Goodbye Burma!

With great sadness it was time to say farewell to Burma with its lovely people and many beautiful sights. We were going to miss its quirkiness with its kids on the street wanting photo after photo, people talking about Rooney as soon as you say you're English, women spitting red betel nut juice from the bus, being jammed elbow to elbow on trucks with the locals, seeing major car repairs performed on the side of the road, watching the sport of chinlone, changing money on the black market, traveling in trishaws and horse carts, having clean toilets (yes, way more cleaner than any we saw in China!!). We most certainly were going to miss the people with their happy welcoming demeanour and their great sense of humour. We loved the places we visited too - the spectacular and immense ruins of Bagan, the tranquility of Inle Lake. The capital Yangon (formerly Rangoon) was busy and chaotic, while in Mandalay we got templed-out amongst the greenery.

There are very strong views on both sides of the fence about visiting Burma - within the country itself and overseas. Due to the dictatorial government many areas are still off-bounds to tourists, and prices are artificially high in the more controlled areas where the $$ go almost straight to the government. For us, we thought long and hard about coming to Burma because of this and certainly we tried to minimise any benefit to the government by avoiding government-run transport, staying in de-regularised guesthouses, and buying food at local restaurants and on the streets. Infact our Bangkok Airways flight back to Bangkok got cancelled and instead of taking Myanmars Airways - the Government airline - we insisted on waiting 3 more hours to take Thai Airways. I wonder if avoiding countries unfortunate enough to be ruled by such dictatorships helps anyone. If anything, we are definitely less ignorant and we hope to promote awareness of Burma's plight generally, aswell as to people in office. Burma is a great country with amazing people, and we are certainly glad we went. We wished we had had more energy and time though, and given the chance we would go back tomorrow. It was a wonderful experience. *Mush