ABC

Myanmar

A country that i was very curious about. I didn't really know what to expect. Less tourism, friendly but timid people, influences from India. How it would be with everything what's been going on there and the changes it seems to be going thru at the moment. I was interested in talking to the people, to hear what they are thinking. But that wasn't easy. A lot of these conversations quickly ended with a comment about the weather, a way to let us know to drop the subject. Only Mr. Book, an old man with (you'll never guess what) a bookshop! in Hsipaw explained a little more about the situation. It's hard to go off the beaten track because almost everything besides the main places of interest are governamental roads and not accesible for tourists. And the main tourist places are much more touristy than I expected. 

Exploring Myanmar in 26 days was a calm trip. We got to see a lot, but weren't able to jump into the culture like we experienced in other country's before arriving here. It left me with the desire to come back and discover more.

Enjoy my ABC of Myanmar! 

Always place for one more

Whenever you think 'now it's really full'.. It's not!

Betel
A green betel leave filled with areca nut and slack lime, that almost everybody (mostly men) chews and leaves their mouths red. The old liquid in their mouths they spit out so now and then so everywhere on the streets you see red saliva daubs. Sometimes they spit it out while looking and smiling at you....

Crazy dancing on Nats festival
A annual festival near Mandalay where they used to pay respect and offer to the nats (spirits), but now it's more of an excuse to have a party. 

Drink a whisky with me!
Whiskey in Myanmar is ridiculously cheap, around 1,50 euro for a bottle!
This man invited us for a whisky in Pyin u Lwin but we said no, because it was 2 p.m., very hot and we were in need for a cold draft beer! 

Elegant writing
I've heard that when forms are round we like to look at it because it relaxes our mind. Maybe that's why I like the Myanmar writing so much.

Fairy
One day going around the village Hsipaw on a motorbike we ended up in a village on the side of the road. All the children gathered to look at us but seemed a bit scared at the beginning. After a while they started playing. We did a photoshoot together. They tried to make photo's themselves, posing, laughing. This little girl was sitting on an oxen cart. What a beauty!

Grandmas
These funny old ladies all held their hands up after I took the photo... 

Handshake
This old man was so lovely. We were walking around in Pyin u Lwin when we met him. For 15 minutes he was holding Guillems hand while talking to us about his life and Myanmar. His parents are from Nepal, but he was born in Myanmar. He took us for a tea in one of the teashops (that you find on almost every corner) and told us that he liked to take care of us because now we were like his grandchildren.

 Incredibly big feet

These big feet belong to a reclined buddha in Bago, with symbols representing the Buddha's 150 past lives.

Juice for malaria 
Everywhere in the forest on the hike from Kalaw to Lake Innle you see these trees with pieces out of it. The liquid is used to make a juice that works as an anti-malaria medicine. 

Kilometers in train
The trains in Myanmar are absolutely fantastic!! There is a big difference between normal and high class. Normally I would choose normal class but here i was very happy that we chose high class. The trains go very slow, they take almost double the time of the bus and they shake so much that some times you wonder how they even stay on the rails. Some parts of the way are so narrow that the branches of the trees are brushing against and into the windows, so the train is filled with leaves. 

Longyi

Everybody wears a longyi, men and women. When the men play a kind of volleybal (you can only touch the ball with the feet and head) or when they go on the bicycle, they tie there longyi's tight around their ass. Easy (and sexy)!

Monks

The monks in Myanmar loved to talk about football with Guillem. 

Nuns
The nuns shave their heads and wear these beautiful pink robes. 

Old-school busses
These are the local busses. Much nicer than ours if you ask me :)

Pagodas pagodas pagodas
I took this photo in Bagan where there are more than 4000 pagoda's. We were told that during a certain period family's built pagodas  for deceased familymembers. For every person one pagoda. Imagine...

Quick snack
The 10 hour lasting boattrip from Mandalay to Bagan stops in a lot of villages on the side of the river. At every stop women would (literally) run onto the boat to sell fruit and snacks. Sometimes they would stay on the boat untill the next stop and we got to talk to them a bit. And they got the chance the ask a 100 times if we were really really sure that we didn't want to buy something. And yes.. asking it so many times does help. 
'Maybe I am hungry... it does look really good...'

Reclining buddha
Looking at the photo it probably doesn't surprise you when I say that when we arrived at this buddha it started raining inmensely. So we only got a few minutes to walk around this incredibly big buddha.

Shower in the street

Jump out of the truck, hang up your clothes and take a quick shower together in one of the city showers!

Thanaka
Everybody uses thanaka for protection of the sun. It's made of the bark of the thanakatree. This boy was very shy and didn't want me to take a picture, but he couldn't say no after my enthusiasm about the heart. 

Ultra easy with the leg
Probably it is the most normal and comfortable way for them to sail their boats but it almost looks like if they have physical problems when they're moving the paddle with their legs. I think I shouldn't even try.

Vino from Myanmar
First wine in 4 months and damn it was good!

With the Pao tribes
During the 3 days trekking from Kalaw to Lake Innle we stayed in the houses of Pa O (Black Karen) tribes. The legend of their tribe is this: 
Once upon a time there were two dragon sisters, disguised as humans, washing themselves in a waterfall. An alchemist, wearing red clothes, saw them and liked the youngest sister. He stole her clothes so she couldn't go back to her village. They spend time together and fell in love. They lived in a house in the forest and after a few years the girl got pregnant and layed two eggs, a black and a white one. But she missed her friends and family so much that she left the alchemist with the eggs and returned to her village. The alchemist was very sad and started walking with the 2 eggs. When he arrived at a river he was so tired that he fell asleep and didn't notice that the eggs were taken by the river. The black egg arrived at the east of Cambodia where the Pa O tribes now live. The white egg arrived in the South of Cambodia where the Karen tribes live. Both believe they are the children of the dragon sister and the alchemist and they wear costumes that represent there parents. The Pa O wear black clothes because they're from the black egg and the Karen wear white clothes. The red is from the alchemist. The several layers they wear represent the dragon skin. The two tribes live miles and miles apart but somehow the speak the same dialect.

Xenial and smiling
On the Nats festival these ladies offered us something sweet we didn't know and didn't like that much...

You and me
In the village near Hsipaw, having a photoshoot, we were looking at ourselves at the turned screen of my camera. 

Zzz
Sometimes beds look really good, but that doesn't always mean they are... 
But after about 150 different beds in the last 8 months, i'm not that picky anymore.