Hi all -

 

Myanmar is just emerging into the sunlight of freedom, democracy and civilization after many, many decades of military dictatorship and it shows. Friendly and well-intentioned but odd and fumbling in some ways, unsteadily having just emerged from the cave and into the glare.

 

Aside from Staten Island's Fresh Kill landfill, I have never seen so much garbage as exists in and around Rangoon, particularly near the railroad tracks which surround that city.

 

Rangoon's holiest site, the Shwezedagon temple, contains  something like 35 metric tons of gold. (I think my peripheral vision caught Goldfinger sneaking around its backside). It is huge; it can be seen from anywhere in the city; and it's lit up spectacularly at night. Once inside the temple complex you walk up several hundred stairs, from platform to platform, and in the heart of the temple at the top of the stairs, inside a large room typically containing many praying Buddhists. is Buddha. But behind the Buddha, shedding 21st Century fan-like rays outward, are electric lights. It's disco Buddha! It's Saturday Night Fever and John Travolta. All those artificial, multi-colored lights are, in a word, bizarre.

 

After Rangoon I needed a break and wanted to see what Myanmar's idea of a beach resort is like, so I bussed for 6.5 hours west (there are no trains going west and no flights either; the main road is only 1.8 lanes, not quite two lanes, and the bus competes with bicycles, hand-drawn carts, Vespas and the occasional water buffalo. On the way back to Rangoon after my beach stay the driver had to slam the brakes to avoid - just barely - plowing into a drunken, stumblingly oblivious street-crosser. The driver got out and, after making sure the guy had not been hit, kicked him about 10 times.

 

While at my beach hotel, at 10:30pm, a hotel clerk felt it was appropriate to knock on my door until I woke up and answered it, at which point he presented me with the bill for the laundry service I had done the previous day.

 

But Ngwe Saung Beach on the Bay of Bengal was great. Clean, warm water, pristine sand, and not crowded.

 

I am in north-central Myanmar now, in Bagan. I am not allowed to go into northern Myanmar without special permission. All of northern Myanmar is controlled by opium poppy-growing, weapon-carrying rebels. This morning, at about 8:30am, I heard a large commotion on the street so I went outside and there was a parade, complete with two uniformed marching bands accompanied by the general citizenry. A quick gaze revealed that they were celebrating this country's new-found -after decades and decades of dictatorship - democracy (they just had elections). At the parade's center a statue of General Aung Sang (1917-1947; he was assassinated), whose daughter is the country's newly elected leader (you may remember Hillary Clinton visited her as Secretary of State about a year ago). Parades like this happen all over the place, even on Main St. on a weekday at 8am.

 

I am glad to have visited this wobbly democracy. Tomorrow I head east to Kalaw. From there I will trek for 2 nights/3 days for 30 miles to Inle Lake. I am told the countryside during those miles (all through the Shan State-controlled area of the country) is breathtaking. I will have trekking companions and a guide. We will overnight in a Shan village each night and I'll be seriously ready for r & r when we finally get to Inle Lake. This multi-day hike promises to be a Myanmar highlight, we'll see.

 

Strange place, Myanmar, but I would not have missed it for anything.