Exploring the Hinterlands (Central Myanmar)

Steaming Upriver

Myanmar is a state built around a river – the Irawaddy – which meanders from the northern mountains through the flat central plains, and finally exits to the Andaman Sea  via the massive delta surrounding Yangon. Over Myanmar’s history, the most important cities were invariably located along the river, and even today it plays a critical role in the transport of goods. While flying is much quicker these days (and not much more expensive), we booked a ferry from Bagan to Mandalay, the nation’s historical capital. This gave us the chance to see more of the country up close, and also provided a relaxing day for Ethan to dive into his inner Heart of Darkness fantasies.

Walking the plank is a rather bracing way to start the day. Fortunately, despite being top-heavy from our backpacks, neither of us fell in, and the adrenaline roused us from our 5 AM somnolence

After the sun rose, we were treated to a 12-hour exhibition of rural Myanmar life. Between the main cities, no tourists stop, so the tiny villages we saw along the river banks were quite a window into how people got by outside of cities and well-groomed tourist hubs. We saw very little in the way of heavy machinery, a lot of people doing laundry on the river’s banks, and an abundance of rice fields. On the river, we saw fishing boats and more than a few freight barges, typically carrying natural resources down towards the sea, but only a handful of passenger boats during the entire day.

Chugging upriver in search of Kurtz

After a couple months of painfully long bus rides, the boat provided a welcome respite as a very stately and relaxing way of passing the miles. It was easy to walk around, read a book, casually drink a beer, and make conversation. Most surprising at the time for Ethan was running into some fellow Stanford classmates from a few years above who shared many mutual friends. While this seemed like a huge coincidence at the time, upon further reflection we realized that with such a narrowly defined tourist trail in Myanmar, the odds of running into people with a connection to us was probably surprisingly high.

Hops are a great prophylactic for malaria, right?

Myanmar even brings its own culinary style into potato chips. Rather than mundane salt or chives, the bag comes loaded with chili oil and slices of fried garlic for a properly oleaginous and succulent snack

About as Mad Max of a gas station as we’ll ever see: fuel pumped from the open hatchway of a rusting hulk by men in sandals. When the pump broke during the operation, these guys hot-swapped a new one in with the motor still on, inducing some winces all around. They are to be credited, however, for extinguishing their cigarettes in advance

One of the big issues in Myanmar today seems to be the exploitation of natural resources, especially by the military and politically connected foreigners. While the country is extremely underdeveloped and can probably benefit from nearly any economic activity it can get, a lot of the natural resource activity causes considerable environmental damage, and may not bring all that much economic advantage to the people who pay the price for that damage since the wealth flows directly to those at the top. Deforestation and forced relocations from mining, lumber, and cash crop agriculture anecdotally seemed like a big deal, although we couldn’t find much literature or any sort of reliable statistics on these issues. We guess development up close is rarely pretty in the real world, so we’re hoping it works out OK in the long term.

Barge loads of rare teak from central Myanmar are constantly making their way downriver to Chinese buyers, rules about conservation be damned

As we neared Mandalay, settlements became a lot more dense, and no hill was without its glistening gold spire.

Pagodas dot the hilltops near every settlement along the Irawaddy

A Reconstructed Former Capital

Sitting right in the middle of the country, and close to a key border with China, Mandalay has long-been an important hub – first for the Burmese royals, who chose the site to found a prophetic Buddhist metropolis in 1857, and then for the British, who (having unceremoniously ejected the reigning monarchs) saw the city’s potential as a commercial and strategic stepping stone to the east. The Japanese all-but-flattened Mandalay during World War II in order to harness its potential as a supply depot linking China with Thailand, and it’s only in recent years that the city has clawed its way back to prosperity thanks to an influx of tourists, once again due to its geographic advantages. It’s a fairly new city, and it has little to offer in terms of tourist sights (even the palace is a reconstruction, having been destroyed along with everything else in 1942).  For us, it was a fun stopover and a chance to glimpse some of the frantic commercial activity driven by a huge surge in Chinese residents, along with their links across the border.

Best pasta since Milan: aglio e olio served in our Italian-Burmese hostel as an amuse bouche every night before dinner

Mandalay was particularly memorable as the place in which we we became better-acquainted with Myanmar’s most ubiquitous dish – the tea leaf salad. As with most of the “salads” we encountered in the country, the bulk of it is made up of various fried things, with the punch in this case coming from a pile of perfectly juicy, tangy, fermented tea leaves. Traditionally an important symbolic peace offering, tea leaf salads are on pretty much every menu, and are commonly served as an extra item the end of the meal. Unfortunately, this latter custom led to us doubling up on tea leaves on one occasion – and the ensuing racing hearts and sweaty brows alerted us to the caffeine content of what we’d just consumed (and possible reasons for the longstanding popularity of this dish)!

The first time an all salad meal has topped 2,000 calories for either of us…

The dessert course of yet more tea leaf salad as well as some jaggery (just like in India – although here’s it’s covered with tamarind sugar for that much-loved sour kick)

Keen to build on our newfound fondness for all things fermented, we signed ourselves up for a cooking class – which, in typical Myanmar style, turned out to be a full-day extravaganza, in which our incredibly friendly hosts took us to a market, treated us to hours of feasting, brought us on a bike tour of a local village, and showed us one of the best sunsets we’ve enjoyed this year.

The increasingly familiar sight of a Southeast Asian market – our vegetable recognition skills are gradually improving…

…although we encountered a number of mysterious items on this visit, snake gourd included

Myanmar fish paste seriously assails four of the senses. Foul smelling, grayish, and with a grainy yet slimy texture, the most horrifying part is the squelching sounds it emits when stirred. Fortunately the taste more than offsets these deficiencies, and it’s absolutely critical to many of the best Myanmar dishes

You’d think this is a cheese monger’s stall, selling gouda perhaps, but you’re in for a surprise. There’s a certain type of tofu in Myanmar that seems to resemble cheese in every way, but is probably much healthier, and seems to stand up to violent cooking a lot better. We’ll be investigating it further

Traveling has brought home to us how essential eggs are in pretty much every cuisine – Myanmar deploys eggs with some style, and even a small market offers regular eggs, quail eggs, and century eggs complete with clay coating

One week’s supply of broad beans for a local, we suspect

Enough pickled tea leaves to give a blue whale arrhythmia

One thing that’s hard to miss in Myanmar is the yellowish-white makeup that’s applied in delicate patterns across the faces of women, children, and sometimes even men too. It’s called thanaka, and made from bark of certain trees that is ground into a paste with water. It’s said to provide cooling sun protection, as well as removing acne and promoting smooth skin

Hoisting the trophies of the market

The cheese-y tofu going into a curry. While it doesn’t melt like real cheese, it holds up to some pretty violent stir frying and simmering, opening entirely new avenues of recipe potential for those who want a healthier paneer-type option for their cooking. We’ll be hunting for it back home

The stirring glove is a key technique for properly mixing salads. Don’t be alarmed if you see us imitating this technique in the future at home

Tempura making was an awesome interpolation between Japan (high heat and large pieces of vegetable) and Indian pakora (lentil flour for the breading)

Making some rice dumplings for dessert, leveraging Ethan’s spaetzle / matzah ball / gnocchi experience

The finished product, bathed in sweet syrup with some crushed peanuts

The full spread, incorporating curries, salads, poached vegetables, tempura, desserts, and most importantly, a plate of veg for inhaling the omnipresent spicy fish paste

Myanmar is a country that is still very much focused on agriculture, and even in a dense urban center you’re never far from a sea of rice paddies. Mandalay lacks clear limits on the non-river side, and the result is a jarring juxtaposition of towering buildings and green pasture as you head out of the city.

An afternoon jaunt around the countryside, handicapped by some hats that were not aerodynamic in the least but did look rather dashing

Vanity-obsessed like everyone else around the world, people have incorporated small mirrors in the inside of their hats for discreet appearance checking

The view for much of our ride – endless green rice paddies, even on the outskirts of Myanmar’s second largest city

Local kids were amusing themselves – and cooling off – by tubing down the river. Needless to say we were super jealous, even though the waters were a worrying kind of murky brownish green

We unsuccessfully played the local village raffle. If not for a single transposition of digits, Ethan would now be the proud owner of a small bag of MSG

We spent our evening at a friendly cliff-top temple, which served as an amazing sunset-viewing spot for those in the know

The acres of rice paddies created a mirror image of the slowly sinking sun

A fellow-fan of Myanmar cuisine turned out to be a pretty amazing photographer, and he casually snapped this beauty for us – thanks Dave!

Showtown, Myanmar

Inle Lake is another of those can’t-miss tourist destinations in Myanmar. In a nutshell, it’s an expansive and utterly gorgeous body of water, surrounded by crumbling pagodas and traditional villages, set amid rolling hills in the breezy highlands of Myanmar. What’s not to like? Well, this…

A standard morning at the main village of Nyaung Shwe – a flotilla of identical tourist boats lined up and eagerly awaiting their deep-pocketed passengers

It was clear to us that Inle Lake must have been a wonderful place to visit until recently. Unfortunately, unconstrained growth in tourists and (quite understandable) efforts to benefit from them on the part of the locals have totally transformed the surrounding villages. What we encountered was a congested, over-exploited shell, where it felt like none of the recommended sights were genuine, and none of the people were actually interested in talking to us. We went through the motions of a standard visit for the first 24 hours, before the touts, the overpriced food and the showy “traditional crafts” got the better of us.

The famed sunrise lake tour was aaaalllllmost worth the cost, and the 4.30am wake up call

The view was, admittedly, astonishingly good

Sadly our driver was not playing ball, and offered nothing that could be described as even slightly “tour” like

Eventually it all became clear – we were waiting for the “fisherman”. This gentleman was one of several who made their way between stationary tourist boats posing for photos, before paddling over to demand a generous tip

Even the most shameless performers for tourists are not without a sense of humor, and this fellow carried around a dead fish in his boat to laughingly brandish for photos when we asked how the fishing was going

In the end, we did have some fun exploring Nyaung Shwe. The food was great, and the wine was…available, at least, which is a rarity in Myanmar. We even managed to stumble across what must have been  a couple of the very last residents not involved in the tourist trade. That being said, we left feeling that our time would have been better spent elsewhere, and hoping desperately that the rest of the country’s gems don’t follow the same trajectory as tourism continues to blossom.

Exploring the back roads of Nyaung Shwe on foot, we found a host of traditional houses…

…backing onto another vast collection of rice paddies

The two most salad-y salads we ordered in Myanmar: avocado and tomato with nary a hint of fried bits and grease. So the restaurant provided us with giant deep fried rice crackers, still dripping oil of the fryer, to make up for our oversight

In a country that orients itself around religion, it’s normal to see monks walking the streets, seeking alms or just going about their days. We were lucky enough to catch a glimpse of something a little less commonplace – a shinbyu ceremony for some young boys who were due to enter the monastery 

Back in the curated-for-tourists side of Nyaung Shwe, we found that the fertile hills around Inle play host to a couple of fully-fledged wineries

Wine-tasting, Myanmar style. The wine was universally horrible, but it did come with a great view.

In a country in transition from squat toilets to an increasing number of western-style thrones, instructions are a must for first-timers

Ghosts of the British Empire

In search of a bit more novelty, history, and some outdoor activities, we planned a trip to the east of Mandalay, traveling along the path of the old British railroad built during the colonial era. Our first stop was Pyin Oo Lwin, a former British hill station hosting some beautiful but run-down mansions. Although it’s along the railroad, the trip takes about half as long to accomplish if you travel on the roads, so we hopped back onto an overnight bus from Inle to Mandalay, and then a shared taxi onwards to Pyin Oo Lwin.

Like in Kenya, bus company slogans in Myanmar verge on the religious. We’re eagerly awaiting the emergence of a cult centered around overnight bus journeys as a way of attaining enlightenment

We emerged groggily into the crisp morning air, and sought a place to feast before beginning our explorations. Long an important community for the British Raj, the city still hosts a vibrant mix of Indian and Gurkha transplants from the colonial days, now bolstered by Chinese traders and internal migrants from other states around Myanmar. Consequently, the food is quite interesting, perhaps a more extreme version of the collision of tastes that we observed elsewhere. And the markets are truly intimidating, with an utterly dazzling combination of fresh vegetables, fermented delicacies, traditional crafts, and the odd refrigerator or two.

A proper explorer’s breakfast: coconut noodle soup, samosas, fried tofu, and some deep fried dough twists. Locals were nodding approvingly at our ordering by this point in the trip

At the sight of the full expanse of pickledom, Ethan had to fight hard to conceal his slobbering

Garlic, by the ton, for those with no friends but extremely well developed palettes

Pyin Oo Lwin is known for its colonial vibe, and plays to its strengths. The architecture is the main draw – there are country estates, boarding schools, and churches, all dropped awkwardly in the middle of an otherwise rural, utterly un-British part of the country. Many of the town’s businesses have been passed from generation to generation, and remain rather stuck-in-time as a result, including a fleet of horse-drawn carriages that roam the streets in place of normal taxis. Shops do a healthy trade in wooly jumpers (since by Myanmar standards, the weather is positively arctic) and strawberries fresh from the local orchards. There is even a flourishing botanical garden which has been painstakingly maintained since 1915.

Purcell Tower greets visitors arriving from the west, providing a reference point for those like us in need of landmarks

A genteel abode from an older era

Not creepy at all!

Candacraig is a storied mansion from the early 20th century that originally served as bachelors’ quarters for members of the British administration

Hydrating at the empty club house of the local golf course. Pyin Oo Lwin hosts one of the major military academies in Myanmar for the ruling junta so the city still sports more than a fair share of “officer-type” recreations, although we’d rather not think too hard about in who’s pocket the earnings go

One of the many colorful horse-drawn carriages

Dating from the colonial era, the All Saints Church felt straight out of the English countryside, and sported numerous memorials within for the soldiers of the Raj who perished while on duty

While Pyin Oo Lwin is an excellent living museum for colonial architecture, and many aspects of the city seem the same as descriptions we read from the 1970s, commercial activity has taken hold in certain sectors. It serves as a bustling hub for traders along the road to China, and numerous merchants are entrepreneurially hustling. Most notably, we felt an immediate sense of comfort in Pyin Oo Lwin because of how much the signage resembled the wanton trademark violations of Nepal. When coupled with the friendly people and mountain splendor, we felt even more at home.

They even got the fonts for each infringement correct!

Sadly we doubt our 7-Eleven tank tops from Thailand would get us any discounts here

Foreign brands are doing great in Myanmar!

Despite heroic efforts, Ethan probably lacks a future as a food advertising model. The chicken was fantastic, however

The Wild East

The furthest into the Myanmar countryside we made it was Hsipaw, a small town deep within Shan State, the restive territory in the east of the country that borders China, Laos, and Thailand. Shan State has been one of the hotspots in Myanmar’s half-century civil war, and although fighting has cooled down in recent years the area remains home to several armed ethnic groups. Hsipaw sits along a major road which provides the key trade link with China, and so plays host to a chaotic combination of Chinese and Chinese-funded entrepreneurs, cash crop farmers sending tea, corn, and rubber to China, and narcotics production intentionally overlooked by the military. Being relatively accessible yet off the standard tour bus route, it also attracts a smattering of tourists – mostly, like us, hefting large backpacks.

Radiator cooling, Myanmar style, during our long drive to Hsipaw. Our driver stopped for some noodles and stuck a hose inside the car. We were a bit confused until he fully lifted the hood, but we applaud his resourcefulness, and we got there fine

We were itching to do some trekking after a long succession of urban adventures, and we chose to head to Hsipaw in part because of its location deep in the sparsely populated hills. We’d heard that the area is generally safe today, but as is often the case in Myanmar it proved impossible to get reliable, up-to-date information, so we decided to go with a local guide who knew where to go and what to avoid, rather than branching out blindly on our own. In the end, getting a guide turned out to be a great decision – our group was led by a diminutive bundle of energy named Tun Tun, who chatted with us non-stop about pretty much every aspect of life in Myanmar, and brought us as far away from western civilization as either of us had ever been.

Heading out into the countryside from the edge of Hsipaw – agricultural land gradually transitions into rolling, forested hills

Deforestation has become a big issue in Shan state as farmers clear ever more land to keep up with rising demand for cash crops from over the Chinese border. Sadly, without the tree cover erosion rapidly damages the bare hillsides, requiring new land to eventually be cleared

We passed through a few small villages during our two-day trek, and stopped for snack breaks at every opportunity. The Shan people speak their own language, but Tun Tun understood enough to act as translator for us and we were given a warm welcome at each home we encountered, complete with tours of the village shops, improvised hydro power rigs, buffalo stalls, and tea leaf processing facilities.

A rural rice krispie treat made of puffed sweetened dough with some sticky sweet glazing

Perhaps a bit too enthusiastic with the cleaver

Tea was the main industry of the villages we passed through, and nearly everyone is involved in its planting, harvesting, and drying

While much less densely cultivated than the tea plantations we saw in India and Kenya, those in Myanmar blend nicely into the hills beyond

Drying, drinking, and eating tea

Water buffalo provide the main animal power for the more physical farming tasks. They’re fast being supplanted by “Chinese buffalo” aka small four-wheel micro-trucks imported from across the border

We’re aching to see a Myanmar-based buffalo mozzarella industry get off the ground

Bodhi trees serve as sacred gathering areas and often act as town centers. Due to their sanctity, we were told that you’re not supposed to drink, swear, or think impure thoughts when under their branches

A typical hillside village in Shan State, this one on the larger side

Trekking food in Shan State is our dream sustenance, supplementing gloriously nutty rice with a kaleidoscope of flavorful curries and mounds of egg

While the Shan people are a minority within Myanmar, within Shan State there are even smaller ethnic minorities that have carved out tiny niches for themselves, often amidst extraordinary oppression. The village we ended up spending the night in housed a group that had been forced to move by encroaching farmers several times before.

This flag indicated the beginning of our hosts’ current territory

Two shy but very polite young gentlemen, sporting thanaka on their faces for sun protection and ornamentation

We spent a very enjoyable evening in the village, stuffing our faces with delicious food and observing the processing side of tea production after the obligatory backyard football (soccer) match. Everyone pitched in to steam the bales of leaves collected that day, strain them of excess water, and set them to dry on bamboo mats the next morning so that they could be preserved and more easily transported for sale. We found it pretty funny that even in this miniature settlement, where daily bathing takes place in a mountain stream and portable lanterns are the primary light source, most people – even the kids – had smartphones and spent a good portion of their time on Facebook when not watching (solar powered) TV.

Steaming tea leaves / stoking the fires of Mount Doom to forge the One Ring (plus Ethan pictured heading reluctantly to the outhouse)

After being steamed, the moisture is squeezed out of the leaves using this awesome rotating contraption. Everyone helps in the fun, and jokes abound

For the final step, people spread the tea leaves out on bamboo mats to dry, starting in the early morning

Enjoying fourth helpings with our awesome trekking guide (and fellow Arsenal supporter) Tun Tun

The master bedroom was actually extremely comfortable to sleep in, although that may have been the result of the accumulated fatigue from our day and the utter silence around us

Sunrise over the Shan Hills

Supposedly bamboo forests are the place to run if pursued by an elephant since they’re dense enough to slow even a determined pachyderm. One of the perks of long walks is picking up on all sorts of trivia

A train ride, a final meal, and some parting thoughts on Myanmar

The train ride from Hsipaw to Mandalay is a creaky, dusty and at times, stomach turning adventure and a slice of history which we decided we couldn’t miss out on. The track is ancient, and the train itself feels as if it dates from colonial times – but the mood is upbeat, the tickets are outrageously cheap, and the snacks are plentiful (it turns out that tea leaf salad tastes even better when consumed out of a plastic bag). Having been treated to hours upon hours of glorious country vistas, a few thrilling bridge crossings, and one minor breakdown, we arrived back in Mandalay achey but satisfied.

The Hsipaw rail station, apparently nearly unchanged from when Orwell was in Myanmar. Out of frame is a large contingent of soldiers with their rifles who were understandably a bit less enthused about being photographed

Up there with the best train food we’ve had on our trip so far: “cheese tofu” and some fantastic stir fried noodles, topped with the obligatory sour spicy sauce

The famous Gokteik Viaduct was the largest railway trestle in the world at the time of construction, a ridiculously ambitious, totally out-of-place addition to the Myanmar jungle which has survived more than a century with minimal updates. Needless to say we held our breath for the entire crossing – which took a while

A final phalanx of flavors. Our last dinner in the country was a bittersweet (and sour! and spicy!) affair. Unlike everywhere else we’ve visited during our trip, Myanmar food is rare to find in the US, and we attempted to deal with this by ordering nearly everything on the menu

Myanmar was by no means smooth sailing for us, and on reflection we think it was hugely helpful that we arrived there with two months of India travel under our belts, since it softened the blow of some of the less palatable aspects of life in the country. Overall, though, we loved it. More than anywhere else we’ve been, we found ourselves learning and experiencing new things every day. Improvisation is a must, since information is horribly unreliable, but it’s easy when people are outgoing and willing to help. Hotels are expensive, but our daily spend was tiny, and we found that people showered us with food at every opportunity. Basic infrastructure is improving rapidly, and we experienced almost none of the issues others had described with power outages, internet access, or unreliable transportation.

More than anything, we fell in love with the genuine, warm people we encountered almost everywhere we went. Even in the last moments of our visit, as our plane taxied out to the runway, we saw that all of the airport staff on the tarmac lined up to wave goodbye to our plane. This utterly touching gesture summed up our views on the country rather nicely – we just hope that while the economy can continue to move forward, and tourism can continue to develop, Myanmar’s amazing, unique character can be preserved.