“$120.” I coulda bargained her down but it seemed like too much work to street-hike off to an ATM to get more money so I took some wonderful photos of some little-girl nuns instead and gave them each a dollar. Money well spent.
“About a million people live in the new capital,” said my guide as we drove past the city zoo. “Most of the animals have been transferred to the new capital.” Then we passed a stadium. “The Burma team is number two in Southeast Asia. Thailand is number one.”
Apparently they have a lottery in Burma -- wherein the winners get the right to buy cell phone sim cards. If you win the lottery, you can sell your sim card for twice or three times what you pay for it. And while only 2% of all Burmese own refrigerators, 25% of them own televisions. That’s hilarious. 23% of all Burmese would rather have a TV than a frig.
From what I can tell, what everyone around here calls “The Military Regime” has reached a de facto arrangement with the people of Burma – an unofficial standoff. The Junta stays in its jungle stronghold on the one hand and, on the other hand, the rest of Burma pretty much runs by itself.
By the way, Burma is NOT a failed state. The crime rate is low, the post office runs efficiently, the schools are open and the planes run on time. There isn’t much surplus money lying around but the people are friendly and the streets are clean. Most everything in Rangoon works on a relatively primitive level but everything DOES work. “It is because of Buddhism,” one Burmese told me. “We all care for one another and we all share.”
But the Junta seems to have their own way of life, devoted followers and high standard of living out in the jungle and the people of Rangoon seem to go their own way without the Junta’s help – or interference. Works for me.
Back at the hotel, I talked with another tourist. “Too bad you didn’t get to go to the docks,” she said. “The Chinatown here is like every other Chinatown in the world but life on the docks is fascinating.” How so?
“The place was crowded and many of the residents were poor and just squatting on the sidewalk but everyone seemed to be in this together so nobody seemed to mind. When I went down there on a tour the other day, we were all watching the people at the docks – and they in turn were all watching us! They seemed to be even more fascinated by us than we were with them. They especially thought our tour bus was rather impressive.”
It was all sounded very wonderful down at the docks and a crying shame to miss, but I had my priorities set and at the top of the list was my urgent meetings with “The Junta’s Revenge”.
Another Burmese I talked with at the pagoda this morning said that tourism was really down in Burma right now due to the Junta and the cyclone (they seem to think of hurricanes and typhoons as giant cyclones – which, actually, they are). “We used to get 70,000 tourists a year here. Now we are lucky to get 20,000.”
“When I told people back home that I was going to Burma,” I replied, “everyone advised me to be careful. In America, we all think of Myanmar as being filled with starving and oppressed people and military types in jackboots. And it’s not that way at all. I feel totally safe, the food is delicious, the people are gracious and the tourist attractions are awesome!” Plus I probably picked up my case of Junta’s Revenge in Thailand anyway.
“Please,” said one taxi driver, “when you get back to America, please tell people about Burma. Tourism really helps us here.” And it doesn’t just help the Junta. A lot of tourists’ money goes directly to the people.
When I first thought of coming here, I thought that military types would just hustle us from one sanitized version of Burmese life to the next – sort of like a carefully-guided tour of an Irrawaddy version of Disneyland – and that we would never get to see the “real” Burma, where people are starving and oppressed. No, it doesn’t work that way. I was set loose unescorted in Rangoon and I saw everything there was to see – except for maybe the American embassy. You just can’t fake that sort of thing.
A surprising amount of Burmese speak English very well.
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