The beach is located northwest from Yangoon, on the coast which further north becomes Bangledesh. Getting to the beach was an ordeal and a half, but I have an even better travel story coming up later and I don't want to fill this travel log with endless bus stories! The bus pulled into Ngapali at 7am and I went right to bed.
When I finally woke up and looked around it was quite an amazing sight. A wide strip of soft white sand stretching over 3km, lined with cocanut-laden palm trees on one side and gentle white-caped surf on the other. The waves just big enough to do a little body surfing but not so big that you can't enjoy a swim. And the most amazing sight: only four hotels and guesthouses along the entire length, and fewer than 10 western tourists and handfull of Burmese tourists. Our second night we were invited to join a Chinese family in their "last night of vacation" celebration on the beach. They had a bonfire, a huge spread of food, and cool kids. They had been on the bus with me coming in and remembered my guitar (its a miracle it survived!) so they asked me to play. Soon everyone was up and dancing around the bonfire -- from the timid 10 year old son with glasses to his giggly 16 year old sister and even the Mom and Dad!
My lazy days there were a good time to catch up on sleep, drink lots of tea, write in my journal, and go for midnight swims. At night the stars above were incredibly bright, and so thickly filled the sky that the silhoette of palm trees could be plainly seen against them. This beach had one more special surpirse for us: There were stars below too! A stream of phosphorescent plankton would light up behind any movement in the water, making the simple act of dragging your hand across the surface a scene of incredible beauty. And as I would tread water, the light kicked from my feet would surround my whole body in a soft glow. This really was paradise!
That's right, it took us 14 hours to cover 75 miles! The roads in Myanmar the worst I've seen in Asia. Never more than a lane wide, so whenever there's an oncoming vehicle both have to stop and move onto the shoulder. Or if you're going through the mountains like we were, there would be some talking between the drivers and one of the vehicles would have to back up. They are never paved, and so full of dips and potholes that sleep is impossible. On my previous the bus ride to Ngapali from Yangoon, the bus had a man on board whose sole duty was to get out of the bus at every bridge with his hammer and some wood to make any needed repairs before the bus would cross!
It was dark, hot, and smelly in the Pyay bus center. Nothing was open, and the only people around were a few drunks and some bus company owners sleeping outside their offices, i.e. a cement room with a bus parked out front. It was clear we weren't catching a bus to Bagan anytime soon, and it was unclear if there would be a bus to Bagan at all! After a little sleep on a wooden bench the sky lightened and the bus companies began to open. We learned that the only option was to take a bus to Kyapadong and then hope for a bus to Bagan from there. With lot's of hand gesturing and maps we bought our ticket and were on the bus at 10am.
The scene was unreal. The rice bags were piled so high down the aisle that you literally had to crawl back to your row and then slide into your seat. The space beneath the seat was filled with wooden boxes and even more rice bags so that your feet rested only inches below the seat and your knees were forced into the air. The bus was overflowing even by Asian standards--three people to some seats, people doulbed up in the aisle, men hanging out the door. I found a little extra space by putting my arm outside the window. Eleven hours later when we pulled into Kyapadong at 9pm I was a wreck. I had run out of places on my butt to shift my weight and the air was thick with humidity from the recent rains. The rains also caused the windows on the bus to be closed, and the air inside smelled like you would expect with 60 people crammed into such a small space for so long. A little asking around revealed that there was no bus to Bagan until morning. Fighting to stay awake, with no other options, and with a lot of help from the kind Burmese people, we arranged to hire a taxi to take us the final hour into Bagan. We arrived shortly after 11pm that night -- 36 hours after leving Ngapali -- and I slept like I have never slept before!
Until 1989 Bagan was known as Pagan. The word "Pagan" came into the English language when the British came to this city of temples.
It was a place for contemplation and a good time to reflect on the past three months of travel and on what I had seen and learned. Every day we would wake up at 4:00 to arrive at a temple for sunrise. The day was spent walking through the halls of the larger ones, sometimes stopping for a nap in when it was unbearably hot outside. Evenings were spent on a temple's upper rim watching the sun set over the distant mountain range.
From that vantage point on the top of the temple, I could see the whole of Bagan lit up and cast in stark shadows by the setting sun. Red brick temples in every direction. A few of the bigger ones were painted white, and a few of those had gold-gilded domes and spires that flashed in the sun. Temple spires of all sizes stuck out of the flat earth like cactus thorns, coating the plains around me and up to the river's edge. On the distant green hills a few more temples could be seen, their characteristic spire-on-dome shape silhoetted against the pink sky. It truly was an awe inspiring sight. I stayed in my perch through a sandstorm, gale-force winds, and a thunderstorm -- watching fog clouds pass over the wide Irrawaddy river, the sun's rays shining through the sand swirling in the sky, the erie shadows of the temples, and flashes of lightning over the mountains beyond the river. It's little wonder they picked this spot for their places of worship.
The people are incredible friendly and hospitable. The fellow seated next to me on one of those 13 hours bus rides would regular buy drinks and goodies from the vendors outside the bus windows and give them to Mihaela and me, even though he didn't speak a word of English and all I could give in return was a smile.
For over half a century Myanmar (formerly Burma) has been bloodied and bowed by dictators, militia governments, rebel factions and drug barons. Successive dictators have tried (but failed) to extinguish any notion of democracy by arresting entire parliaments, imprisoning Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, brutally supressing any dissenting voices and using slave labour to prop up a failing economy. But as Myanmar moves into the 21st century, abandoning its isolationist and socialist politics for economic pragmatism, its pariah status in the western world has become an economic liability. The ruling junta is trying to perfect the juggling act of wooing foreign investment while simultaneously mantaining its vice-like grip on power. Revolutionists are split between maintaining the revolutionary rage and settling for food on the table.
Myanmar is far from the easiest or most comfortable country in Asia to visit, but it has some magical sights, incredibly friendly people and offers a glimpse of a bizarre, inept Orwellian society that has withdrawn from contact with the late 20th century. Because of the government's clampdown on outside influences it is one of the least Western-influenced countries in the world. Many people mistake this for quaintness, but don't let this blind you to the political realities that created this situation.
When I checked email I was in for a wonderful surprise: Nele and Katrien, the Flemish twins that Jason and I traveled through Laos with, were in Chiang Mai as well! I met them for dinner and was quickly talked into joining them the next morning for my first ever bungie jump!
|
The first few meters of the jump you feel fine: you've been in the air this long jumping into swimming pools before. (Or waterfalls!) But a second later your body realizes that you're still falling . . . something's wrong! I'll be perfectly honest, it's terrifying! But then the rope begins to slow your fall and stops you just as your hands dip into the lake that just seconds before had been 50 meters away! To achieve this tensional accuracy, the bungie jump operators had to weigh me before the jump. This gave me a final surprise: I had lost nearly 30 pounds! Yikes! Unfortunately, I had to rush back to Bangkok to catch the flight to the next leg of my adventure. It was time to visit the land of my birth: Deutchland!
|
|