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One Tourist's Account

The following article is the account of a backpacker's trip to Burma in 2003. It does not express the views of Voices for Burma, and is not intended to exemplify the type of travel to Burma we would recommend. It does, however, give an insight into the experience of travel in Burma and provide a starting point for discussion on how we can work to maximise the potential positive impacts and minimise the potential negative impacts of tourism in Burma. So please give us your feedback on this article, either in our forum or by contacting us. If you have experience of travel to Burma, or recommendations on how such travel can be improved, please do get in touch.

Some highs and lows of two weeks' backpacking in Burma

First impressions
Yangon
The road to Bagan
Bagan
The road to Inle Lake
Inle Lake
The road to Mandalay
Mandalay

First impressions

"I thought I knew roughly what to expect when we arrived at Yangon airport in July 2003. But the sight of rows of red-starched nurses waiting to test the queues of passengers from our Bangkok flight for SARS was not what I'd anticipated. Taking everyone's temperature with the same thermometer wasn't my idea of hygiene, particularly as the nurses thought it necessary to wear facemasks.

"My boyfriend and I had come to Burma pretty clued-up about the ethical and political dilemmas we might face, but we were both surprised to be asked for a bribe by an immigration official barely 20 minutes after landing. On entering Burma, foreign visitors are required by the government to exchange a certain number of US dollars for Foreign Exchange Certificates (FECs). We knew we would be able to use FECs for accommodation and transport and official tourist sites at a conversion rate of one to one. But paying for everything else in FECs, the Burmese would ask for twice as many FECs as dollars.

"We had been told we'd each have to exchange $200 into 200 FECs but as we filtered through to the booth in the airport the official offered to sell us 200 FECs between us in return for a 'present'. My heart beat wildly and I experienced a guilty thrill as we bribed him $15. The exchange of dollars for FECs is the government's main source of getting hold of hard currency and we didn't want to risk the poor exchange rate on the black market to convert any FECs we didn't spend."

Yangon

"We only had two weeks to spend in Burma, but as we crawled between the stained sheets of our bed in our Yangon hotel, I wondered whether I was going to make the fortnight. Rangoon/Yangon (whatever you call it - the Burmese don't seem to mind either way) wasn't great in my book. At this point I have to come out and admit that when I arrived in Yangon, five days in Bangkok was the sum of my experience of Asia. I'd had a chance to acclimatise to the stifling humidity and heat in the days it took us to arrange our visas and had seen quite a lot of Bangkok in the time we didn't spend queuing on clammy plastic chairs at the Burmese embassy. I'd travelled in Europe and lived abroad. I was ready to face the poverty and degradation I'd been told to expect in Burma. But I wasn't ready to be so impressed by the simple and dignified way of life these people lead, especially in the rural areas.

"We didn't stay long in the capital city and it was a relief to leave the dust and dirt and frantic traffic. Around the city we travelled by trishaw, on which passengers ride beside the driver on seats positioned back to back, but we hired a bike each to make life a little easier for the drivers who sweated and strained in the heat. We agreed on a price in advance but tipped them generously when we got there in one piece - it seemed like a miracle we always did get there in one piece bearing in mind the precarious manoeuvres to dodge the honking trucks. Other road users stared or waved at us and we felt like celebrities. Mothers pointed us out to their small children who were thrilled when we waved at them and almost everybody smiled."

The road to Bagan

"The coach journey that took us north almost 500km took just over 14 hours and was easily the most uncomfortable journey I have ever made. If we'd had more time or more money we would have taken the train, boat or plane, but at the time the price of the bus ticket had seemed like a bargain. Although the bus was quite modern, with air conditioning and video as promised, the films shown were from the seventies and dubbed into Burmese. And no bus, however modern, could have made a journey comfortable when the 'road' was often no more than a dirt track plagued with potholes and rubble. At intervals Burmese music was blasted over the sound system and during the night when many of the passengers somehow managed to sleep, the air-con was turned off. Then the orange-clad monk sitting behind me lit up a cigar.

"Just as I was dropping off we stopped for food at the Burmese equivalent of a motorway service station. Think Happy Eater many decades ago, but with plastic patio furniture and Coca-Cola. I could only manage a mouthful of the food, which was lucky, because it gave me a tummy bug, and the 'toilets' were so unhygienic the young daughter of the Dutch family who were travelling on our coach burst into tears and refused to go near them. Toilets in Burma, apart from in hotels and guesthouses for tourists, are usually 'squats' and are hard to get used to. They don't flush and there is no paper, as you're supposed to wash yourself using the scoop and bucket of water next to the squat. Obviously roadside and public toilets are the worst examples of hygiene no matter what country you're in, but I have to admit the public toilets in Burma were foul.

"After this experience we managed to do most of our travelling by car - it wasn't really much more expensive to pay a local car-owner to take us to our next destination, especially when fellow-backpackers joined us. Our drivers often acted as guides and gave us some fascinating information about local people and the area. Without much encouragement they also felt safe to speak freely about their political views and hopes of the government being overthrown. One man even told us he wanted the Americans and British to invade Burma and free the people as they had invaded Iraq four months before. There seem to be satellite dishes everywhere in the cities and a lot of English speaking Burmese watch CNN and BBC World. Impartial national news about Burma is what's impossible for the Burmese to get, and many of them asked us what we knew about Aung San Suu Kyi's house arrest. National news in Burma seems to be dominated by stories of newly built power stations and benefactions to temples by generals in khaki."

Bagan

"Our 14-hour bus journey had brought us to the national park of Bagan, often said to be one of the manmade wonders of the world. We hired trishaws to take us from the bus station to controversial 'New Bagan' where most of the guesthouses are; 'controversial' because the new town was created through forced relocation of the population from the old temple area. Riding through the countryside passing the ancient pagodas at 6am, all we could hear above the swishing of bike tyres on tarmac was the tinkling of tiny bells coming from the roofs of pagodas near and far. The temperature was perfect, the sun had just begun to rise and the landscape was bathed in an amazing golden light. For miles - as far as the eye could see, was nothing but grassland and golden roofed temples: truly magical.

"We stayed in 'mid-range' guesthouses featured in Lonely Planet but standards varied quite a lot. We didn't find accommodation cheap, even though it was low-season. The restaurants in Bagan were great and we ate better there than anywhere else in Burma. The Si Thu restaurant put on an elaborate puppet show with musical accompaniment every time we went there, even when we were the only diners. At the end of each scene the puppets would bow graciously and we would put down our forks and applaud vigorously."

The road to Inle Lake

"The next place we headed for was Inle Lake. A friend of our Bagan guesthouse-owner drove us there in his car (white, like most cars in Burma, because it's cheaper; they come off the Japanese production lines before being painted). On the way we stopped at Mount Popa and climbed the core of the old volcano. We climbed barefoot, as the mountain is an important religious site and is supposed to be the home of many powerful spirits. The staircase is very steep and, disconcertingly, the humans share it with a colony of monkeys who beg for titbits and snatch them uninvited if they get the chance. From the temple at the top we breathed in the wonderful cool, moist air and looked down onto the fertile plains of Myingyan and distant forests. The mountain itself is lush and green, contrasting with the dusty baked earth and grassland which had been our scenery for most of the journey. On the way down local children ran after us trying to sell glass jars of fragrant yellow petals from the flowers growing on the mountain-side.

"Further on we stopped by the road and met a family who lived in a couple of huts made out of cane and woven palm leaves. They were eking out a living making sugar and moonshine from the palm trees. Our driver did the introductions and translations while family members demonstrated their work. An old woman squatted as she stirred her vat of cloudy alcohol and laughed with delight when we spluttered and coughed, knocking back a tiny cupful the fiery liquid. The longer we drove, the more we saw of the simple life lead by most Burmese. Bullock or pony carts are still the main method of transport for many of these and every few miles we would come across another family squatting (Burmese people squat rather than sit or stand when there are no chairs) on the roadside, apparently waiting for a bus to pass."

Inle Lake

"The first thing that we noticed when we finally reached Inle Lake was that it was considerably cooler than Bagan and Yangon. The lake itself was stunning. Calm water stretching out to the horizon, teeming with wildlife. The floating village-on-stilts is actually on the lake and taking a boat trip around the shops and market was fantastic. Our guide pointed out some of the native birds and a fisherman using the traditional leg-paddling technique. His English was very limited though (but far better than our Burmese!), and when we tried to ask him questions he just smiled and laughed.

"Nyaung Shwe village, set back from the lake, is less spectacular but a great example of bustling small-town life in Burma. The holiday bungalow we rented for $20 a night felt a bit like a mobile home from the 1970's. Stepping inside really did make you feel like you were stepping back into the 70's; dark faux pine cladding and highly patterned upholstery. It smelt fusty and it had obviously been some time since guests had stayed there. But like everywhere else we stayed, there was a small private bathroom which was fairly clean and had a sit-down toilet - a 'must have' when you never know how your stomach's going to react to the local cuisine!

"Burmese food is similar to what you find in Thailand but with Indian and Chinese influences. Rice or noodles are the staple food and if you get tired of these and are tempted to try a Burmese take on western food, you have to be prepared for some very loose interpretations. If you like Indian, Chinese and Thai food, you'll love the Burmese cuisine."

The road to Mandalay

"We arranged for another man with a car to drive us to Mandalay via Pindaya Caves. To reach this incredible system of caves, you have to climb barefoot up 200 steps, even if you arrange to be dropped off at the top of the cliff. It was hot and humid and climbing the narrow staircase made me feel dizzy but the thought of falling back down again kept me going - we somehow missed the fact that we could have paid extra to use the lift! The cave system opened out into a cathedral-like cavern as we went deeper into the mountainside, and on every surface, in every niche of the wall, from floor to ceiling, there are over eight thousand Buddha images. Many of these form a labyrinth and it's easy to lose your way. Most of them are painted gold but apparently this is a recent development. I have to admit, this was towards the end of our trip and I was beginning to get Buddha-overload. That, plus the fact that our bare feet were filthy from walking in the cold sloppy mixture of bat droppings and puddle water (you can see the bats hanging by their feet from the roof of the cave) meant we didn't spend long in the caves, and were soon driving back down the cliff-side, in the direction of Mandalay."

Mandalay

"Our intention was to fly back to Thailand from Mandalay but when we tried to buy our tickets we found the route was temporarily unavailable due to the low numbers of tourists. In all our time in Burma, we only saw around 30 tourists, of which around 20 were backpackers, and none were British.

"Mandalay was dirty and shockingly industrial after the tranquillity of rural Burma, and we found it difficult to adjust. The heat was stifling and the only place we found fresh air was in the shady refuge within the walls of the fort. Soldiers in fatigues lounging in deckchairs at the entrance took our passport details and army barracks were visible from the road as we cycled though the compound. It is normal to have your passport inspected and details from it noted down by officials before entering tourist sites, but this was the first time we'd been in contact with the military. We decided not to pay to enter the palace proper; partly because we knew that the palace has been restored using forced labour. We didn't find this difficult to believe since we had seen a lot of what looked like forced labour. We had passed gangs of men and women with no modern tools or machinery painstakingly digging and repairing the roads by hand, sometimes overlooked by men in fatigues. Our drivers were always reticent when we asked them who these people were.

"People in the less visited areas of the country had very little, if any, experience of westerners. One Burmese family visiting Bagan at the same time as us wanted to have their photos taken with us so they could show us to their friends back home. Standards of English are generally poor and even the people who have a lot of contact with tourists can often only repeat the same phrases. But in the cities it's easier to find university-educated people who speak excellent English and are keen to discuss politics.

"We met one person like this in Mandalay. He helped pay for his university fees by working the evenings and nightshifts in our hotel and would knock quietly on our door to have furtive discussions about his country's predicament. Once we let him exchange some FECs for kyat as he said it was very difficult for him to change to FECs foreigners tipped him with. He was anxious his boss shouldn't find out he was talking to us and insisted that government spies pose as guests in order to report suspicious interaction with foreigners. When we left Mandalay, headed for Yangon and the airport, he came with us in the taxi to the bus station to see us off and we carefully slipped him our Lonely Planet guide to Burma.

"Travelling in Burma is a challenge and poses some difficult dilemmas for those who take it on. The decisions we take along the road might not always be the right ones. I only became involved in VFB since returning to the UK and reading more about the human rights abuses that are happening every day in Burma. There are things I will do differently next time I go to Burma. It's often impossible to know where the money you spend will eventually end up. But if, in exploring the places and meeting the people, we pay them fairly, treat them with respect and begin a dialogue both in Burma and back home, then perhaps, in some small way, we can play a part in opening up this amazing country and supporting them on the bumpy road to freedom and democracy."