Outside of school, I'm still in the process of exploring the city. Believe it or not, I find that I actually really enjoy shopping!!! However, I only enjoy shopping under 4 conditions: (1) I can munch on snacks continuously and drink fruit smoothies while shopping (2) Everything is SUPER cheap (3) I am not shopping for clothes, and (4) the market is outdoors at night. Going to the crafts markets, or night markets selling cheap accessories (bags, fake brand-name watches, sunglasses, etc) has actually become one of my favorite pasttimes here...weird, i know. I'm also getting used to drinking beer with ice (!) and surviving in very crowded bars. Apparently, Thai people have not heard of "fire hazards."
I'm also making slow but steady progress learning to speak Thai. I learned a lot in my first few weeks, but have had no time to study after classes started! Learning to speak Thai isn't so bad, but the Thai writing system is extremely confusing: they have multiple letters with the same sound, and letters are not always read left to right. Sometimes vowels come after the consonant, sometimes before, sometimes above, sometimes below, and sometimes all around!! They also have no spaces between words, so it's really hard to tell when one word ends and the next one starts. it's almost as if they devised their writing system to be as confusing as possible...but it's fun to learn, and I am now able to read almost everything (phoenetically) very slowly...at about 1 word a minute.
Anyway, the main purpose of this entry is to post my pictures from Burma! I went to Burma from November 3 to November 8 with a friend (actually one of Grace's good friends from business school), and then on the way back I stopped by Bangkok for 2 days to hang out with a really good friend of mine from college. It was a lot of fun, and seeing my friend in bangkok made me miss home more...but I'm still not too homesick yet :)
(By the way, yes, there is some controversy and hesitations about visiting Burma -- is tourism seen as supporting the current government? Or does it give Burmese people valuable contact with the outside world and give individuals a chance to profit as well? I won't talk about that here, but if you want, feel free to email me...but rest assured we took good care to avoid any government-run transportation or lodging).
So! Burma was great, outside of the daily upset stomach. That, and the food wasn't so tasty either...A Burmese friend had told us about dishes we should try while in Burma, but for some reason every restaurant we went to only had generic chinese-style food...and we're talking bad chinese food, on the level of panda express. But in terms of everything else, it was really nice.
We had a pretty busy itinerary...1.5 days in Yangon, 2 days in Bagan, 1 day in Mandalay. On the first day, Deb and I went to the famous Shwedagon pagoda. It was absolutely amazing. It consists of an enormous gold stupa, which is itself surrounded by many smaller stupas, pavilions, etc. Here is the main stupa...
...as well as smaller ones surrounded it
It almost felt like Disneyland there, in that it was so elaborate and beautiful and big, it didn't feel like it could possibly be real! We also went back to the pagoda at night:
It was gorgeous at night as well as during the day. The only really gross thing about going at night is that the ground is COVERED with TONS of bugs, and you have to walk around barefoot. After we returned to our hotel room at night, we had to scrub our feet very hard to remove the dead bugs encrusted on the bottom. Super nasty. Deb also stepped on a big cockroach-like bug...she was so grossed out I somehow couldn't stop laughing :)
Monks are a very common sight in Burma. Apparently monk-hood is not a permanent status, and almost every male goes through some period of monk training. So many monks we met were not especially monk-like. One monk we passed by winked at Deb, and when she winked back he started laughing. I also saw one monk give another monk a cigar...the second monk, who apparently had never smoked a cigar before, promptly started choking, much to the amusement of the first monk. Anyway, our favorite monks were definitely the baby monks -- as young as 6 or 7! They were so cute!!! Everytime we saw baby monks we had to whip out our cameras...discretely, of course :)
After Yangon, we flew out to Bagan. Bagan consists of plains covered with ancient temples and stupas -- everywhere you look, there are old crumbling stupas, separated by fields of grass. Bagan was definitely the highlight of the trip. It was an unbelievable sight. You could climb some of the stupas, and get some amazing panoramic views. Unfortunately my pictures do not do justice -- I just couldn't capture the grandness of the area. But, here are just a few of my pictures...
Me and Deb, outside the large doors of one of the temples...
The walls of one of the temples, as the sun was setting...
Me with a large plain of temples behind me...
The sunset, with the silhouettes of temples to the west...
Also, two random pictures from Bagan -- one picture of two really cute kids at one of the temples, and a picture of the Irewaddy river (and my attempt to be artistic :) )
Finally, following Bagan, we flew out to Mandalay for a day. At Mandalay, we spent half a day visiting the sights in the city, which were surprisingly underwhelming. The "Mandalay Palace" was pretty dilapidated, and the sunset from Mandalay Hill was pretty average. The thing I found most interesting was the signs posted on the walls of Mandalay fort, some of them saying something like "we will crush all those who oppose the nation (i.e., current government)..." but of course we were not allowed to take pictures of those!
Only one temple I found interesting (but can't remember the name) -- it was made of wood, and had some very beautiful carvings along the walls and roof.
The second half-day we had in Mandalay, we took a little trip out to Mingun, a nearby ancient city. Getting to Mingun was a lot of fun, we took a bicycle taxi to the jetty, and a n hour-long ferry ride up the river to Mingun. On the bike ride we saw some interesting aspects of every day life, like the one shown here...I just hope those baskets were empty!
On the ferry ride we passed by several river villages, saw people fishing, bathing, washing clothes, etc. Unfortunately, none of those pictures came out well! Mingun itself had more temples and baby monks :)
The Mandalay area is also well known for its puppets:
Finally, we flew back to Yangon, and the next morning I flew out to Bangkok to meet up with Andy, my friend from college. He had come to Bangkok via a chinese tour, which was the cheapest way to get to Thailand, so I just joined their tour for the next two days. The tour was a perfect stereotype of a chinese tour: very rushed, very touristy, and complete with rude and pushy tour leader. Every day we were bused from place to place, staying somewhere just long enough to snap a few pictures or "experience" some activity. Every meal was buffet-style, run by chinese people, with probably the worst Thai food I've had since coming to Thailand. And of course, they spend a significant amount of time taking you to shops where they try to get you to buy stuff. If you have never been on a chinese tour, consider yourself lucky. So why would anyone go on such a tour? Well, for one, it saves you the trouble of organizing your trip (although I've found that half the fun of travelling is figuring out how to get around on your own). Second, if you have limited time somewhere, chinese tours are a great way to see as many things in the smallest amount of time. Finally, it is SUPER cheap: The cost of the whole tour, including airfare, 4-star hotels everynight, food, transportation, massages, show tickets, etc, is all cheaper than any plane ticket you can buy on your own. Airfare is maybe $700 on off-peak season, and this tour was just $600 total, during fairly peak travel time. And at the end of day, if going on a chinese tour is the only way to hang out with my friend in Thailand, I would do it all over again, no question :)
So anyway, I joined their tour after they had already seen bangkok (in a mere half-day), and were on their way down to Pattaya, the most touristy beach in Thailand. There on the first night we saw a transvestite cabaret show (apparently, very big with tourists in Pattaya), where some of the "dancers" (none of them could really dance) looked amazingly like women, and others looked very much still like men (and very unattractive). It was...interesting. Afterwards we got 2 hours massages...very nice :) The next day, we hit the beach. Our tour herded us to a parasailing place, where we lined up for our 2-minute sail, and then were herded on to the next stop, which was some kind of snorkeling, followed by 10-minutes of jetskiing. After jetskiing we actually did get 20 minutes free time on the beach, which was nice. In the afternoon, we were herded over a cultural show, followed by an elephant show. The elephants were made to dance, paint, play basketball, play soccer, etc...I kind of felt bad for them sometimes, although I guess if they are treated well, it's not too bad of a life?
Anyway, here's a picture of me getting eaten by an elephant (I know, I'm such a tourist :) )
And here is me and Andy on our elephant. Yes, the seat was very crooked. I thought it was uncomfortable, but couldn't figure out why...
So anyway, that's my trip!! :) It was a lot of fun, but aside from missing my friend I'm really glad to be back. Good food, good friends, and a lot of work :)
By the way, I'm planning to learn how to ride a motorcycle, it really is the best way to get around here. My friend is going to teach me tomorrow...we'll see how it goes! If it's too scary or too dangerous, I might have to stick to bicycle, and borrowing Mr. Lee's car...