Traveling to Burma with a 17 month old is not for the faint
of heart.
The idea to travel to Burma started in 2010 when they opened
their borders, allowing the Burmese to explore the world and in reverse, allow
others to experience their country. I believe it is because of this late
acceptance of tourists in this Southeastern Asian country, that is has remained
culturally rich and a place resistant to the changes of our current,
fast-paced, consumer oriented, and slowly homogenizing world.
I should preface that my husband spent nearly two months
collecting facts, papers, and 42 emails in an attempt to get our visas for our
family of three. He did forget about Beck’s, but was gently (ha!) reminded by
me that Beck probably needed one too. This spurred the last 20 or so emails and
Beck’s was presumably ready for our arrival.
I’ll glaze over the driving, waiting in airports, and the
actual flights, as few want to hear about how long you had to do this for. Just
remember that it is in-between these paragraphs, and let me remind you, we have
a 1.5 year old that is extremely verbal, has a passion for refusing naps, has a strong
leaning toward cranky when he doesn’t get said naps, is determined, stubborn, and
like all toddlers, active.
We arrive in the Mandalay International airport. At this
point, we are that family that no one really wants to make eye-contact with due
to our verbal (this sounds nicer than loud) toddler. We follow the sea of
people, noticing that there seems to be a fair amount of distance that fellow
travelers are keeping from us. The flow of people slows around customs. This is
the moment of truth. The haves and the have-nots. The group diverges. Those
looking so smug and confident that they had done their research, and then the
group that is furiously rechecking the papers they have. We fend for ourselves with
the latter of the groups in a small and quite crowded room. Within seconds, we
find ourselves swarmed with at least 10 Burmese visa officials crying “Baby,
baby!” and trying to hold Beck. I look
at him, throwing an all too familiar tantrum, and don’t hesitate. I hand him
over. He quiets, laughs, and then plays with them contentedly for the duration of
our time in the visa office. With the nicest, most genuine smile I have seen in
a long time, the visa lady asks where one of the forms is in the already huge,
disorganized pile of papers that I had handed over. I look at her, panic in my
heart. “Don’t send us back. Please,” I am thinking. I tell her, no we don’t
have the paper in question. She smiles, and offers me her phone to call our
visa agent. Feeling ill-prepared at not having his number, I have to ask her if
I could use her computer to look online for it. She looks at me, smile fading.
Concerned she says, “No internet.” This is the airport. There is no internet in
the airport. No. Internet. This is where I fall in love with Burma.
After a couple of hours of trying to sort this out, and many
conversations about sending us back to Bangkok to see out our holiday, they
shrug and say, “No problem, don’t worry,” and give us our full page visas, sans
photo and a few other important pieces of information. I notice that our visas
say they were issued on February 16th and valid until February 16th.
If this works for them, I won’t point it out. They are letting us in, however
illegally. I think they just like our baby.
We have plans to fly from Mandalay to Bagan after our two
day stay in Mandalay and it is protocol to pick these up in the airport a few
days before. Two hours behind schedule, we head over to the lone man standing
behind the Air Mandalay counter to ask to pick up our tickets. He leads us past
bag security, past a desolate airport check-in, and into a homey room with a
few other friendly and excited tourists from Seattle. There seem to be a lot of
tourists from Seattle landing in Burma. They are trying to make small talk,
while I ignore them and scan the room for one of those small credit card
machines to indicate they will take my card. My hopes are feeble and for the reasons
I fell in love with Burma, I am realizing it is going to be the reason that I
shake my fist at it. Intense love that proves the most challenging, is the most
worthwhile and rewarding though, so I am not deterred and am ready for them
when they inform us “cash only.” Now, I knew it was a cash only country, but
for the same reason I thought they would have internet, I thought they would
take credit in the airport. The problem with cash in Burma is that it is hard
to get it. The cash needs to be USD, the serial numbers cannot include AB, AC,
or CD (thanks to North Korea trying to launder money a few years back), they
need to be printed after 2003, and of course, flawless in every way. You are
supposed to arrive with the amount you will spend, as there are only a few ATMs
in the biggest cities of Mandalay and Yangon and the banks, strangely, don’t
have cash. What the banks do, I am yet to suss out. We leave without our
tickets, but with promises by Air Mandalay that they will hold our places on
the plane for us if we will bring them the money two hours before the flight. In
Asia, they tend to tell you what you want to hear, but I truly believe them. The
Burmese are honest in their want to help.
We are down but not out at this point. We head to the taxis.
I hand one of the many that swarm our address. He says, “Not Mandalay.” I shake
my head, not willing to believe this. I move to the next taxi man. He shakes
his head, “Not Mandalay.” I assume they are reading it wrong. Next driver.
“Oooh. Three hour drive. Not Mandalay.” The problem about hotels in Burma: you
have to organize these months in advance. With the new influx of tourism in the
last three years, they haven’t had time to catch up and there are just too many
tourists for the amount of hotels. It’s a bottleneck effect. They are almost
always fully booked. Most of them were fully booked two months ago. This is
where I feel like we may be properly screwed. A hint of dejection settles in.
My love falters. No visas, no flight, no hotel. I know my love is strong though. It can
get through this. They are all very willing to help. Picking up their phones,
they are all trying to find a place for us. Time and time again they echo
“fully booked,” but there is one driver that finds one hotel with one room left.
Without missing a beat, we take it, hop in his car, and make the hour drive to
our hotel. In that hour I settle into how incredible it truly is here.
Up until this point, I had only seen the airport. Now I am
seeing Burma. People are paving the
roads…by hand. I mean, literally by hand. Older women are crushing the rocks,
stirring the tar, laying the gravel using their hands. We drive by farmland,
huts, cows pulling plows.
The driver honks the horn and Beck laughs. The driver
laughs. The tourists we are sharing the ride with laugh. This repeats for the
duration of the ride. So. Much. Love.
Once we hit the roundabout, it turns full on. Mandalay is a
city. A busy city with people buying, making, and living their lives like they
do in any other city, except it seemed to be standing still in modernity. There
aren’t any western franchises, tall buildings, or stop lights. The roads are
dusty. Pot-holed. Perfect.
Our hotel is in the heart of the city. It has *gasp*
internet! It includes breakfast. It is moderately clean. They serve beer. It is
all we ask for in a hotel and then some. The desk points us in the direction of
a place to eat. We ask for a map, they laugh. “Just walk that way. You will
find it,” and we do. In seeming contrast to all things Burmese, the streets are
extremely well marked and organized. We are the only tourists we see on the
walk. Actually, we only see four other tourists in our two day stay in
Mandalay, outside of our hotel. Because of this, we stand out. Really, Beck
stands out. A fair-skinned, blond, blue-eyed baby in a Kelty backpack isn’t a
sight they see often. Everyone that we walk by stops, points, smiles, and
wants to play with him. He loves it. When we got to our restaurant, we order
one meal each, and receive 15 bowls of currys, rice, and soup for $5. For two
and a half people. I thought something must be lost in translation but, this is how
they serve meals here. We get Beck out of his backpack and are preparing to
eat a meal like one does with a toddler, disastrously, the waiters swoop down,
pick him up and play with him the entire time. They teach him how to
write in Burmese and show him off to the cooks. Josh and I have a
conversation. I could get used to this.
And so went our stay in Mandalay.
I go for a run and find myself soaking in the local
morning routines. Monks take my
picture. I wander through a market of homemade sausages, shark, stalls
selling army gear, spices, art. The streets are full of old bicycles and cars from
the 60’s, reminiscent of an Orwellian era.
With the help of our hotel, we find the one ATM in Mandalay
that would recognize our American debit card. Things are working out. Flights
to Bagan, check.
Bagan. One of the most beautiful and pristine places I have
yet to see. In an attempt to describe a place that holds its own, the best I
can say is that it is slightly reminiscent of Angkor Wat’s spirituality, with the laid back, untouched feel of Luang Prabang, Laos. Their
bright red mouths stained from betel nut reminds one of India. The dirt roads
are groomed, lined with temples, pagodas, and stupas. In its time, between the
11th and 13th century, there were 10,000 Buddhist
temples. Over 2,000 remain with another 2,000 under renovation after an
earthquake in 1975.
We hire a driver, U Aung, to take us to so many temples
and pagodas that we lose count. They are as beautiful inside as out. Along
with massive, gold Buddhas, they have the original paintings, doors, and bricks
poking out of the necessary renovations. Eventually, we have to call a nap hour
for Beck though. We make plans for U Aung to pick us up in the late afternoon
so we could see Bagan at sunset. After going back to our hotel, laying Beck
down in his bed of blankets, and drinking a much deserved beer on a hot day, we
start to waver about leaving the quiet of the moment. This was the climax of
our trip though. We rally. No rest for the weary. When our driver arrives, I
scoop a sleepy Beck up and set off.
Our driver takes us to a remote pagoda, off the dirt path that already had little, to no traffic. He meets
up with his friend that unlocks the doors for us and lead us inside with
flashlights in the quiet dark, spotting Buddhas recessed into the walls. Light is
shining through the windows. If I were the type to believe, this is where one
could find religion. Even Beck quieted. There is peace in this place.
Truly, there aren’t going to be the right words to describe
the sunsets, the temples, the inherent kindness of the people, and the slow,
peaceful way of this place. If you do find yourself in Burma, tread lightly and
appreciate the kind soul of this country.
Love.
