Mandalay

French Marion joined up with me in Bangkok and we made our way to a great adventure through the magical and not-so-well-traveled country of Myanmar. We are still in the middle of our journey, but we have had so many adventures I should start telling them now.

We started our trip in the old town of Mandalay. The city is not terribly noteworthy, as it was razed by the Japanese in World War Two and simply rebuilt on top of the ashes of the ancient town that once was. Even so, it was a good place for us to get adjusted to the country a bit before setting on towards other locations.

We both noticed a few things about Myanmar so far that I think are worth sharing:

• People wear yellow makeup: It’s an age-old tradition in Burmese culture to smear a yellow paste on the face for improving the complexion and keeping it healthy (and, I suspect, hidden from the sun); most people we have seen have large yellow patches on their cheeks, noses, and foreheads. Neither of us knew this until we got here, and it was a surprise to see so many yellowed cheeks. We had to look it up to see why the women – and some men – were colored in that way, and even got to try it on ourselves and see if it works on our faces as well.
• Not many tourists yet: Myanmar opened its borders to tourists in 2011 after a couple decades of closed rule. While there are definitely tourists here, it was surprising just how few in numbers we are here. It has been really nice in a lot of ways to go through beautiful areas in the country without feeling suffocated by tourist groups and piles of stupid tourists (oh come on, you know there are always that pile of disrespectful tourists anywhere). As a result, we are considered novel to locals. We are stared at everywhere and people excitedly shout out “HellohowareyouIamfine!” to us when they drive past. Those with smartphones whip them out and take pictures with us to place on their mantels at home. I stopped counting how many people touch and squeeze our arms when they walk by us. We are very much celebrities in Myanmar.The other nice thing about not having a lot of tourists is that the culture has not yet been altered with westernization. The yellow makeup is one example; the fact that everyone (including men) wears long sarongs is another. One person nicely explained to us that the Burmese embrace the opened borders because they are getting more money and business, and we saw many newly-built English schools in Mandalay where people were diligently talking in English, improving their language skills. It has been fascinating to explore.
• But monks everywhere: Not surprisingly, as we are in a Buddhist country, there are Buddhist monks (and nuns) everywhere. So there is that. 
• The food may not be for us: The traditional food in Myanmar we have had so far has left us not so interested in eating traditionally while here. The food is mostly acidic or incredibly sour, like there is a lot of vinegar in the meals. While they are interesting tastes, we have yet found something we have wanted to order more than once. I ordered a chicken curry, for example, that seemed nothing like curry except for the fact that I got rice with it, and I got some chicken meat. Instead, it was eight plates of other things that were not chicken or what I know to be curry, and all had me wondering what it was exactly I was putting in my mouth.
• What’s your nation?: When we are walking around those who interact with us (eg, just by saying hi or trying to sell us stuff) asks us for our nations. Whenever I respond with, “the US”, they smile and excitedly say, “Oh! Obama! Good good!” Some will remind me that Obama visited Myanmar, as well, and make sure I like Obama as they do. Thanks Obama, for making people like me more in this country. When Marion says, “France”, in response, they always quickly retort with a, “BonJOUR!” 
• No one walks much: This one has been a bit of a bother for us – people do not walk around outside much. Marion and I like to walk to explore new areas and better understand our surroundings, but it seems to have made people very concerned about our wellbeing. Scores of people drive by us on their cars and motorbikes asking us if we’re alright and why we are not in a car. Many have offered to drive us somewhere else. We insist that, really, we are alright and just like walking. As a response to our insistence, they often decide that we are actually just exercising, and they not approvingly and drive off…only to soon after have another concerned driver asking if we are okay. Sure enough, we have not viewed many Burmese walking streets anywhere in our travels, and are often alone on the dirt paths that resemble vaguely a sidewalk.

Mandalay is not such a hopping city for visiting and we were not overwhelmed before we continued into the country. That said, we did a number of interesting things, including visiting a lot of pagodas and temple areas that cover the country and town everywhere. That will be the running theme of the trip in Myanmar, we’ve realized.

Our first evening in Mandalay took us confusedly in one temple with oddly-shaped stupas and Buddha displays for several city blocks. It also had (when we were walking through) a movie screening of one of the many older versions of the Monkey King that looked beyond surreal.

One morning we walked to the jade market in Mandalay. Once walking through dirty paths, we found ourselves in a deep set of stalls that held hundreds of huge jade slabs. Jades of all colors – green, white, purple, red – and other valuable stones were being sold there, and a loud workshop where the jade is polished and cut sat inside the open stalls and buzzed as we walked through. I was shocked to realize we were the only tourists in the area shopping for jade. After a haggle with one woman (and us being assisted by two older Burmese men in talking her down in price), we walked out triumphant.

That day we also walked around the large palace grounds in the middle of the city. The palace is surrounded by a square moat and heavy walls. Much to our surprise, the large 4 square kms of grounds within the moat area was mostly guarded territory and forbidden to tourists. The tourist-friendly area where the palace sits - in the middle - was small and intimate. The palace was nice and simple, but it had worn with time and restoration is not so prevalent in the country yet. We walked some more to visit some of the pagodas and payas in the area, including a beautiful shrine with the largest book in the world written on huge marble blocks housed in rows and rows of stupa-like structures.

We finished the day with a car ride to the top of Mandalay Hill to watch the sunset.

There are eccentricities in Myanmar that are hard to explain, but one of them included the 3-story free-standing escalator you have to take to get to the top of the hill’s temple for the sunset viewing. At the bottom of the escalators, you take off your shoes (shoes are not allowed in most places here), and you stand on the tall, winding escalators up the thin towers, and pray. Sure, you could pray because there is a Buddha statue nearby, but we prayed that the frightening escalators would take us up (and later, down) safely.

After a few days of quietly walking through Mandalay, we woke up one morning bright and early to climb onto our leisurely-moving barge that would take us 10 hours down the river to the ancient area of Bagan.