Well, Aroon is quite pleased that I've started this new blog; we spoke the other day and he is still raving about the Vipassana blog from last year. I tried to tell him that it's simply not going to get any better than that, unfortunately, but he insists that I'll come up with something. People! Please believe me when I say that it's not going to get any better than that this year! But hopefully being a year older (a whopping 25) and having traversed a new continent this past year (that being South America) will have made me slightly more experienced, if not just a little bit wiser as well.
So... Bangkok. Four days spent puttering around, waiting for the day I could go to the Myanmar Embassy to get my visa. Silly me didn't realize when I booked the flight that I arrived on a Saturday, and the embassy is closed all weekend. Smart me gave myself two full weekdays to sort it out just in case anything went wrong on the first available day... turns out Monday was the (Thai) King's Birthday holiday! All government offices were closed! Damn, I couldn't have planned this better. So I went this morning at 8AM, waited in line for an hour with the crowd, dropped off my paperwork, went back this afternoon via the lovely river boat, and .... drumroll please .... GOT MY VISA!!! Ladies and gentlemen, I am GOING TO BURMA/MYANMAR!!! And I'll tell you all about it. But maybe not until I return, "por las dudas," as we say in Spanish. So don't expect to hear from me again until I get back on 22 December. And Mom, don't worry, I will check in with you from every new destination. Which you can read about HERE. That site basically outlines what my next two weeks will look like (minus the three-day trek to Inle Lake from Kalaw... come on you guys, you know I don't trek well!)
In the meantime I'll tell you a little bit about what the past few days in Bangkok have been like. But I will forewarn you, it's isn't the least bit interesting.
One observation I've made is just what an international sensation Angry Birds has become. (If you are my friend and want me to bring you back an Angry Birds t-shirt, please send me a request via email.) Another is that there is no flooding. Surprise, surprise. It's December, people! Dry season. Much less hot than last year, when I arrived at the beginning of November. It's pretty comfortable for most of the day, actually. And this is coming from the girl who can't stand anything over 26C. Also, where are the mosquitos? I haven't gotten one bite. Is it because I've let my leg hair grow and they don't like to wade through it to get at me? And what about yucky tummy? I've been eating the street food to my heart's content without even the slightest bit of intestinal irritation. It's as though I've entered ... the twilight zooooonnnnneeeeee........
The other day I forgot what day it was. That's because when you're traveling, every day is a Saturday (except when you've got to go to the embassy for a visa; then it better be a weekday haha). You'd think that for every day being a Saturday, I'd have stayed out a bit later, had a few more drinks, slept in a few more mornings, but no. I've been keeping it pretty low key. I've stuck to my jetlag sleep schedule of 8PM-5AM. I quite like this. The only beer I had was that which I ordered when having my $5 foot massage on the sidewalk the other day (sorry to rub it in, folks... PUN INTENDED!!!) Besides two attempts at socializing with some Argentine girls staying at my guesthouse- practicing my Spanish while simultaneously amusing them with my repertoire of Lunfardo slang, I've pretty much kept to myself. You see, the infamous Khao San Road, Bangkok's 'backpacker district' tends to bring out the seedy side of locals and travelers alike. The Thais and Burmese/Nepalese/Indian expats who have to work here, selling overpriced, low-quality tank tops and shorts to obnoxious British party-seekers, have become pretty jaded. And I don't really blame them. I've woken up some mornings at 6AM, ventured out for a Thai ice tea, and seen the drunkards, either singing songs around a guitar, beers still in hand, or grabbing the ass of their 'lady-friend for the night' (read: prostitute) in a desperate attempt at self-validation. Khao San Road is such a lovely place to wake up to!!! Not.
I'm thinking Burma/Myanmar is gonna be a bit more authentic. A bit less tapped. Less grungy. Cheaper. More pleasant. But let me come clean. For my first trip I'm only visiting "The Big Four" and it doesn't get much more mainstream than that. I've turn a lot of heads telling people that I'm going there and frankly, I'm sick of it. Yes I know the reputation, I've done my research, but I take my inspiration from people that have actually been. The preconceived notions that people have laid on me, thinking it's dangerous, dirty, scary, why on Earth would you go there?!... well why don't you stop making assumptions and go ask someone who has actually been there and see the reactions they have?
I had two inspirations which instilled in me a desire to visit Burma/Myanmar. The first was my tenth-grade teacher, who visited the country many moons ago with her hubby, back when the ENTIRE country was way off the beaten track, and she told me when I was in high school (and later repeated many times in random conversations) that the Burmese were the nicest people in Asia, possibly the world. Now, those of you have who traveled to Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia, know that people can't get much nicer than that. But from what I've heard, from my teacher and from many others who have dealt with them first-hand, I think the Burmese can and will be nicer than the nicest I've met.
The second experience that convinced me that I would someday get there was during my first trip to Asia in 2009. It was nearly my last day in Vietnam, puttering around Saigon (even more yucksville than Bangkok), when I ran in to the old Canadian ladies that I had met a few weeks prior in Ha Long Bay. I chatted them up for a few minutes, asking where they were going next. One of them was going home. The other was going to Burma/Myanmar... by herself! "You're going to BURMA?! By yourself?!" --I was just as bad as the rest of them back then. And she looked at me like, hey, it ain't no thang!! This coming from an old Canadian lady. I had just traveled three weeks alone through rough-as-sandpaper Vietnam and I thought, if this old Canadian lady can go to Burma by HERSELF, I will go by MYSELF one day. And so I bought the counterfeit Lonely Planet book from a street vendor that night and brought it around the world with me for two years until the time finally came to open it up and start highlighting. Which happened a few weeks ago in Buenos Aires.
And there you have it!!! Wait patiently for what insights will befall me, and you will be handsomely rewarded! Go now grasshopper... ;)
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