Saint Petersburg, Russia
I spent an amazing Christmas in Saint Petersburg, Russia with Anastasia and her mother Nina. Besides getting fat on mouthwatering homecooked Russian meals (homemade jams, berry spreads, wines, soups!) I got to explore one of Europe's most beautiful cities, home to some of the world's awe inspiring architecture, poetry, literature, ballet....
The only downside was the shellshock I experienced from days and days of 24-hour holiday fireworks (so powerful I think they were actual weapons left over from the German assault on the city)and fear of attack by nationalist skinheads or infamous Russian mafia trading women, drugs and cash during cafe gunfight rub offs. I even woke up in the middle of one night screaming "Help Me! Help me!". Looking back, I'd say that only the fireworks were the real threat. The risk of a nationalist attack on a blond-haired blue-eyed foreigner was probably pretty slim (but was instilled in my brain by an over-protective and worried Anastasia and her family), the mafia image is probably just a remnant of media coverage of the pre-Putin Russia which did have a bit more of the wild west criminality than current Russia. And since I've never worked for a governemnt agency, I figure I was safe from Polonium poisoning by former KGB agents..
As far as weather.. it wasn't as bad I expected after hearing a million times "Oooh.. you're going to Russia in the winter!?" Might be partly due to globally warmer weather this year and I wasn't there in the coldest part of the winter anyway. The biggest weather problem was that within a day or two of a snow it usually warmed up enough to mean a day of sloshing through coal black sludge to get anywhere.
Thailand
After that crazy first show I had to go home and pack and get to the airport for a flight to Thailand. After a few nights in Bangkok I went down to the chilled out little island of Ko Samet with classmate Steve and our friend from Seoul Darren. Besides developing a killer cough, getting several infected bug bites and ripping off a toenail, this was not place to hang out. Even though it's one of the closest islands to Bangkok I was surprised by how quiet and unpopulated most of the beaches were here.
There were no real signs in Bangkok of the military coup that overthrew the PM back in December (was it?) but the military jets roared overhead daily in Chiang Mai to flex a little muscle because the northern farming provinces are said to be very loyal to the deposed PM. I noticed frequent boardings of buses by the military to check everyone's i.d.s. I was surprised that the "police state" seemed to be more in effect in Thailand than Burma where even though my bus was stopped often at military checkpoits, they never boarded the bus or asked to look at me. In fairness to the Thai military, they were all smiles and thank you's when they came to the foreigners on a bus.
Then it was off to Chiang Mai for two weeks of intensive study with a couple of professors from my school in California, APU. This has turned out to be a great program for me. The professors are very knowledgable in the field of linguistics and language acquisition and super passionate about teaching as well, so it kind of rubs off. Studied a little sociolinguistics and language acquisition research. I don't think there could be a better place to study than Chiang Mai... a relatively small Thai city in the northern mountains. Perfect weather (dry and warm but not scorching), Thai food, great scenery, $5 an hour massages, exotic markets... Check out the food slides! The food has to be seen and eaten to be believed. Chiang Mai sausage rocks.
A one day tour of the Golden Triangle corner, made up of the meeting borders of Thailand, Burma and Laos, and an area made famous as a trading zone for opium and other black market goods for these three countries and China, took us into the reclusive Burma for about 30 minutes. This was enough of a tease for me to make me plan a 3 day trip into Burma after my classes were finished.
Burma
Burma, the former British colony now known as Myanmar, is one of the world's most closed off countries, similar to North Korea. The government is extremely repressive and travel there has been very inconvenient for decades. It seems they are in need of hard cash for their failed economy so they are making it easier for tourists to get in and spend money these days. I found the border control people very friendly and helpful to white foreigners. We had a separate visa office from the throngs of Thais and other Asians who pass back and forth every day to trade in the little border town. When I was leaving the country, I had some money to spend in the market so I asked an immigration official to hold one of my bulky bags (filled with $3 blankets) for a while, and he did. That might have gotten me thrown in prison a few years ago.
I also remember looking at the clock on the wall of the visa office on our first trip into the town on the tour. It was 30 minutes behind my watch so I loudly announced to Steve and Darren.. don't look at his clock, it's wrong.." Fortunately he didn't take it as an insult and throw me in jail for insulting the junta but politely informed us that Maynmar's time is 30 minutes different from Thai time. First time I had heard of 30 minute incriments in time zones.
Not too long ago, the Burmese government required that foreigners buy $1,000 (I think) worth of vouchers that had to be spent in the country and couldn't be refunded. That's a lot of money for the average traveler to spend in a country where a beer cost less than a dollar and the policy was controversial because most of that money went to the military junta government, not to the people who really needed it. That was reduced to $200 a few years back and now has been completely eliminated so the only money of mine that went to the government was $10 for the visa and maybe a bit of my bus and taxi rides which were arranged by the visa office. But otherwise I could spend as little or as much as I wanted and the hard cash went straight to the hands of inn owners and shopkeepers.
I did give up my passport for the entire trip and a temporary pass was held by my drivers and hotel so that I could never stray too far off. That was about the limit to my control as far as I could tell.
There was a plan for me and my classmate Steve to possibly teach English to refugees from the ethnic Karin people next year. Their people have been raped , murdered and kidnapped by the Burmese government for years and the lucky ones have escaped into a refugee camp in Thailand or beyond. My school works with a missionary relief agency in the camp and I could possibly work there for 3 weeks for an amazing experience and get some credits out of the way as well. But alas, it looks like that might not work out. I'll keep you posted.
Burma was wild. In just three days I saw more to write about than 3 weeks in Thailand. here I'll just put some of the more interesting details in bullet points (without the bullets):
From Tachileik, the little busy trading town on the Thai border I took a public bus up to KengTung, and ancient trading town in the Golden Triangle. In fact, it was the center of triangle trade if I'm not mistaken. The bus ride there followed a gorgeous river for about 5 hours. At one point the road had collapsed in a flood. The road was split in two like an earthquake had opened it up. Just enough room for the bus and out the window was straight down into the river, in some places it looked to be about 100 feet down. Scary as hell.
Funny sign (on a road toll booth): Tollgate Construction Company, LTD. Think about it.
Little bit scary sign (in English): "The Tatmadaw shall never betray national causes" Not sure but I htink Tatmadaw means military or soldier.
Other cool sights(and sounds) on the road..
Beautiful women bathing in the river.
Men spearfishing in the river.
A pig being slaughtered in a creek.
A supermodelesque woman feeding pigs by the road.
Bamboo stalks cut in half and connected to make irrigation pipes half a mile long.
The bus driver played 3 hours of wetsern boy bands and George Michael.
I saw two men looking at a motorcycle that had broken in half while being ridden (presumably very slowly). Our bus driver and his partner burst out laughing at the sight but no one else on the bus seemed to notice.
Kengtung was straight out of National Geographic. It was like a micro-global viallgeBuyers and sellers from several ethnic hilltribe groups decended on the market every morning at about 6 am. The market swarmed with people, mostly women, in their ethnic costumes, and though they all sounded the same to me, experience tells me there were probably several if not more language being spoken. Ancient old grannies would carry loads that I could barely lift (I know because I helped on get the load onto he back) on their backs, but with most of the load borne by a strap around the bottom of the load and held on the woman's forehead. Unbelievable.
The women seemed to most of the hard labor. I saw road contruction crews made up entirely of beautiful young 20-somethings that could easily be the most popular girls on campus if they were to attend an American university. See the photo of the gorgeous smiling young woman loading freshy baked bricks.
One of my most special memories in all my travels was on the hilltop Buddhist wat (temple) looking out over the misty mountains and a far away giant and golden Buddha at sundown. The temperature was perfect, a slight breeze on my skin, wind chimes tinkling, flowers iin blossom everywhere, and the smell of incense.
I returned to the wat after dinner, about 8 p.m. and it was deserted except for a boy monk, who looked a bit scared, as he ran around the main hall interior closing all the shutters for the night. he probably heard my moving outside and thought I was a ghost. Thais and I suppose Burmese as well are very superstitious and take ghosts very seriously. Imaging being about 12 years old and having to go into your church's empty sanctuary at night and turn off all the lights and close the windows.
Earlier at the wat, I saw all the boy monks gathered around a computer screen inside the main hall. A young Burmese man saw me looking in and told me to follow him in. it turned out to be a Czech woman showing the kids her documentary about the town and its hilltribe people. She talked me into buying one, at a scandalous cost of $30 considering it had no packaging or even label on it (I discovered after agreeing to buy it). But it's quite beautifully done and make sure I show it to you when I see you next.
I walked through the town's dark woodsmoke-filled streets at night on the way to a find a beer. Almost all power was off by nightfall except for the occasional generator. Since all doors and windows were open to let in the cool night breeze, I could see in every home and shop. It was like a city during war time or a severe snowstorm back home. It was all faces aglow by candlelight, the people usually sitting in a circle in their dens. One women woked in her CD shop, just a single tall candle lighting her face, counter and her CDs.
In one candlelit room I saw a man sitting alone smoking the biggest blue bong I've ever seen. Not sure what was in it.
Some groups of kids played simple games in front of their homes. They made circles and laughed and giggled as they played patty cake like games. it really looked just like a summer night back in Cahaba Heights.
The downside to the power limits was my very dimly lit hotel room and taking bird baths with big buckets of scalding water in the morning.
I hired a wonderfully kind and gentle young scooter driver to take me up into some Akka and Lahu hill tribe villges one day. His name was Josua, and I forgot to ask but I am sure it was a Christian name. he told me he was Christian and I was surprised to see that all of the ethnic villages had woodedn crosses stuck in the dirt at their entrances. Hard to imagine considering these people's primitive and remote lives and their ancient animist backgrounds.
Josua turned out to be an English and math tutor despite the fact that I couldn't understand a word he said in English. As we sat in headman's house of one village drinking tea, he translated what the headman's son was saying. "The Akka people here no drug," it sounded like. Shit, he thiks I want to buy drugs or something. I'm in trouble. Much later I figured out he was trying to say "no dress" meaning, in this village they didn't wear the traditional dress.
At one point I thought I might have been taking too many pictures... something the Burmese government doesn't like too much. One villager came in wearing slightly militarisctic looking green khakis. He asked a lot of questions about my through Josua, never once smiling or making me feel welcome like the rest of the villagers. never did figure out where he was going with it but he seemed to be chastising Josua a bit. Perhaps for riding me around with permission.
On the way back to town we happened to go by Josua's house so he took me in to meet his sweet mom and brother and show me where he teaches. The living room had its own giant chalkboard. He then told me his father was a military officer so I knew I had nothing to worry about. He was my friend and he was making some good money off of me ($5 for the afternoon I think) so his dad would probably have given me the VIP treatment.
At our last village stop, Josua asked me something in English but for the life of me i couldn't get it. "Sapisfi". Somehow I eventally figured it out. He wanted to know if I was "satisfied". I told him I was most certainly. then he wanted me to teach him how to pronounce the word. I think the closest he got was something like "sapisfy".. his original version.
I also saw and old iron in front of a seamstress's shop. It was filled with burning coals. Did we have those back home in days of yore?
On the way back to the Thai border I decided to take a taxi as it was only a couple of dollars more than the bus ride. It would be a little faster too and I could get the driver to stop and let me take photos of the river, which I hoped to come back and paddle one day, and the road where it had fallen into the river.
I had my innkeeper explain this to the driver but he said, oh, there willbe more people in the taxi. Turned out to be a man and his infant grandson, two Buddhist monks (one of obvious power as everyone who saw him from Kengtung to Tachileik bowed deeply to him). We all piled into the tiny car and hit the road for the 4 hour bumpy ride. At one point the driver stopped and motioned for me to get out. I was confused as no oe else seemed to me moving to get out. I tried to ask why, thinking they were tired of me and wanted to dump me. He motioned for me to take some photos. I looked around and saw absolutely nothing of interest but it slowly dawned on me that he thought he was doing me a favor. So I took a few shots of some people drinking a coke and off we went. A few seconds later I patted him on the shoulder saying "ce zu beh" to thank him for his kindness. He thought I wanted him to stop so I could take a picture so he slammed on the breaks and the car engine stalled. Eventually we got through all the awkward moments and everybody was very buddy buddy.
There were only a handfull of vehicles on this long road. Almost every person we passed stopped anything they were doig and watched us come and go. On one long steep grade up, there were about 10 stalled trucks and buses - almost every other car on the road aside from us. Buses and minivans, jam packed with monks and hilltribe traders, stuck with overheated engines on a hot steamy afternoon in the tropics. Knocking on wood, we made it all the way with no incident and without getting washed away in the one ford we made where a bridge had washed away. The water came midway up the door. The flood that cause the bridge and sections of the road to wash away must have been epic.
I got back into Thailand too late for the last bus to Chiang Mai so I had to stay one more night in the little border town. One parting memory for this little excursion was when I decided that night to get a Thai massage for about $4 and hour. As I lay there on the floor having my muscles kneaded, a mentally hadi-capped, mute stuck his head into my room and squealed something angrily at me before walking down the hall and returning one more time to do it again. Very surreal.
The best food I ate, and I recommend everyone make it the next time you cook out: Fresh okra, bathed in peper paste and grilled next to your steaks. Damn. So simple.
And next time you have a BBQ, grill a fish.. not just the fillet,.. I mean the whole thing. It cost $1 in Burma and was amazing.
I definitely plan to get into Burma again one of these days, and spend more time exploring. being so isolated, it has to have to wonderous natural scenery rarely seen by western eyes. That is if the government hasn't clear cut it all, which it is known they are on their way to doing.
Anyway, back to work for another semester next Tuesday. It'll be a grueling 12 hours a week of class time Tue. thru Thurs. (see original question above)
No comments:
Post a Comment