A haphazard chronicle of my inevitable misadventures during a year in Vietnam and points east.

p.s. I'll be pitifully grateful if you send me email during my exile: TravelerKaty@hotmail.com

October 2002 November 2002 December 2002 January 2003 February 2003 March 2003 April 2003 May 2003 June 2003 July 2003 August 2003 September 2003 October 2003 November 2003 February 2006 March 2006 May 2006

 
I'm back, and better than ever! Ok, maybe not better, but just as good as last month, and I've learned that I can live without internet access.

I'd like to wholeheartedly recommend Myanmar as a vacation destination for the more adventurous among you. You may be shaking your heads in skepticism, but it's really a great place, about which I'll tell you more over the next couple weeks. You can't expect me to write everything right off the bat, especially given how lazy I was about writing things while actually in the country and how backward the areas I'll be in over the next couple of weeks (southern Laos).

First a little background, since Myanmar hasn't exactly captured the imagination of American tourists thus far. In fact, in 4 weeks in the country I met only one other American, and she was actually living in Australia. The thing is, the only information we get about Myanmar is bad, and justifiably so since the government there is perhaps the worst in the world, or at the very least is in the top five.

So here's a pitifully brief recap of thousands of years of Burmese history, based solely on my faulty memory as I didn't bring my guidebook with me to the internet cafe. For thousands of years various kings held sway over most of Myanmar, at times stretching into present-day Thailand, and famously reducing Thailand's capital Ayuthaya to gilded rubble in the mid 1700's. The Thais are quite bitter about that little episode to this day, and the Burmese don't have very nice things to say about the Thais either. Anyway, these kings, particularly the ones during the Bagan era in the 1000's or so, cemented the hold of Theravada Buddhism over the country, but with an added animist element that gives Burmese buddhism a very different flavor than the rest of SE Asia. This is not to say that a single line of kings ruled over Myanmar for the many centuries. There was quite a bit of conflict as the various ethnic groups in the area -- Bamar (from which "Burma" was coined), Mon, Shan, Karen, etc -- fought for supremacy and control.

In the 1800's the kings got too big for their britches, moving the capital this way and that around the Mandalay area, declaring their invincibility and wasting precious resources that they should have been spending to shore up their lazy defense department in preparation for the Anglo-Burmese Wars. The British cleaned Myanmar's clock in a series of small wars, the result of which was the addition of Myanmar, renamed Burma, to the Raj, and the final movement of the capital to the previously sleepy southern delta town of Yangon, renamed Rangoon. (The British, with their legendary prowess at foreign languages, renamed every major town in the country according to the way they heard it, which of course wasn't at all close to the actual name in most cases. For especially difficult towns they just scrapped the old name altogether and replaced them with names honoring colonial officials. I can actually sympathize with this strategy, having just spent several days in Pyin Oo Lwin.)

For some years the British reigned fairly peacefully, controlling all of central and southern Myanmar and reaching agreements with the largest ethnic minorities around the edges (Shan, Karen) to allow them relative autonomy and control of their own regions. Still, the Burmese wanted out from under the Raj -- so unreasonable, all these obstreperous colonies fighting for independence. During the late 1930's General Aung San and a group of other Burmese officials went to Japan to get revolutionary training and the help of the Japanese in overthrowing the British. They played into Japanese plans, as the Japanese were eager to get a foothold in South Asia, and Myanmar would provide valuable ports and land access between SE Asia and India. It was a valuable property, and the blood flowed accordingly during WWII. It is said that nearly 2/3 of Japanese war casualties occured in Myanmar.

Though he and his army assisted the Japanese in invading Burma in 1942 and fighting against the allies until 1945, Aung San eventually saw the writing on the wall, and switched his army's allegiance to the British. In 1947, he negotiated independence from Britain and held elections. Sadly, he and six colleagues were assassinated later that year by a rival, before the country's independence went into full effect.

Despite this tragedy, Myanmar saw a few years of relative peace (in a typical tumultuous 3rd World style) until 1962, when Ne Win, a general who was not quite as committed to democracy as Aung San, staged a coup in which the parliament was disbanded and all members were summarily jailed (and remained so for 7 years). Through his "Burmese Way to Socialism" Ne Win nationalized all businesses, from the largest multinational down to the smallest fruit stall, and collectivized agriculture under the control of military members with little or no interest in the subject. Myanmar, which until 1962 had been the most prosperous country in SE Asia, began to starve.

By 1988 the situation was dire. The infrastructure was in shambles, the education system practically nonexistent, food scarce, and laws and regulations harshly enforced. Students and workers took to the street in protest, calling general strikes and demanding changes. Aung San Suu Kyi, General Aung San's daughter, led the charge, giving speeches throughout the country advocating peaceful resistance and rallying desperate citizens to the democratic cause. At first things seemed to be improving; greater press freedoms were allowed, Ne Win announced his resignation. It was a false hope, however. The old general was still pulling the strings, and at a massive demonstration in Rangoon in September 1988 the army moved in and slaughtered thousands. After touring the country to wildly enthusiastic crowds with her democracy message, Aung San Suu Kyi was placed under house arrest.

After losing the 1991 elections to the National League for Democracy (which they refused to recognize), the generals about-faced on the Burmese Way to Socialism and decided to embrace capitalism instead, slipping into bed with the Chinese and starting to ship Myanmar's natural resources (teak, rubies, jade, heroin) out through its northern border. The Democracy Movement continues to this day, and as recently as 3 months ago a demonstration was brutally supressed by the regime, with up to 200 beaten to death by stick-wielding thugs dressed as monks. Aung San Suu Kyi was arrested again, and has not been seen since that day.

Copyright 2003 Katy Warren

posted by Katy at 9:19 PM