Two Days in Yangon

Imagine barreling along busy roads in a rattling, 40 year old car literally held together with duck tape with your knees keeping the back of the seat in front of you up and listening to 'Hotel California' and you're half way around the world? That's Yangon......
We arrived in Burma two and a half days ago and have packed more into three days then we've done in weeks. I feel in love with it in the first two hours and it's been uphill from that.
You immediately noticed a difference when even in the airport all the men were wearing longi or a type of sarong. With crisply starched white shirts, with tshirts, with plaid shirts or with long Indian shirts. Most women are wearing the female equivalent in a rainbow of colors, sometimes with matching blouses of the same fabric or sometimes with other tops. Some are worn as an actual sarong and some are fitted into a beautiful skirt much like in Laos but ankle length. Most women and children wear the ground up bark of a tree, called thanakha, as a makeup or sunscreen, evenly applied or in patterns of carefully applied areas on cheeks and noses and foreheads. It's very exotic.
The first thing we had to figure out is how to get money changed. Tourists must bring newer, crisp, unblemished american bills to exchange for kyat. The freaky thing is that you have to anticipate what you will need for the entire time you're here and bring it with you, having no idea what the real cost of traveling here will be. You cannot access money from a foreign bank here or use credit cards.
We found out that contrary to the past, banks are giving a fair exchange rate so we decded to go there instead of trying a money changer. We walked a few blocks to a bank to be greeted by two doormen and a row of four beautiful women on either side of the inner doorway wearing traditional dress. We were ushered upstairs and given coffee to drink while we carried on our transacion. Oh did I say that the downstairs of the bank was about the size of the lobby of a large, gracious hotel?
So on to the transaction, how much should we change? We had to dither because any sites or museums we visit and some transportation will be government run and they would like to be paid in American dollars. We decided on an amount and then began the process of examining our dollars. Much to our horror four of the hundred dollar bills we had didn't pass muster. It was explained to us that for transactions with hotels etc we can pay with american dollars and they don't have to be as perfect which came as a huge relief. We won't get a very good exchange rate for them though. We left the bank with a bag of cash and went on our merry way.
Two hours later we found ourselve aboard a barge docked behind one of the 'big three' pagodas to see here on bank of the river. The barge had transported pottery from a pottery village in the north, can you imagine our excitement?!! They were packed in straw inside baskets and were being unloaded and set out on the river bank for a sale. They were unpacked onboard and then hoisted onto shoulders and run through the barge and down bouncy planks onto the shore. They were all earthenware with many kinds of beatiful decoration and some were up to my waist.
We were with a new friend and he had a friend who took us onboard. The barge was dark inside with openings on both sides and many small stores were set up inside after the pots were unloaded. The weight that the men were carrying was staggering and they laughed and joked as they had close calls when someone would get in their way and they would lose their forward momentum. It was really a site to behold. We got all the details and will go visit the place they were made when we are in Mandalay.
After this we wandered the streets looking in teashops and watching the trishaws pedaling along. The bicycle cabs here have a sidecar withone seat facing forward, one backward and no umbrella over top. I think this is to keep them narrow so that they don't take up so much space on the streets. Most of the vehicles are 19070's or older and the majority of cabs look like they held together with a wing and a prayer. The scary thing is that vehicles absolutely do not yeild to pedestrians period. The awful thing is that you have to walk forward, sometimes towards a very fast moving vehicle so that you have enough time to cross after it passes you or you'll get hit. Sometimes you have to do this across four or more lanes of traffic. I pretty quickly learned how to say thank you after scurrying across following a local!
The area we're staying in has very few foreigners and we are really enjoying that because we are such a novelty. We're stopped quite regularly by locals for a chat or just smiled at a lot. Burmese people are the friendliest people we've ever come across and that's saying something because we've been in some pretty friendly countries.
We're staying in a hotel with wonderful staff and just by chance we think we have the best room. It's on the forth floor ( 5th here) and has opening windows that look over a green space and at the spires of a distant mosque. We hear the call to prayer and lots of other great sounds from there but I'm happy we're not any closer because first call is very early. I'm helping some of the young men who work here with their English in the evenings. They work very hard at it and are very determined to learn. I've had to interrupt myself a few times because tonight they're busy and have had to stop to work and I'm doing this in between.
Just another short thing. Today we saw the premiere pagoda here called the Shwedagon Paya and I'm sure it should be considered one of the wonders of the world and is probably one of the most beautiful things I've ever laid my eyes on.
I have to go now as we're off early in the morning to Mandaly by bus and I hav to get packed.
This is one of the taxis we took with me paying ( doesn't look half as bad in the picture), me in a tishaw, a portrait of the man who read my cards today, some pottery and the pagoda. Sorry I put one of the same pictures of the pagoda on twice, I must really like the picture! Actually it's because the pictures are so miniscule when I'm going through them to upload that I can hardly see them...
Hope I haven't made too many mistakes because I don't have time or energy to edit this.......

Royal Flora Again

This will be the last post for the Royal Flora. There was so much to see that we couldn't do it all. There were so many beautiful pavilions from other countries that we tried to breeze through them all. My favourites were Japan, Indonesia, Malasia and Bhutan. We were running out of batteries by the time we got to the first one, Bhutan, so we had to save some space for the end which was the 'imagination light garden'when the sun went down.
The Bhutan pictures are the ones of the stone wall with the carved wooden panels and the white stone building. The wicker type fence was from the Japanese garden and the picture of me in the flowers was in the Dutch pavilion. Canada seriously disapointed us both. There was a large photo of Niagra Falls with real water running over it on the outside of the exhibit and inside almost like p[oster boards that a school class might have made. There was one shocking one of the tar sands including a big photo of the devastation like it was something to be proud of. No surprise that the corporate sponsors were oil companies. Around the pavilion there were some totem poles and an inukshuk. I guess if I was the queen of themes I would have told about the people of Canada and the amazing things they do as well as highlighting gardens around the country. I certainly wouldn't have emphasized industry and major tourist attractions. Canada was one of the countries that took it as an opportunity to sell itself in an unflatering way, which only a small number of international exhibits did.
One of the hothouses high on my list of special places was the 'shaded paradise'. It was a huge building filled with lush jungle type vegetation threaded by rustic pathways and filled with garden art and places to sit. When you entered you immediately felt peaceful and contemplative. It was so lovely I could have wandered through it all day.
The large ferris wheel you see in the picture was conceived as a way to view the gardens from above. The large temple type buiding, the Royal Pavilion, was the focal point of the whole property and at a higher elevation. It housed commemorations of the Royal family.The upper level was like a temple and the murals around the entire perimeter illustrated the King's life. The murals were done in tones of greys with faces and highlights in gold. I've never seen anything like it. The King has been responsible for havng many of the temple and palace murals restored over his lifetime.
There are a few odd pictures of gardens and a picture of me standing with the figures that were placed about the property. The light garden was really hard to photograph because it was flashing on and off in places but I think you can get the idea. It was about the size of a quarter of the public gardens in Halifax.

Flora Show Bonsai

Another wonderful exhibit at the Royal Floa show was the Bonsai. They were all outside and in a lovely garden setting and all the plants were up on pedestals in their lovely pots, most of which were concrete.Unfortunately the brochures for the exhibit had run out so although they were numbered we had no information about the age or type of plants. Most of them must have been old though because the trunks of many of them were large. There were also quite a number of them whose roots were trained around stones. They were also the largest Bonsai trees I had ever seen and amongst the most beautiful. I couldn't help but think of my friend Ron who has been playing with Bonsai for years and every summer they go outside onto his deck and into his garden.

Another exhibit I was keen to see was the dessert hothouse, all succulents and cacti. It was very beautiful. I also found it facinating to see such profound examples of pattern in nature. All the spirals within spirals and repeat patterns were amazing. It was a very controlled atmosphere in the hothouse with no humidity. I know I put too many pictures for you to see but they're the best part!