I worked until about 4 am the night before we arrived in Myanmar and didn’t have the courage to get up in time to see us make our way up the river to the port of Yangon (formerly Rangoon). People told me it was spectacular. Green fields, small fishing villages and pagodas lined the shore.
When I finally did go out on deck, at about 9 am, it hit me that we were like alien invaders aboard this huge 7-story vessel, where everything else is small. The river was wide - maybe 3-400 yards. Our “port” was nothing more than a concrete slab. There were no buildings in sight, just cow pastures. Except for 1 or 2 ships loading up with logs of teak, there was no activity. The air was soothingly warm, humid and thick. What a contrast from the busy ports we’d been to: Chennai, Salvador, Cape Town…
Because of the political situation here – it’s a military dictatorship - we would not be working in Myanmar. Never mind the fact that we’d have trouble with all the video equipment bringing we brought with us, the fact that CURRENTS revolves around the discussion of HIV and AIDS made it a total no-no…too bad considering HIV infections in Myanmar are apparently spreading out of control.
I didn’t make it off the ship that day. Instead, I caught up on work and planned to take the rest of the week off to see the country a bit.
Wednesday
There are several Burmese destinations on the tourist map: Bagan, a dry plain with thousands of abandoned pagodas, and Inle Lake. I’d seen the pictures, and both these sites looked beautiful.
However, hundreds of people from the voyage would be there, and given the lack of privacy we have on the ship, I wasn’t crazy about those prospects. So I decided to go to a place where there were no popular attractions. I chose the southeast Mon state, to see country life in Myanmar…
The Lonely Planet guidebook I’d purchased on the ship described the area in very broad and intriguingly vague terms: “unmapped territory”, “fascinating spit of land”, “green Mon hills”, “nomadic Moken sea gypsies”.
Wow, nomadic sea gypsies? I didn’t think I’d make it as far as the sea gypsies, but I wanted to see how far I could go.
So I picked a town (Mawlamyine) randomly, purchased a ticket in Yangon, and headed towards the bus station.
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