Laundering Money for Myanmar

As we researched our adventures for travel in Asia, near the top of my travel wish list was Inle Lake, Myanmar. Soon after we arrived in Malaysia, Charlie Wiener and the International Center of Excellence at the University of Yangon invited Brian to speak at a series of clinical update workshops for physicians in Myanmar. Myanmar is an easy two hour flight from KL, so we booked a weekend getaway in Inle.

For now, travel in Myanmar is unlike elsewhere in southeast Asia. In many ways, Myanmar feels like stepping into a time warp; I'll describe some of that below. But it's evolving fast. Really fast. A few years ago, the country issued 30,000 tourist visas. This year the government estimates issuing 300,000 tourist visas. And this will continue to grow! We had been told by others that had visited recently - and by our Lonely Planet guide - that it is a cash only economy, meaning no or very limited credit cards. All our research had also indicated that ATMs, introduced to the county only about a year ago, do not support foreign bank transactions. Pristine US dollars (no cuts, marks, folds, only 2006 or more recent) can be exchanged for kyats, the local currency. And there's no joke about pristine. People in Myanmar, from money changers to the hotel staff to the check point fee collectors, do not hesitate to point out why they cannot accept the US bill you just handed to them. Yes, on good advice, I ironed my US bills before leaving KL. But good news if you are planning a visit to Myanmar soon: Last month ATMs were installed with foreign transaction capabilities. Brian and I saw a number of these machines but didn't really believe they would work until we later confirmed with news reports after returning to KL.

With visas in hand, we went to the airport early Friday morning. It takes a village to raise kids, and we decided that since we were uncertain of the travel conditions we'd encounter in Myanmar and because of school, the children would be better off staying with our Hopkins village in KL. (Shout out to Nico, Robin and Ethan and the kids, and Nicole for taking care of our munchkins. They had a blast!) At the airport we grabbed some Dunkin Donuts coffee, but bypassed the D&D breakfast sandwiches to have a curry puff and nasi lamak breakfast. Feeling very at home in Malaysia...

Arriving at the International Airport in Yangon, you get the feeling that an international airport is an international airport anywhere. Another recent change, Myanmar now offers visas on arrival. That's more great news if you happen to be planning a getaway to Myanmar! (Charlie used the visa on arrival and said it worked great, as long as you had pristine US bills to pay with.) We'd had difficulty booking our domestic flights from Yangon to Heho (Inle Lake), so the wonderful folks from the International Center of Excellence graciously offered to purchase our tickets. They also met us at the airport, gave tickets (inspected and okayed our US dollars to pay for the tickets), and then drove us to the domestic departures terminal. Domestic air terminals are not the same all over the world.

Luggage scales at the Myanmar domestic terminal.

Time warp time. For many years, Myanmar has been under international sanctions. The US only eased major economic sanctions in July and September 2012. With little importation and problems in the home front, the Burmese people have become masters at keeping older items operating and functional. It's obvious with cars. Myanmar, as a former British colony, was established as a left side driving country (for those in the US, that's driving on the 'wrong side' of the road). At some point (in the 1970s?), the government (overnight!) changed to right side of the road driving. All the cars, of course, still had the steering wheels on the right hand side. Yikes. Compound this with years of sanctions when, for practical purposes, only late-model, second hand cars arrived from Japan. These are also made for left side driving. This all makes for eventful transit. What do you do at a tollbooth? (By the way, we saw a billboard for Ford who announced in April they will enter the Myanmar market.)

We arrived at Heho airport and grabbed a cab to Nyaungshwe, the town on the far north of Inle Lake. While arranging transit to our hotel, a 20 minute boat ride south, we also booked a boat for the next day as well as our transit back for Sunday. Grabbing a few "Myanmar" beers, we loaded up ourselves and our gear and headed out to the lake. Inle is a shallow lake that is about 20 km long and 10 km across. The lake, ringed with green mountains running down into marshes, has a number of islands and stilt house villages. Even in the short boat ride from town to the hotel, we found quickly that the lake has a peace and calmness unlike other places in the world. Later talking to a women on the airplane ride back to KL, I mentioned the peace I felt at Inle. She told me quite a bit about her Buddhist studies and the devout Buddhist culture on the lake. She theorizes that meditation by the people of Inle results in the entire environment feeling calm. "Moving boats in and about, did anyone every shout out from the dock? Did you hear anyone yell?" she asked. Nope. The whole culture moved about quietly with any uncanny ability to know just when you'd arrive and need a hand docking. Remarkable!

Based on Nicole and Charlie's recommendations, and finding a great price on Agoda, our accommodations were at the amazing Inle Princess Resort. Arriving on a rainy Friday afternoon, we decided our time was best spent at the hotel. (Really, when are massages, great food, and excellent drinks not time well spent?)

We were up early for breakfast and to meet our boat drive/tour guide. Inle Lake is the commerce and spiritual hub for many ethnic groups living in the mountains around the lake. Those living on the lake have developed as the skilled artisans for the region. Many of the tourist activities around the lake aim to give visitors a slice of life of the artisans.

Our boat driver tuning up before we head out for the day.

Foot paddling is unique to Inle Lake. Love his shirt!

We're not deterred by a little rain. Our guide provided ponchos and umbrellas.

Villages we passed on the way to the morning market.

Our first tour stop was the morning market. The market rotates to different villages around the lake. Fortunately, this morning market was on the far south side of the lake and is reported to have less transition to tourism than the markets in the north. Pulling into the market via the lake, we saw oxen teams pulling wagons of firewood to be loaded onto boats. It was an amazing scene. It was also very muddy and, wearing only flip flops, I walked the market barefoot ankle deep in mud (Brian kindly informed me of all the terrible infections that I might get that he would be able to save me from! - he's still pretty proud of his heroics with my Indonesian toe abscess). While the market's central pathway was lined with seven or eight tables with touristy items, you do get the appreciation this is a real market. At this location, the Pa-O people were coming down from the hills to do their weekly shopping with traditional dress differing from those we would see elsewhere during the day. The women had colorful, thickly woven head scarves and woven baskets carried on the back with a forehead strap. Oh, that's another pretty amazing thing about Myanmar. Many folks continue to wear traditional clothing -- or at least a mix of western-style and traditional (like our boat paddler above with traditional pants and a t-shirt). In Inle, I'd estimate over half the men wear longyi, a long skirt tied at the waist. The market was so cool, I forgot to take many pictures.

Blacksmith at the market. The women sitting cross legged is pumping the bellows. 

The people of the Inle region are devout Buddhists. Here are tiles from a temple not far from the morning market.

More infrastructure is now coming to Inle. Tourism dollars have fueled more folks to move from the hills onto the lake. With a growing population, villages are concerned about the quality of the water and have moved to centrally pump-in drinking water to homes. Many villages have power for at least some portion of the day.

That's a water pipe crossing over the canal.

Need a digger in the lake? Put it on a barge. The coolest part about this: there's no motor on the barge. The operator moves the barge by using the digger arm against the lake floor. By the way, the red sign on the barge hut says "Safety First". 

What's this boat? It's the school bus. About eight smiling kids with backpacks jumped off before I could get a picture! 

From the market, and after a great cruise up the lake, we visited a weaving shop. According to our guide, Inle is the only place in the world that weaves garments out of lotus. These garments are given to monks (and now also sold in the gift shop). The picture on the right is the lotus farm and the women below is removing the fine strands from the lotus stems. This weaving shop also sells garments made of silk (with threads imported from Mandalay) and cotton (imports from somewhere).

Next on the tour, the blacksmith shop. This was pretty cool. Need an ax head?

We stopped then at a boatmaking stop. Because of the leg rowing technique, the boat craftsmen have perfected the art of making a balanced teak boat. Old boats also are brought here for recaulking with a mixture of teak shavings and lacquer. Behind the boat making shop, ladies roll sweet cigars. The woman rolling cigars in the picture below has thanaka, a cream colored cosmetic paste made from ground bark, on her face. Many Burmese women and girls wear this and we also saw it on young boys, especially at the temples. I asked about it at the Inle Princess Hotel, and the woman I asked sat me down and applied this sweet smelling paste on my face. Such a nice experience!

Next stop, lunch! Brian charmed the boys at the restaurant by tuning the old guitar with a Metallica decal and playing "Nothing Else Matters." The boys had no idea who Metallica was. The restaurant's food was great, I was a big fan of the Shan tofu (made from mung beans, not soy bean). From lunch we could see and hear the Phaung Daw Oo Pagoda just a foot bridge away across a canal. Juxtapose this with the kids at the restaurant listening to Taylor Swift on a smart phone.

Dad, we got you one of these for your collection.

Bridge to the pagoda from the restaurant.

We were a week too early to see the annual festival when statures from the Phaung Daw Oo Pagoda are boated about the lake. Over 800 years old, these Buddha statues are now an odd orb shape as devotees apply layer after layer of gold leaf on them.

But we did catch a view of one of the boats getting prepared for the festival.

Violet remembers with fondness making paper in K2 at Park. Here in a workshop we saw papermaking from mulberry bark. In the same workshop were long necked women weaving. These ladies came down from the mountains for the tourist trade. I do understand that much of what we saw in Inle was built up for tourism, but seeing the long neck women felt more intrusive and exploitative that the other stops. I didn't feel right taking pictures.

A silver smith. We saw the process from extracting the silver from the ore to shopping for the finished product. I found a silver charm for my collection!

Our ride back to the hotel was through the floating gardens. I was surprised to learn that it was only during the 1960s that the Burmese established these floating gardens. They now supply all the tomatoes and many other veggies for the entire country. And yes, we saw row after row after row of tomato plants and boat loads (literally) of tomatoes!

Before dinner, the bartender was super happy to teach Brian how to tie his longyi.

The next day we had an uneventful journey from Inle to Yangon. Here we stayed at the Strand. The Strand, considered one of the premiere hotels in Asia in its grand days in the 1920's, fell into terrible disrepair in the 1960s and 1970s. After extensive renovations in the 1990s, you can see and feel the once lost grandeur. I've never had 24-hour butler service! I think, overall, that the formality of the place was a bit extreme for my liking. Brian and I spent Sunday walking around Yangon and trying to get a flavor for the town. Yangon's downtown near the Strand remains a bit of a mess with sad and dirty building facades, trash, and rats. Traffic is a zoo - a far cry from the peace I felt at Inle. We walked up to a bustling central market, then continued a few miles up the road to the Shwedagon Pagoda, Yangon's #1 must see attraction.

Near the market were row after row of sign makers. Sign of a growing economy?

Selling veggies on the corner in Yangon.

Jem and jade shop in the central market. See the shelves? It's a full service shop - from rock to jewelry, all right there. 

Shop after shop of ladies making garments. 

Shwedagon is a large complex of Buddhist temples and stupas with the central pagoda towering over the others with gold plates and gems gleaming in sun. Wow!

Signs of change: #1 - Ripped from the electric light parade, many Buddhas have retro fitted lights blinking and swirling around their heads. Psychedelic! #2 - Look on the left of the pic of the monk chatting on his cell phone. 

If you were to introduce ATMs to a cash-based economy, where would you put your first ATMs? These are all over the pagoda. Maybe to inspire faith in the ATMs? Or maybe if the spirit moves you to donate, all facilitation is made possible for easy access to funds. I did see a group gathered around an ATM and a young adult was demonstrating the cash distribution feature of an ATM to a captive audience.

Dinner with Charlie in Yangon.

Monday morning I headed back to KL to pick up the kids from school. Brian and Charlie stayed on for the workshop. A little history from some verbal and written accounts of the University of Yangon: In the 1940s and 1950s, Rangoon University was the primer educational institution in southeast Asia - and one of the top in Asia - attracting students for across the region. After the militarization and the move toward socialism in the 1960s, the University's control was placed in the hands of the central government. A series of changes led to the University's rapid decline of its acclaimed international stature. Students staged a number of anti government protests in the 60s, 70s, and 80s, resulting in violent retaliation against the students. The government fully shut down the university for a large portion of the 1990s, likely due to fear of protests, and the government also dismantled all full-time undergraduate programs at the University. To this day, the government has dispersed many of the educational programs across the city and region. It's speculated that this is to prevent student congregation.

Brian and Charlie lectured in bare feet wearing their longyi.

The International Center of Excellence was established in collaboration with the Hopkins School for Advanced International Studies (SAIS) about two years ago to help revitalize the university and re-introduce Myanmar to the international academic scene.  The conference that Brian and Charlie gave was the first in a series of Clinical Updates that PUGSOM will be doing over the next two months.  There were about 45 Yangon physicians in attendance, including some high ranking colonels and generals from the Ministry of Health and the Pulmonary Division Director of one of the largest public hospitals.  The conference was a blast.  The physicians were enthusiastic and welcoming and the folks at the
ICOE were excellent hosts.  There is also something to be said for teaching a class barefoot, wearing a loose-fitting men's skirt!  It reminded Brian of Die Hard when Bruce Willis gets off the plane and makes fists with his bare toes to relax after his flight.  There's always a good 80s reference if you look hard enough!

Charlie and Brian in front of the oldest tree at Yangon University. 

All said, it was a wonderful long weekend. Myanmar is rapidly changing and I feel grateful to have seen it now. I'd love to go back to explore other regions. And when things in our daily modern life feel too hustled and hurried, I have promised myself to focus and re-center by recalling the serenity felt in Inle.