Thingjan continues...

From what I understood, Thingjan, the Buddhist New Year here in Myanmar, was a three-day holiday. We're at the end of day four, and from what I see, there's no signs of things dying down.  Most the businesses are still closed and people still are throwing water on each other. Wild stuff.

Myanmar New Year Water Festival!

It's Thingjan!  (pronounced TINGjan, with a heavy aspiration on that first 'T')

The Buddhist New Year, and the biggest holiday of the year in Myanmar, Thailand and Sri Lanka amongst other places.  Was told that everything is shut down for these three days, and so I'm well stocked up with hot dogs, bread, cup-o-noodles and potato chips in case I have to eat at home, but this morning, I decided to head off in search of food anyways to see what was up.

Thingjan is a water festival.  Along with visiting family and wishing one another an auspicious new year, THingjan is about dousing complete strangers with ice cold water, something that really ain't so bad this time of the year, the height of the hot, dry season here.  It's a 103 degrees and you're going to throw water on me?  Can't complain.

As I ventured out to experience, and of course, document this holiday, I had my camera in a clear plastic bag, ready for the water play.  Thing is, Thingjan is aa three-day event. Day one is supposed to be for the children. It's their day to douse the adults and each other with water. Sure enough, feet from my condo door, there was a little girl with her dad, tossing buckets of water on anyone within range.

Except me.

I made it to the main road seeing similar threats of water abuse, but I didn't get wet. Got to one of my favorite restaurants, had brunch, watched as the kids from the restaurant assaulted passers-by with their water guns, but they left me, a paying customer, alone.

Got all the way home without getting wet.

What the fuck?

This is my first Songkran (the Thai name for this holiday)/Thingjan, and I've read multiple accounts from folks online who plan on holing up in their apartments and avoiding the chaos of the next three (now two) days.  They made it sound like walking out your door was like taking your into your own hands.

Here now I'd been out and didn't even get wet.  What I think happened is that yes, the first part of the day was for the children. As I walked down the street, me being a big, older, male foreigner by myself, I cut an intimidating figure.  None of the kids had the guts to be the first to spray me.  Just by me being me, I scared them

After brunch, an hour or two later, I realized I needed something. Back out to the street.  This time, again I wasn't wettened until a passing 'party truck', sponsored by Pepsi, caught me with a passing glance of spray.

That was all it took.  The gloves were off.  In trying to get to the neighborhood mom & pop store (the only thing open on the holiday), I had to get past a water terrorist station populated by a gang of underage hydrodemons. They came after me once I was in sight.  By feinting one way and going another, I isolated one kid on one side of a parked truck with only him and his bucket keeping me from dryness and freedom.  I charged.

He lifted his bucket as I got to him.  I took it from his hands. Turned it the other way and poured it on him.  HA! I may be old and slow, but I'm bigger and smarter than you, kid!

Unfortunately, this turn of events took a few seconds, which was all his cohort needed to come to his aid.  I got doused. Soaked.  Drenched.

Walked into the store moments later wringing the wetness from my shirt.

I can't wait until tomorrow when all the pretenses of this holiday being 'for the kids' are gone.

If You Can't Beat Em; Join Em!

As I mentioned in the video tour of my neighborhood, the monastery half a block from my place is the center of this corner of the Hledan Market community. Every morning at 7 AM, they play music and prayers over their substantial sound system, which I don't mind as I'm usually up earlier than that. Today though, their sound system reached new levels at the hands of a skilled deejay. The bass rattled my windows. Made the floor shake. I couldn't really do any of my audio/video editing stuff I've been doing all day today. So, I went next door, grabbed the neighbor kid who waters my plants and said, “you, you're going to be my cameraman!” and headed off to the monastery.


Sure enough, there was a stage set up, from which I'm going to hear more of later tonight. I walked up on stage and asked for a mic. If you can't beat em, join em!

Day Two: Snorkeling, Shopping, Ukulele and Fire Dancers

Who remembers the film Castaway with Tom Hanks? A big plot point in that story was getting his improvised raft past the crashing surf. I've been to lotsa beaches in my life. I've played in the water in all of them. When calm, like in Phuket and the north coast of Java, I floated around in the water and peacefully enjoyed the ocean. In place like California, the South of Bali and recently, Ngwe Saung here in Myanmar, when there were big waves coming in, I got to bodysurf, that fun activity where you let your body be taken into shore like a surfboard would be. You get to feel completely outta control as the crashing wave twists and turns you completely beyond any ability for you to manipulate. Good fun.


Big waves are fun coming in. If you're trying to get a boat out, different story. I didn't get it on video because I knew my camera might get wet, but `getting our 5 person canoe out past the the crashing waves was an experience as Tom-Hanks-Castaway as I will ever experience. I commend the crew for their sense of timing of the waves and their rowing skills. Otherwise, This is Burma #11 would have never commenced.





Let's see if I can get it uploaded before this internet cafe closes...

Ngwe Saung Beach

Quaint. Off-the-beaten path. Clean. Friendly. I'm at the end of my first full day here at Ngwe Saung, a little beach resort town on Myanmar's Bay of Bengal coast, and these are just a few of the adjectives I could use to describe this place. Relaxed, unspoiled, accommodating and different come to mind as well

One month and a day after arriving in Yangon, I had my first opportunity to get out of town and see some more of this beautiful country. I didn't get to see much of it on the ride here as I took the night bus, but enough to note this part of Myanmar, so close to the largest city, isn't all that full of people. The view out the darkened windows was mostly black, with an occasional candle or lantern burning in isolated shacks.

It's about 100 miles as the crow flies from Yangon to Ngwe Saung; the trip took five and a half hours. We left at 9:30 PM and arrived at 3 in the morning. Allowing for a half hour rest break, that's still an average of 20 mph. It wasn't traffic; it was the roads. There's no direct way from the former capital, and we ended up zigzagging our way through the Irriwaddy delta. All two-lane, very bumpy highways.

Arriving at 3 AM anywhere is a little disorienting, so you can imagine what it felt like rolling into an isolated community in Burma without even a companion who could speak Burmese. Could I check into my hotel at 3 AM? Usually you can't check in until 11 AM; that's sorta a worldwide standard. As the only expensive part of this trip thus far has been the price of the rooms ($30/night may not sound like a lot by western standards, but most places in the Third World, a room like I got would cost half that or less), I really didn't want to pay for an initial night's stay. I thought I would find a cafe in the village, or just chill on the beach until a reasonable hour to ask to check in.

Umm... No. No such thing. The village of Ngwe Saung isn't awake at 3 AM, but apparently, the hotels are used to people arriving from Yangon at that hour.
They put me up in another room for free (at least they said it was free; if it's on my bill at check out, I'll be pissed off)

Slept in a bit, and on awakening, stumbled down the beach a 20 second walk from my room.

Wow. The azure seas, the white sands, the coconut trees, the complete absence of anyone else that I could see completely took my breath away. The water was warm and clean. Not bathtub warm, not uncomfortably warm, it was just right. Goldilocks temperature.


In fact, I thought about Goldilocks today as I considered my choice in coming here. As for a vacation, I certainly could have gone a more ambitious, and expensive trip. I coulda stayed home and explored Yangon. I think I picked the choice that was just right. I'm sure there are sleepier beach towns than this here in Myanmar and all over the world. I've been to Pattaya, Phuket and Bali which are on the other extreme and overdeveloped. My choice of coming here was just right. There are three resort towns here on this coast of Myanmar. Haven't been to the other two, but Ngapali is the most famous, serviced by an airport and somewhat popular with international tourists. It's very posh and expensive there. Just up the coast from here is ________ -________, the most popular weekend getaway for the locals, less expensive than here but, from what I've read, a bit dirty and crowded. Ngwe Saung falls between these two extremes and so far, has been just right. The Goldilocks destination.


After a nice breakfast, I rented a motorcycle and set out to explore the town. Visited a pagoda, found myself on some pretty rough roads, had some delicious fruit. It's all in the video at the end. I really wanted to set up a snorkling trip. Found a place and got that set up for tomorrow. At lunch, I hooked up with my travelling companions, made our way to the fishing village south of here and drove back on the beach. My thanks to the guy at the gas station who also had the pressure washer. I didn't want to roll into my hotel with a bike I'd rented encrusted in sand.


So, that's it for day one. Tomorrow, it's off to do something I haven't done in 24 years: snorkeling on a tropical reef. It's like swimming in an aquarium.


For now, it's time for a midnight swim.

A Visit to the Drugs Elimination Museum

There's a spectacular building pretty much right next door to where I teach. There doesn't seem to be a lot going on there. The huge grounds are modestly maintained.  I don't see anyone going in or coming out. It's kinda mysterious.  Turns out, it's the Yangon Drugs Elimination Museum, and after talking about it with a new friend and fellow teacher, she invited me to visit it with her.  A unique experience...

At the YaCHt Club with no Yachts

Today is the first day of my one month Myanmar New Year break, and we've certainly gone into it with a bang. The last two nights have been very musical. The music stirs something in me. Part of me just wants to spend the next month sitting in my room, practicing my ukulele and guitar playing and just enmeshing myself in music. It's self-contagious, this music thing. The more you do it, the more you want to do it.

Two nights ago, I made my performance debut here in Myanmar. It was at a hotel bar. I was there with a few new friends, and there was a band up on stage that was alternating between several singers. “Well,” I thought, “as long as they're alternating singers, why can't I be part of the rotation?” So, I asked if I could sing and they let me.

I guess I did okay because soon afterwards, I got requests. This is a picture of the note that was sent to our table from the adjacent table, asking me to sing their favorites. I was honored and humbled to get this note. I'd already sung one of the songs on the list (before they'd gotten there), and I think I eventually did Let It Be (the specifics of two nights ago are kinda hazy now), but if I were to dedicate my song from next night, last night, it would be to the guy who sent me the note. It made me feel appreciated and honored to have 'a fan', and sewed a seed in my head for the CCR tune on the list. 

Last night, we went to the yacht club on Yangon's Inya Lake. At least, it was called a yacht club. There was nary a yacht to be seen. Indeed, the site was on one of Yangon's scenic lakes, but no one would moor a yacht on a city lake, right?

Initially, I was taken via taxi to the wrong yacht club. A friend had written the name of the place I was going in phonetic and Burmese script on a slip of paper. Before I showed it to the driver, I did my best pronouncing what was written, but was not understood. As usual. The subtleties of verb tone and the very different consonants here makes it very hard for a non-native to be understood, even if you 'know' the words. In the end, I showed the slip of paper to the taxi driver who seemed quite confident he knew where it was. I got in the cab, and when I said the words again in his language, he graciously repeated them, allowing me to hear how I'd spoken incorrectly. Eventually, he said in English, “ah yes, the yaCHt club”, making the CH sound in the middle of the word. Since he was so kind as to correct my pronounciation, I thought I'd do the same.


“It might be confusing with that 'CH' spelling in there,” I told him, “but we actually say it yahht.”


“You are from America?” he asked.

“Yes.”


“Well, that's the American way of saying it.”

I didn't feel the need to argue the point.

Even then, he dropped me off at the wrong yachtless yacht club. When I eventually found the place (it was a quarter mile down the road), the venue was beautiful and I got to hear one of the more interesting musicians I've ever heard in my life: a singing violin player.


See, you don't think of violinists as vocalists. Seems to me that is inherently difficult to play the violin and sing at the same time. You need the chin to hold the instrument in place, right? This guy proved me wrong.In doing so, his misuse in a single lyric of both 'was/were' and 'in/on' made me cringe as an English teacher.


I talked to him during one of their breaks, mentioned I thought I could CCR pretty well, and he invited me up on stage to sing with him Wow. My performance debut here in Yangon continued into a second evening. 



In other news, I've called off the ambitious trip onto the roads less traveled that I talked about a couple blogs ago.  It's too iffy and too expensive.  I got lots I can do right here in Yangon, including doing the more well beaten path up to Mandalay and Bagan, for which I can plan more readily and understand the costs involved.  The trip down the peninsula was confusing and difficult.  

I also want to take much of the next month to learn the local language.  I've purchased a very nice book called Burmese for Beginners. I have practice partners anyplace I go as the Burmese love to laugh at my attempts are speaking their difficult language.  Just tonight, the entire waitstaff of a nearby restaurant stood at attention while I rattled off: "Ti', Hni', Thon:, Lei:, Nga... (one, two, three, etc.). They were smiling ear to ear and when I finished my onr to ten with no mistakes and without looking at my book, I too felt proud. 

Yeah, been here a month and only now do I know my numbers.  Pretty bad, really.  That said, one of my regrets from my time in Thailand is that I didn't learn more of the language.  I lived there almost a year, and in that time, I learned maybe 70 words or so.  Certainly not enough to carry on a conversation.  I don't want to have learned so little a year from as I did in Thailand. Both languages are hard to learn, but I think I'll do better this time.