Shwedagon Paya, Yangon (Myanmar)

From my diary (November 2011)

While the once-official English name ‘Burma’ immediately conjures, for some in the West, Asia and adventure, the name that this country has taken on since 1989 – Myanmar – may still sound unfamiliar to many a Westerner. Or it may call to mind images of dictatorship, and the figure of Aung San Suu Kyi, the former opposition leader who is now State Counselor of the country. Her recent handling of the Rohingya crisis (the Rohingyas being a Muslim minority in Myanmar), however, has been heavily criticised. Considering she is a Buddhist, and Buddhism is the main religion here, the failure has disappointed both Buddhists and non-Buddhists around the world, as tolerance, nonviolence and compassion are the very foundations of Buddhism.

However, Myanmar is more than the sum of her problems, be they of an economic or ethnic nature. One finds here still a widely acknowledged gentleness and honesty in her people, and monuments of a singular beauty. A largely poor nation that preserves an ancient traditional culture, it is only now opening up to external influences – including from both China (one of its key trade partners) and the West – good and bad (perhaps more the latter than the former).

At the beginning of November, taking advantage of the mid-semester break at the University, I finally have the opportunity to visit this country I had longed to see for the longest time. Of the Southeast Asian nations, it is situated furthest west, wedged between India and Bangladesh on one side, and China, Laos and Thailand on the other.

I arrive in Yangon, formerly Rangoon, in the late afternoon, after a flight of a little over two hours from Kuala Lumpur. The first thing that strikes me is the local time: not one or two hours behind Malaysian time, but one and a half... In the taxi taking me to my guesthouse, I realise I am once again in Southeast Asia at its most ‘exotic’, in conditions akin to what I had observed in Java or Cambodia: ramshackle cars, buses, lorries and pick-ups turned into minibuses lurching from every side, overtaking and dodging each other left and right; people in the middle of roads, trying to cross, with vehicles swerving to avoid mishaps; bicycles and rickshaws everywhere.

Missing in Yangon are carts drawn by oxen, common in the countryside, and motorbikes, the latter having been forbidden by the government. But I will find them again in Mandalay. The majority of Burmese I see on the streets wear longyi instead of trousers, a kind of long traditional skirt tied in front by men and on the side by women, some of whom have their faces covered with thanaka, a yellowish cream made of ground tree bark. Just a two-hour airplane ride away from the more westernised Malaysia I have left behind, and what a difference! The contrast is similar to what I experienced when arriving by ferry from Spain in Morocco, or from Sicily in Tunisia.

I take a small room for nine dollars a night (the American dollar is used here, alongside the local kyat: about 70 kyat to the dollar being the rate at the time). From the window of my room, the gold-covered stupa of the Shwedagon Paya shines in the distance. After trying to send a few SMS messages in vain (in 2011 there was no roaming in Myanmar, and the Internet was still exasperatingly slow), I finally step out to breathe in the air of this city. The streets are full of people, shops, stalls, and small tables on dilapidated pavements selling everything from fresh drinking water to betel and areca nut, which reddens the mouth and is widespread in many areas of Southern Asia. A small slice of the nut is wrapped up in a betel leaf dabbed with lime; the whole thing is then held in one’s mouth and, once softer, chewed and swallowed. Mildly stimulating, it is considered a good digestive, with antiseptic properties. I find my way to Little India to have dinner, where I have a chat with a Pakistani boat engineer who shuttles between India and Myanmar.

The following morning, after a nourishing breakfast, I head on foot towards Shwedagon Paya, the most important Buddhist temple in the entire country...

Shwedagon Paya