Monsoon Rains

The hours of sunlight I experienced during my one week visit to Myanmar total 3. I am entirely confident in this number because my jetlag was such that I woke up before the sun was presumably rising and fell asleep after it had presumably set. However, I never saw a sunrise or a sunset through the dark monsoon rain clouds.

This was a little disappointing because the big thing to see in Yangon is the Shwedagon Pagoda which apparently is beautiful at sunset. So we waited for a day when there was a sunset to see it, and such a day never arrived (we went on our last day instead).

Every time I left the hotel, I was handed an umbrella. I think there was someone employed by the hotel whose only job was to hand out umbrellas to everyone. I brought a rain coat but it was so humid I couldn't imagine putting anything long sleeved on. So umbrellas it was- everywhere.

The nice thing about a rainy rainy place, is that foot fashion just cannot matter. Everyone must wear flip flops at all times- that is simply the only reasonable option. You are constantly stepping in mud and puddles- so you step in mud and your feet get gross, and then you step in a puddle and they're clean again. No squeaky wet shoes- boots would be filled with sweat moments after putting them on- so flip flops it is.

According to my colleagues, it rains for about 5 months of the year- and the rain is particularly heavy for two months (July-August). Sometimes colleagues in monsoon climates ask me when it rains in the US and I never have an adequate answer. I guess according to poem there are showers in Aprils that bring flowers in May (and then Pilgrims!) but by no stretch of the imagination could we call April a rainy season. It rains in a totally unpredictable fashion in the US. Sometimes I try to explain "maybe it rains on Monday and Thursday but not any other day that week" and that usually doesn't work, and then I try "you have to watch the weather channel every morning to know if it's going to rain or not". Again, not a ton of success. One nice thing about the monsoon rains in Myanmar is that you never have to wonder- it will most certainly rain multiple times every day.

I think that in rainy places, people are much more aware of the skies. It is entirely possible that I am abnormally oblivious to my environment but I almost never know when it's going to rain. However, people in Myanmar seem to get some sort of signal for a five minute warning. Change in wind? Pressure shift? Sky color? I don't know what it is but you really don't see people "caught in the rain without an umbrella".

There was a pool boy at my hotel- and as far as I could tell, his job consisted of sweeping the pool deck and then putting out and removing the lounge chair cushions 100 times a day. If there was a small period of no rain, the cushions all went out, and then magically, 30 seconds before the rain began to fall again, he would put them all back. I started taking my cues for impending downpours from him.

Rain Rain Go Away
Come Again Another Day (season)
(Not so) Little Laura Wants To Play (or just walk in dry shoes)
Rain Rain Go Away

No Motorcycles

Rumor has it that once upon a time a high-ranking official in Yangon was hit by a motorcycle and subsequently outlawed them. Another rumor contends that in a fit of paranoia regarding the ease of attack on caravans via motorcycles, the government outlawed them.  Which ever, if any, is true- one thing is for sure, there are no motorcycles in Yangon.

This may not seem so weird in the US where there are so few motorcycles anyway (possibly owing to our climate and relative wealth). But elsewhere in the developing world, motorcycles are ubiquitous.

I love a motorcycle free city! The pollution seems noticeably less, I don't have to contend with motorcycle taxis for transit (scary!), I don't have to see accidents nearly every day, and it feels safer to cross the street when people aren't zipping between lanes and around vehicles. I could get used to this lovely, if weird, policy.

Ladies or Gents

As is the cutesy custom all over the world,  instead of a sign at my hotel, they have a piece of art to distinguish the men's room from the women's room. Only problem is that it was entirely unclear to me which of these dolls was the man and which was the woman. I stared for an awkward amount of time until a staff person pointed me in the right direction.

On makeup and travel...

On long international flights- the most delightful thing in the world upon take off are those hot towels that get passed around and the best possible thing you can do with them is to rub them all over your face. Perhaps even better is when you're in a hot country and they bring the cool towels- again to be immediately smeared all over your face. These operations cannot be done if you are wearing makeup. I think the airlines frown upon giant black smudges on their warm/cool towels.

Also- you're supposed to look bad, you're on a long international flight-- make up will not fix this.

Rock the skirt

So Myanmar has officially been "opened up" for like 32 seconds and here I am. I made the mistake the first time someone asked me "is this your first time in Myanmar?" admitting that no, I crossed the border from Thailand once to renew my visa. Decidedly not a good thing to share.

Anyway, I'm in Yangon, the capital. Formerly Rangoon, like the crab.

My first and most salient impression is that all the men still wear traditional skirts. I love this. They are called "longyi" which I haven't heard pronounced yet but would like to think sounds like "longy" as opposed to "shorty". These are long, ankle length skirts.

It seems like a pretty practical get-up. One-size-fits-all, tied-around-the-waist long cotton skirts. Businessmen with pressed white collared shirts tucked in to skirts, teenagers in baggy tee-shirts with skirts, soccer players shirtless with a shortened skirt.  This may be one of the last places on earth where Western dress has not taken over (yet).

(wish I could take credit for this picture but haven't taken my camera out yet, thanks google images)

Not Africa

This blog is called Laura in Africa -- some day I will merge this blog with Laura in Thailand Laura in Morocco and Laura in Guyana and just call it "Laura in Places". However, until that time I'm breaking the rules and blogging from Asia.


(while I'm breaking geographic rules, someone just reminded me that once upon a time I guest-blogged on a brilliant friend's blog from Palestine: check it out)

BYOB on a plane

One more thing that fascinates me- preflight announcements on different airlines.  I feel like I've written about this before but my cursory scan didn't locate the post so no link.

The safety messages for airlines should be pretty standard, right? Most airlines are using the same planes, flying to the same places, and are theoretically subject to the same emergency situations.  But it is not so.

European airlines tend to teach about the "Brace Position" for crashing (which according to an infallible source, the Liam Nieson movie where someone gets eaten by a wolf every 2 minutes, bracing before a crash actually just causes your neck to snap).

Brussels Airways added one gem to their pre-flight instructions which was a stern warning that the only booze you're allowed to consume on board is that served to you by your flight attendants.  Is this that big an issue?  People BYOB onto a plane?

Border Border

Well I'll be.  Apparently the Boda Boda (motorcycle taxi) gets its name from its original purpose which was to transport people across the border to Kenya.  So people would stand on the side of the road and wait for a motorcycle to drive by and yell "Border?" to see if they could hitch a ride.  This turned into "border? border?" and was corrupted into Boda Boda which now take you anywhere, not just the border.  Pretty nifty, huh?  Thank you taxi driver Israel for this piece of enlightenment.

I took a Boda Boda again, this time with a friend on the back (somehow I felt safer sandwiched in the middle) while I was carrying a coffee in one hand and groceries in the other (making the ride decidedly less safe).  I learned an important fact, which is that if you accidentally tell them to turn right when you really want them to turn left, you actually have to step off the motorcycle for them to be able to turn around.  U-turns with three passengers, not so much.

Passionately revolting

Today (as in when I wrote this, not the week later when I actually posted it) I learned that when given the choice between Passion Fruit juice and Passionate Fruit juice with sugar, the correct answer is with sugar.

British French conversion

I knew people didn’t actually use those clunky British electrical outlets!

 I learned a trick to get a French plug to fit into the British outlet.  Apparently if you just jam a pen cap in the top hole, you can squeeze the French plug into the bottom holes. It bends the French plug a bit so who knows if it will work in a French outlet afterward but it works in a pinch.

random highlighting

Side note: I have no idea why my blog has randomly highlighted some text in white. It's pretty distracting and certainly unintentional. I'll get to the bottom of it ASAP but in the mean time, ignore it.

Ostrich dance

More aminals

Noah- do not proceed. My overuse of flash and lack of a zoom lens is going to make you cringe.

 I know you're never supposed to do this...

 This is definitely part of the trail

 Is this part of the trail?

 Didn't get this photo at the right moment but it was a donkey passing a monkey, decidedly ON the trail.

 Pumbaa looked better in animation

 Sorta looks like the Bald Eagle, symbol of the US, no?  It's an African Fishing Bird.

 Ugliest stork ever- do ugly storks bring ugly babies?

 One camel on duty, one camel off duty (or possibly dead).

Storks!

Mockingjay

While walking by myself on the "trail" at the zoo I whistled and repeated a tune back and forth with what I think was a mockingjay (but could have been another human somewhere out of site).

I also came across this crazy cage of parrots who said "Hello" "Bonjour" "How are you?" "Ca Va" and "I Love You"-- except never when my camera was on.  You'll have to take my word for it. Here's a video of their cacophony.

Boda Boda

I was leaving the "zoo" and heading to lunch and there wasn't a taxi to be had so the guard at the zoo suggested I take a Boda Boda. I'm pretty familiar with casual local transport in developing countries. It always seems to involve the same word repeated twice (Tro Tro in Ghana, Tuk Tuk in Thailand).  The Boda Boda however, wasn't a shared bus or an attachment on a motorbike- it was just a dude on a motorcycle. I wasn't going far and it was cheap so I hopped on the back of his motorcycle and was pretty much frozen in horror for the five minute ride. We probably didn't break 5 mph and were never on any roads that had other vehicles and yet I'm just sorta chickenshit when it comes to this stuff. Next time I'll bring my ridiculous bike helmet with me :)