Mixed feeling towards Myanmar...

(Him: Charlie)

Myanmar had been a much anticipated country on JoCharvel's travel list and we have not been disappointed. The 10-day trip to the "golden land" has been fascinating, but as Jo and I had discussed, our recommendation of Myanmar being a tourist destination would only be given to those who value culture over savory and shopping experience.

Having been run by the notoriously corrupted military government and isolated for decades, Myanmar is at a very primitive state. However, this is not the reason for the "mixed feeling".

What we love the most in Myanmar are the people. They are some of the most sincere and honest people we have seen. It is a humble experience to visit a country where majority of the population are devoted Buddhists, and that monks are highly revered. At dawn every day, monks in red robes are seen on their alms-round (food collection) in bare feet across cities and villages. Some people would contribute money, but more would share food. I saw a street vendor scooped a portion of her lunch into the young monk's alms bowl. I could spot her joyful smile when sharing her food. From a later research, alms-giving is not charity apparently; instead, it is closer to "a symbolic connection to the spiritual realm".

What turned us off in Myanmar was how the tourists were specifically targeted for unfair profiting! And the government is leading by example on this issue! Not only do foreigners have to pay various "tourists only" entrance fees, the public transit systems are so poorly planned that taxis, whose prices are disproportionately high, are often the only option. So one thing we dreaded in Myanmar was having to deal with taxi drivers on a daily basis.

Overall, we feel that Myanmar at its current state is not for everyone. It's not cheap for what the country can offer in terms of sights and scenery, but for those who are determined to see Myanmar before it is overly westernized, authenticity in the people and culture are definitely a compelling draw!

Why do I think Burmese are super friendly people?

No matter where you travel to, how beautiful the country is and what delicious cuisine this place has to offer, it does not beat the people.  After having been to so many places, what makes a place special to me is definitely the people.  Burmese are definitely one of the most loveable people I ever came across.  Why?

Here's why:

• At Mandalay train station, we stood around and were reading our Lonely Planet looking into where to go next and how to get there, perhaps looking lost.  A Burmese man came over asking whether we need help.

• Everywhere you go, you nod your head and smile at the people, they will return with a huge smile.

• At the ferry dock going from Yangon to Dalah, after a fail attempt to sell us to be our tour guide at Dalah, the Burmese girl personally took us to the ticket office when we don’t’ know where to go get our ticket without asking for anything.

• At Dalah, it started to rain as we walk through the villages.  A group of ladies clear up a bench and invited us into their ‘house’ to wait the rain off.  We said thank-you and they returned with a nod and a gentle smile.

                                     

•       Again, at Dalah, we got rained on while getting snacks at a stall.  The family invited us into their house to wait off the rain.

• It was Burmese New Year, we can’t find anything to eat at reasonable price after walking over an hour.  We finally found a tea house.  Sat down and had a wonderful cup of tea.  I was being nosy walking around, checking out how the tea was made in their ‘kitchen area’, I saw a guy (perhaps, he is a staff) having lunch so I asked the staff whether they are serving food.  We had a hard time communicating so I gave up and just sat down to enjoy the wonder tea.  Shortly after, the staff came to our table with a cheese sandwich and a fried egg!  I guess ‘we have not had lunch and are very hungry’ came across in my combination of hand rubbing my tummy and words.  

What makes or breaks a great traveling experience?

(Him: Charlie)

Over the last couple of days, I’ve been thinking what would be a suitable tag line for Myanmar if its government wants to promote its tourism (think “Malaysia, truly Asia” or “Incredible India” kind of slogans)? Not that the military government would want to do this in the near future, as their hands are quite full with loads of other problems, but even if they do, I really can’t think of a good one. Why? Because Myanmar is physically not ready to take in large scale tourism yet. Beside the potholed roads, aging railway systems, and sporadic power supply, tourists would also need to deal with the special treatment imposed by the military government. For instance, for locals to take ferry from Yangon to the small village, Dallah, across the Yangon River, it costs only 200 kyats (20 US cents). But for foreigners, not only do they charge 10 times higher, the government also monopolizes the business by prohibiting local boats to take foreigners!

On the bright side though, for those who could endure the roughness and overpriced facilities, the reward is enormous – genuine authenticity from the welcoming and sweet Burmese. Our trip has been fantastic so far, and it has everything to do with Myanmar’s friendly people. From restaurant waiters to ferry dock staff, from shop owners to strangers on Yangon streets, all of them have this genuine curiosity about travelers, yet they are always courteous and polite. Often times when your eye sights meet with the locals, a nod and a smile would always guarantee a smile in return. And those kids in the villages, they are just angels with innocent faces and adorable giggles! They would run over to you, stop a couple of feet before you and say “hello, how are you? Where are you from?”

So what makes and breaks a great traveling experience? It is always people, people and people!! Here are some of them.

Restaurant owner gives out food to people from all walks of life on the first day of Myanmar New Year

Curious kids at an apartment building in suburb Yangon

Bustling restaurant always filled with hungry locals in Bagan (the staff are super friendly and attentive)

Young monks at Thatbyinnyu Temple, Bagan

Young monks receiving food donation from local merchant (see how happy the donor is!!)

Villagers processing sun-dried fish

Villager in Dallah Village

Sweet and shy children in Dallah village

Finally Myanmar is here!

(Him: Charlie)

Happy Myanmar New Year from Yangon!! 

OK finally, JoCharvel's no. 1 country in Southeast Asia is happening! 

We have forgotten why exactly the country is on top of our list. We didn't even know what's there to see before we started doing trip planning. I guess what made it so compelling is the fact that we don't know anything about it, yet it has all of a sudden become accessible to the outside world. I think that's what really drew JoCharvel's interest! And for me, this is the best place to hit on serendipity! On a side note, I think Monocle made have planted the seed in my mind when they wrote about Myanmar emerging from isolation.

So, we just arrived at the hostel (the only one in Myanmar), settled in and took a refreshing shower. Let me pour out the pre-perception to this country before it gets eroded away!

Let's see... So I really don't know much about Burma except that it just emerged from decades of military ruling and there's the world-coveted Aung San Suu Kyi, who is probably going to lead this fast-growing democratic country in the years to come. Other than that I heard there are scattered religious conflicts and even genocides in isolated areas, and that's about it.

From a backpackers perspective, I would be very interested to see the people and the culture before they are heavily influenced by the outside world. I heard people are friendly and genuinely welcoming here, but unfortunately, after a few years of opening up, I heard people in the touristy places have become more commercialized. I am not holding a false expectation about seeing totally unspoiled local life, especially we are visiting the most popular 4 destinations - Yangon, Bagan, Inle Lake and Mandalay, but I am confident that I would still be indulged in a high degree of authenticity. After all, we have come through hurdles to see this country, with a visa and an entire trip-worth of crisps USD notes for meticulous exchange requirements (this country has only recently been introduced to ATM so bank cards are being used as back up). So exactly where we will end up between total authenticity and total tourist trap would be what we will find out in the next 9 days! Time to sleep and then have a blast tomorrow!!!

By the way, walking with my hiking shoes, airy MEC traveling pants, hooded jacket and my deuter backpack really reminded me of JoCharvel's long trip back then. It just felt so good!

2-Year Anniversary: Yuvcali Village (Kurdish)

白馬簫西風

2-Years Anniversary - Taking Fresh To A Whole New Level!

(Her: Joanna)

When people talk about Croatia, the beautiful sea view and how gorgeous is the water usually comes up.  But the first thing that pops into my mind was sea urchins.  Not that I stepped on one when I was there.  It was far better.

When we were at Croatia, we went to the Korcula Island.  We hit the beach with a few backpackers we met at Dragon’s Den hostel.  It was hard to find a nice sandy beach at Croatia but there are a few pitches on Korcula Island.  As anywhere else at Croatia, the water was drop-dead gorgeous.  It would have been perfect if they were sandy beaches versus rock beach.  There weren’t much to see close by the beach when we snorkel around but we discovered plenty of sea urchin even in shallow water (it was actually quite dangerous if you didn’t know as we encountered a few people stepped on sea urchin hanging out at the beach that day).   Sea urchins are very sensitive organisms.  You can only find their presence in places with very clean water.  Again, physically proven how great the water in Croatia is.  It is so weird to find so many sea urchin just lying around.  If Japanese and Chinese discover this, I’m pretty sure they will be gone in no time. 

Being Chinese as we are, we picked a couple up and use our swiss army nice to crack the shell up at the beach.  We butchered our first 2 sea urchins not knowing how to cut it open.  It took us a good 15-20 min to crack our first one up and we only get this tiny bit of meat from each sea urchin.  It must be a pretty huge ass sea urchin for those we ate at the sushi bars.  

We threw a few pieces of sea urchin meat into our mouth with caution.  They are so fresh and delicious.  It was hard work to get half a teaspoon of sea urchin.  No wonder they are so expensive. 

We figured if we go somewhere deeper and less people, there will be much bigger and more abundant sea urchin we can catch for free.  So we Youtube “how to cut open a sea urchin” that night and hired a kayak the next day taking our snorkeling gear, soy sauce, a swiss army knife and a spork with us paddling to some small island on a mission to find sea urchins.  As bizarre as it may sound, it was one of the best days I remembered.  It was like any other gorgeous day at Croatia.  Looking into the water from the kayak, the water was so clear that you can see things underneath the water.  The sun was warm but gentle. Deeping my hand into the cool but not chilly water in the middle of the sea with some breeze blowing into my face while I leaned my head back being lazy and letting the warmth of the sun engulfed me was worth a million buck. 

We found an island in the middle of nowhere full of pebbles and with a few shrubs here and there to park our kayak. The water gradually deepens as we struggled walking toward the sea with the seabed made out of piles of huge but slimy rocks.  Charlie was having a much easier time than me walking on those rocks. The barnacles on the rock hurt my feet.  Charlie signaled me to stay close to shore while he went deeper into water and dive down.  After a few minutes, he came back up with a sea urchin at least twice as big as those we picked up from the beach yesterday.  With the spikes, he can only pick one up at a time.  Charlie picked up 6 sea urchins with a few trips.  We wished we have diving gears as Charlie spotted a few real big ones but was too deep for him to free dive down to get. 

We walked bare foot back to the kayak with the sea urchins fighting the hot peddles wishing we have bought the flip flops closer to where we entered the water.  But it was all worth it!  After learning from the Youtube video last night, we were much more efficient in opening the sea urchin today.  Every bit was that much more delicious enhanced by the soy sauce we bought.  All the hard work was worth it.  I totally didn’t’ expect to have sea urchin sashimi fresh from the sea at an Eastern European country caught by ourselves!

There is a saying that “Chinese eat anything with legs on the ground and the back facing the sky” (I think French comes into a close second).  I, then, realized how true that is.