A Punk Rock Photography Exhibition in Myanmar? Of course I had to check this out when I was invited by a friend and fellow teacher. Her boyfriend is a part of a Myanmar punk rock band. This band along with a number of others makes up a movement called Jam It! Completely made up of independent bands, Jam It! started as a small group of musicians getting together and playing their music and now they play in public venues for free to promote their music and create a scene.

It was a small space on the fourth floor of some unmarked building but as soon as you stepped into the stairwell you could hear the music streaming down below. Along with acoustic performances by members of various bands, the space was filled with huge prints of photojournalistic photographs that were taken at the different Jam It! events. It was an interesting night, defiantly not my usual scene but defiantly worth it. 

On Saturday we wanted to stay close so we decided on an adventure in our own neighborhood. I had heard about a giant reclining Buddha that was near us. After investigating further I found out that not only was it near us but it was just a short walk away. With the help of three different Yangon maps and Google maps I set on a route in my head and we headed out. After turning down a side street off of a busy main road and before we knew it we were in the middle of nowhere. We found ourselves on a dirt road with tropical foliage on both sides. We past a meditation center and a monastery, we stopped into an art gallery inside someone’s house and found some crumbling structures. We saw monks collecting their Alms (donations from neighbors) and lots of beautiful tropical flowers. It was a very interesting walk.

People who don't have the money to put up razor wire to protect their houses will spread broken glass on the ledges of the surrounding walls. I loved the juxtaposition with the flowers growing right next to the glass. 

It was a very cool walk and nice to be out and about without seeing any vehicles.  As abruptly as the country scenery started, we turned a corner and were right on the heels of a crazy busy road. I wasn't really sure where to go at this point but luckily enough there was a picture of a reclining Buddha just ahead of us so we followed the sign and easily found what we were looking for. 

Monday was Kim's first day of work. The restaurant is still being put together but she went in to start arranging the kitchen and develop the menu. It was very stressful for her to see all the work that had to be done with such a short deadline (they want to open in a week!). But she also really enjoyed beginning a job that she knows she will love. 

It was also the first day of us having a cleaner. Kim made arrangements with a lady named Saroja who cooks for some of the other teachers, Kim will be giving her cooking lessons once a week or so in exchange for her doing our laundry and washing dishes (our two least favorite chores). It was very strange to come home to someone else in the house since Kim has greeted me at the door almost every day since we have been here. 

Changes are difficult when you are trying to get settled still but luckily these are all good changes. 

With Kim working late to get ready for the opening at the restaurant I was left to the task of making my own dinner on Wednesday. If you know me at all you know that this is a BIG challenge for me. There is a reason why I married a chef after all. Usually for dinner I would just eat whatever I could find in the cupboards or order something in. Kim had been trying to teach me some easy dishes that I can make for myself for dinner before we moved but it is so difficult here because we don't have our usual pantry of ingredients and it is really overwhelming. But I had a couchsurfer over named Emi who convinced me that we could make our own dinner. So three hours later we enjoyed a chicken, roasted veggies, and rice. I was pretty proud of myself. 

The restaurant was certainly coming along but there was still a bunch to do. 

Only 24 hours after the kitchen was put together Kim was asked to create a tasting for the owners of the restaurant and their staff. Needless to say it was a miracle all of it came together due to the crazy circumstances of having to shop for and stock a full kitchen, teach the sous chefs (who don't speak any English by the way), and prepare a meal for a dozen people in such a short amount of time. On top of that this was the first time any of these people would be tasting her cooking so needless to say it was a bit stressful. But if anyone could pull it off that would be our lovely Chef Kimmi. 

The tasting was delicious of course, she served us chicken tenders, onion rings, french fries, sweet potato fries, three different kinds of sandwiches, and fresh pasta and marinara sauce. Yum yum yum.

It was time to get out of the city. Although we really do like our new city, Yangon, the constant rush of people, lack of nature, and beyond annoying horn honking from all sorts of vehicles was taking it's tole on us. Luckily it doesn't take much to find a rural area in Myanmar since the country is more that than anything else. We happily took a break from the hustle and bustle to cross the river docking in the nearby town of Dala. A traditional Myanmar village town held an afternoon of dirt roads, local eats, and lots of staring locals. 

The day started with a ferry ride across the river after grabbing our current couchsurfers and our friend Ashley. We knew the general location of the dock which we were to leave from but not exactly what we were looking for. Luckily a local pointed us to the building where we were to buy our tickets. There was a long queue of people lined up at the counter but we were quickly directed around all of the locals waiting into a special room. We were greeted by a man who's smile filled up his whole face. He wrote out our tickets as he asked us about where we were from and what we were doing in Yangon. A trip across the river and back cost us $4 each (4000 kyat) which is significantly more than the local price of $0.40 but by now we are pretty used to getting the foreigner price increase. Tickets in hand we only waited a few minutes before the ferry pulled up to the dock and started unloading it's passengers and goods. We waited until the coast was clear and joined the mass of people swarming onto the boat. 

The boat itself was two stories high with rows and rows of hard plastic benches. There was also more open spaces for those who needed room for their baskets of produce or, ya know, the regular ol' chicken bike. Yes, it is literally how it sounds, a bicycle with partially alive chickens tied to it. This apparently is quite the hot commodity because when we got off the boat the chicken bike man was swarmed with people offering to buy numerous amounts of said chickens. There were a number of ladies selling snacks on the boat, these ranged from steamed corn-on-the-cob to hard boiled quail eggs (which were an obvious popular commodity due to the evidence of egg shells scattered all over the floor of the ferry). It took us less than 15 minutes to get to the other side of the river and before we knew it we were following the crowd to the busy street of Dala. 

Although Dala is a small village town, since it hosts the dock that receives the ferries it's first impression was pretty overwhelming as it was filled with touts (people trying to sell us stuff), taxis, people rushing around, lots of rickshaws, and the first motorbikes we have seen since up close since we arrived in country. A rickshaw driver that was talking to us on the ferry showed us a nice place to get some traditional Myanmar food for lunch, he even helped us figure out what the different meats and vegetables were (since he spoke a bit of english and the restaurant people didn't speak any). Our couchsurfers were famished and this was their first taste of Myanmar. I think they enjoyed it. I had a difficult time because just about everything was beyond my spice tolerance but everyone else thought the dishes were pretty tasty. 

Even though we all should have known better than to accept the first offer of a rickshaw that was presented to us, we decided to go with the guy we met on the ferry (who helped us with lunch) because he had been so nice to us so far and he seemed to know the area well enough to show us what there was to see. We came out from lunch to find a rickshaw waiting for each one of us. They provided us with umbrellas and hats to shade us from the sun and before we knew it we were off. 

Just down the road we stopped at a glittering golden pagoda. I don't recall the name of this one but it was pretty typical of Myanmar pagodas with tall stupas, intricate carvings, bright colored buildings, and lion/gargoyle things placed about. I do have to say though that the best part was the adorable puppy that was hanging out at the pagoda. Often monks who reside near pagodas will provide shelter and food for stray animals. It was so cute and playful! It -almost- ended up in one of our bags ; )

The town of Dala was lush and green - typical tropical vegetation - with dirt roads lined with simple houses. Laundry was hung on lines and wooden planks made up the paths leading to house doorways. It was quite and peaceful. As we passed by we caught the stares from each and every local milling about. I didn't mind the attention because after a smile and a chipper "mingalaba" (hello) it was always returned with the same. We made a trip up to the fishing part of the village. This section was right on a smaller inlet of the river where long fishing boats lined the coast. 

It was calming to see the day to day life of the rural folks, feeding chickens, putting around on their moterbikes, walking their goats, and so on. My rickshaw driver told us that he would take us to the orphanage next. I had heard that there was an amazing orphanage program on this side of the river due to the necessity since the natural disaster that killed an outstanding amount of people just a couple years ago, so I was inclined to go. He mentioned that the children would be selling snacks that we could buy to help them. When we arrived to the small village I was a little confused because I was expecting to see a large building that would house the orphanage, instead my driver lead on on a bath of sandbags and across bamboo pipe bridges that felt like they were sure to break beneath our feet. 

As our driver called out to the village the children came running from all directions. The laughed and giggled as they ran past us to meet at a destination that was obviously known. When the 5 of us got to the front of the line forming with children we were presented with two large bags of filled with packaged snacks and told the prices between the two. After a very confusing conversation which was greatly inhibited by the language barrier we found out the true situation. Our driver wanted us to buy snacks to give to the children. Ashley was hesitant about this as she quickly shared her experience from another country where the same sort of set up was presented but when the snacks were passed out to the children they were shortly taken away from them to be "sold" again. Although we had an uncomfortable feeling about the situation what were we to do? The children were lined up anxiously waiting with their smiles and wide eyes. As a group we decided to just pay for the less expensive snacks and ask that the children open them after they were handed out. We gave over the $10 and began handing out the small bags of chip-like snacks to each of the roughly 50 kids. 

Uneasy after the "orphanage" situation we unanimously decided to head back to the jetty to catch the ferry back. Unfortunately when we arrived and went to pay the drivers we found another important piece of information that got "lost in translation." We were told when we hired the drivers that it would be 3500 kyats each ($3.50) but now they insisted that the price was 3500 for 30 minutes, meaning that since we were gone for nearly 2 hours it would be 14000 kyats for each of us ($14). Although this does not sound like a lot, it is quite a hefty sum in Myanmar. Since I do remember him saying something about 30 minutes (although I didn't understand quite what he was saying at the time) I decided to just pay what they asked and take it as a learning experience. Mainly it was disappointing since it soured the wonderful day we had.

Lesson learned about clarifying certain things with the driver/guide before setting off. All in all it was a lovely day away from the city and one that I would be happy to repeat again. 

Another great weekend started with taking it easy and watching E & H so Sharon and Steven could have a night out. Saturday morning we met up with the four of them to go for a ride on the Circular Train. The Circular Train is a slow-moving train that makes a loop around Yangon over a three hour time period. 

On the way back I managed to gu-estimate which stop to get off to be closest to the Shan noodle place that we love so it was only a very short walk before we were seated in front of some noodles and dumplings. Yum! Here is a video of the awesomness (don’t mind how incredibly hot and sweaty we were, three hours on an open-air train in the tropics will do that to you):

Still very hot, we tried to find some ice cream but ended up with this creation called a caterpillar that was so overly sweet and artificial. It was not good. Not good at all. 

I had always admired the concept of couchsurfing, letting a fellow traveler crash on your couch (or spare bed or even floor) for a short time as they are passing though. Unlike airbnb or similar sites where you can rent out your spare room to visitors, couchsurfing is completely free for both the host and the guest. The only thing I expect to gain is meeting new friends and fellow travelers that can share their stories and advice, plus some good karma and hopefully some invites to other’s homes across the world. Seeing as we lived in the middle of Maine, we didn’t get a whole lot of travelers wondering though our neck of the woods; but here in Myanmar, the backpackers are flocking in now that the country is open to foreigners with the hopes to see this unknown land before it gets run over with modernization. With few foreigners that live here and even fewer ones that have extra space to offer guests, as soon as I signed up with couchsurfing.org I began receiving requests to stay. 

This weekend we accepted our first couchsufers, two young backpackers from China, Rachel & Jo’di. We invited them out to join us for our Sunday tradition of dimsum and it was just as delicious as ever. Then we wandered around the mall area and found a $1.80 store where Jo’di explained this contraption to me that was designed to make your face slimmer. I also found a “lame mirror,” as well as a phone store that sounds like they take really good care of their customers.

As we continued wandering the streets we stumbled on the very last thing I would expect on a random back road of Yangon – an Amusement Park. It was the creepiest, funniest, most strange find ever. As it was almost 9pm we expected it to be closed but the happily let us in to wander around and I could only think of one thing – that this would be the PERFECT place for a creepy serial killer movie. Let me set the scene for you.

Firstly it is pitch dark, the only lights coming from the off-colored bulbs on the rides that are almost all standing perfectly still except for the occasional merry-go-round which is spinning without anyone riding on it. In fact there is not one person there at all, visitor or worker. As you hesitantly walk around the plastic characters intended to entertain the children look anything but cute as their creepy eyes seem to follow you wherever you go. I continued to glance behind us to make sure we weren’t being followed by a man wielding a giant machete or something. When I turn back around a man appears out of the shadows motioning to an old, peeling sign that says “haunted house.” Always up for an adventure, the group decides to take him up for it and we hand him $700 kyat ($0.70 usd). With a low, menicing laugh he directs us to a dark doorway that I am unable to make anything out beyond the door frame and waves us a slow goodbye. That was the last time anyone every heard from Alisa, Kim, and their couchsurfers. 

Hehehe, obviously not – but that is seriously what it felt like at this place. The haunted house was actually really good. It was just the right amount of scary/creepy and poorly constructed making it funny.  This is my favorite kind of adventure, when we wander around and stumble upon crazy random awesome things. 

Monday started off another school week, in the afternoon I joined a group for the first yoga lesson offered by another teacher (and yoga instructor) in one of the classrooms. I am so glad to have a yoga class again! On Tuesday I began my first meeting of Photo Club. The idea is to get a group of photographers (students, teachers, staff, ect) together to learn some new techniques and practice together. It was a small but interested group that joined, hopefully I will be able to have a great time in the club this year.

Wednesday, Shelly and I decided to go grab some dinner after school. I took the bus over to her apartment and we grabbed a taxi downtown. We didn’t have a real destination but decided to just wander around and see if we could find something tasty to eat. A short while after getting in the taxi we were stuck in the ever growing Yangon traffic – one of the most frustrating and most unavoidable parts of living in a city (especially one with no city planning). After sitting at a light for a good 15 minutes we decided to just get out and walk around that area to see if we could find something to eat. Of course as soon as we got out of the taxi the light turned green and it speed off. That’s okay, not a big deal, but looking around we realized that we were in the wrong part of town to find food because there were no restaurants –not even any stores- in sight. We did the only thing we could do, started walking. I kid you not, after only ten steps or so the skies opened and it started pouring. Now, of course it was not just sprinkling or raining a bit, oh no, it was one of the normal Myanmar monsoon rains that feels like buckets of water being dumped on you.

Shelly was smart enough to have a small folding umbrella with her but I hadn’t picked up the habit yet. Although she tried sharing, her attempt was in vain due to the miniature size of the umbrella and the massive amounts of rain. Since there was no where to duck into we did the only thing we could – kept walking. It looked like we were in the area of Vista Bar where I had gone over the weekend so I gave my best estimate at how to get there and we trudged on.

After taking a wrong turn we found ourselves at one of the entrances to the famous Shwedegon Pagoda. This entrance is unique in the way that it is split halfway through so a road could run through it. We turned left to take a shortcut through the other half of the entrance to reach the road below. As we were almost out of the entrance hall we were stopped by a middle-aged local lady who pointed to our shoes and said “no.” I realized that we hadn’t taken off our shoes when we came through the entrance because we were going backwards. Normally I try to be very respectful of the traditions and customs of the locals but we were literally only 10 feet from the street so we skirted around her saying “sorry” and pointing to the outside.

Normally I would have loved to take the time to curiously wander through the shops we found at the foot of the entrance but by now we were soaked, hungry, still unsure of how to get where we were going, and grumpy from being yelled at. So we hurried along and after another 20 or so minutes of walking finally, FINALLY, found ourselves at vista where we gladly welcomed some tasty drinks and happily munched on some western food as we watched Shwedegon’s lights turn on. 

I don't think I'll ever get sick of this view, ah, Shwedegon