Leaving Yangon

I’ve been here five days already and I still don’t know what to think about Yangon.

The first impression is one of entropy. The center of Yangon is all decay, things falling apart: sidewalks are broken, colonial-era buildings crumble, telephone lines sag, garbage rots on the roadside. But among the ruins, the streets overflow with life, crazy, chaotic.

Men wear button-down shirts and longyi. Women and children cover their faces with thanaka. An alternate universe of brands: no signs for Coca-Cola or Pepsi, thanks to Western boycotts. Instead, you see Red Ruby and London cigarettes, Star Cola and orange Crusher, Tokyo Donuts, Storm cosmetics, Heathers Gate whiskey. (There’s even a MacBurger restaurant, with a suspiciously familiar-looking logo).

Betel-nut spit collects in red pools and stains the sidewalk. Kids play in building courtyards in total darkness. Walking at night takes concentration–missing pavement slabs and holes in the sidewalk are large enough to fall into. The heat is intense. The smell of sewage pervades.

More than anywhere else, I find myself guessing at the underlying reality here. What is really happening? What is just beneath the surface, what is underground?

Last night I went to Shwedagon Pagoda, the biggest tourist attraction/religious site in Yangon, for Buddha’s birthday. Afterwards, I passed a group of outdoor tables near a public park. A man called out to me, and invited me to join him. He was having sugar-cane drinks with a policeman, an army soldier and a couple of ordinary-looking guys. I just couldn’t resist the absolute strangeness of the situation. We started chatting. Where are you from, my new friend asked. America, I said. He translated for the group and someone said “CIA!” and they all laughed.

I asked what my “friend” did. He said he was in the army too, that he spent his days just “looking, looking.” (I didn’t feel the need to ask for what.) He seemed a little drunk and laughed a lot, although I wasn’t always sure what the joke was. He bought me a sugar-cane drink and asked if I wanted to drink beers with him later (”duty-free,” he quipped.)

Another man appeared; ordinary-looking, but my friend said he was an army officer. He sat down for a couple of minutes, and then the two of them got up, excused themselves, and drove off. A strange and unsettling experience.

I’ve wandered around town with monks desperate to practice their English. I hung out one night with a group of hip-hop kids at a huge outdoor hip-hop festival (featuring J-Me.) Yangon has been funny, moving, disturbing.

Got to run for now. I’m leaving for the Lake Inle area–a sixteen-hour bus ride to a town called Taunggyi, the easternmost point foreigners can go by road in Shan State.