The last 18 hours have been quite eventful, including a mugging, an accident
involving first aid, two more confrontations with the military, a visit to the
university, and a monk drowning a fly. Fortunately, the heat has gone down
quite a bit, the thermometre at the pharmacy now measuring 44 degrees in the
shade.
When I left the Internet cafe yesterday in the early afternoon, thick clouds
covered the sky and it was starting to become quite bearable. Thus, I decided
to visit Shwedagon Paya that afternoon, but not before getting a massage (for
$3), which was duly necessary after the two hours of almost continuous typing
during the hottest hours.
I reached the pagoda sometime around 16:00 and almost got into a fight with
the ticket office. Admission is $5, and since I am keeping my dollars until
all the Kyats are spent, I was asked to pay 8000 Kyats. The current exchange
rate (which fluctuates +/- 50 Kyats per day, it's very unstable) is 1450
Kyats to one dollar (it was 850 just one month ago), so I'd have to pay
a little more than half a dollar more if I paid in local currency. The lady
tried to tell me that she's paying 1550 or 1600 for $1, so I tried to tell her
that she better find some other exchange place because she's being ripped off.
After ten minutes of a heated discussion, I turned around to leave and she
finally settled for 7500 Kyats. You may wonder why I make such a fuzz about
500 Kyats, but the reason is simply that the money goes to the government,
which I don't want to support unless I have to.
The pagoda itself is quite impressive, rising 100 metres into the sky from
atop a sixty metre high. In as such, you can see this pagoda from many places
in the city, unless enclosed by tall buildings that usually line the streets.
It's said to contain the hairs of Buddha, from when he shaved his head to go
and contemplate under the tree in the forest for six years at the age of 29
years, while in Bagan I was told that Buddha threw his hair into the sky,
where it hovered and bring luck as long as it remains up there. I suppose he
had to shave more than once, so the theories can both hold.
I had a guide show me around, but I ended up knowing more about Myanmar
history and Buddhism than him, so it was kind of a joke when he asked me for
$5 afterwards. I gave him a lecture that he needs to announce his price
beforehand and gave him $3, then left him protesting. Again, I am not here to
rip people off, but I also won't pay $5 for a half hour tour, when the guide
should instead be at home and reading books about the stuff he told. Still,
I found the pagoda quite impressive, even though the overcast sky prevented me
from seeing the sunset, for which it is famous among tourists. I would come
back again at night to watch the supposedly beautiful lighting after dusk, and
headed back to the city, with a number of detours thanks mostly to hopping on
the wrong busses. As I mentioned before, "yes" apparently means "no" and "yes"
and "I don't understand" and "thank you" and almost anything else, if used as
a response by a not-so-fluent Burmese.
For dinner, I treated myself to a somewhat expensive Sushi dinner, came back
to the pagoda to watch the evening life of families and couples strolling
clockwise around the stupa (resembling a little the evening family strolls in
small Italian cities), found the lighting too bright and still boring, and
made my way to the hotel, on foot because I only had a $20 note on me, which
is useless when trying to pay for a taxi.
... and then I was mugged; not by some evil Burmese or one of the many muslims
living in the city, but by two American rednecks, who apparently ran out of
money (and it's very hard to get more without going across the Thai border)
and were desperate enough to threaten me with a knife. I really didn't feel
like a hero and prepared to hand over the $20 bill, when I saw a military
truck drive up the road behind their backs, and remembered the Burmese call
for help ("Keh-ba!"), which I shouted just as they were about to pass. The
rednecks tried to make a run but had no chance (the military did not even
think about using guns, they just called out to a police man at the end of the
street, in the direction the rednecks were running). There was not much
discussion, the two were loaded onto the truck, and the police officer then
explained to me that those guys will be held in prison for two weeks before
handed over to their embassy for further prosecution in the US. He asked me if
I wanted to press charges against them, in which case they could get sentenced
to up to ten years in prison in Myanmar for use of a weapon against civilians
(with no right to a lawyer or help from the embassy), but I declined.
Curiously, just in the morning, I had read a bit in a doctorate thesis on
Myanmar prison life in the bookstore on Merchant Street at the corner of 38th,
and it was obvious that the next two weeks for them were going to be hell on
earth and enough of a punishment for their misdeed. While handing over my
passport, I was assured that the "prisoners" were not going to find out my
identity (and I doubt they'll find this blog), and with still somewhat shaky
legs and a slight feeling of guilt, I climbed in the back of a police truck to
take me to the hotel, wondering a little about how friendly and cool the
police were towards foreigners.
The next morning, I rose early to confirm my flight reservation and make some
arrangements for tomorrow's departure, then headed off to the university by
public bus in the hope to talk to the folks at the computer science department
about Linux, and to hand over some of the Ubuntu CDs I have left. In Mandalay,
it was not possible for me to set foot on the campus, and here in Yangon it
would not have been much different, had I not met a zoology professor on the
bus, who took me to the campus and refuted everyone's claim that I could not
enter. Instead, she called the computer science head professor, who then
explained to the officials that she had been waiting for me and would come and
pick me up.
While waiting, I witnessed a Burmese student just falling to the ground and
ran over to help -- nobody else did. With the military folks chasing me (I had
not thought about that), I didn't actually have to explain a lot when I knelt
down next to the guy, obviously trying to help. The officials just stood close
by and watched my every move, as I scrambled to remember my first aid
training, diagnosed the guy with a heat stroke, or something in that direction
(no sweat, very hot forehead, rapid pulse, white face, mild seizures,
uncontrolled movement of the eyes, and delirious lulling), and gave orders to
the bystanders to help me carry him to the shade, get water (I had some
electrolyte rehydrating solution left), sugar, to have someone fan his head,
and someone else call a doctor. Nobody understood anything of what I said
until another student with very good English skills translated. Nevertheless,
noone wanted to get a doctor because it was too expensive, so I offered to pay
the charges and off they went, and I handed over 10'000 Kyats (more than
enough) to the translating student with instructions.
In the meantime, the computer science professor had arrived, and took me to
her office, where I found out that the university is already using Red Hat to
teach some of their courses, that she's the vice president of the Myanmar
Computer Professionals Association, and that she's also a member of the
Myanmar Linux Users' Group. She set up a meeting for me with the founder of
this group tomorrow morning, and I proceeded to show off Ubuntu's Live CD to
her, and to explain the benefits of Debian over Red Hat, which she understood
very well and seemed delighted, because "dependency hell" has been a major
problem for them in the past. I left her with half a dozen CDs and information
on how she could obtain more, then had lunch with two of the teachers (where
I witnessed a monk drowning a fly into his soup while laughing! Imagine
that!), who wouldn't let me pay no matter how hard I tried. Upon leaving the
campus for the city centre an hour or two later, I was informed that the guy
had recovered and was okay, and the officials gave me 3000 Kyats, which
I suppose must be the return money from the doctor. Another instance of
honesty.
I'll spend the afternoon strolling over the market to spend some of my excess
Kyats (the rest of which will go to an orphanage), probably get another
massage, and finally take in my last Burmese dinner, together with the Burmese
white wine I had picked up at the vineyard on the way to Taunggyi, possibly
accompanied by the Portuguese traveller I had met before in Bagan and Inle,
who's now in Yangon as well...
... which is good, because I found a new argument pro beggars the other day,
as I was resting at a street tea shop: I witnessed plenty of Burmese people
handing money to a bunch of beggars on the other side of the street. One
benefactor then came over to the tea shop, sat down at the table next to me,
and answered my question as to why he just gave them money with a simple
"because I have some at the moment, and they do not." To me, it could not have
been more convincing, and by now, the only argument against supporting beggars
is the one raised by the Portuguese: if begging is lucrative, people will give
up their self-sufficieny in the countryside and come to live on the streets in
the city, in the hope for more money. I'll be looking forward to tonight's
discussion.
Tomorrow's my day of departure (after meeting the Linux Users' Group founder
at the MICT park on the way to the airport), and I'll be in Bangkok for 24
hours before going home. And already the thought of Bangkok makes me sad,
because it surely was a great trip in this lovely country, even though
I wasn't always happy with how it turned out. I'll be back.
