...it may seem a little sketch. As was the case when in 2008 the Burmese government officially moved the country's capital from bustling Yangon to a semi-abandoned territory known as Naypyidaw, some 300km from the former capital. Recently the flag was re-designed some twenty odd years after the country itself was renamed Myanmar. Identity crisis for certain, but that's the story. That aside...
Burma. Is. Beautiful. Hands down, no denying it, absolutely, incredibly, definitely b.e.a.u.t.i.f.u.l. Yangon was something of a hot box, but so is most of Southeast Asia this time of year.
Actually, wandering around the city gave me the distinct feel of being transported back to Rajasthan. Given the cultural mélange of Burma’s myriad ethnic groups and the country’s position at the confluence of tides of immigrants (primarily merchants in earlier periods) from its neighbors China and India, I should not have been surprised. Everything from the inviting Bollywood beats blaring from shop fronts to the re-runs of Dhoom 1-infinity and anything with Shahrukh Khan in it to the delectable stands of naan and other deliciously fried items along the street made me absolutely certain that I had somehow been duped and plopped myself down in India. Bright red splotches of betel nut splattered on the sidewalks and streets gave me stomach-churning assurance of such. Then there were moments that jarred me out of this notion when I passed by a sock shop blasting… Justin Bieber, “Baby,” the unofficial anthem of Burmese youth and under-forty-somethings all over the country. Also en vogue were the fine crooning tunes of…Nicki Minaj? In Burma? Why? I had no clue, but as far as I can tell, the hopping music scene featured scores of covers of foreign music in the native tongue as well as numerous of these stand out anomalies from the Western world.
We wandered the stalls and street stands of Bogyoke market, taking time to sample some of the random cookings on corners. It struck me after a while that I noticed many people toting around what appeared to be metal pails with colored ribbon or scarf bits attached to the handles for identification purposes. Upon inquiring, I learned that these milk satchel look-alikes were in fact lunchboxes using to carry hot curries from home to and from work or school so they wouldn’t cool down too much. Making a mental note to acquire one of said pails, I forged on. We came to Sule Paya, the second most visited temple in the city. 
Picking our way over and through scattered bodies of people reclining and sleeping to beat the midday heat, we were approached by a friendly pair— a young monk and his red-gummed friend. They walked with us in and around the temple, pointing out this and that artifact, at least two dozen “best” buddhas, and our own special buddhas according to our days of birth. When asked when our birthdays were, we smiled and responded predictably with the month and date we were brought into this world. A common error, we were corrected and informed that your birthday was just that— the day of your birth, not the date of your spawning into this world. Uncertain, I told them I thought I was born on a Sunday and was then brought to the Sunday Buddha to pour a silver cup of water on his head and receive his blessing in return. 
After we had blessed and been blessed, we all strolled down the block to our first Burmese tea shop. To clarify, tea shops at home conjure the image of a cozy little hut or nook, probably with wood interior or furnishings, comfy chairs, steaming cups of that leafed beverage, and possibly stacks of books and magazines to peruse while you sip your way into peace. A Burmese tea shop typically consists of a smattering of small knee high plastic tables and miniature stools fit enough for exactly one butt cheek or center seam if you have good balance. Smaller than the average squat stool at a food stand, these little stools and their little tables are accompanied by a hot thermos of weak tea which you are welcome to drink your fill of, a roll of toilet tissue stuffed into a cylindrical plastic container for your finger wiping needs, and three little china cups for drinking from the thermos. We ordered two glasses of laphet Burma and received a deep saffron colored drink that matched the robes of our holy companion. Careful to stir in the massive glob of condensed milk settled at the bottom of the glass, we drank and snacked on the bean dumplings provided(eat what you will, pay for what you eat style) and talked about life, love, and the pursuit of higher education. Two additional women friends of the pair came to sit down, smile, stare, and sip weak tea as well.
As our monk friend leaned precariously forward to talk about his projected pipedream plans of English study abroad, I squeezed my rear flaps and teetered unsteadily on my seat, trying in vain not to make contact. As I came to realize, the hundred yard holy bubble afforded monks in Thailand did not fully apply to those in Burma. True, as a female I was still meant to keep my contact distance, but most of the monks we met did not seem to have the same instinctual aversion to the opposite sex or any sex for that matter, common elsewhere. Following our tea time chat, we saddled up and bade farewell, but not before our friendly pair led us outside, near an alley, and behind a parked van (I know what you’re thinking) to ask for cash for Mr. Monk’s future studies overseas.
A bit crestfallen that our erstwhile innocent afternoon had taken a familiar monetary turn, we refused the $20 each we were petitioned for and gave him $5…total. I reached out to hand the money to his friend and was quickly corrected and told to hand it to Mr. Monk himself, strange considering that women can never hand anything to monks directly. Mildly annoyed, but chalking the experience up to an afternoon guided tour and tea, we made our way to Shwedagon Pagoda, the sparkling gem of Yangon and Burma as a whole that appears on practically every travel guide. Gawking and being gawked at for several minutes, we picked our way up the back entrance, decidedly less crowded, and set off to explore the HUGE expanse of the pagoda.
Glistening golden stupas (chedis) erupted all around forming a huge cluster of golden shimmer in the center of the upper deck of the pagoda. Several smaller temples surrounded this main conglomeration, each with several Buddha images smiling coyly down at you. We sat on the cool tile to observe the couples and families making merit at what appeared to be Buddha alcoves illuminated with carnival lights. I have seen my fair share of temples in Asia, but as the sun dipped lower in the sky, the dying rays reached out and seized the light from the golden peaks giving the whole temple an ethereal feel to it as colors collided as far as we could see. A broom brigade of women swept by (yes, literally) as we sat.
Before long we were besieged with photo requests and migrated to the far side of the temple. As we looked on a procession of baby monks (okay they were all at least 5 or 6 and as old as 14 or 15) entered and Jess grabbed her pad an pen to sketch the procession and subsequent meditative prayer silence. In no time, she had drawn a crowd (both literally and… well literally) with families and half a dozen children crowding around her kneeling form to admire her cluster of baby monks.
Their ceremony complete, the monklets were blessed and returned to grinning parents who kissed them and photographed them with their robes and plaques like soccer moms and dads gathering their children after a trophy banquet. Of course Jess was then waylaid by eager parents hoping to squeeze their monklets into the frame with the tall white girl and artist. Several cameras were hastily thrust my way as I snapped and smiled and snapped and smiled until I thought my cheeks would fall off. Then it was my turn. Their fervor sated with photos of Jess, several families turned to me and by the time we had lost count somewhere near twenty-eight shots, Jess and I fled to the safety of the shadows skirting the temple on the pretense of exiting. Several shots with older monks and a peek at the sparkling diamond (which changes colors in the early evening light when viewed from different tiles) atop the main dome, we zigzagged our way down the temple complex, into the street, and back to our guest house. 124 stairs up, up, up and 6 landings later we collapsed on our bed.
That night I lay in bed contemplating the days ahead and the stories behind us in Chiang Mai. Living so close to the border, we never lacked hearing tales of Burmese refugees fleeing from their homeland to the edges of the Thai border and beyond. As I lay in bed, I wondered what I was yet to see that would corroborate the tales of fear and relief of many who had escaped. When I came to Burma I expected a prison. I expected to see terrified faces and harried and wary eyes and destitution. So far I had seen frothy cups of milky tea, grinning red gums stained with excessive betel-nutting, laughing brown faces patting naan from palm to palm, and sandy-cheeked women, their heat flush hidden by the sandalwood white streaks of thanaka on their cheeks. Granted we were in a city and the recent, but former capital city at that and I was sure that had to account for something, but it was not until many months later long after my return to Thailand that I would hold my own breath absorbing the silent shockwaves of fear and anxiety that sent these people on the run. Two months later, half asleep in the back of a van to Mae Sot, I awoke at an immigration checkpoint, one of three in close proximity on the last leg of the journey between Mae Sot and Tak.
Used to these checkpoints, I turned over burying my face in my jacket against the window as the Thai passengers produced their identification cards and papers and the officer cheerily smiled and asked me “Sabaideeeeeee maiiiiiii kooooooooop?!” in exaggerated Thai. I nodded, responded with a sabai sabai just as he motioned for a young couple, no older than myself to exit the vehicle. With that same sideshow grin, he asked if they had any bags and ushered them to the roadside as the door slammed and the van pulled off, their blank faces staring after us. On our return trip from Mae Sot, I learned the reason for those empty expressions that watched us pull away without them. A young man was extracted, albeit not so cheerily, from our returning van, barked at in Thai and commanded to retrieve his things and sit on the roadside. A young man with proper documentation himself attempted to intervene on the captive’s behalf, explaining that his Thai was a little poor but he had papers. Fakes, forgeries, or otherwise, his papers, clutched angrily in the officer’s fist were insufficient.
As our driver began to pull away, the good Samaritan ran and jumped back into the van shaking his head as his polite words were to no avail. The words of a friend we’d made in Mae Sot crept back to me: "They get detained, held sometimes for days in a detention center, and then they are sent back to the Burmese border. Without at least 1,500 baht (~$45) or more they are arrested and sent to forced labor camps. Did you ever see the new capital Naypyidaw in Burma?" (I thought to our night bus from Yangon to Bagan, passing through a deserted ghost town freakishly lit up in an otherwise dark and empty zone, elsewhere bereft of the generators necessary to provide electricity.) "They are made to work building those roads, laying power lines, everything. Not paid anything obviously. And then who knows? Prison? Detention? Basically whatever the government wants to do with them.
The sunken eyes of the young man unceremoniously ejected from our caravan haunt me now as I think back to the various faces and places in Burma, wondering just how many of the smiling faces we’d encountered would make their perilous journey to the other side. The thought of Texas or southern California or Miami besot with fleeing refugees and illegal border-hoppers came to me. Same same, but different? Not so sure.
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