The biggest Fire Balloon Festival in Myanmar is located in the mountain town of Taunggyi which is about a 12 hour drive north of Yangon. I took an over-night bus up for an impromptu weekend getaway with my friend Ashley to see the festival. Being the biggest, I knew it was going to be a lot of people at the festival but I have not been anywhere in Myanmar with quite that amount of people all in one place before. If I were to guess I would say that there were probably a couple thousand people all gathered for the festivities. As we walked up to the festival grounds we were greeted by our first sighting of a fire balloon - and this one had fireworks on it! It was quite the site shooting up in the sky. (If you are impatient and just want to get to the action scroll all the way down for the video) It was probably about a half a mile walk up to the main area of the festival and all the way up was lined with booths with vendors selling all sorts of things like clothing (traditional and modern), trinkets, gadgets, more clothing, accessories (purses and wallets), to name a few. There were a lot of warm clothing for sale especially hats and scarfs, although it was only about 50* or so people were dressed like it was freezing. I guess they are not quite as used to the cold as I am. Of course there was food, all sorts of food. Mostly traditional barbecue (below), noodle dishes, lots of greasy fried things, and don't forget the rice! Along with the food were the beer stands. You could get beer just about anywhere and walk around with it. Or you could pop into one of the clubs that the beer/alcohol booths had set up behind. These closed in spaces had private DJs and lots of flashy lights. There were lots of game booths also. There were the traditional prizes I was used to like stuffed animals or cheep plastic toys, but then there were the booths where you could win beer or cigarettes (above) or you could go straight for the bottles of liquor (below). Just make 2 baskets and it's yours! Temporary tattoo anyone? This man had all sorts of stamps that he lines with thick black ink that supposedly lasts for about 5 days. I almost got one but I couldn't find a design I liked. Two other types of booths were the monkey booth and the photo booths. When I peeked into the monkey booth I saw two monkeys sitting on hanging loops with a string attached to their legs. Ashley said that it was set up for people to pay money to see the monkeys to various tricks. The photo booth was kind of like glamor shots, where they dress you up in fancy or funny clothing, do your hair and makeup, then take your photo to be printed out and sent home with you. And then there was the ride section. This looked like most carnivals that I knew, with kiddy rides, jumping houses, and a few bigger power rides. What was not so normal was the fact that the ferris wheels (there were three of them) were all human powered. By that I mean that there was no motor, instead amazingly skillful men would climb up the wheel and, when aligned, would all power it by leaning to one side and using their weight to spin it. To stop it they would jump back on to the bench parts of the wheel and use their weight to pull it the other way. It was quite the sight to see these men nimbly making their way all around the beams of the wheel and swinging around like acrobats. Check out the video below for the full effect. Now off to the field to see some of the Fire Balloons up close. Fire Balloons are similar to Chinese lanterns in the way that they are lit using the hot air from fire and let off in the sky to burn. Yet this is like Fire Balloons to the extreme because these balloons were GIGANTIC!!! If I were to guess I would say they were somewhere between 10 and 20 feet in diameter. Each balloon is sponsored by a different village, organization, or company and these are represented on the sides of the balloon in writing or symbols. Besides just good fun the general idea is that you send a wish or good thoughts out into the world to get the universe to fulfill. But the balloons are not the only things that are lit, they are also adorned with hundreds of small candles. These mini lanterns are colored so when arranged they reveal an image of sorts. They are hooked onto specific spots on the balloon, this has to be done very quickly as the balloon is filling but before it gets too full. Lots of helpers are needed for this part. Fire is slowly built up below the balloon and fills it with hot air to make it inflate. Many skilled people are needed to help with this part as to not burn the balloon itself. After it gets filled enough one main fire is lit under it and the sticks are removed, these are just placed aside within the crowd. The process of filling the whole balloon up takes only 10-20 minutes. While this is happening there is also a whole other section of the balloon being worked on. This section is completed by taping wooden frames together then placing more of the colored mini lanterns on it to show another symbol of sorts. The rows of lights here were quite stunning. Finally the sections are attached together and lifted off. Sometimes instead of the mini lanterns, the balloons are decorated. These specially decorated balloons are always accompanied by a box of fireworks underneath them (instead of the wooden frame with mini lanterns). The fireworks start shooting off almost immediately and stretch right above the heads of the crowd. As you can imagine this is extremely dangerous. I later found out that the night before there was a huge accident where one of the balloons fell back into the crowd. Apparently somewhere between 1 and 3 people died and somewhere between 15 and 30 people got injured. The news is all hearsay here so it is difficult to get the specifics. Luckily all was well and good the night I was there. Here is the video of the full process:
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It was Friday night and you know what that means . . . 19th street here we come!!!!! We grabbed a group of our friends and headed downtown to enjoy an evening of festivities which started with 80 cent mojitos and ended with Kim making a slew of new local friends. Another epic night on 19th street.
As is usual with our nightly wanderings, we had some unusual finds one of which was another Myanmar delicacy. My students called these tree warms. The are available fresh and deep fried. We were going to try some but they were surprisingly expensive - I think they gave us the foreigner price increase.
On Saturday we went on a much-awaited adventure of going across the river to the neighboring town of Dala. We took the ferry over after managing to find the dock and got some traditional Myanmar lunch on the other side (yes, Kim ate on the street). The we each got a trishaw to take us around town to the different sites. This defiantly needed it’s own post so: Look how crazy adorable this little guy was!!!!!
Back on our side of the bay we lead our couchsurfers through a little tour of downtown in search of Dim Sum. We had heard that Chinatown has the BEST Dim Sum in Yangon (makes sense). But unfortunately we didn't actually know where Chinatown was to be found. It did show the area on the map but it was stretched over about 6 blocks. At least the walk was interesting. Although we didn't find any Dim Sum we did find some tasty doughnuts off the street. Kim really enjoyed them.
Sunday we continued our usual tradition of grocery shopping but instead of taking our usual route we decided to take the long way around and explore our neighborhood a little more. One thing I love about walking around is admiring all of the colors that were once brilliant and vibrant used on the houses, now crumbling, peeling, and fading away. After walking down a random road for a good 15-20 minutes we turned out to a road that we knew but the surprises didn’t end there, we found a genuine ramen noodle house down a random side ally. Although we had already had a meal we know we will be back to try it soon. The week held a run of work, me at school and Kim building her menu for the restaurant. We hosted a new couchsurfing couple from Spain in the middle of the week and had a blast with them sharing our love of homemade sangria and delicious food.
We can’t go through a week without having a fun new food adventure. We popped over to the Korean Mart across the street in search of some ice cream and found an interesting treat, check out this video to see what we found: I'm not sure what to say after that so I will just leave it there. See you all next week!
It was time to get out of the city. Although we really do like our new city, Yangon, the constant rush of people, lack of nature, and beyond annoying horn honking from all sorts of vehicles was taking it's tole on us. Luckily it doesn't take much to find a rural area in Myanmar since the country is more that than anything else. We happily took a break from the hustle and bustle to cross the river docking in the nearby town of Dala. A traditional Myanmar village town held an afternoon of dirt roads, local eats, and lots of staring locals. The day started with a ferry ride across the river after grabbing our current couchsurfers and our friend Ashley. We knew the general location of the dock which we were to leave from but not exactly what we were looking for. Luckily a local pointed us to the building where we were to buy our tickets. There was a long queue of people lined up at the counter but we were quickly directed around all of the locals waiting into a special room. We were greeted by a man who's smile filled up his whole face. He wrote out our tickets as he asked us about where we were from and what we were doing in Yangon. A trip across the river and back cost us $4 each (4000 kyat) which is significantly more than the local price of $0.40 but by now we are pretty used to getting the foreigner price increase. Tickets in hand we only waited a few minutes before the ferry pulled up to the dock and started unloading it's passengers and goods. We waited until the coast was clear and joined the mass of people swarming onto the boat. The boat itself was two stories high with rows and rows of hard plastic benches. There was also more open spaces for those who needed room for their baskets of produce or, ya know, the regular ol' chicken bike. Yes, it is literally how it sounds, a bicycle with partially alive chickens tied to it. This apparently is quite the hot commodity because when we got off the boat the chicken bike man was swarmed with people offering to buy numerous amounts of said chickens. There were a number of ladies selling snacks on the boat, these ranged from steamed corn-on-the-cob to hard boiled quail eggs (which were an obvious popular commodity due to the evidence of egg shells scattered all over the floor of the ferry). It took us less than 15 minutes to get to the other side of the river and before we knew it we were following the crowd to the busy street of Dala. Although Dala is a small village town, since it hosts the dock that receives the ferries it's first impression was pretty overwhelming as it was filled with touts (people trying to sell us stuff), taxis, people rushing around, lots of rickshaws, and the first motorbikes we have seen since up close since we arrived in country. A rickshaw driver that was talking to us on the ferry showed us a nice place to get some traditional Myanmar food for lunch, he even helped us figure out what the different meats and vegetables were (since he spoke a bit of english and the restaurant people didn't speak any). Our couchsurfers were famished and this was their first taste of Myanmar. I think they enjoyed it. I had a difficult time because just about everything was beyond my spice tolerance but everyone else thought the dishes were pretty tasty. Even though we all should have known better than to accept the first offer of a rickshaw that was presented to us, we decided to go with the guy we met on the ferry (who helped us with lunch) because he had been so nice to us so far and he seemed to know the area well enough to show us what there was to see. We came out from lunch to find a rickshaw waiting for each one of us. They provided us with umbrellas and hats to shade us from the sun and before we knew it we were off. Just down the road we stopped at a glittering golden pagoda. I don't recall the name of this one but it was pretty typical of Myanmar pagodas with tall stupas, intricate carvings, bright colored buildings, and lion/gargoyle things placed about. I do have to say though that the best part was the adorable puppy that was hanging out at the pagoda. Often monks who reside near pagodas will provide shelter and food for stray animals. It was so cute and playful! It -almost- ended up in one of our bags ; ) The town of Dala was lush and green - typical tropical vegetation - with dirt roads lined with simple houses. Laundry was hung on lines and wooden planks made up the paths leading to house doorways. It was quite and peaceful. As we passed by we caught the stares from each and every local milling about. I didn't mind the attention because after a smile and a chipper "mingalaba" (hello) it was always returned with the same. We made a trip up to the fishing part of the village. This section was right on a smaller inlet of the river where long fishing boats lined the coast. It was calming to see the day to day life of the rural folks, feeding chickens, putting around on their moterbikes, walking their goats, and so on. My rickshaw driver told us that he would take us to the orphanage next. I had heard that there was an amazing orphanage program on this side of the river due to the necessity since the natural disaster that killed an outstanding amount of people just a couple years ago, so I was inclined to go. He mentioned that the children would be selling snacks that we could buy to help them. When we arrived to the small village I was a little confused because I was expecting to see a large building that would house the orphanage, instead my driver lead on on a bath of sandbags and across bamboo pipe bridges that felt like they were sure to break beneath our feet. As our driver called out to the village the children came running from all directions. The laughed and giggled as they ran past us to meet at a destination that was obviously known. When the 5 of us got to the front of the line forming with children we were presented with two large bags of filled with packaged snacks and told the prices between the two. After a very confusing conversation which was greatly inhibited by the language barrier we found out the true situation. Our driver wanted us to buy snacks to give to the children. Ashley was hesitant about this as she quickly shared her experience from another country where the same sort of set up was presented but when the snacks were passed out to the children they were shortly taken away from them to be "sold" again. Although we had an uncomfortable feeling about the situation what were we to do? The children were lined up anxiously waiting with their smiles and wide eyes. As a group we decided to just pay for the less expensive snacks and ask that the children open them after they were handed out. We gave over the $10 and began handing out the small bags of chip-like snacks to each of the roughly 50 kids. Uneasy after the "orphanage" situation we unanimously decided to head back to the jetty to catch the ferry back. Unfortunately when we arrived and went to pay the drivers we found another important piece of information that got "lost in translation." We were told when we hired the drivers that it would be 3500 kyats each ($3.50) but now they insisted that the price was 3500 for 30 minutes, meaning that since we were gone for nearly 2 hours it would be 14000 kyats for each of us ($14). Although this does not sound like a lot, it is quite a hefty sum in Myanmar. Since I do remember him saying something about 30 minutes (although I didn't understand quite what he was saying at the time) I decided to just pay what they asked and take it as a learning experience. Mainly it was disappointing since it soured the wonderful day we had. Lesson learned about clarifying certain things with the driver/guide before setting off. All in all it was a lovely day away from the city and one that I would be happy to repeat again.
Another great weekend started with taking it easy and watching E & H so Sharon and Steven could have a night out. Saturday morning we met up with the four of them to go for a ride on the Circular Train. The Circular Train is a slow-moving train that makes a loop around Yangon over a three hour time period. Read, Watch, & View our experience on the Circle Line HereOn the way back I managed to gu-estimate which stop to get off to be closest to the Shan noodle place that we love so it was only a very short walk before we were seated in front of some noodles and dumplings. Yum! Here is a video of the awesomness (don’t mind how incredibly hot and sweaty we were, three hours on an open-air train in the tropics will do that to you): Still very hot, we tried to find some ice cream but ended up with this creation called a caterpillar that was so overly sweet and artificial. It was not good. Not good at all.
I had always admired the concept of couchsurfing, letting a fellow traveler crash on your couch (or spare bed or even floor) for a short time as they are passing though. Unlike airbnb or similar sites where you can rent out your spare room to visitors, couchsurfing is completely free for both the host and the guest. The only thing I expect to gain is meeting new friends and fellow travelers that can share their stories and advice, plus some good karma and hopefully some invites to other’s homes across the world. Seeing as we lived in the middle of Maine, we didn’t get a whole lot of travelers wondering though our neck of the woods; but here in Myanmar, the backpackers are flocking in now that the country is open to foreigners with the hopes to see this unknown land before it gets run over with modernization. With few foreigners that live here and even fewer ones that have extra space to offer guests, as soon as I signed up with couchsurfing.org I began receiving requests to stay. This weekend we accepted our first couchsufers, two young backpackers from China, Rachel & Jo’di. We invited them out to join us for our Sunday tradition of dimsum and it was just as delicious as ever. Then we wandered around the mall area and found a $1.80 store where Jo’di explained this contraption to me that was designed to make your face slimmer. I also found a “lame mirror,” as well as a phone store that sounds like they take really good care of their customers.
As we continued wandering the streets we stumbled on the very last thing I would expect on a random back road of Yangon – an Amusement Park. It was the creepiest, funniest, most strange find ever. As it was almost 9pm we expected it to be closed but the happily let us in to wander around and I could only think of one thing – that this would be the PERFECT place for a creepy serial killer movie. Let me set the scene for you. Firstly it is pitch dark, the only lights coming from the off-colored bulbs on the rides that are almost all standing perfectly still except for the occasional merry-go-round which is spinning without anyone riding on it. In fact there is not one person there at all, visitor or worker. As you hesitantly walk around the plastic characters intended to entertain the children look anything but cute as their creepy eyes seem to follow you wherever you go. I continued to glance behind us to make sure we weren’t being followed by a man wielding a giant machete or something. When I turn back around a man appears out of the shadows motioning to an old, peeling sign that says “haunted house.” Always up for an adventure, the group decides to take him up for it and we hand him $700 kyat ($0.70 usd). With a low, menicing laugh he directs us to a dark doorway that I am unable to make anything out beyond the door frame and waves us a slow goodbye. That was the last time anyone every heard from Alisa, Kim, and their couchsurfers. Hehehe, obviously not – but that is seriously what it felt like at this place. The haunted house was actually really good. It was just the right amount of scary/creepy and poorly constructed making it funny. This is my favorite kind of adventure, when we wander around and stumble upon crazy random awesome things.
Monday started off another school week, in the afternoon I joined a group for the first yoga lesson offered by another teacher (and yoga instructor) in one of the classrooms. I am so glad to have a yoga class again! On Tuesday I began my first meeting of Photo Club. The idea is to get a group of photographers (students, teachers, staff, ect) together to learn some new techniques and practice together. It was a small but interested group that joined, hopefully I will be able to have a great time in the club this year. Wednesday, Shelly and I decided to go grab some dinner after school. I took the bus over to her apartment and we grabbed a taxi downtown. We didn’t have a real destination but decided to just wander around and see if we could find something tasty to eat. A short while after getting in the taxi we were stuck in the ever growing Yangon traffic – one of the most frustrating and most unavoidable parts of living in a city (especially one with no city planning). After sitting at a light for a good 15 minutes we decided to just get out and walk around that area to see if we could find something to eat. Of course as soon as we got out of the taxi the light turned green and it speed off. That’s okay, not a big deal, but looking around we realized that we were in the wrong part of town to find food because there were no restaurants –not even any stores- in sight. We did the only thing we could do, started walking. I kid you not, after only ten steps or so the skies opened and it started pouring. Now, of course it was not just sprinkling or raining a bit, oh no, it was one of the normal Myanmar monsoon rains that feels like buckets of water being dumped on you. Shelly was smart enough to have a small folding umbrella with her but I hadn’t picked up the habit yet. Although she tried sharing, her attempt was in vain due to the miniature size of the umbrella and the massive amounts of rain. Since there was no where to duck into we did the only thing we could – kept walking. It looked like we were in the area of Vista Bar where I had gone over the weekend so I gave my best estimate at how to get there and we trudged on. After taking a wrong turn we found ourselves at one of the entrances to the famous Shwedegon Pagoda. This entrance is unique in the way that it is split halfway through so a road could run through it. We turned left to take a shortcut through the other half of the entrance to reach the road below. As we were almost out of the entrance hall we were stopped by a middle-aged local lady who pointed to our shoes and said “no.” I realized that we hadn’t taken off our shoes when we came through the entrance because we were going backwards. Normally I try to be very respectful of the traditions and customs of the locals but we were literally only 10 feet from the street so we skirted around her saying “sorry” and pointing to the outside. Normally I would have loved to take the time to curiously wander through the shops we found at the foot of the entrance but by now we were soaked, hungry, still unsure of how to get where we were going, and grumpy from being yelled at. So we hurried along and after another 20 or so minutes of walking finally, FINALLY, found ourselves at vista where we gladly welcomed some tasty drinks and happily munched on some western food as we watched Shwedegon’s lights turn on. I don't think I'll ever get sick of this view, ah, Shwedegon
The Circular Train is a railroad that loops in a circle around Yangon. It starts at a big station close to downtown and travels all the way up to the outskirts of the city, then it curves back around, passes my school, and ends back at the station.
A couple weekends ago we decided to give the Circle Line a ride and we headed off with our friends Sharon, Steven and their two kids, Hazel and Kean. When we arrived at the station we had a bit of difficulty finding where to buy tickets, after going through the wrong entrance then standing in the wrong line for 15 minutes, a kind station worker pointed us in the right direction and soon we were on platform 7 waiting at the correct counter. The ticket seller was very helpful and asked if we wanted to take the “aircon” train or the “local” train. We had heard of these options and knew that the “local” train would give us more of an authentic experience so we chose that one without hesitation. We were told by many different sources that we (as foreigners) would need a crisp $1 bill (usd) as fare for the ride. This, luckily, is no longer the case – seriously, who carries around crisp $1 usd bills?? We only paid 200 kyat a piece, which is about $0.20 usd for the ride. After getting our tickets we waited on the large platform for about 20 minutes until the man who helped us came to show us to our train that had just arrived. We happily jumped on and spread out on the long benches that lined the whole length of the train. The benches were right under the windows facing each other leaving a large aisle in the middle. We weren’t waiting long before the train wheels began slowly turning, creaking with age. The train pulled out of the station and began a steady “clunk, clunk” rhythm as it meandered on the tracks. Yangon has less than a handful of high-rises making it difficult to use landmarks as notes of where you are in the city, so starting almost immediately after we left the station and lasting the whole ride it was impossible to tell which area of the city we were in. As we got used to the steady pace of the slow-moving train, we were happy to sit back and stair out the windows to gaze as the town passed by. There were no big sights to see or exciting events, instead we watched the day to day lives of the local people. Often we saw people crossing the tracks or waiting on the road for the train to pass by. It was an echo of what we see in the residential neighborhood that my school is in. After only a few minutes we pulled up to the first stop. A simple station marked by a long bench on either side of the tracks and a walking bridge that spread over the top to connect the sides. There was a quite bustling of people moving around, getting on or off, hurry to their next destination. The train only stopped for a few minutes before setting off again. Like most other times when we walk around town, we got constant stares from people all around us. Especially being with the children caused us to get a lot of attention (Myanmar people just LOVE kids!). I don’t mind it very much. I feel like I stare at them enough they have the right to be curious and stare back at me. The best part is that whenever I see children staring at me I figured out that if I smile and wave I will always get the same back. Then if they see my camera they usually will make a pose of some sort. It’s great! At one point while I was walking down to the other end of the train I noticed a local trying to get a picture of me on his phone so I stopped and let him take one then followed suit and took my own of him. It actually makes me feel like a celebrity. Before long the scenery changed from buildings to neighborhoods, from neighborhoods to houses, houses to scattered structures, scattered structures to just fields. This was the first time that we had seen any sort of country setting in Yangon and it was a welcomed scene. We enjoyed the greenery before the train made the loop and started heading back into town. There were so many interesting people on and around the train. At one point a man came and sat next to us with a wicker basket that was latched at the handles. He was there for a good half an hour and when he stood up to leave he grabbed his bag and it gave a loud quack – we hadn’t even noticed that there was a live duck in the bag!! He was not the only one to bring poultry on the train, there was also a man carrying two large buckets that ended up being filled with chickens! After about two hours of riding we were pretty hungry and I was so excited when we stopped and some people selling snacks got on board. I hurried down half of the train to catch them and buy the snacks. One person was selling something similar to Chinese fried noodles but in one big piece – it was tasty. The other person was selling what turned out to be a thinly fried tofu that was cut up into bit sized pieces and served with spicy sauce. I didn’t really care for that one but Steven and Sharon, who are both vegetarians, loved it! Three hours after we left the station we rounded back into downtown. I managed to guestimate the stops and we hopped off the one right before the large station which landed us in the heart of Bogyoke market – exactly where we were headed. All in all it was a lovely way to spend a Saturday morning, calm and slow paced. This was a great way to get out of the hustle and bustle and see the city from a different point of view. |
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