Opinionating at the speed of electricity

Home Blog Rant Links Pics About

Friday, March 12, 2004

Rangoon Yangon, Burma Myanmar

Burma worked its way into my favourite countries list within about 12 hours of arrival. The reasons being varied but some of the highlights were certainly:

* The taxi driver at the airport accepted 3 dollars and a tiny bar of chocolate instead of the usual 4 dollar fare into town.

* Within 3 hours of landing I was teaching english to 12 teenagers and about 43 monks. Some of the class then proceeded to invite me out for lunch and paid for everything.

* Going to a tea shop whose owner is called "Daisy" and is a blonde haired, burmese, muslim (picture that if you possibly can). She promptly invited us back for dinner at her house. The dinner was great and was shared with a bemused Slovenian couple (being the first Slovenians I have ever met, I am not sure if this is perhaps a national trait).

* By 23:30 I was sitting in a bar drinking Myanmar beer and talking to an ex-merchant navy man called Tarzan (75 years old) who had been around the world about 15 times and spoke fluent english.

Burma is similar to Malaysia in the fact that there are lots of Indians, a good few Chinese and a fair few "natives". It was also a colony of the great British Empire which leaves them with fantastic un-asian heirlooms like the imperial system and 3-pin plug sockets.