Mandalay - Myanmar

Myanmar (Birmania)

After much planning to get to Myanmar(Burma), the decision was made for us-we had to fly from Bangkok to Yangon, as the government closed all boarders and connecting roads. We had heard that you have to have brand new US bills or they wont accept them and there are no ATM's in Myanmar.....so we loaded up with some cash and headed for Myanmar! The flight was only 1 hour and it was a real treat to eat the airplane food-for real, we had been eating street for weeks! When we arrived we exchanged some money in the market and MAN they weren't kidding when they said only new UNBENT, unmarked US $, we had a very difficult time exchanging money during our trip. Our first stop was Mandalay, a 12 hour bus ride from Yangon. Something else crazy about Myanmar is that all the buses leave at strange times, so you arrive between 3am-4:30AM!!
Myanmar(Burma) is controlled my a military government, their actual elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi, is under house arrest and has been on and off since 1989. The people live in fear of the government, and they are at the mercy of what ever the government feels like implementing. The government makes it very difficult for businesses, as they control the electricity and turn it off at any hour of the day for any length of time. Everyday our power was turned off.
Myanmar is called the Golden Land, and there is a reason- there are SO many Buddhist monasteries and buildings to honor Buddha its insane! The people of Myanmar are so poor, yet they donate so much of their money to build buildings to house Buddha images.

Llegamos a Birmania de la unica manera posible, volando ya que el gobierno cerro todo tipo de conexion terrestre con los paises vecinos y solo hay un punto con Tailandia donde se puede crusar pero gendarmeria se queda con tu pasaporte y te dan un solo dia para conocer y de ahi tenes que volver asique se podria decir que es una alternativa nula.
Volamos a la ex capital Yangon y de ahi el mismo dia tomamos un micro para Mandalay, en donde visitamos los templos y recorrimos la ciudad.
Fuimos a ver el famoso show de los "hermanos bigotes" que son conocidos por hacer humor durante muchos anos de generacion en generacion, pero uno de los hermanos trato de hacer un chiste al gobierno y estuvo en prision varias veces, gracias al apoyo de varios famosos de Hollywood y de otras indoles, en nuestro caso de Maradona, el gobierno lo libero y ahora viven en su casa en arresto domiciliario, toda la familia, haciendo su show exclusivamente para turistas y tratando, siempre con humor, de contar las injusticias que sufre la gente de Birmania dia a dia, como por ejemplo que unicamente tienen electricidad hasta las 11pm la gente normal y la gente del gobierno todo el dia, y tambien que ellos deben pagar para obtener educacion a diferencia de la gente que trabaja para el gobierno que la obtiene de forma gratiuta, esto entre muchas otras cosas que viven, pero la verdad que el show fue muy divertido y pasamos una muy linda noche.
Al otro dia contratamos un conductor que nos llevo a hacer el recorrido alrededor de la ciudad y visitar mas y mas templos y ver el atardecer desde el puente de madera mas largo del mundo.
La verdad que Birmania es un pais muy interesante pero es una lastima que el gobierno haga todo tan dificil tanto para los propios habitantes de Birmania como para los turistas interesados en conocerla.

The bus we thought we were supposed to be on.....turns out, it was the wrong bus and our real bus almost left without us! We did have time to take several pictures of the crazy chandelier.

Streets of Mandalay!

The women carry everything on their heads-amazing balance!

A slow, but nice way to get around town. The people of Myanmar are controlled by a military government and it is hard for them to make any money. This man cycled me around for 4 hours for the going rate of $3.00

Mandalay Hill

The Royal Palace at one time.....they keep moving it around.

We saw several signs like this and a lot of propaganda in their daily newspapers.

The women and children wear traditional makeup on their faces daily.

One of the MANY MANY Buddhas we saw around Myanmar! The people bring gifts to Buddha daily; money, water, food, and flowers.

Scripture

The monks in Myanmar are very friendly. This particular monk was showing me where he was from and giving me advise of places to see on our trip.

The Moustache Brothers, are a family of performers that have been on house arrest for many years after their open opposition to the government. The 3 brothers are comedians while the wives and cousins perform traditional dances. One brother, Par Par Lay has spend many years in hard labor camps for his outspoken opinion of the government. One of the brothers speaks English and he starts the show a little early explaining about the many injustices that the people endure in Myanmar. He is quite funny about it as well, but he encourages the crowd to go back to our home countries and spread the word about whats going on in Myanmar. The government has put the family on house arrest, so they run the shows out of their living room and are only allowed to perform to foreigners.

NO shoes! You have to take your shoes off to go in to see Buddha.....sometimes that requires walking up hills, stairs, dirty floors, and hot floors! All for the love of Buddha!

In the back of our taxi!

Sagaing, a short trip from Mandalay

There are SO many of these stuppas and Monasteries to honor Buddha, they are on top of each other, and just dot the landscape!

You can only get to Inwa by boat, so there is our boat!

There are no cars in Inwa, so this was our taxi!

Bagaya Kyaung, a very old teak monastery

This is Maha Aungmye Bonzan, a brick and stucco monastery dating back to 1822.

Nanmyin, a leaning watch tower 27 meters tall.

Typical house outside of the city

In Amarapura, 11km from Mandalay, this is U Bein's Bridge. Its the longest teak bridge in the world at 1.2 km

Another nice monk stopped to talk to us!

Sunset in Amarapura

Our taxi, notice the writing on the license plate!

Costs in Myanmar(Burma) Myanmar was very expensive compared to other SE Asian countries.
$1.00= 990 Kyats
Guest house=$10-15-breakfast included!(egg, fruit, tea, toast)
Beer=$1.50
Street meal=.50-$3.00
Bus ride(12 hour)=$14.00
Taxi= $1.5-18.00
Temples entry=$10.00 covered each city