Mandaly

Well I know this won't be as much fun without the pictures but the internet here is no good and I can't upload pictures.
We arrived in Mandaly after a perfectly boring bus ride. The road was straight and divided with no other traffic and there was not a village, or even tree for that matter, to see. We thought that surely people who swore the roads were poor in Burma hadn't been there in awhile. It was only later that we realized that it was THE only good road in the country that we came across.
We were shocked as we got closer to Mandaly there was a lot of road work being done by women wearing their longis down to their ankles, long sleeved shirts and conical hats with cloths tied across their faces. They were breaking up rock, carring it on their heads in baskets and then laying it all by hand, while squatting, on the new road. They were boiling tar in pits on the side and then pouring it into watering type cans to pour on the road. The only equipment we saw was a steamroller type thing. We had seen this befor but not to the extent we saw it here.Women get paid only three thousand Kyat a day whereas men get paid five thousand so women are the preferred employees.
We arrived in the back of a shared taxi which was a small 1950's car modified into a truck type transport. We later realized we paid more than our share but that's another story! Just as we got tot the lobbly there was a Burmese man at the desk and it was our friend Soe Soe. it was wonderful to see him after two years, and another baby for him, later.
Soe Soe is a trishaw driver in Mandaly where there are over 13,000 of them. The style of trishaw there was with the passengers sitting back to back or one facing forward and one back. I liked both positions for different reasons. Facing backwards you were also facing the traffic and it was one happy string of 'hellos' and 'what country' and smiles. Facing front you got to hear SoeSoe's commentary on everything and see where you were going.
After a breif powwow with Soe Soe we agreed that he would pick us up in the morning for tea and a talk about our time in Mandaly. He was there bright and early with his trishaw and off we went. Scary at first being in the traffic which was compiled of old old buses, trishaws, bikes, motorbikes, low chinese jeeps, trucks, taxis and a few luxury cars.
A lot of people hire a trishaw for the day and do sightseeing that way. We decided to put ourselves in Soe Soe's hands and hire him everyday so that he could spend time with us. He couldn't afford to otherwise because everday he needs to make money to support his six kids. Part of hiring a driver is also to feed him and also we figure to give him a few breaks from having to speak English non stop.
In the end we stayed with him for eight days with a small trip in the middle.
Soe Soe used to be a jade trader. As a teenager he hung around the jade market looking for a mentor. He found one who taught him the ropes and then with a partner he started trading. They would buy and accumulate jade then his partner would go to China to sell it. One day after about ten years his partner never came back from a China trip and left him with no money. He then started driving trishaw where he learned English before he had to flee to Thailand as an illegal migrant, where we met him. He was studying with a particular monk who advocated reading material that was not government approved and knew he was about to be arrested as a political prisoner. He left a pregnant wife and four chilren in Burma and made his way to MaiSot in Thailand. When we met him he was working as a waiter in a restaurant for 1,000 bhat or around $32 a month. He was also teaching other Burmese English so they could fit in to Thai society better. The police tolerate the illegal migrants there because they are treated like slaves in the factories and they could be bribed at payday. Soe Soe is so gutsy. He told me one day he was stopped by a policeman who spoke Thai. Soe Soe said to the policeman that he wasn't Burmese but from the Philipines and couldn't understand Thai and the policeman let him go!
After several years in Thailand during which time he smuggled his family in, he has now been able to return to Burma without the fear of being arrested. His wife made the trip back on her own with four small children including an infant. One of the realizations we've come to is that Burmese people are used to suffering and struggling in their daily lives.
Over the last few years we've managed to send Soe Soe a bit of money now and again with friends who visited Thailand. This will have to stop now as there is no way to get it there.
I digress.......the jade market in Burma is one of the most important supplies of jade for the Chinese market and the Chinese love their jade. To call it a market invokes a romantic, quaint picture although it was anything but. The outer market was set up in rows with the outer rows being sellers of raw jade and the inner rows being cutters and polishers. Then you go to the inner part and there is row upon row of sellers of cut and polished stones beginning with the least expensive and moving on to the most costly. There were smooth stones that were in the $5,000 range right down to small inexpensive stones. He showed us how they can be faked and lots of other tricks on looking for jade.
There were multiple tearooms where deals or breaks from deals were happening, game rooms for a game similar to our crokinole and jewelers making things with jade. It was warrens and alleyways and everthing was wet because they wet the stones when looking at raw ones. There were mounds of red mucky stuff everywhere that was the spittle from the paan's that people had in their cheeks filled with beetlenut and tobacco. I've seen people chew the beetle and hawk and spit in other countries but Burma took the cake. I'd say that the majority of men chew paan and most with bettlenut which makes the teeth a horrible red brown color. The spit is everywhere and in some cases like the jade market always spat in the same place so it builds up. I was sure I was going to get spat on riding on the back of the trishaw! We enjoyed the jade market and seeing the piles of dough the sellers had stacked and the big stakes and all the workers so much that we had a second visit.
Soe Soe also took us to see the marble market. It's an area of the city where marble carvers work. All white marble and dust down a whole street with not a dust mask in sightR The workers are white with the dust and using power tools to grind and carve. They mostly produce bhuddas of all sizes. They are shipped to Japan and Korea and China for starters. There were women crouched beside the statues giving them their final sanding and bhuddas in all stages of formation. It was facinating but left a bit of a sour taste in our mouths when we thought of the poor workers health.
One evening we went to see a traditional puppet show of marionettes. The elder pupateer is in his eighties. Over the years the art was almost lost but a group of people traveled the country looking for old masters and revitilized the art. It was accompanied by a traditional band and a child traditional dancer. Really entertaining both social and political commentary with some humor thrown in for good measure. The puppets were spectacularly beautiful and complex.
Another day we left the city with Soe Soe and went to an ancient city near by. We hired a horse and buggy and did a tour of the ruins. We then visited the worlds longest wooden bridge which is a footbidge over a river made of teak. It was such an atmospheric place with silouettes of monks or nuns or people on bikes crossing.
Every night we got back to the hotel really tired and then ventured out into the dark streets to find supper. There were no street lights and in some areas it was super dark. One of our favourite meals was at a chapati stand set up on the street. There were three women constantly patting and rolling the dough, a boy who made the dough and two people who cooked them non stop. You ordered a curry and chapati and it came with a bottomless pot of greentea, a bowl of dahl and lots of great pickles and chutneys all for about a buck each. We sat at low tables amongst many moslem men in traditional dress and Burmese in their longis, luxuriating in the exoticness of it all, then we took trishaws home down the dark and winding side streets and felt like we were in a different world.
We toured temples and castles and monasteries and the riverside and everything in between. We could be on a busy street one moment and in a peaceful alley the next. It was exciting and also wonderful to be with our friend. I'll tell you more in another installment because in about ten minutes the electricity will go out and it's easier to brush your teeth with light. We are on a three km white sand beach , on an island, staying in a beach hut looking straight out to sea. It feels a bit like camping but with no cooking involved. We fill large pop bottles with water and put them in the hot sand for hot water. A lot of laying in the hammock and daydreaming. I've read three books in four days but there are plenty of books to borrow here so I can read as much as I want to. Goodnoght for now.