderful food!!

The following day was tonnes of fun as Diana took us on a tour of the Shwe Dagon Pagoda. We made offerings to the Buddha (there is a Buddha that you pray to for the day of the week you were born). We also laid gold leaf on a Buddha. We were really excited to go to the Astrologer that Diana has visited. She was amazingly accurate and gave Ted and me wonderful fortunes. Apparently, we are a very lucky couple (because we were born on Wednesday (Jen) and Monday (Ted)). She told us many interesting things! She also gave us new Burmese names that mean that we will grow and become famous!

That afternoon we located an old school friend of Ted's dad, Don. Percy and Don grew up together in Maymyo (Pyin Oo Lwin). We met him and he treated us to an afternoon of Kachin beer, great Dagon beer and many funny stories. We spent several hours becoming slightly tipsy in his living room! He and his son, Kim took us for lunch and by the end of the day we were exhausted!!

Friday, The full moon holiday, was low key as Ted and I went to a lake and had a picnic! We had another great walk and spent the evening with Melody, Than Tun and Daw Kyi Kyi. We had an amazing meal of many of our favourite foods!

We are so lucky to be in Burma. It does feel like you step back in time. Monks line the streets, everyone wears longyi and people first stare at us and then smile! We are definitely off the beaten track. We are really excited to go back to Diana and Melody's tomorrow for Mo Hinga (one of my favourite meals).

Signing off for now....Aye Chan Myint (Jen) and Hein Tet Zaw (Ted)!