Weekend out of town

After several quite successful days in Yangon, we decided to head out of town for the weekend, to see some of the nearby attractions. Since Myanmar is huge, and the public transport is bad, we didn’t go very far:  started in Bago, a pagoda-packed town, and then continued to the famous Buddhist pilgrimage site of the Golden Rock.

I was hoping to get some work done in between the sight-seeing, and in the past days have come to appreciate the importance of having a working infrastructure – a room, with a desk, with internet. A chilly room, preferably. It’s actually quite impossible to do anything otherwise.

So our tourism started with a wonderful train from Yangon – the bumpiest, slowest thing imaginable; but with all the windows open, the breeze and views compensated for the comfort. In Bago we rented a tri-shaw driver to take us around to see the temples – we thought this was the most socially/environmentally responsible way to go around. Until I saw our driver.

This kid was more or less my size, and I felt pretty bad for him (in the picture below, he's the one in the striped blue t-shirt). It was hot outside. He negotiated a pretty good price for his services, but still I asked myself – are we encouraging child labour?

No. Turns out he’s nearly my age, married with a baby.

The kids here are SO cute (sample in the above picture). They’re so friendly, always smiling, giggling, waving. They look happy even when they’re doing chores (carrying wood, sweeping floors, etc.).

Bago was nice, and temple-packed as promised. Still very few foreign tourists to be seen anywhere.

That tiny person is me.

Sunset over a water reservoir, as seen from a pagoda on a hill-top.

I realize that the concept of time here is rather different than that of the west. I bought a watch last week and it seems that fact that it loses about 15 minutes every other day makes it, comparably, a pretty good watch here. The vast majority of clocks here show the wrong time. I wonder why they would even have a clock then? 

Two wrongs most certainly don't make a right.

The trip to Golden Rock left a mixed impression. We wanted to hike part of the way but neither one of our 2 guidebooks nor the internet provided sufficient information on the paths, and the friendly locals, who either don’t understand us or don’t know the answer, just smile and reassure us we’re walking the right way (which we weren't). The rock itself was more of a tourist bazaar than a classic pilgrimage site, and not that impressive.

The Golden Rock. Major pilgrimage site, major cheap-looking tourist bazaar.

Among all the hand-made unnecessary souvenirs (=crap) we saw up there, this is by far the cutest - carved out of a coconut.

First impressions from Yangon

24 hours after landing, these are some of my first impressions from Yangon..

1) It's nice. It might be a huge city but it feels like a small town. Green, not too crowded, friendly people everywhere, and beautiful colorful (though dirty) colonial buildings lining the small streets.

2) It's safe, but not completely risk-free. We were cheated out of half the money we exchanged on our first day here. Myanmar is supposed to be an extremely safe place for tourists; nonetheless we were very careful;  nonetheless  we were cheated. I guess it was some hand trick by the kid-trader, since at the end of the day we realized we had the equivalent of $20 less than we thought (and no, you can't spend that much without noticing). Still, you can feel the safety in the air, and monks everywhere increase that sense.

3) Pleasant surprise: no bugs!! Well, more bugs than Geneva, less than Tel-Aviv. We did see some extraordinarily large moth-butterfly thingies, but other than that, no ants, bugs or mosquitoes in sight. Victory!

This animal looked more impressive, and slightly scary, in reality.

4) It's not that under-developed. On the one hand, the limited amount of tourists means you can't find a place to do your laundry by the kilo; but after visiting a market and a supermarket, it seems we can get pretty much anything here. Internet at our guesthouse works perfectly, and the guesthouse generally seems to be working just fine. No power-cuts observed yet.

After a 24-hour break from real life, it's time to get down to business. I've started contacting both professional and private contacts from my list, and hopefully we'll meet some of them already this week. The thought of getting a job here, and staying here for a while, is really exciting. And in the meantime, over our noodle-soup brunch this morning ($3 including water and tea) we looked at some day-trip options in the area: temples, towns, rivers and beaches, to be commenced soon!

First day in Yangon - pictures

First thing first: indulging in delicious street-food.

After a nap, the biggest attraction in town - Shwedagon pagoda. With it's 3,000 Kgs of gold, it is huge, beautiful, shiny, impressive; and at the same time quiet, clean, contemplative, inspiring.

Real hazards: 1) sidewalk holes. Keep your eyes on the ground! and 2) crossing roads. It's exciting to see a pedestrian crossing on the main road, but a green light doesn't necessarily mean cars aren't coming.

In between: hot, humid; friendly locals smiling and waving, approaching us to ask where we're from and practice their English; jetlag.

Last day in Geneva

I look in the mirror and it’s not good. I think that maybe the hot and humid climate will do me good. In just 24 hours.

20 minutes ago, on the bus, exhausted physically, nerves on their very last thread of existence, I thought to myself that even if I do come back to Geneva, even if I’m back in 3 months – It’s true, that a man can’t walk twice into the same river, because the river isn’t the same river and the man isn’t the same man. And Geneva is the worst of these rivers: it flows all the time, always changing.

The emotional farewells were the last straw this evening. Yes, I was tired, but I managed to play it cool until the first emotional farewell. I’m not made for that. A final farewell should be the same as any other farewell – I don’t think making it worse makes it any better. Am I right, or am I just cold? Past my bedtime, in a half-empty bar in Paquis, I guess I just ran out of energy.

But it was already earlier that it all started. It’s no fun being far away when big (good) things are happening to your loved ones, and it doesn’t feel good to be going even further away. Two beers and a good friend helped me get over the sadness of a long-distance phone-call.

I had a masterplan, to spend my last day in Geneva doing tourist things. I wanted to ride the mini-train, eat ice-cream in the old town, take a picture with the flower clock and eat the same spaghetti carbonara I had on my first day in Geneva. I didn’t do any of those things. Instead, I spent a good part of my last free half-day running errands, waiting for things, or wandering alone, bored in the cold.

And the morning was dedicated to cleaning: scrubbing, vacuuming, wiping, washing, dusting, arranging. After having given up on my rubber gloves already yesterday, I was surprised to see how quickly my hands get damaged. Start hurting. Are offended. Start asking me hard questions about my choices.

This day started early, and yesterday ended late. I guess it’s high time to end another day.

Written from Katia's guest bedroom, posted from Bangkok airport.

One week to go

I haven't written in a while because weird things were happening and I thought it would just stress me out to also put it in writing.
Two weeks ago, I was approached by an Indian start-up company with a really exciting job opportunity. Actually, it didn't look very exciting at first, but after some conversations with the CEO and others, I realized it would be a great learning opportunity for me in a very inspiring environment. I tried not to get too excited before having a confirmation about it, which worked for a while; but when finally I didn't get an offer I found myself disappointed and confused to go back to the original plan.

So here I am, back with the original plan. The flight to Yangon is booked for next Sunday; and so are the first three nights in the Beauty Land Hotel II (yes, there seem to be many businesses which are numbered this way; bizarre). I even bought a (random) Myanmar guidebook (in French) which seems ok - I was too late to order something in English so this one will just have to do.
Last night was our grand farewell party, and if the after-party mess is any indication, I can say it was a big success.

This level of drinking-fun-mess was spread equally around the house.

This week will be the big packing and moving week. We found a huge storage space not too far from here (about a one-hour drive) and later this week will rent a truck and borrow some of our stronger friends and try and take it all over in one go.

On a completely different topic, a final farewell from A's parents brought some more thoughts about our financial future and standards of living. We somehow found ourselves talking about pension savings, which I feel is a very privileged topic to be discussing - normally financial-planning-and-worrying in my circles revolve rather around getting through the next 2 months than enjoying life 40 years from now. It made me think about the shocking difference in various economies - even developed ones, and while looking around the internet I found a small optimistic data point  which I found interesting enough to share:
Among Germany's poorest 40% of the population, 4 out of 5 people are satisfied with their standard of living (source).
And that's it for now.