Bogalay, Burma

Dear lovely reader,

Welcome! So we last left off on that overnight passenger ship to Bogalay right? It was pretty thrilling and perfect until the sun set. And it was freezing cold. Mike, Geoff, Ang, and I were sleeping or trying to sleep on these chairs that were made out of duct tape and wood haha. I wasn’t expecting any chilly weather in Burma, that’s for sure. So we all wrapped ourselves in our spare clothes that we packed in our backpacks. I was tossing and turning to get some shut eye. Mike on my left would drift in and out of sleeping. Ang was passed out. Geoff was mingling, having drinks and a smoke with the locals. After a few Myanmars, I really needed to go to the restroom. So I go downstairs, do my business in a squat potty (by this port, it’s easy to say we’re used to them). And by the time I go upstairs, I run into a mini get-together with Geoff and his new friends. And it’s so damn chill when we’re sitting in the dark with one white light shining on us. These locals, two Burmese men and one Burmese woman, offer whiskey and chicken to us. In my head I’m like ‘These locals are so kind, so giving.’ A little before that, an Indian local, offers his blanket for Mike, Ang and I to share. It is incredibly mind blowing, how they Burmese treat tourists, complete strangers. They are not afraid to show kindness, and make friends. It’s a quality that I found abundant in Burma, especially in Bogalay. 

The ship’s horns are blowing, very loudly. And I’m just laughing to myself at how hard it is to sleep on the ship. By 3am, I’m able to close my eyes for one hour. And later at 4am, I hear locals packing up their blankets and belongings to get off the ship. I see local men walking out, carrying boxes of cargo off the ship. It was 4am, so the sky was still pitch dark. The town that we docked at was pitch dark was well, until all of a sudden, all the lights of every building turned on. It seemed like magic, having them all turn on at the same time. But a more logical reason was because there was a power outage. It looked like a small town. A very small town. And the other three were still sound asleep. So I think to myself, this can’t be Bogalay. This is just a stop. Well, I didn’t know what Bogalay looked like. But I couldn’t see any paved roads, cars, tall apartment and industrial buildings. So everything that I saw was just so unexpected. I couldn’t believe it. So I close my eyes, and went back to sleep. Two hours later, it’s 6am, and the sky looks almost purpleish and pinkish now. I open my eyes, and I see the same small town as I did before. Nothing has changed, we hadn’t moved. I wake Mike up, he asks ‘What time is it?’ And I tell him 6am. He nonchalantly says, ‘Oh yah, we’re here.’ And I’m just like holy shit haha. We groggily gather all our belongings and make our way off the ship.

We’re walking. We’re hungry. We’re incredibly sleepy. And from left to right, Burmese eyes are on us. Haha even the dogs stare at us. The dogs in Burma only look like one kind, almost like a mix of a greyhound and a fox. They act like humans almost. The dogs walk with the locals, lie in the shade with the locals. We continue to walk around dirt roads. And we’re just thinking to ourselves, ‘What are we going to eat?’ Was the food safe to eat in Bogalay? Only way to find out was whether you got traveler’s diarrhea or not haha. So we find this bakery where we buy some sealed cookies and bread. It’s safe to eat this right? We munch on the baked goods, ask around for a hotel aka the only hotel in Bogalay. This hotel was not bad at all. But then again, we had no idea what to expect. But to our surprise, there were two comfortable beds, blankets, a bathroom. And as soon as I see that bed spread, I knock out. We all do until probably noon. By that time we’re just like hell yes. We made it to Bogalay, checked into a room for one night. Now the day was completely ours. Not to our surprise, we were hungry for some lunch. We ask the hotel manager ‘What is a nice place to eat?’ And he points to a restaurant right across from us. We’re like ‘sure why not?’ We walk inside and these young boys, maybe preteens set us down. It must be a family-owned restaurant. We kinda get stumped because unlike Yangon, Bogalay is definitely, most definitely less-touristy. This restaurant’s menu doesn’t have any English translations. Luckily Mike had bought a Burmese-English dictionary to help us out. We look up the word ‘pork.’ And five minutes later, two pieces of pork on two plates are brought to us. We were like all righty, tastes good, even though it didn’t look like pork at all haha. I think they could tell that we didn’t know how to order in Burmese very well. So the restaurant locals literally start bringing out bowls of soup and rice to us. We’re like oh thank god haha. And we realize that everything they brought to us without order was completely on the house. And now we’re just like what the heck?! Best customer service ever. Later I ask the restaurant local where they get the paste everyone wears on their faces. By paste, it’s actually this paste that comes from a bark that is rubbed against stone with water on it. If you’re thinking it sounds pretty neat, it is. And I really wanted to find it because it actually cools down the body. For me, I don’t handle extreme heat very well, at all. So I was already sweating bullets by the time we stepped outside. Anyway, I attempt to ask the restaurant waiter if I could find the bark anywhere. Instead, he brings out the exact bark and presents it as a gift. I’m like WHAT THE HECK?! Everyone is just on a super friendly high in Burma. I couldn’t believe again, how kind these people were.

We leave the restaurant looking all happy after that great experience. And we just walk around the streets and run into the market place. They sell all sorts of things for incredibly inexpensive prices. I had bought tank tops for 1 USD each, snacks, bracelets, by the end of the trip. Unlike Shanghai and Viet Nam, there isn’t much difference bargaining will do for you. But money doesn’t much to Burmese in the first place. Keep in mind that we had travelled more southbound to Bogalay – which means it’s gun be a lot hotter. And it was. I had a towel around my neck, dirty and soaked with sweat by the end of the day. But that’s why I was so determined to get the tan paste that was painted on everyone’s faces to cool them off. I had one part – the bark. I just needed the stone that I would rub the bark against with. I went forward and asked a local woman where I could find the stone. She was already tending to her own shop. Without hesitation, she kindly showed me the way to find a shop where they did sell the stone. And in an instant, she started to show me how to rub the bark against the stone. I thought it was the coolest thing. At first it looked like watery sand on the stone. And then it materialized into paint once you rub it on your cheeks. If you look closely at some Burmese women, you can see the different designs of the paint on their faces. It looks beautiful to contrast with their dark skin. You can say it’s like makeup. Only there is no way you could hide the beauty of all Burmese women, men, and children.

This day could not be over yet. Before we came to Bogalay, Mike and Geoff had this brilliant idea to ride motorbikes in the countryside of Burma. And that’s pretty much what happened haha. We asked our hotel workers of where to rent motorbikes for an hour. By hotel workers, I mean very sweet young boys who are probably working and helping their father run the business. I realized there’s no certain ‘shop’ you can rent motorbikes for an hour. You either ask a friend or neighbor if they’re willing to rent their motorbikes out for a run. It dawned on me how important the relationships of family and community are to the residents of Bogalay. It really is the countryside of Burma. There’s no need to print a resume for you to attain a job. If you don’t have these relationships, how can you develop yourself further in society? It was just so damn cool to see the working dynamics of this society. I read about in my courses back at UCI, but seeing everything in Bogalay, it just clicks. I guess it is true. The world was beginning to be our campus. Anyway, phew my apologies folks. If you’re reading this far, you are awesome. I tend to go off on tangents a lot. But yes, we finally get the keys to our two motorbikes. And of course I don’t feel like showing off my technical motor skills in front of the locals in case I completely fall and embarrass myself. So naturally, Mike and Geoff ride first with Angela and me on the back. And I swear it feels like such a rush. Like the rush I felt in Viet Nam behind a motorbike. The feeling of a local, which is probably the best feeling when you’re travelling.  We see everything, from the marketplaces, to deep inside the countryside where there are wood shacks, clothes hanging to dry outside, grass, dirt, swamps, push-carts that sell snacks. Everything you see in Bogalay is minimized down to the bare necessities. The infrastructure barely qualifies as basic. But what gets me most about driving down these roads, is that when you see a local staring at you (which trust me, you will get that a lot in Burma), and then you smile at them, for a split second, you can see that local smile back at you. And I promise you, it’s the biggest smile I had ever seen on anyone’s face. Like an element of surprise. All these eyes on us, you can tell the locals of Bogalay don’t get many tourists down there. So the difference of just one smile, has been the most powerful thing I’ve seen living on the streets of Bogalay. A foreigner just smiled. I’m so glad they’re all right. You know? It’s like that kind of smile. And you can probably guess, that a Burmese child, has the brightest smile of them all. I really do like smiles.

I’m not a kind of watch-and-see kind of gal. Well not when it comes to adrenaline pumping at least. So I tell Geoff that it was my turn to ride the motorbike. And it’s surprisingly not hard to maneuver at all. So we’re cruising again. I’m pretty sure Geoff is being extra cautious because I start off the motorbike a little rough haha. But after a few minutes, we were flying. But turning is just a tad more difficult to do than driving straight. So there’s this intersection. I’m trying to turn, and I turn a bit too late. And before you know it, I’m crashing into a pole. Haha, so much for saving myself from embarrassment here. But absolutely no regrets. I guarantee it is a complete adrenaline rush to ride the streets of the beautiful yet unfamiliar.

By nighttime, we’re getting hungry. Motorbikes can take a lot out of ya. So we go to a restaurant called Myanmar Beer Garden. And it looks freakin’ great. Complete outdoor restaurant, with just hints of some lights around you. But it’s mostly the night sky that makes the scenery perfect for dining. Some great dishes, a few Myanmar beers. And we thought we were done for the night after that great dining experience. But Geoff was determined to keep the night going. So we get going and realize that Burma has no nightlife haha at all. I feel bad for the voyagers who are determined to get wasted in every port. But what’s the fun in that if you can’t remember it all the next morning? We walk around, and what do you know, we find locals just sitting outside, having a drink or smoke, having light conversations with one another outside in the night. And we stumble upon one Burmese man, Atun, who would change our experience in Bogalay forever. His English was not bad at all. Many locals in Bogalay are unable to speak back to us in English. So he was like the man to us haha. So we ask Atun, how do you get back to Yangon from Bogalay? Because we had to go back to the place where our ship was docked in we wanted to keep sailing. So he tells us you could take a taxi or a bus. And Atun takes us to list of bus times and rates. We’re all thinking to ourselves, this might be too complicated for us to absorb. So let’s take a taxi. If we all pull our money together, it couldn’t be that expensive individually. So Atun arranges a ride to the ‘taxi station.’ Haha and by ride I mean taking rickshaw bike ride in the nighttime to get there. And by ‘taxi station,’ I mean a meeting between us and the drivers in the middle of the night, outside, in the wind, overlooking the water. It’s completely dark, we have a flashlight to talk numbers and rates. Flashlights and generators are very helpful in Bogalay, seeing that power outages happen quite frequently. Atun is pretty much our middle man in the conversation. And like a freakin’ guru, he sets up a taxi ride that can pick us up at our hotel in the late afternoon tomorrow. To top it off, he offers to escort us all from morning to the time we have to leave, by showing us all of Bogalay. And we’re just like HOLY COW MANG!!!! At that moment and time, I couldn’t even count the acts of kindness that happened in Bogalay. We didn’t know all about Atun. But we found out that he lives in Yangon and hasn’t been back in years to Bogalay. He came to visit his sister and mother. It’s been a while ever since the cyclone that hit Bogalay years ago. But we were entirely grateful to the tips of our fingers to have him guide us. Atun is a fisherman. A very kind-hearted fisherman. 

Thank you lovely reader! That was pretty much all of the first day of Bogalay. My last blog about Burma will be my next. I hope you enjoyed reading. Because I definitely enjoyed writing it, no matter how far behind I am. If you wish to know, I just finished my wonderful time in South Africa. But that’s another story to tell and blog to write. I will do my best to finish blogs about India and Mauritius as well. But just the act of recollecting and re-feeling all these amazing memories, I wouldn’t want to do anything else with my time right now

All love and hope,

Kimmy

By helping others, you will learn how to help yourselves.   –  Aung San Suu Kyi