8/14/2019 Myanmar Travel - The National

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Our pick-up bowls through apatchwork countryside o greenrice-paddy ields criss-crossed bysmall waterways. About 20 peopleare crammed into the back, sit-ting on narrow wooden benches.

urther 10, mysel included, are

sitting cross-legged on the roo,cheerully chewing betel nut andspitting jets o crimson saliva overthe side.We are on our way to a nat esti-al a week-long party celebrating

a olk religion that predates Bud-dhism in Myanmar and contin-ues to exist alongside it today. Natspirits are divided between the 37Great Nats, the spirits o humanbeings who met a violent death,and the rest, the spirits o trees,

ater and other parts o nature.We turn o the main route out o

Mandalay and on to a road wherethe two lanes are separated by asmall canal. Children are waitingby the roadside in a state o excite-ment; as soon as our pick-up comesnear they begin to run alongside it,

elling as passengers toss out a ewtiny-denomination notes o kyat,

Myanmars currency. Very ew othe kids catch any money and ase rattle past they give up and look

or the next vehicle or jump intothe canal. They know many morepeople will be passing t his way.We arrive at the estival village o

Taungbyone, disembark and entera sprawling market. Pretty girlssit on raised platorms with trayso Burmese sweets in their hands.Stalls sell CDs o Myanmars dis-tinctive pop music, lightly syrupysongs with perky guitar ris, as

ell as piles o smallish logs thatare used or thanaka, the tradition-al makeup o golden cream maderom bark that Burmese womensmear on their cheeks. Crowdsthrong past, men stripped to the

aist climb bamboo scaoldingto put the inishing touches ona big thatched hall. As the stalls

segue into village streets, we seehomes with raised and coveredoutdoor lounging areas contain-ing twin eigies with aces madeo gold-coloured plastic or metal,the residents snoozing on nearbycushions.

However, while it is obvious thatsome major cultural event must behappening here, we dont know ex-actly what, or where, it is. Whereis the nat? I ask, ready or theblank looks that sometimes ol-low a question that no local person

ould ever pose. But a man under-stands and takes us to a templecomplex where girls are sellingbunches o lowers and amiliesare sprawled all over the oor. Theenclosed space is ull o Burmesecarrying huge platters o bananas,coconuts and lowers and all at-tempting to gain entry to a small

chamber to make their oerings tothe nat said to reside there.

In the temple, the nats are repre-sented by the fgures o a man anda woman with golden aces that aremuch smaller than the carvings oBuddha that are on display in My-anmars Buddhist temples. As theBurmese squeeze in to pray, handsholding big plants clasped in ronto their aces, specially employedmen take the ruit rom the plat-ters and distribute them around

the two nat fgurines. There is noway this can carry on much longerbeore the fgurines are buried inruit, I think, but somehow thepiles around them dont seem togrow despite the deluge o oer-ings. Red-robed Buddhist monksand pink-clad nuns are among the worshippers, while outside chil-dren hurl lowers around amidpeals o laughter.As we leave at sundown, exploit-

ing our status as oreign curiosi-ties to attract attention and beg alit in a lorry, a bright rainbow arcsover the rice paddies and Burmeserom all over the country continueto arrive on bicycles, tractors andpick-ups or celebrations that willcontinue or days.

From Mandalay we travel by busto Bagan, a vast collection o about4,400 Buddhist temples scattered

across 42 square kilometres onthe banks o the AyeyarwaddyRiver (ormerly known as theIrrawaddy).

The bus proves much tougherthan its appearance might suggestand it needs to be most o thecountry is not linked by highwaysor even paved roads and our routetakes us along bumpy dirt tracks.At one point we seem to be stuckin the middle o a small river, butwhen I look outside I see the driv-

ers assistant is simply taking theopportunity to throw water ontothe diesel engine to cool it down.The driver guns the engine and wesurge out o the river and push on.While Cambodias Angkor Wat is

undoubtedly more amous, Baganis also among o the top Buddhisttemple sites in South-east Asia andis around a thousand years old.You can simply wander rom tem-ple to temple, the larger ones con-taining huge gold-painted statueso the Buddha.

Beore leaving Mandalay or Ba-gan, we visit the Moustache Broth-ers, a troupe o three dissident co-medians. Their response to beingbanned rom perorming to theirellow Burmese or holding anykind o perormance outside theirmodest home has been to stage aolk opera entirely in English each

night in their house. We are amonga gaggle o tourists taking seats intheir ront room, where the wallsare adorned with puppets andphotographs o Aung San Suu Kyi,the pro-democracy leader who hasspent about 14 o the past 20 yearsunder house arrest. The broth-ers never intended to be political,says Lu Maw, one o the brothers,but in the 1970s as the military re-gime proved unable to provide thepeople with basic services such as

electricity, it became a natural tar-get or jokes.Myanmar achieved independence

rom the British Empire in 1948,when it was known as Burma, and was a democratic republic until1962, when General Ne Win seizedpower in a coup detat and kickedo a period o military rule markedby economic stultifcation and hu-man rights abuses that continuesto this day. Ater another coup in1988, the new military junta in 1990held elections that were won con-vincingly by the National Leagueor Democracy (NLD) party underthe leadership o Aung San Suu Kyi,the daughter o General Aung San,who many years beore negotiatedthe countrys independence romthe British. Unwilling to cede pow-er, the junta simply annulled theelection results, put Suu Kyi under

house arrest at her Yangon home,and carried on ruling.

The juntas reign has also beenmarked by a long-running conictbetween the juntas 350,000-strongarmy, the Tatmadaw, and the gue-rilla orces o the various ethnicgroups that live in Myanmar andharbour dreams o regional auton-omy. As part o its ongoing cam-paign to crush opposition orces,the Tatmadaw has been accusedby rights groups o press ganging

children into its orces, carryingout summary executions, destroy-ing villages and relocating theirpopulations and using villagers asorced labour.

But western-led economic sanc-tions against Myanmar, intensi-fed ater Suu Kyi was sentenced toyet more time under house arrestin August this year, have provedineective in the ace o the re-gional appetite or the countrysgas, timber and gemstones. In amajor shit, the US in Septembersaid it would start talking to theBurmese regime. Suu Kyi, who hadsupported a boycott o the regime including preventing the regimerom receiving money rom tour-ism through a travel boycott hasalso said she is willing to see sanc-tions lited i it helps movementtowards political reconciliation.

Back in the Moustache BrothersMandalay home, I ask Lu why heand his brothers continue to deythe authorities. It is, ater all, a se-rious matter; his two brothers weresentenced to seven years hard la-bour in 1996 or telling politicaljokes. We are dead meat alreadyis his response. The brothers hopethat as long as they remain popu-lar with tourists they will not bearrested.

Theirs is a slapstick show splicedwith displays o old-style Burmeseclothing and other traditions, butor me the highlight is the tradi-tional dancing by Lu Maws wie,Ni Ni Lin, who is obviously a mas-ter o her art. In the dance she istransormed, and her orceul butnuanced movements speak o acultural depth to Myanmar that Ior one was unaware o until visit-

ing, so little did I know about thisclosed country.For many Burmese, the opposite is

true. They know a world exists out-side Myanmar but have little chanceo getting permission to see it romthe authorities. Many in the impov-erished country would not be ableto aord to travel anyway, but theylong or the opportunity.

We cant do anything, so we justtry to cultivate a positive mental at-titude and hope things will get bet-ter, said one man.

Nats, moustaches and generalsTom Spender fndscelebration anda dose o laughtereven under therepressive militaryunta in Myanmar

Ni Ni Lin, the wife of Lu Maw, a member of the dissident Burmese comedian troupe the Moustache Brothers, performs atradtional Burmese dance routine for tourists at the familys home in Mandalay.

The huge gold-covered and jewel-encrusted Shwedagon Pagoda in Yangon is a site of pil grimage for Burmese Buddhists.Photos by Tom Spender or The National

AndamanSea

Bay ofBengal

MYANMAR (BURMA)

INDIA

CHINA

THAILAND

150km

Yangon(Rangoon)

Nay Pyi Taw

Mandalay

Source: Graphic News

Myanmar

Myanmar does not have an em-bassy in the UAE so the best wayto get a visa is at its embassy inBangkok, which can issue a 28-daytourist visa in about three days orabout US$75 (Dh275), althoughprices may vary depending on yournationality. The embassy (00662 233 2237) is at 132 Sathorn NuaRoad. Travel agents in Bangkok

can also arrange the visa on yourbehal or an extra ee o about$15 (Dh55). No airlines y directlyto Yangon rom the UAE, so thebest route into Myanmar is to y toBangkok and then buy a ight onthe low-cost airlines Air Asia (www.airasia.com; ) or Bangkok Airways(www.bangkokair.com), which sellsreturn tickets that cost rom $134(Dh494) including taxes. InsideMyanmar, the most convenientway to get around is to take thereasonably priced internal ightson local airlines such as Air Bagan.Tickets can be easily arrangedat your hotel or through travelagents. A return ight rom Yangonto Mandalay costs about $160(Dh588). There are also sleepertrain services. The cheapest optionis to take the long-haul buses.Myanmars road network, however,

is abysmal, meaning a journey oa ew hundred kilometres can takemost o a day. Some o the moreluxurious hotels in Myanmar, suchas the Sedona Hotel in Yangon,are run by the junta and revenuesrom their operations go into theregimes cofers. Many guidebooksreuse to list government-runhotels. Generally, staying at smallerguesthouses, though more humble,ensures that you do not directlysupport the regime, although it willextract some o what you spendon almost anything in the countrythrough heavy taxation. Becausethere are no ATMs in Myanmar, visi-tors must bring all the money theyneed with them in US dollars. Trav-ellers should budget at least $25(Dh92) per day. Hotels can be paidin dollars. Some o the top-endhotels in Yangon may accept credit

cards. Most transactions requireusing the local currency, the kyat.International mobile networks suchas Etisalat have no coverage insideMyanmar. International calls can bemade rom kiosks but are expen-sive. Internet caes abound butconnections are extremely slow.The weather is best between No-vember and February; spring is hot,while the rainy season rom May toOctober brings torrential rain alter-nating with very hot sunshine.

Beore you go