The beauty and the beast

Hi everyone,

As promised my first update from the trip to Asia. It cost me 10 days to find some time to write something. That´s why I will only tell you about my time in Myanmar as I wrote it down in my travel diary. In this moment I already arrived at my study area in Koh samui and everything is going well. You will hear soon more about the island.

I was really looking forward to visiting Myanmar. Not a lot of people have knowledge about Myanmar, and the people of Myanmar? They don´t have any knowledge about the world. I thought I would love Myanmar from the moment I would arrive. Nothing was further away from the truth. The moment I arrived in in Yangon. I could cry. After a 30 hour trip the circumstances in Yangon were not ideal to arrive in. Not forget to mention that I expected Yangon to be the same as Bangan, which was not really true.

Secondary research about Bagan showed me beautifull pagodas, nice people and beautifull landscapes without any cars or brick buildings. Just a quiet and peacefull place. Yangon can better be described as a place with a desert climate, which has more buildings than legoland has legopieces and if you are suicidal, just cross the street. If that doesn´t work the smell will kill you eventually. I was overwhelmd, tired and burning alive. The journey was about to start and I was about to die. I know I seem to be a horrible person complaining about these things but I can't be more honest than this. After we arrived we had one hour the time to take a quick shower or powernap before we went to visit the school of tourism.

The more grumpy I got the more happy people around me seemed to be. Imagine arriving with my mood in a place full of Asian students who are eager to learn and learn all about hospitality. It is their second nature I guess. Before we could get in contact with the student we were introduced to some important people in the tourism industry. They gave a presentation about the tourism development and the tourism future of Myanmar. Some information was interesting and other information was based on facts we already found during our secondary research. After the presentation there was the possibility to approach the students to ask questions.

I say the "possibility" because we could if i would have got the chance to ask them a question. Within 10 seconds a group of 8 students gathered around me assuming I was a wandering encyclopedia. It was nice that they were so interested in, well actually everything I had to say, but specially in the Netherlands. They are all very polite. I thought it was striking that they study tourism but have no knowledge of the world outside Myanmar. None of them had been abroad. When we talked about religion one of the boys said to me, buddha doesn´t learn us to believe in him, he teach us that we have to believe in ourselves. That's what makes buddhism different.

In the end one of them asked my facebook because he was interested in an exchange study at NHTV. 2 days later I was wondering if I should learn Birmees, my timeline looks really complicated.

In the afternoon/evening we visit the most famous pagoda in Yangon. I have to admit that the Pagoda was beautifull. The guide learned us about Buddhism. He told us that it is really imporant on which day your are born. For anyone who reads this and is born on a sunday for example. Don´t move to Myanmar because nobody will marry you.

It is for me hard te understand why they believe in these kind of things. I did like some of the aspects of Buddism but I think every religion has something good in it. After we left the Pagoda the cab dropped us of in Chinatown. I did not know how fast to get out of there.

The next day we had some interesting meetings on the programm. With a guide we explored Yangon, although he knew a few good places I was not really impressed. The traffic caused so many problems and noise that I got really tired from walking outside. After seeiing chinatown I did not planned to eat from the street there but Stasja and I did try a ´Pitel´. A pitel is a pitel vine leaf covered with white lime paste, they put cloves, aniseed, cardamom, pitel nuts and a pinch of in alcohol marinated tabaco. We did leave the tabaco out though. They fold the leave and you have to hold it in your mouth untill all the flavours come out. It tastes like mint. In the end you spit it out.

The meetings in Yangon were really interesting. We actually meet with the minister of Tourism who flew in for us. I got the chance to ask him a question. I don´t really got an anwser though. Just like the rest of us. During the day we also met a Dutch guy who had his own tour operator company. Kiri travel. It was very interesting to hear how things were different when Myanmar was ruled by the army.

At 5 o´clock in the afternoon we left for the nightbus to Bagan. Where we finally arrived at 6 o´clock in the morning. The programm for that day started at 8. I did not sleep on the way from the Netherlands to Yangon and I did not sleep on the nightbus to Bagan. I was exhausted.
Still, I was really happy to arrive in Bagan.

My story is way to long already to tell you everything about Bagan. Just believe me when I say it is an experience you won´t forget. Bagan has 6000 residents and over 3000 pagoda´s. Everywhere you look you see pagoda´s. There are only a few ways of transport. Bike, motorbike, e-bike or a horse. You hardly see any cars. The people are just as interested in you as you are in them. They are not used to tourists and are very curious . Our bike broke down three times but there was always someone to help us out for free. Just have a look at the pictures I posted online for you. I will tell you more about Bagan later.

Big kiss from Koh Samui!