Hello!!
Thanks for your emails Jack and Hilary. I can't access the article
Hilary but will see it when I get home. Is it about what you did at
the hospital (PTO days)?
And Jack thanks for sending along the info about your friend. We have
spent a lot of time in Shan state which is closer to Chinese border
than to the Thai border. I think the worst fighting is between the
Karen people and government. Shan people are not fighting at this
time and most people we talk to are very happy about that. The
government closes areas to foreigners when there is fighting going on.
Or they make you fly into towns and dont allow you on the roads...
that sounds like what your friend did. I'll be interested to hear
about his experiences!! The areas we have been to are pretty nice...
very very poor but nice people and no fighting. You see what the
government wants you to see...Of course they dont want you to see
anything bad. They control everything.
Mom.. everyone here speaks Burmese and then also their tribal language
(Shan, Intha, Karen etc). Some folks speak broken English and some
not at all. It hasnt been too much of a problem though. Jack I've
used that Point it book a few times and Burmese people like to look
at it to look at all the different pictures of things.There is a high
literacy rate (I think about 80+%) but university graduates usually
cant find any work.
its 9am Saturday here and Christina is still alseep so I'm sending an
email and then will go eat breakfast. We go to bed early (9:30ish) so
its hard for me to stay in bed that long!
Yesterday was an awesome experience. We are at Inle Lake and I hired
a boat driver to take me around for the day for $25. You can go on a
tour with 4-6 people but I hired the whole boat (long wooden boat with
4 seats) so we could go see some different places. We left at 6:15am
and started across the misty cold lake. Saw the fisherman picking up
their nets. Many of the Intha fisherman use their legs to row .. it
looked pertty cool. Arrived at the other end of the lake and walked
around the Thandaung market (held once a week). Only saw 2 other
tourists which was great. The Pa0 and Taung-yo people travel 6
hours down the mountain in ox carts hauling wood to sell to the Intha
people that live on Inle Lake because they don;t have any wood. Inle
Lake/Intha people sell them produce that they grow right in the lake
in floating gardens. The Intha houses on the lake are really cool.
Whole villages live in houses that are built on stilts and you have to
get in a boat just to pop over and say hello to your neighbor. We
rode slowly though some villages and everyone, esp children, come to
the windows and wave and shout minglelava (hello hello!). WIn, the
boat driver told me that 10 years ago the area was closed to
foreigners and they did not have any schools. Now they have a
primary, middle and high school.. all on stilts and all accessable by
boat. Most if not all the people we talk to are very happy to have
tourists around because, as long as the tourist does not do a package
tour and uses local guides, transport, private hotels etc it improves
their economy.
Anyway this is getting too long so I'll make it shorter. We spent the
day visiting pagodas, and villages. In 1 village they only make
pottery. In another they all made rice wine (that was fun stop. except
for the snacks. every house we visited brought out snacks and tea..
always more tea.. snacks at this house were tea, rice wine, and spicy
pig fat/gristle. i tried to be polite and tried a piece of pig fat but
just couldnt swallow it. so i sat there with it in my mouth until i
could discretely spit it out. yukky. also rice wine was firewater).
another village did silk weaving and one place did all bamboo
umbrellas and paper fans. for lunch we had "water chicken". i asked
if it was a duck and Win said "no, water chicken. only found in inle
lake and only in the wintertime". so who knows what it was! tasty
though. we also got invited to a Taung-yo house for tea. They called
down to us (in Burmese) and invited us to their home. It was also up
on stilts but more in the mountains so the animals stayed downstairs.
Win said he'd never been there before. They did not speak a word of
English and about 5 adults and 8 children just sat and stared at me
the whole time. Very friendly,warm and generous people. I gave the
kids a few crayons which they had never seen before and did not know
what they were supposed to do with them.
toilet experience... they were very clean but just a wooden box with a
hole that goes direcly down to the water about 6 feet below. That
can't be good for the water quality. The lake and canal are only used
for washing and fishing I was told. They get their drinking water from
wells.
we ended our day at Win's house where his wife and daughter made us
dinner (more water chicken plus fish, rice, soup).
when we rode back across the lake (10 miles) at sunset i saw the
fisherman putting out their nets. they spend the night in their little
dugout canoes and pick up the nets again at 0630am.
The impression I will leave here with is that these are the most warm
and generous people I have ever met. Sure, not every person is that
way but by far the majority of people are honest and genuinely
interested in where you are from etc etc. It is impossible to walk
down the street (esp when you are alone) without being stopped several
times by someone who wants to know where you are from and if you like
their country. ALso this is by far the most Buddhist country I've been
to. Everyone seems to be a practicing Buddhist and there are monks
and monestaries everywhere. NO matter how poor a family is, they
still donate food and money to support the monestaries.
OK that's all for now! I wanted to write everything down about
yesterday before I forgot. I think my favorite parts were going
through the villages and visiting people's homes. I used up 2 camera
batteries and a full 2g memory card so don't worry.. there will be
plenty of photos :-)
I hope all is well and have a very Happy New Year!! I miss you guys
and look forward to getting home. We fly back to Yangon tomorrow and
will spend New Years Eve there then to Singapore 2 Jan and home 3 Jan.
Take care!
Love,
cathy :-)
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