Mingalabar!

hey everybody! Will and I are feeling almost normal. We are back in Bangkok, this filthy stinky city and feeling a little out of sorts in a strange country. Will, much to my relief, loved Burma as much as I did the moment we stepped off the plane. It is an experience I will try to do my best to explain here to you all in this blog but I already know I will fail. There is a calm and inner peace that simply washes over me from the moment I arrive. It is the same feeling that catches me every single time I make the journey North from Albuquerque to Santa Fe. Watching the Sandia's rising up from the desert floor on the right and the Sangre de Christo's waiting to welcome me home the minute I get to the top of the mountain. It is simply put, a sense of coming home. This throw back of a country that has so much potential feels like me home. This time I actually inquired about the cost of my "dream home" in Sagaing. near the hospital and Monastery where I have been working and teaching these last four years. It would cost with the land included a whopping $4000. It was all I could do to not break ground this trip but my students are inquiring about what it would take to have a foreigner acquire land there. So, more on that in the future...time share? vacation rental?

Will has been great to travel with. And with every great journey, we have had some interesting times. Sometimes stressful, sometimes we laughed so loud the locals were concerned. There is something about Myanmar time that makes you really come to understand how ridiculous the construct of time truly is and what slaves we are to it. I would be the first to say that I was so please, those you who know me, don't give me a hard time here. I find myself always aware of where the sun is in the sky and when the sun is setting. What else do you really need to know?

I will try to summarize what we did in Myanmar and then go back and elaborate. We arrived in Rangoon/Yangon and immediately made plans to get to Ngaplai beach. I have been to this beach two other times and it is by far the best beach you can visit. Cheap, clean, and no one on it. SO different than Thailand! After the beach we went to Pyay, then onto Bagan, then to Mandalay and then Sagaing and then back to Rangoon and now back here, Bangkok. I am doing my best to hang in here at the internet but the air-conditioning is so cold I may have to throw int he towel early.

When we were in Rangoon trying to get to the beach, which was my first order of business in Myanmar, I had to get to the beach! We inquired about taking the bus. It was a 20 hour trip and only cost 20,000 Kyat whic is a little less than about $18. I was weary of a 20 hour bus trip...have not done that since I was jumping on busses to DC to protest war in Iraq (the first time) and for reproductive rights....the good old days when my spine was more limber and life was more of a party and I could go without sleeping for a few days. Anyway, we were told the bus was full the day we wanted to leave. Then I asked about the next day and was told it was then only a local bus, and the next day as well...essentially I was being told that the bus was never going to be available and that we needed to buy a plane ticket. So we bought plane tickets to the beach and flew out the next day. I did nothing for five days. really. I had no book to read, and I simply laid on the beach and wrote and listened to Lou Rawls and Etta James for hours on end. A little weird music combination with the surf but I went with it. Will and I went snorkling one day and it was amazing. It cost $12 for almost a whole day that included lunch on a small island eatig a whole bar-b-qued fish that our guide had stabbed to death with a spear in the water in front of Will. Fresh catch anyone? it was delicious and washed down with a Myanmar beer. The beach was so relaxing that I had a moment the night before we left that I was so sad we were having to leave already. I told Will that I was seriously considering not showing up to work and teach and just spending the next month right there in the beach. he said that would be fine by him. He really is easy to travel with! In the end we decided that we really wanted to have this trip be about the coast lines of the countries we were visiting. which really means we want to have as much beach life as we possibly can. So, we will be visiting the beach in Cambodia and Vietnam. We are still trying to figure out what we want to do with Laos.

While we were at the beach we ate fresh sea food everyday. Will had the opportunity to buy alcohol legally and enjoyed buying a fifth of Myanmar rum (1300 kyat = $1.30 US) and we had what we came to call the Burmalibre (rip of of the cubrelibre) everyday around 4pm, some days a little bit earlier. We drank a fair amount at the beach. What else do you do at the beach. Sun all day then have one beer and you are drunk. Or at least I am.

It is also funny watching people and their reactions to our traveling together. We will ask for a double which usually means a room with two single beds and sometimes they will show us toa room with one queen size bed. They assume we are "together" which always makes me laugh and feel oh so creepy and then we laugh again and try to explain aunt, nephew, blah blah blah. In the end we never have any idea what people are thinking but boy to they like. I forget how intense the staring is in the parts and am quickly reminded of what it feels like to be a minority.

Oh crap, more tomorrow after cooking school. I have not slept much in the last three days and am positively exhausted. More tomorrow!

Ciao
willandcody