The journey, as I mentioned, was horrible—over five hours of constant pain as we traversed boulders, got stuck in small lakes of mud, slid down muddy hillsides and forded numerous rivers—all features of the "road". At one point a bridge literally collapsed beneath us. Planks were dislodged and fell into the river below, leaving a gaping hole in the bridge in our wake. We got to … [Read more...]
Traditional Burmese Happy Meal
I took this over a year ago, but despite the picture, until this week, Myanmar was one of only three countries to not have coke. Thankfully, Coca Cola has decided to change this now that sanctions have been eased, providing the Burmese people with all the luxuries of the West, such as hyperactive kids and diabetes. … [Read more...]
I will cheat you and you will like it!
I didn't have a flashlight and my friend's was dying, so we decided to just lay down where we were. Not that we had any other options. It was a little after 3am and nothing was open even if we had been able to see it. We felt around for an area that didn't give off the impression that it had recently served as a toilet, lay down and drifted off to sleep. Five minutes later I … [Read more...]
A Burmese Train — Seeing Myanmar in Slow Motion
First of all, it was hot. The temperature outside was around 40 degrees Celsius and it felt like twice that in the cramped car. We were near a window so we figured we would get a nice breeze once the train started moving. We didn't realize that the train would never really start moving. It crawled along so slowly that the only way you could get any breeze was to stick your head … [Read more...]
Welcome to Shwebo Mr. ATM
The next two hours were pretty uneventful and even relatively pain free, since my knee caps had been thoroughly liquefied by this point. We did pass a road construction site on the way and had to wait for a bit as a group of slaves broke up rocks with hammers and placed them into the roadway by hand. I know, I know--they are not slaves, they are volunteers. You see, … [Read more...]