travels with an unlikely aunt: traveling companions in the far east

Groups. It’s not a natural fit for me.

And to be fair, groups don’t want me either.

Inappropriate comments, unnecessary questions, bad jokes, low rumblings of alternative thought, marmalade and cheese…you know how it goes.

So here I am, with a group traveling around Burma.

I had made a decision that to try and attempt to land at Yangon airport with just a guide book and a load of Khat, would leave me soggy of spirit, resolve and face.

Yangon in the last shout the monsoon

Recommended by a friend who had gone to India with a group, I bought a 14 day trip called Classic Myanmar from a company called “ Intrepid.”

I met my little group on the first evening at The Summit Parkview Hotel by the People’s Park in Yangon.

I had already ascertained that I had been booked into a hotel that had conventions. And that I didn’t like the carpet. Or the view from my window. And that the girl behind the reception counter was a bit of a cow. And that even though the guide books told me to bring US dollars

( fresh, flat and unused; and not printed after 2006)

Nobody took US dollars outside of the Convention Hotels and maybe an up market restaurant or two. So that when I went downtown to the Colonial District on my first afternoon, I couldn’t buy anything with my crisp greenbacks, not a samosa, not a taxi, not an umbrella.

I returned to the Summit Parkview, drenched to the skin and had to ask a taxi driver to wait whilst the cow behind the reception desk told me where to find a cubicle that I could change my brand new dollars into Kyat so I could pay him the three dollars it cost to get from the old customs House by the docks back to bad carpet land.

kyat.

To be clear here:

50 kyats = 5 cents

200 kyats = 20 cents

2000 kyats = 2 dollars

Our meeting was listed on the convention board as happening in the fine dining area.

I asked the woman at the reception where that was, she said it was in the café. I just followed the corridor of bad carpet to a room painted tan and maroon where a smiling face with a badge hanging round her neck and a yellow and lime green traditional outfit said “ Intrepid?” I almost said “ No, not all. Playing it safe for now…” but I sat down with my group and behaved for five minutes.

They were two young Australians. Three people who originally came from England but were now Australians. One man from Canada and a lady from Surrey. We all said hallo. I was the only one who was wet.

She gave us a list of common phrases in Myanmar, formally known as Burma. ( from now on calling it MFKAB)

Hallo ( or Auspicious to you all ) :- Mingalar ba

Yes: - hou’ke shin

Sorry:- sel’ mashi ba ne

Thank you :- kyei:zu: tin ta be

And of course.

Where is the loo:- ein tha be ma shi.tha le:

On the subject of loo’s; outside of the convention hotel and a few restaurants where people from convention hotels go to eat the loo is the squat variety with a bucket of water .

young wet nuns

ladies in longyis

schoolchildren in their green and white

woman and her son and what is left of a bike that has no wheels

And on the subject of traditional dress; I have to say that skirts and trousers look very much the outsiders in Burma. Men wear the pasos that are a big pillowcases open at either end that they wrap round them selves left first then right and then knot in the middle. Normally made out of a green or purple checked cotton. The women wear a cotton top with buttons and long sleeves and a matching skirt, a longyi, that is a 2 metre long piece of fabric that wraps and wraps and tucks. Shorts, I have seen just a couple of times on foreigners. Strappy tops I have seen a couple of times, again on foreigners.

woman with brooms. taxi drivers. Business men. Street vendors. Boat men. Families.