“Actually it is more expensive in Burma than on the international market because the demand for gold here is higher – not only because of the gold leaf for statues but also because there are very few secure banks here in Burma and so the people hoard gold instead of making deposits. So, because of the high demand, gold is brought in from Thailand and sold at a 5% profit.”
So much of Burma’s industry – if you can count making crafts as being industrial – is labor-intensive. Does Burma have any heavy industry? I’m not sure. Definitely not cars. Guns, I think. With 300,000 people in the army, I suppose there is a good market for making guns.
I also learned that in Mandalay, the Chinese population does all the smuggling – everything from gold and drugs to household appliances – and thus they have lots of money and have bought up most of the valuable property in downtown Mandalay, forcing the Burmese out toward the edges of town.
Then I drove up to the top of Mandalay Hill in the back of a pickup truck that went up the winding cliff road VERY FAST. “There’s no way I’m coming back down in that thing,” said one other American tourist in the truck. Right on!
At the summit of Mandalay Hill was a temple that took 999 steps to reach. And an escalator! And while I was up at the summit watching the sunset, a 12-year-old monk latched onto me. “I want to practice my English,” he said. So we chatted a bit about life in a monastery and watched the sunset together. “My monastery is down there,” said the monk, pointing way down below us, many miles away. “I walk up here every evening to practice English with the tourists.”
Then a very sweet little girl tried to sell me postcards but I bought her off by giving her a dollar if she would let me take her photo and then she joined me and the monk and then we all went off to the elevator to go back down the mountain. Power failure. The elevator didn’t work. So the monk and the little girl helped me hobble off down the stairs – very slowly.
In exchange for their help, I gave them a ride down the mountainside in our death-defying pickup truck, laughing all the way down. Between me and the monk and the little girl and our outrageous Mister-Toad’s-wild-ride in the truck, I’ve never laughed so hard in my life.
Back at my hotel, I struggled with the hotel’s internet for a while but it wasn’t worth the effort. Burma is too beautiful to waste more than a few moments trying to get Yahoo to work. Did I, me, Jane, the-internet-junkie, just say that? Yeah. Our entire hotel (The Red Canal Hotel) is made from carved teak – even the toilet seats.
December 14, 2008: Before I came here, I’d frequently heard that the Burmese junta – referred to here as “The Generals” or “the military regime” – supported and profited from the drug trade. But now that I’m here, I can’t see any evidence to prove anything to the contrary.
Next I went out for a drive in the countryside. Lots of agriculture. Lots of cows. “Burma used to export onions, garlic, potatoes and chickpeas to the neighboring countries like Thailand but, right now, prices are so low that farmers are suffering and can’t afford to grow their crops for the prices they are receiving,” said someone I met up on Mandalay Hill. But from the window of my van, everything looked completely bucolic.
There’s another puppy!
“During the monsoon, all of this farmland goes under water every year.”
There’s some pigs.
Next we drove past a whole bunch of villagers, standing around. “When the soil is dry, in the fall, villagers stage sports competitions, foot races for children.” We stopped and I took a whole bunch of photos, following this one puppy around for ten minutes before I could get a picture of him (or her) sitting still. Then I dropped my camera. Crap. I shoulda bought an ice cream for that little girl who picked it up for me. Some guy was selling ice cream cones off the back of his bicycle – hand-churned ice cream, pink cones. I want one too.
This country is scenic as hell.
Life seems to be very hard here but nobody seems to be starving.
So much of Burma’s industry – if you can count making crafts as being industrial – is labor-intensive. Does Burma have any heavy industry? I’m not sure. Definitely not cars. Guns, I think. With 300,000 people in the army, I suppose there is a good market for making guns.
I also learned that in Mandalay, the Chinese population does all the smuggling – everything from gold and drugs to household appliances – and thus they have lots of money and have bought up most of the valuable property in downtown Mandalay, forcing the Burmese out toward the edges of town.
Then I drove up to the top of Mandalay Hill in the back of a pickup truck that went up the winding cliff road VERY FAST. “There’s no way I’m coming back down in that thing,” said one other American tourist in the truck. Right on!
Then a very sweet little girl tried to sell me postcards but I bought her off by giving her a dollar if she would let me take her photo and then she joined me and the monk and then we all went off to the elevator to go back down the mountain. Power failure. The elevator didn’t work. So the monk and the little girl helped me hobble off down the stairs – very slowly.
In exchange for their help, I gave them a ride down the mountainside in our death-defying pickup truck, laughing all the way down. Between me and the monk and the little girl and our outrageous Mister-Toad’s-wild-ride in the truck, I’ve never laughed so hard in my life.
Back at my hotel, I struggled with the hotel’s internet for a while but it wasn’t worth the effort. Burma is too beautiful to waste more than a few moments trying to get Yahoo to work. Did I, me, Jane, the-internet-junkie, just say that? Yeah. Our entire hotel (The Red Canal Hotel) is made from carved teak – even the toilet seats.
December 14, 2008: Before I came here, I’d frequently heard that the Burmese junta – referred to here as “The Generals” or “the military regime” – supported and profited from the drug trade. But now that I’m here, I can’t see any evidence to prove anything to the contrary.
Next I went out for a drive in the countryside. Lots of agriculture. Lots of cows. “Burma used to export onions, garlic, potatoes and chickpeas to the neighboring countries like Thailand but, right now, prices are so low that farmers are suffering and can’t afford to grow their crops for the prices they are receiving,” said someone I met up on Mandalay Hill. But from the window of my van, everything looked completely bucolic.
There’s another puppy!
“During the monsoon, all of this farmland goes under water every year.”
There’s some pigs.
Next we drove past a whole bunch of villagers, standing around. “When the soil is dry, in the fall, villagers stage sports competitions, foot races for children.” We stopped and I took a whole bunch of photos, following this one puppy around for ten minutes before I could get a picture of him (or her) sitting still. Then I dropped my camera. Crap. I shoulda bought an ice cream for that little girl who picked it up for me. Some guy was selling ice cream cones off the back of his bicycle – hand-churned ice cream, pink cones. I want one too.
This country is scenic as hell.
Life seems to be very hard here but nobody seems to be starving.
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