Burma, the conclusion: Inlay Lake

 I left Bagan early in the moarnin' and arrived at the airport to find that the time on my ticket was merely a suggestion. We would have to wait for the actual flight time to be announced. A couple hours later, tired of sitting on wooden benches, I finally boarded the short flight. I always try to have the mentality that even if things don't work the way I understand, they usually work. The Bangladeshi bus system is the prime example of this. Moving on...

The easiest way to get to Inlay Lake is to fly into Heho and then get a ride (about one hour) to the lake. I found fellow travelers going in the same direction and we split a cab. I checked into my nice, if basic, guesthouse and quickly hopped on a bike to cruise around the small town and catch the sunset from a lovely vineyard. I biked past many fields and homes and got lots of waves and smiles from villagers. The sun felt so nice on my skin, a sensation I miss during my workdays in the fluorescent-lit offices of AUW.

On the way home, pushing dark, I - of course - got lost as I tried to remember my way to the guesthouse. But through the kindness of a stranger I arrived home and got a good night's sleep in preparation for my early wake up the next morning.

After a complimentary breakfast featuring a huge, ripe AVOCADO (where have you been?!!) I met my guide for the day and followed him to his longtail boat. The guide spoke no English and was a bit gruff, but he knew where to take me. I shivered and dug my toesies under my tote bag to protect them from the frigid air as the boat cruised toward the lake. I really wished I had had the foresight to bring a blanket. But it was that magical morning hour when the sun is new in the sky and everything has a bright glimmer. Eventually it became warm. We soon reached the entrance to the huge lake and drifted past fishermen, locals on their way to work or school, and of course other tourist boats.

People visit Inlay Lake not only for its beauty, but also because of the numerous tribes that live on or around the lake. There are whole settlements built onto the lake itself, full of handicraft workshops that make silver and gold jewelry, lacquerware, spun silk, and tobacco products (or at least those are the ones I saw). And everyone also wants to go to the markets. That was where we started. We pulled up to a landing where hundreds of other boats had also parked and I hopped over bridges to get to the market setup. The front stalls were full of touristy "souvenirs," but behind them was (what I think) an authentic market - rows and rows and fresh vegetables, spices, and local products. There was also someone making what looked to be delicious donuts, and of course I had to buy one. It was gooey and coconutty...mmm. Theory that all countries have their own tasty version of the donut further proven.

I then hopped back on the boat and had a lovely day of tourin'. We passed by numerous wooden stilt homes and workshops, stopping at some so I could observe the process of whatever they made. We also ventured to a lovely temple on a hill that was surrounded by hundreds of stupas, a golden temple, a monastery, floating gardens, and a restaurant where I had a delicious avocado salad (aka guacamole, deconstructed!) and Burmese noodles.

The day was my last in Burma, so I had a  nice dinner of the local food and prepared for another early wake up for my flight back to Yangon and then Bangkok. My time in the country was too short, but so enjoyable. Despite some early complications, I felt so calm and at peace among the people and beautiful scenery there. Get to Burma, friends, while it's still relatively uncrowded and affordable! I can't wait to see what happens to that country in the next ten years. Since being back at AUW I've had so much fun sharing my pictures and experiences with students, especially the Burmese ones.

And that's all, folks! The new semester is keeping me busy, but I promise to update soon with more tales from the Desh!

My year, in just one photo

The conclusion of my Burmese travels to come shortly, but until then a picture that pretty much sums up my year in Bangladesh:

Who is the man between Anina and Meghan? Definitely not a member of WT Bangladesh! LOL
(Photo courtesy of Anina Tweed).

Temple Hopping in Bagan

After a fun night out in Yangon after a not so fun day, I got some shut eye at the still-somewhat-stinky-from-Durian guesthouse and woke up earlier than the crack of dawn to take a flight to Bagan. In Burma the time on your domestic airline ticket seems to be a suggestion rather than an actual departure time, so it's important that you call and confirm the time of your flight the day before. I found it still did not guarantee timeliness, but what are you gonna do? Basically sit among a sea of foreigners in the domestic terminal in a room much too small while you wait for a man to start yelling frantically and pushing his way through the crowd wielding a large sign to inform you that your flight is ready to board.

A bit chaotic, but it works!

An hour later I was in lovely, lovely Bagan. People go to Bagan to see really just one thing: temples. According to Wikipedia (a source I do not allow my students to use, but to heck with that here), "During the kingdom's height between the 11th and 13th centuries, over 10,000 Buddhist temples, pagodas and monasteries were constructed in the Bagan plains alone, of which the remains of over 2,200 temples and pagodas still survive to the present day." Yep. Sounds about right. As soon as I left the airport the temples and pagodas started popping up on each side of the dusty road.

After making it to my peaceful guesthouse, surrounded by temples itself, I crashed for a few hours and then took to a bike with a basket - Kosrae style - to start seeing them temples. Of course immediately I got lost, but was happy for it: I biked past a school that was getting out for the day and elicited huge smiles and waves from the female students, all uniformed in white blouses and long, green longhis. Consistently in Burma I felt graciously welcomed by the very friendly people, and especially by the children.

After righting myself I made my way towards the old city, stopping to admire the many temples and pagodas along the way. Some are in better shape than others, but individually and collectively they are stunning, especially when you look out over an entire plain covered in them.  It's hard to describe in words, so here are some pictures:

That's me! JOKES - but it could be. Took this while bike riding myself.

 After a mild (compared to Thailand or Bangladesh) but delicious - and cheap - meal of some kind of fried noodles, prawns and vegetables I went down to see the river and then returned home for the night, tired from all that pedaling and temple hopping. Some beautiful sunsets Burma has!

I loved that manual labor jobs are acceptable for Burmese women! I have not seen that ever in Bangladesh.

View from the roof of my guesthouse.

I awoke early the next morning to go with a driver on a day-long tour of the area to maximize my time there. We started at a fruit and vegetable market  where I relished walking through the packed aisles to see all the women selling their products. As I was one of only a few tourists there, I really felt as though I was getting a vibrant picture of what real life is like. Even though I was there to see temples, the market was probably the best part of my day. I even got to try a sugar apple out of the deal!

The onion lady.

Avocado!!! After being deprived for 6 months in Bangladesh, it was so nice to see my
favorite fruit/vegetable (?)  appear again. 

Spices

In the midst of it all.

Then I hopped back in the jeep for a whirlwind tour of Bagan's most prominent temples and all the ones in between. One highlight was seeing a temple completely covered in pigeons. Another was the reconstructed grand palace - even though it wasn't ancient, it was stunning and completely empty of tourists, minus me. By the end of the day I had gone into probably about 50 temples and seen many more. Whew! Not gonna lie - definitely got a bit tired and jaded by the end. One thing that got old was all the hawkers that set up at each temple, who constantly approach you to buy things. I have a feeling it's going to get even worse in the coming years, so get to Burma now!

Child monks - The taxi driver had to stop for a "child monk crossing" in Yangon, and then I saw many more in Bagan.

Pigeon infestation!

Even Buddha likes to paint his toenails! 

The "new" Grand Palace. It was reconstructed recently based on the plan of the
"old" Grand Palace, discovered at a dig site.

More from the Grand Palace

One funny thing about Burma - people always seemed a bit in disbelief that I was traveling alone, and many asked me "Do you have a family?" which I think is Burmese code for "Do you have a husband?" LOL. It's just not common in this part of the world for a female to travel by herself, even though it's entirely safe most places. And most females my age in South Asia are already married.

And a note about Burmese food - not really my thing. The aforementioned noodle dish not withstanding, I had a few disappointing meals there. One notable experience was the buffet the driver took me to on the tour. Basically you sit down and are presented with about 20 different traditional dishes. The hardest thing for me to stomach was the taste of preserved fish in many of the choices. It's really one of the only tastes that results in that gross "I'm gonna vomit" feeling for me.

The dried-fish-based buffet

Stay tuned for the conclusion of my Burmese travels - Inlay Lake!

"Passing a dangerous time": My introduction to beautiful Burma

After the Moser sisters took Thailand for 2.5 weeks and had a very merry time (minus some nasty food poisoning) this cat ventured on a solo trip to Burma. Thailand was lovely and just what I needed after 5 months living Deshi style, but now I feel moved to write about Burma and what I feel was a special, interesting, and somewhat complicated experience there.

Why am I calling it Burma, and not Myanmar? To be honest, I really don't know! "Myanmar" is the name given to the country by the military-led regime. "Burma," as is used by most Western free media publications, is the name people use when they don't want to recognize the legitimacy of that regime. Or at least that's my understanding. I found that most Burmese people I met still call the country Myanmar. As do the AUW students - that was the name for their home country with which they grew up. Mostly I use "Burma" because it's easier to pronounce.

Tourists have been flocking to Burma ever since its government made some important moves to open the country up last year, so now is the time to go! Hurry! Times will soon be a'changin there, I'm sure. What mostly impressed me about Burma was how much I felt I was really getting to see the people's lives. Burmese are very friendly and very welcoming of visitors, and mostly in a non-hassling way. Much like my experience in Taiwan, I felt the people genuinely appreciated me visiting and recognizing their country. And unlike my experience in Bangladesh, I did not feel that the people viewed me suspiciously or were trying to "get something" out of their interactions with me. It was refreshing.

I flew into Yangon from Bangkok (my new favorite city, Katherine Moser agrees!). The flight is only about an hour long. Even though Bangladesh and Burma share a border, it is not possible to do a land crossing at this time. But it was convenient for me as I was already in Thailand, and I managed to - easily - get a visa from the consulate in Bangkok.

The first sign that there would be complications - aka that I did not do enough research - occurred as soon as I landed and tried to exchange $100 for Burmese Kyat (pronounced "chaat").  The woman handed me back the bill and said it would not be accepted because there was a small mark on it. Airport bureaucracy, I figured, and took the ride to my guesthouse. But then it snowballed.

In Burma you basically have to use USD to pay for all guesthouses and plane tickets in-country. Hotels and flights cannot be booked online, and there are no ATMs from which to withdraw Kyats (which you use to pay for all smaller expenses). So you basically have to bring enough USD on you to fund your whole trip. (Yes, it's a bit terrifying to be traveling with a wad of cash.)  I brought plenty, but my epic mistake was not bringing dolla billz in MINT condition. My money was considered "dirty" and "old" and even when I arrived at my guesthouse I experienced much anxiety as I waited to see if they would accept the cash for my one night's stay and for all my in-country flights. I "passed a dangerous time" (taken from a student's email to me, when she explained how she did not save the final draft of her paper the night before it was due and had to rewrite it the morning of) but ultimately through the kindness of the guesthouse folk, the money was accepted. If it hadn't been, my trip would have been donezo before it even started. Whew!

After venturing to a large market at the advice of my guesthouse to do a shady money exchange with jewelry counter men (I had to accept a lower rate for my "old" money, but so it goes) I was feeling more confident that the trip might actually happen and started to enjoy being there. My first impression of Yangon was that it was a bit more developing than I initially thought. I don't think I initially thought much, really. The streets actually looked quite similar to the ones in Chittagong; they were fairly dirty with small shops (no 7-Elevens!) and even some tri-shaws (rickshaws with three wheels) rolling about. Then men and women both wore long skirts called longhis (men here wear the same, but much shorter!). A big difference from the super development and short shorts I had just experienced in Thailand.

The one thing that clued me off that I was not in Chittagong, though, was that so many people were missing. If I didn't realize before how overpopulated Bangladesh is, I did then. Yangon's streets felt almost empty.

As I left the bustling market, full of vendors selling beautiful jade pieces, I bought a few slices of durian fruit to enjoy back at the guesthouse. The creamy, pungent, garlicy, mangoey fruit was too much after only a few bites, though, even though I've had and enjoyed durian before. Probs cause the other one came from a Vietnamese store in Baton Rouge and had had months in a freezer to lose some of its pungency. LOL.

The offending durian. Pretty sure I broke guesthouse rules by bringing it inside.  After  it sat on the windowsill for a few minutes the room had a noticeable stink!

And because the Trojan family spans the world, that night I was able to meet up with a USC friend who was doing language classes in Yangon for her winter break from grad school. And, as a bonus, I met several other Trojans who were from/working in Yangon too. We ended the night with a stop at a corner noodle shop where we were the only foreigners (and women). Great times.

 

With my kind in Yangon! Photo courtesy of Anne Gillman.

Andd that's only my first few hours in Burma. Apparently I have alot to say! Tune in next time for the good stuff: peaceful temple-full Bagan and lovely Inle Lake.

An onslaught of mosquitoes and winter fun

Winter in Chittagong has brought a nice break from the unrelenting sweatiness that defined me for the first few months here...but it has also brought HUGE mosquitoes. I have never seen anything like these guys before. So I have taken to my mosquito net and hoped for the best. Fingers crossed that dengue is definitely not on my January list of things to tackle! (Incubation period is a few weeks).

This last month has also brought new friends and new WELCOME adventures outside of the city. A couple weeks ago I joined the Access Academy students on their fall retreat at the new campus site. It's a plot of hilly land about 20 minutes away from our current city location. Building has minimally started, with the completion date TBD. It may be a while. But it's a beautiful piece of property, and the AUW students who inhabit it one day will be very lucky. I'm definitely planning to return to see it. It's so exciting to image what AUW (and furthermore Chittagong) will become!

The retreat was a lovely time with students. We ate delicious barbecue chicken, played an "amazing race" game, and sat around singing songs to live guitar music. One of the songs was this one, the AUW student anthem. It's beautiful and so telling about the students' experiences here. Take a listen!

Last weekend I visited the farm of a nice Bangladeshi friend. She first drove us to a (by Bangladeshi standards) quiet beach and then into beautiful hill country before taking us to her farm for a candlelit dinner on top of a roof. It's so easy to feel trapped by the dense traffic of the Chittagong streets, but these places are in reality only about a half an hour away.

This week kick started my Christmas spirit. I excitedly signed up for the student Christmas carol choir and has so much fun practicing and performing! It really brought me back to the high school choir days and substituted for the fact that I can't listen to a 24-hour Christmas songs only radio station here. On the line-up were such American classics as Winter Wonderland, Joy to the World, Jingle Bells, and...Feliz Navidad. The show also featured carols from the students' home countries, a very entertaining nativity play, and a surprise visit by "Santa" who brought the house down with Mardi Gras style candy throwing. I also sang "O Holy Night" with a small group of faculty. See video below.



Yesterday I also threw a surprise party for my Pearls with the assistance of two WorldTeach friends. I baked up a storm and brought all da goods to school. Then towards the end of our class I told them someone important needed to talk to them (ostensibly about plagiarism - our neverending topic of conversation these days). Then I went upstairs, collected my friends, and we burst in the classroom yelling "SURPRISE!" Nail painting and lots of eating ensued. So much fun. We also attended a "high tea" yesterday, an end of the semester gathering for faculty. Instead of scones we had deep fried potato balls, but I'm not complaining.

A pic of me with some of the lovely Pearls. Check out the rest of my
December adventures in the slideshow below!

This weekend will feature lots of grading after my students turn in their final essays, but some fun too. Tonight we're going to a formal (aka delicious) dinner party that is being thrown for us by a Bangladesh friend. Then tomorrow I'll go to the International Food Festival of Chittagong!! Followed by helping out with a Midnight Pancake Breakfast for the students. I better start getting hungry.

Then on Monday I'll give my final exam and soon after depart for Dhaka. I'll spend two nights there before leaving for Bangkok Wednesday. This teacher is ready to see her sister and for a break! And it will be a nice, long one. I'll be in Thailand about three weeks before spending a week in Burma.

Merry Christmas from Bangladesh, yall!

Giving thanks like a Bengali Barbie

To make a long story short, I had to return to the good ole USA unexpectedly to have my gross tonsils removed (they were certainly not suited to life in a developing country, even if I am). So home I went! I spent about a month back in Baton Rouge, first dealing with said health problem, then recovering from the surgery (my first!) and finally having a little while to enjoy being there. It was my first Louisiana fall since I left for college seven years ago, complete with some moderately chilly weather. I ate lots of avocados, drank many a fountain Diet Coke, appreciated not being a total anomaly and having freedom to move around, and spent lots of time with family (including a cute weenie dog). Then I started the looong trek back with a bonus oh-so-joyful meetup with one of my best friends in beautiful Los Angeles.

So on this sunny, crisp Wednesday after Thanksgiving, I am thankful for my good health, for family and friends who welcomed me home, and for the chance to return to Bangladesh and to the most fulfilling, energizing job I have had so far.

I am also thankful that two weekends ago I had the opportunity to see a lovely Bangladeshi farm! We were invited to the  family farm of a Bangladeshi friend and had a great day hiking through the tropical hillside to a lake and then back through a creek. It was refreshing to be away from the city and so interesting to see so many kinds of tropical fruit trees like JACKFRUIT trees and rubber trees. The farm is a working farm and actually siphons off the white sap from the rubber trees and combines it with an acid to make...rubber. I had never really thought before about how rubber was made, really.

Some photos of the glorious day (check out that critical cow eye!):



Last week, Thanksgiving week, was full of school work. But it ended with TWO great Thanksgiving dinners. On Thursday night I gathered with the small group of faculty from the Access Academy for a traditional dinner complete with stuffing, pumpkin and pecan pies, and candlelight. Then, on Friday, the other girls and I decided it was SARI TIME. We spent a fun afternoon doing makeup and hair prom-style and then went to a salon to have our saris wrapped (very.complicated.) I spent a hilarious 20 minutes surrounded by Bangladeshi women getting the full works for weddings while being fussed over by a salon worker, who did not hide her disgust that I was a total sari novice. But I loved every minute of it. Then we fawned over eachother's saris and took tons of glam shots. So fun. The rooftop faculty Thanksgiving dinner that followed was quite enjoyable, too.

So on this Wednesday after Thanksgiving I am grateful for three more things:

Wonderful students at AUW who inspire me every day

Good friends to share this experience with...

lots of friends!

And finally, the once in a lifetime opportunity to look like a Bengali Barbie!

Bangladesh, once more

I'm back in the DESH after a month away! I returned minus some nasty tonsils but with lots of excitement to continue teaching at AUW (and massive amounts of Halloween candy). Tons of work - thesis statements gone array! - prevents me from fully updating now, but after TWO Thanksgiving dinners this week and more grad school application work I should have some time to sit down and muse about my trip to 'Murica and back. Until then, check out an interesting fact about where I live...I wonder if whoever wrote this has ever been to Chittagong? HA