Their idea of a nice time is to drive up and down the beach with a motorbike, rent one of the many tandems at the main beach to do the same or have oneself photographed taking a ride on a horse.
Additionally, most people will rent a truck tire tube or two for the day to take it into the water with them.
Interestingly, only about 2km from the main one, there is a white sand beach that stretches to the North endlessly with almost no people strolling about. This is changing though, I saw several beach resorts being constructed along this stretch. Still, a very beautiful and lonely beach :-)
(The circular patterns on the beach are the work of crabs that dig holes on the beach.)
]]>One of these is the availability of mobile internet, seemingly everywhere, even as in the photo, on a broad river in the middle of nowhere. In towns, broadband internet, for prices one can only dream about in Germany.
As a matter of fact, almost everyone in Myanmar seems to have a smartphone nowadays, even bicycle rickshaw drivers. (Read also my article from 2014, the situation was a bit different then.) Of course, it is mostly the second hand refuse from other countries, but they are (Android) smartphones nonetheless.
A fact that is very interesting for me, as I am the author of StreetComplete, an Android app which makes it very easy to contribute to the OpenStreetMap project while on and about. After coming back from Myanmar, I put some work into making it better eligible for that country :-)
]]>So, the early morning routine in every town, in every village in Bhuddist Myanmar is to donate food to the local monks that pass by each morning silently. Monks do not touch money, so they eat, what they are being given. (The above photo shows statues of monks near Win Sein Taw Ya)
Pagodas are the places where the Myanmese go to pay respects to the Buddha (and collect blessings) on the one hand, and places to cool down during the midday heat on the other.
They are the center of popular Buddhism, where one can see unbelievable splendor and have countless places to perform rituals for receiving blessings.
In the Shwedagon Pagoda (see video), a guide related a few popular stories to us that revolve around Buddha. Many of them are very similar: There is some angry beast, like in one story, an enraged elephant, in another, an ogre or in yet another two contentious dragons. Then, Buddha arrives and calms it/them down. The beast then sees the error of its ways and lives an even-tempered life.
Depictions of these stories can be found over and over in many different pagodas.
The most peculiar story I heard from that guide and saw a depiction of, was about a monk, who had a habit of cutting off fingers of other people. I did not understand, why he did that, if for money, or if he was convinced that this would be to serve his god of something else. Anyway, after some time, he had already collected 999 fingers and now to complete his collection, intended to cut off a finger of his own mother. By that time, he was, understandably, extremely unpopular, so that villagers would even throw stones at him.
Alarmed by the fact, that the monk would forever go to hell if he would cut a finger off his own mother, Buddha visited this monk and told him to stop cutting off fingers because indeed, it is a bad thing to do that. The monk did not know before about what is good and what is bad, and so by Buddha’s wisdom, he was saved from hell.
The story sounds so curious that I am really not sure whether I missed out on some important detail there, but this is how it was related to me. And in the end, I guess this story is not more imaginative than anything with these mythical creatures.
]]>In downtown Yangon, the typical (apartment) building is so slim that it often has just one apartment in each floor and a staircase so slim and steep, it’s almost a ladder. You can see this in the above picture, right of the “MO” shop.
With no space in the staircase for anything, here’s an interesting concept for simple doorbells with attached letterboxes, seen all around downtown Yangon:
Do you see it? It’s a cord hanging down from the balcony with a bell attached at the top and something like a peg at the bottom, for letters and newspaper. If someone wants to get in when the door is already locked, the tenant can send down the key via the cord as well. It’s pretty cool!
]]>But well, that’s no the whole truth! :-P
To be honest, there is one kind of fast food product that made it to Myanmar and basically took over the whole softdrink market: Coca-Cola and Pepsi Co.
In 2014, when I first visited Myanmar in the Mandalay area, I wrote about local brands of softdrinks, like “Lemon Sparkling” and “Star Cola”. Now, three years later, there is no trace of them now, at least in the Yangon area.
Star Cola has been bought by Pepsi Co. and apparently discontinued. No idea what happened to the other brands. There is still “Blue Mountain Cola”, though.
Now, a characteristic sight in Myanmar, especially on those roadside houses and stalls, are these advertisements, mostly for softdrinks or mobile phone tariffs, hanging just about everywhere – but often not how they are supposed to be used but as some kind of decoration or construction material.
I guess they are so popular because they are colorful, relatively durable (don’t rot), water resistant, easy to clean and most of all, probably very cheap (or even free, given that they are advertisements).
1 Written โดฟ in Thai, which means that “Dove” is pronounced like the German word “doof”, in case you ever wondered as a German how to pronounce that brand :-P
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