Two months going through the southeastern Asia... 3rd part: Myanmar, Yangon

Dinner in Chang Mai, Bangkok breakfast and lunch in YANGON. We feel buisiness-men ...
13:40 hours local landed at YANGON International ...
On the journey by taxi to the city center 'the first scene reminds us of where we are now, since we are forced to pull over a car because "official" early and followed by wagons of military police should go here ... everything, or almost, and' prohibited: playing the horn and turn around by motorbike or bicycle that is ...
Ladies and Gentlemen, stay strong: Welcome to Myanmar!

 

YANGON

I thought I had seen enough, at least in this part of Asia, but obviously I was wrong.
It was time for a place that caused me not continuous tingling in his arms, skin goose continues. I have not spoken for the first 2 hours when we walked in the streets, without a precise destination, in YANGON.
The first consideration in trying to understand where we are and 'trivial but I think makes the idea that here and saying' where India meets the South-East Asia.
There are now images of the streets Biene holes, covered with mountains of garbage and teeming with people coming and going from all over: 99% of men as a kind of skirt while you chew a leaf species that almost makes your teeth blacks and continually spit on the ground, leaving spots that seem a little blood everywhere ...
Women, for their part, have their faces painted with a cream yellow ocher, a little to defend themselves from the sun, and just a question for aesthetics ... And while all of the 40 buses, overflowing with people until all'inverosimile, sfrecciano to speed 'is not treating the possibility tangible' to put in 3 or 4 at a time passers like bowling pins ...
To see the streets and sold everything. During the day we meet only two other tourists, which for a city 'of 5 million inhabitants and not' evil ...
Among the crowd that seems to run without a goal, we realize that the main attraction here we are ... us!
But once again, the friendliness' of the people who greet us at every corner, we stopped at times to sell us something, sometimes just for the sake of responding only 2 minutes with us, and 'a nice welcome in this country .
Here, the smells, the colors and the emotions are strong. It seems truly, without exaggeration, of being in another world.
A little more accustomed to the idea of being in YANGON, finally we visit the Shwedagon Paya, the most impressive stupas and wonderful that I could have the good fortune to see.
Huge, imposing, desrivere almost impossible without something like this could do with his own eyes.
The market Bogyoke then closes the day, with its more than 2,000 stores where they sell everything and more, in perfect stlie Asia.
... and finally and unexpectedly find an internet cafe, where we see immediately that all things, and 'prohibited from hotmail messenger to change ... but as the money and selling petrol on the black market, even for the emails there' a loophole ...

MANDALAY - AMARAPURA - INWA - SAGAING

As we expected, the hours go by bus to reach MANDALAY, were a torture:
- 16.00 departure to arrive at its destination at 07.30 the following day.
- A single street where they had more holes that quadratri meters of asphalt.
- Coach of Chinese origin, and seats made for them, small, "rear".
- TV and karaoke for the duration of the trip (in typical Asian style ...)
- Motorway motorway ...?
Arrive at MANDALAY and 'how to take a bus to the Middle Ages. I thought and rethought, but it 'impossible for me to find words to describe what I saw. If we turn to horse-drawn wagons and plows in the countryside still dirano the oxen, we can not help but ask about the time now to be sure of not being in the fourteenth century ...
For two days we turn the city 'with its magnificent view from the hill, its breathtaking sunsets, a disproportionate number of pagodas, AMARAPURA and several cities' that rodeano the last imperial capital of Burma on a scomodissimo "taxi" which, in case and 'a mazda 1964 (!!!) with the shape and size of topomobile. Between holes and overtaking on the part of pickup trucks / bus attacked with people above and below the half turn and turn and turn .... and eat more dust in the mine ...
... I finish as usual to play football with a group of children (wherever you go they are the best, always and everywhere ...) and to negotiate until the last penny for a tear on a rishaw ...

PAGAN

Leave MANDALAY with the idea, then confirmed at the end of the journey, that this city 'we will only remember the intense darkness which reigns in every way once the sun disappears ...
The day of St. Stephen passes relaxing on a boat which runs a little more 'fast of the same Ayeyarwady River, which sail to Bagan.
At last I can see (only on board a wagon pulled by a horse dall'originalissimo behalf of Myanmar ...) that always' been one of my "goals archaeological" PAGAN and 'immense and climbing on top' of one of the most 2,000 temples scattered throughout the aviation history, in musical silence created by the presence of non-avalanche of tourists, we contemplate the scenario most 'exciting for the whole journey.
Something totally unparalleled in its beauty and intensity.
And so 'we leave, full of strength, direction Inle Lake ...

LAKE INLE

The torment of the journey by bus is repaid dall'incanto our last stop in Burma.
The town of Nyaungshwe and 'small and the air that you breathe, and cold, and' extremely relaxed. Many guest-houses and restaurants (where the pizza and fresh pasta are sold everywhere, after a cook bolognese and 'past here ... or so says the "legend" in Myanmar ... ... boh ... ) give a vague air of backpackers-town, as the Lonely Planet, even though most here that we find other couples and the elderly ...
The day slips away slowly pedaling for the village. We stop here and there until lunch, when a pizza after us we have to speak with the owner of the restaurant carinissima "Mr.Cook", who spoke some English, it gives us the possibility 'of submarines to questions about Buddhism , their lifestyle and, with some difficulty 'in having the answers, the current political situation in the country and the dictatorship that has for decades the power.
Arriva cosi 'la notte di capodanno and unassuming, as here at all and 22' we already dead to eat the dish of tagliatelle (good!) Images to 22.30 in bed ... but a surprise (even if thinking should not surprise most of the time ...) the restaurant and 'invaded by thirty Italians and so we end' to one of 2 tables with people unlikely to wait for the midnight between "disco-dance" in Chinese and bingo games in which not extract more than 4 or 5 numbers (taking care that already seems a both or only one terno people won ... boh ...)
The beginning the year in different ways makes the usual "more interesting. Maybe sweatshirt and jacket would have avoided them, but the day will be 'beautiful Inle Lake and even better, with its piles, flotante markets and fishermen, famous for rowing with their feet.
Unforgettable.

Burma can not that leave a profound mark on those who visit, those who live in its Lughi and its people.
The harsh social and political situation from which senmbra fail to emerge necesitar a most sincere and helpful attention from the community 'international, in the end, and' as if they were forgotten in this country and especially its people. A disinterest as always dictated by an awareness that only follows the rules of a market that even from a distance e 'in the life and reality' of these people. People who once again amazes the intensity 'of his soul, seeing in us "foreign-lucky" not a cause for envy, but simple human beings meritevolidei their smiles and kindness, sincere and disinterested. Purely real.
Burma, in addition to the holes along the roads that do not exist, the magnificence of PAGAN, dust and natural wonders remember 'the smiling faces of the people, the full attention and greetings that always reserve for yourself.
Mingalabaw!