ASAP staff, Martin and Leanna Kim asked me if I would be interested in going over to Burma for a quick tour of the town on the other side of the river. I was skeptical that we would be able to get a visa to get across, but they assured me that tourists were going across all the time. I agreed to at least go to the border crossing with them to see what all was involved in the process. If it was going to take up a page in my passport, or cost $50 for the visa I would let them go on and be content to get some shots from the Thai side. As it turns out , a system has been set up to encourage tourists to come on over and spend their money in the stalls that have been set up, on the other side. Even though the trinkets, watches and pirated music and videos are pretty much all the same, as found in the stalls on the Thai side, tourists still pour over the border every day. My guess is that the intrigue of having “visited” Myanmar, is the real draw for most backpackers touring the world.
After getting stamped out of the Thai side, we walked across the bridge to enter the Myanmar Immigration office. As It turns out they did not take up a page in my passport, they simply took my passport! They photographed us and printed out a temporary visa and gave it to us in exchange for a $10 fee. They would hold our passports for us until we returned. Good plan! It was unlikely that any backpackers would drift off into the countryside, leaving their passports in some border office!
We made our way into the market and were delighted to come across a long line of monks who had just finished their rounds, collecting rice from the stall owners.
I wasn’t sure what they were lining up for, but I took advantage of the opportunity and started taking shots. In Myanmar it is generally expected that every male will spend at least one year in a monastery. Many get that over with when they are young.
As I moved down the line it became clear what the cue was about. Each monk was depositing the rice that they that they had collected into a large pot, presided over by, what looked like, some military official. “What are they doing? It’s their rice! They collected it!”, I heard Leanna exclaim.
Presumably this big rice pot would make its way back to the monastery without too much skimmed off the top!
After exiting the market we hired some moto taxis to take us around town. We got high enough above the town to take shots of the beautiful mountainous countryside with a magnificent golden Pagoda in the foreground.
Because of all of the buildings that surround us, This is the mountain that I can’t see from my cottage resort!
We decided to head on down to take a closer look at the pagoda. Martin, getting into the culture, rang a bell for good luck. He even thought about buying a bird to set free, but Leanna discouraged the idea.
We spent the next hour or so driving around town looking for shots. Leanna found some kids hiding under some palm leaves. I am not sure if they were playing hide and seek, or hiding from us.
But they popped up long enough for a shot.
A stop by the local cemetery was interesting to me. There was a Christian section where all the tombstones had crosses on them and then there was a Buddhist section where the tombstones took the shape of pagodas or interestingly enough, small houses!
A cute young girl was waiting with her family by the cemetery and I couldn’t resist taking the shot. I hope that I was not disturbing a family in mourning!
All too soon our time was up and we needed to get back to camp. It was a nice taste of things to come for me and I am looking forward to my two week stint into Myanmar where I will be visiting the projects of ADRA, and hopefully a visit out to the villages that received emergency relief after last year’s devastating cyclone.
No comments:
Post a Comment