On the road to Mandalay

. . . or maybe not that far. Yangon at least, though. Or Rangoon, as it used to be known. Having documented the process to get visas to Burma I can now happily report that CavTours have caught up with the LamTours subsidiary and now have visas of their own. In just about an hour's time we’ll all be off to Burma, or Myanmar as its known now (pronounced mee-YAN-mar according to the woman at the London embassy I spoke to). Which, as I sit here writing this, begs the question: if the people in Burma were known as Burmese, what are the people in Myanmar known as? Meeyan-Martians?

If anyone thinks that I’m writing more gibberish than usual, there’s a good reason for that. When we returned from Vietnam we spent four days in a semi-vegetative state, emerging from bed only to visit the swimming pool or exploit the Robin Hood happy hour. Last night we belatedly celebrated Carolyn’s birthday at a Seafood ‘n Sauvignon event at the Grand Millennium Hotel here in Bangkok. At a 50% discount for 4 or more people, that meant we paid £15 each for all the rock lobster (no more singing, please, Ginge), snails, spicy squid, soft shelled crab, New Zealand mussels, oysters, tiger prawns, smoked salmon, seafood ‘n pumpkin soup, crab claws, potatoes gratin, and chocolate fountain we could eat in four hours. Oh yes, and let us not forget the endless supply of Chardonnay (not Sauvignon, but, hey, who cares!) topped up by eternally smiling waiters and waitresses at the end of every gulp and mouthful. And therein lay my downfall. Although I can consume what could be describe in certain undesirable circles as heroic amounts of Chang beer and still be able to get from A to B albeit in an admittedly argumentative frame of mind, I have discovered that an equivalent amount of “free” white wine causes a serious loss of motor control. Add to that the fact that Mike decided we should then all go on a pub crawl and the casual reader may justifiably assume that I was a stinking mess by the end of the evening. It was a major miracle that I wandered away from safe company in the early hours, found a taxi, issued directions in fluent Thai, made it up 21 floors to my long-suffering wife, threw up most of the night’s intake, and woke up the next morning in a bed that was recognisably similar to the one I’d left yesterday. I am absolutely convinced that the others will fill in the other gaps in my memory as the rest of this day progresses; something I am looking forward to enormously!

Anyway, back to Myanmar. Having read through a cheap copy of the Lonely Planet (so cheap I’ve had to buy a knife to cut the pages open before they fell out of the binding of their own accord), I realise that this part of the tour is not going to be like the other countries we have visited. For one: there are no ATMs, everything has to be paid for in pristine US Dollars. You can change dollars to the local currency, the kyat (pronounced “chat”), but the exchange rate depends on the denomination of the bill, its “pristine-ness”, and where you change it. Mobile phones are either banned or don’t work in Myanmar; and there is even a post on the forums that says that they are confiscated at the border and you have to pick them up when you leave. There are internet cafes, but I gather that the speed is reminiscent of the old dial-up speeds of pre-ADSL days of yore, so I’m not sure if I can post for this blog over there. The chances are good that we will be followed by security police while we wander around although nobody on Tripadvisor admitted to actually spotting anyone. But, everyone says the visit is worth it, the people want tourists to come even if the military leaders aren’t enthusiastic. So, hopefully, I will be able to report in a few days what life is like over there. In the meantime, I need to go and swallow some Ibuprofen.