Sunday, January 20, 2013

Day trip

Earlier this week, we took a trip out of town: we crossed the river with the huge ferry which mostly serves commuters who live in the countryside and work in Yangon. It was our first time on the other side.

The day started on the ferry, where I was trying to practice my Burmese reading. Needless to say, I didn’t understand the sign.


On the other side these small, beautiful boats were parked



And after the boats, were the taxis.. car-taxis, motorcycle-taxis, trishaw-taxis. We were immediately bombarded with “hello, where do you go?”, “hello, taxi?”, “hello, where are you from?”. Since everyone is so friendly, you feel bad just ignoring them so you always try to somehow respond (though to me it’s still a mystery how to respond to “where do you go”). We ran away from them (though we in fact needed a taxi), and went for a Myanmar-tea at a surprisingly chilled-out teahouse. We also had a delicious sufgania (Berliner) which was filled with a sweet bean paste.


We started wandering through the village; amazing how rural it gets just 5 minutes away from Yangon. We saw some really beautiful houses; anything from bamboo shacks to colonial houses.



And we got to see goats cuddling.

After wandering a bit around, getting lost, taking a tri-shaw and then a 40-minute packed and bumpy pick-up ride, we finally arrived at Twante (which I still can’t say in a way locals understand). The lonely planet wasn’t too psyched about it but still recommended it as THE day trip from Yangon, with the main highlight a visit to the local pottery. You will notice there are no pictures of pottery in this post (and not because we didn’t go there).

We started with lunch and a visit to the market; I was delighted to find this interesting combination of stamped tofus.

Saw some colorful veggies in the market..


On the way to the pottery place, we saw this lady.. normally I don’t photograph locals without their permission, but this time I just couldn’t help it.

note the use of cabbage as a pillow.

So, that’s it. Preparing to leave this mechukmak but cute town, I took a picture with its famous clock-tower. Earlier today, following a “where do you go?” we decided to use it to our benefit: we knew the clock tower was the major landmark in town, and asked for directions to it. Needless to say, they had no idea what we were talking about or what a clock-tower is. Makes you wonder.


 After a return ride which started with 30 minutes waiting for the mini-bus to fill up to 150% occupancy, and then a bumpy 40 minute ride, we reached the ferry back, which unloaded all the commuters coming home from work. And we got a beautiful sunset with seagulls from the top deck.. you can feed them and they flight right up to you.



Conclusion: tourism in Myanmar is difficult, hot, buggy, but still somehow rewarding.

Sunday, January 13, 2013

Learning Burmese

Yesterday Arne & I started Burmese classes. It's only a 4-day course of a total 8 hours, but it should give us at least the basics: reading, some sentence structure, and initial vocabulary.

On the first day, to get us involved, the teacher went one by one, and in my turn asked:
"Liat, what is your favorite Burmese letter?"
I answered, of course, that my favorites were those people-letters.
She looked confused.
"You know, for example, that man, who's holding his stomach with his hands".
I was referring to this guy.

Isn't he cute?
Today, after my second class, I can confirm: this does not symbolize a pregnant woman nor a guy with a stomach ache. Burmese is just written in 3 lines: in this case it's one line for the consonant, and the vowels below and above.

I'm surprised to say that not only does Burmese have beautiful characters, but I have the impression it's easier than Hebrew. Or maybe it's just out great teacher that makes it seem that way.

Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Our new place

Every day before 7am, our street turns into a market, which disappears around noon.


As seen from our balcony


In the evening, a very successful dinner-place opens; this was taken before the customers showed up.


Colorful, kid-size plastic chairs and table make standard furnishing for street restaurants.

These are some “before” pictures from our apartment:
Happy Arne in the kitchen
Living room and balcony

– five days after moving in, it’s already starting to look like home. Some “after” pictures will come a bit later.

Saturday, January 5, 2013

Exaggeration alert:


Today was the most productive day of my life.

To be fair, after suffering from a mild food-poisoning yesterday, I had the extra good feeling of the-day-you-get-outta-bed-and-feel-like-a-billion-dollars. And apparently, the fact that nothing really happened in the past week turned out to be due to it all building up to today.
I woke up just before seven from the marching band downstairs playing jolly Christmas- and “best of marching bands”- tunes.
I finally tried mohinga (noodle soup) for breakfast – it is in fact a breakfast food – and I totally got it. At 11 I had a meeting on the other side of town to kick off that cool work I’ll be doing, writing a proposal for microfinance in Yangon, which was followed by some really interesting conversation, talk of other business opportunities, and a yummy lunch.
At 2pm I finally had that meeting at the chamber of commerce which I’ve been trying to schedule pretty much since the day I got here. It’s been postponed about 5 times (of which 3 only this week). The meeting went really well, I thought, is a good (and first!) result for the consultancy work I’ve been doing and will further connect me into the local network.

Around 3pm I stopped by our new apartment (first night is tonight!) to drop off some stuff and change back from representative clothing into vacation-in-a-hot-country clothing, then go to a cute nearby cafĂ© in our great new neighbourhood and write the good meeting’s summary to my employer (wifi is free if you buy a mediocre and over-priced drink).

It was time for an update meeting with Arne in the Chinese place on the corner, and over a Myanmar beer and some (steamed? Deep-fried?) delicacies, we discussed our successes of the day and then listed the tasks (=shopping) still to be done. I was assigned buying kitchen gear, cleaning stuff, and a table; Arne boxes, a cooker, and a floor.

Walking around town was as big a pleasure as ever, the best part being (naturally) the food shopping, this time done in a night market.
My conquests: Mini white eggplants (to be eaten raw), tofu, individually wrapped tiny corns, okra beans, peanuts, bok choy.. yumm.
Most of these items were bought from tiny vendors and cost around 100 Kyat each (15 cents).

Maybe it’s hard to understand why I felt it was such a productive day, but it really was, and it really feels great. Tomorrow is Myanmar’s independence day, and potentially – another great day.

Disclaimer 1: I didn't really have such a productive day on a Saturday. I'm not that much of a go-getter; Just posted it late. 
Disclaimer 2: pictures of our new beautiful apartment and neighbourhood will be posted soon, very soon.
Disclaimer 3: It's a shame but intentional that I don't provide more details of my work, due to confidentiality.