Myanmar 1996.

A visit to the land of the golden pagodas.



I read my guidebook about Burma before I left Norway. It said the airline i was supposed to fly was one of the worlds worst, and that the immegration would take me at least one hour. It was all wrong. The gouverment had shaped up the planes of Myanmar Airways, and the service was really good. It took me exactly ten minutes to book a hotel, to get out of the airport and hire a taxi! I stayed one night in the capital, Yangon, before I went upcountry to Bagan. This is an ancient city, once one of the biggest in South-East Asia. Today The remains are over 3000 stupas and pagodas spread around 30 Square kilometers. These ruins are, together with Anghor Wat in Cambodia, considerd to be the true wonders of Asia. I stayed here 4 days. To get around I rented a horsecart. He drove me around for 2 days. Through my horsedriver I got to know some of the locals, and every night I went to the local tea-house to socialise.The third day I rented a car together with a nice Polish coupple. and went to see the sacred Mount Popa. It is a little mountain going very steep up, where some saint were born. On the top there were a temple, and of course a good view. The last night in Bagan I got food poisend. The day after when I went to Mandaly by plane, my stumach was really upset. After a couple of hours at my hotel, I felt good enough to go and see The Mandalay Hill, a heigth in the middle of the city. I had to walk the tousands of stairs to the top, were Buddha also once was. Of course my stumach had not recovered so I had to lay down on a bench every 10 meters. I finally made it to the top. The Mandalay Hill is a recriation area for the people in the city, so there was a lot of people on the top, together with salesmen, Buddhas, pagodas, and stupas. Except for The Hill to city was not very interesting, so I went by nigth-train back to the capital, Yangon. There I ofcourse had to see the famous Shwedagon Pagoda. It is a hundred meter high pagoda, covered with tons of gold. A really stunning sight! At Shwedagon I met a couple of students, and I went with them to join their English class. There they asked me all sorts of questions about me and my country. The next day I also went with the English teacher to another class in another school. The last day was the highlight of the journey in Burma. I went to a meeting, were the Nobel Peace Prize winner and leader of the banned opposition, Aung San Suu Kyi held a speech. I even got the opportunety to talk a couple of words with her. I sent her greetings from Norway, and she told me that the Norwegians were the people of Burmas friends (The Nobel prize is from Norway, and our gouverment supports the banned opposition). A trip to see Burma and the friendly people there is something I can highly recomand, but be aware! Burma is under a DICTATORSHIP! Every tourist in the country will support the military gouverment financialy. On the other hand every tourist will give the people impulses from the free world. It is your choice. Go to Free Burma if you want to know more about the opposition. Sadly my time in Burma was over, and I went ahead to Thailand.

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