Heathrow to Rangoon

I’ve added a photo gallery of some of today’s pictures. Click here to view them.

My phone tells me that it is now 14.33 on Saturday 12th November, so I rather have to believe it, though otherwise I haven’t got much by way of objective verification of the fact. I do know that it’s dark here in Rangoon and we’ve just returned to the hotel after supper, so as far as I am concerned I tend to rely more on my wristwatch, which is showing a time of five past nine, I think in the evening.

Travelling 7,000-odd miles Eastwards in 24 hours, landing first in a time zone 6 hours ahead and then on a connecting short flight Westwards but arriving in a time zone 6½ hours ahead is enough to confuse anybody, I imagine – it certainly worked for me. Total confusion about when to take the malaria tablets, what kind of meal we’re having (breakfast, lunch, dinner or somewhere in between) and more.

But we’re here in Yangon/Rangoon, safely ensconced in the hotel and properly fed, so in a way the finer details about what day and time it is are of less importance.

The journey started at 6am on Friday in Maidenhead, as I’ve already described. It was an early start the day, but we’ll worth it. The journey to the airport was excellent, with no rush-hour delays, and we got there in good time. Everything continued to go smoothly at the airport, where there was a surprise in store: I was mooching about the departure area when I suddenly saw a face I recognised! It was Malcolm Beer, a good friend from Ripon, and his wife Joan, who were travelling to Mandalay with a couple of friends for a river cruise down the Irrawaddy. They were even on the same flight – I did enjoy being able to say “see you in Bangkok”! A further coincidence was that we had met their friends before, when all four of them came to our house in Ripon for a Burmese meal Annabel and I cooked in support of the Cathedral!

Then followed a 12-hour flight to Bangkok in a giant two-decker aircraft called an A-380 or something. Got talking to two Burmese ladies (sisters) sitting next to me. They left the country in the late 80s because of the political situation and have been in the UK since. One of them has a daughter who’s a nurse in the UK and has never been to Burma, so they’re taking her back now the situation is improving, to show her the country. The daughter is following on in a day or two with her father when her nursing shift ends in London. Another emotional journey!

Two feature films, a complete 13-part TV series (dozed through), something which I felt was probably dinner and something else that definitely felt like breakfast and we arrived in Bangkok. Then a walk of epic proportions, which was regularly described on signs as “12 more minutes”, and we found the connecting flight, from Bangkok to Rangoon. And behold! Another breakfast (I think by then it was 8.30am local time) of Thai green curry and rice followed by chocolate cake, and we were finally landing in the capital of the country.

Airport arrival – much as usual, queue-hopping, visa stamping, luggage collecting (all present and correct, thankfully) and greeter meeting, which worked OK after a slightly worrying quarter of an hour where our names were nowhere to be found in the melée of signs, arms and calls that greeted us as we came through customs.

I didn’t take any photos on the way in from the airport – we’ll be doing the same trip in reverse tomorrow morning for our first domestic flight, and by now we were knackered. There was a huge amount of traffic, all cars, mainly 2 years old or less. Intriguingly they drive right-hand drive cars like we do, but drive on the right. It turns out that two years ago the new government lifted the restrictions on car ownership, meaning that, just like virtually anywhere else in the world, anybody with the money can buy a car. The commonest source is recent second-hand cars from Japan, purchased online, and hence this contradictory arrangement (Japan drives on the left, of course.)

There are still restrictions on motorbikes, which are generally used exclusively by the police and army, and not a tuc-tuc in sight for some reason, so the roads are struggling to cope with a huge influx of cars. ’Twas ever thus!

It turned out that we arrived at the hotel – a cute little boutique-ish hotel near the Sule pagoda (pronounced Soo-lay) at about 11.30am, and were picked up by our greeter/guide for Rangoon, a lady called either Rosa or Ai-Ai (as I the Automobile Association) according to whether you were us or the other person on the trip (there are just three of us), for a walking tour of central Rangoon. In the 30s, and humid, so sweat flowed freely. Still no sleep…

Central Rangoon is a fascinating blend of decaying British colonial buildings and some modern office blocks. Since the old government decided to build an entirely new capital city called Naypyidaw from scratch, they’ve been steadily moving government offices there from Rangoon, leaving a host of deserted, empty, once elegant buildings which nobody can find tenants for. There is scarcely a building in central Rangoon that hasn’t got at least one sapling sprouting from its exterior brickwork, and this, combined with the typical black lichen of the region gives the place at times a strangely forbidding, crumbling atmosphere.

But in our experience so far, the people are, as their reputation goes, indeed lovely. Highly attractive at virtually any age, and always ready with a smile and a laugh. Rangoon is religiously diverse, with Christian communities and churches of various denominations, Buddhist monks, pagodas and traditions, muslims, hindus, some animists still believing in nats—”terrestrial spirits that influence human affairs” and even a vestigeal Jewish community with its own synagogue, which for some reason seems mildly incongruous. I plan to visit if I get time.

As with many countries in the region there’s quite a lot of dirt, a sometimes creaking infrastructure, but a people of great warmth and resourcefulness. I look forward to meeting more of them!

After a quick dinner, with an hilarious quarter of an hour trying, and completely failing, to divide a bill of 18,125 kyats by 3 (absurdly complicated when you are too tired to differentiate successfully between a 1,000 kyat note and one of 10,000) Sheila retired to bed (and I don’t blame her) while I accompanied Carol, the third member of the group, to the bank for change and then to the Sule pagoda, which was fascinating. Gold everywhere, and a little gold-coloured boat on a cable where you write a prayer and wind a handle to raise it up to the heavens. There seem to be quite a pious people, too.

Much is changing under Aung Sun Suu Kyi’s leadership, though there remains a huge amount to be done. It will be fascinating to see if and how the country develops into the 21st century.

Tomorrow we fly to Lashio and on to Hsipaw, in the Shan states, for a day and a half exploring the hill tribes.

An intriguing beginning to our trip!