This is Yangon's Divisional High Court?!

Oh my god. . .  What have I done?” I thought as I sat on the Yangon international airport, my butt falling asleep on the linoleum floor. My plane had arrived at 7:15 and at that time, with no checked bag and no other flights arriving, I was through immigration in minutes to find the man holding my name on a placard. 

“Can we wait? Your friends will come soon.” His smile was sweet as he stood there in his skirt wrap and collared shirt and I thought what choice do I have. But two hours later when we were still waiting for the plane to land, I regretted the decision. And all of this before I had even hooked up with Kath and Marie and Kristen and gotten to the hotel. 

But the waiting at the airport was one thing. The hotel was entirely other. There was nothing that could have prepared me for walking into that lobby with its ornate decorations and three layer cakes and little old Burmese man playing a local marimba in the corner. 

The bell hop trying to take my smelly backpack or the $30 dollar deposit for incidentals ($30?!)

 I  don’t know what I thought was going to happen. I should have known that this was not going to be the way I travel. That I was going to be uncomfortable with it. How could I not? Between the price of the tour and the number of questions and details via email leading up, I should have known. I should have known when the tour director told Kath that our additional meals would be $10-12 usd. In Burma? $10 should be enough to feed us lunch and dinner for a week, not for a meal! 

 But maybe I was just excited to have someone else plan something for me. And I did want to do a long bike trip or hike trip or something while here, so maybe it was just a way to have that happen.

But there was nothing that could have prepared me for how different this type of traveling was going to be. The hotel we stayed in last night was nothing if it wasn’t lavish. With hot water even in the sink, and a balcony leading out of the little sitting room area. But strangely,  rather than luxuriating in the poshness of it all, it made me feel uncomfortable. It reminded me a bit of how I felt when we walked into that house we rented a few Christmases ago in Nicaragua. It felt wrong. Like how dare I stay in this 3 star resort with a bell hop and room service when so many people in the country are living in extreme poverty. That was certainly part of it. 

And then there was this other part. This part that is about being on an organized tour and having to stay in places really designed for westerners with flush toilets and hot water and AC in the rooms. How you see a version of what the place is – which is always true when traveling, but somehow this made it feel more so. Also it harkened me back to this nagging feeling of imperialism that I haven’t been able to shake on my whole journey this year, no matter how ramshackle the accommodations and somehow the luxury of these hotels in which we will be staying just hammered it home in a more in your face sort of way. Like how dare I with my little white, western, rich privilege?  My discomfort and my sense of guilt were strong upon arrival. 

Something I will have to accept   if I am going to at all enjoy this experience. 

And after all I did agree to lay down the cost of the tour, how did I not know it was going to be like this?  But yeah, not exactly my style. 

So, it was a little funny when Kristen expressed her doubts as well. She and I both came to the conclusion about the trip when we realized that we weren’t going anywhere near the coast (what the heck – how are we staying away from the coast in a coastal country?), that our days would be very programmed, and that we had been trying to go on an international adventure together for essentially 15 or 20 years ourselves only to find ourselves on some sort of alternate  universe where we are expected to tip our tour guide or wait for the van door to be opened to us to be carted to the next touristic destination in our air conditioned vehicle. It was surreal. It was indeed a parallel universe. 

Not to say we didn’t enjoy seeing Yangon. The Shwedagon Pagoda was other worldly, with towers of gold and metal, gold and ceramic buddhas at every turn. 

There were buddhas on buddhas upon buddhas and as the sun set and changed the sky from the deep sunny blue it has been all day, the orange and red mixed with the steeples making us feel like we had stepped out of the pages of a fairy tale. 

The reclining buddha we had seen earlier was so huge that it was virtually impossible to get an entire photo of her, until we climbed up a little landing that had been placed at the base of her carved, gold feet expressly for that purpose. 

So it wasn’t that it wasn’t cool. But maybe, if we had been on our own, instead of with Mew, our sweet tour guide, we wouldn’t have spent so much time at  Aung San Suu Kyi's childhood home. 

We may not have done the drive by to see the divisional high court, city hall and that pointy looking tower thing in the center of the park, and then gone to see the park with the big man made lake, but without enough time to walk around the lake or enjoy it. 

We would have done what we had done earlier in the day when we had been on our own. We would have wandered around the streets and found a little food stand on the side of the road where the dishes are cleaned in a bucket and you’re not totally sure what you are being served for lunch, but it’s all delicious and you hope the man that helped you order really did manage to ask for it to be vegetarian, but you’ll never know at this point. You’d sit on low, plastic chairs and a table that looks like something out of one of your student’s’ tea parties and enjoy the rice tea and pay $1.75 for your lunch for two. 

But we agreed to give it the old college try for a few days before we figure out if we have to jump ship or at least avoid some of the organized parts of the temple tours. 

So even though my visions of Burma had been a land untouched by tourism, a land of monks walking the streets and greetings of “Mingalaba” by surprised locals as they saw my blonde hair float past them on their streets, I am trying to be at one with the decision that we made to come on this bike trip. The biking will surely be an amazing adventure. And a physical challenge at that. So if the rest of the tour is not the roughing it I pride myself on doing, I will have to either decide to accept that or escape what we have signed ourselves up for. 

I, at the very least, needed to apologize both to Kris and to myself for not really examining what we were going to do . . . and in the end maybe to Kath and her sister in law, who are probably equally as surprised by our discomfort and lack of interest in spending the entire day learning about the temples and cultural icons for each new area.

Trying to Live Like an Elephant: Eat, Play, Sleep... repeat.

About 5 years ago I had my first experience with seeing elephants up close. While on safari in Tanzania with Javi and Roz, we debated whether or not elephants could run. 

I was convinced that being as large as they were, they would be content to amble aimlessly through the forest, eating bits of pineapple leaves and palm fronds. Or rather non stop eating since elephants have to eat 18 hours a day to maintain their mass. 

Of course I was soon proven wrong as we watched an elephant charge across the dusty parking lot at a tourist offending said elephant in his red shirt, barely escaping being trampled when he shrunk down into a fetus position and was saved by the sudden calm that overtook the 12,000 lb animal. 

(Read more about that adventure here: http://jenstraveltales.blogspot.com/2011/07/do-elephants-run.html?m=1) 

Then again, these were African elephants that lived in the protected Serengeti. . Asian elephants are smaller – almost half African elephants’ size, but equally as hungry also requiring almost non stop eating when not asleep. 

What I didn’t learn until I spent a day with 5 female rescued Asian Elephants at the Elephant Haven in Western Thailand was that Elephants were initially used by the South East Asian people as Westerners used mules and horses – for transportation and logging. 

Later as logging became illegal in many counties, former work elephants were taught to juggle and paint and to balance balls on their trunks to woo the Western tourists. Heavy saddles were stills trapped on their backs and they were worked sometimes 10 hours a day giving rides and shows to the Westerners that visited. 

There was simply just not enough time for them to eat and if one watched, and knew elephants well, they would be able to tell that their joy for life had been stripped away. 

Transporting tourists, like logs, all day gave them little time for the quantity of eating they need to do to maintain their weight for their 60-80 years of life. It gave them little time to play in the water as they love to do, flopping their tremendous bodies on their sides and splashing themselves with their trunks. It gave them little time to throw dirt or mud on their backs to cool off and protect themselves from the sun. To live their mantra of eat, play, sleep, repeat. 

Between their lives as circus animals and tourist toys, they were also hunted for their tusks, tails and eyelashes, leaving them in danger of extinction and living a sad, sad existence in the few moments they were still found in the wild. 

Asian elephants are giant herbivores with muscular trunks that can tear down trees, and standing next to them as they used these trunks to scoop rice balls, cooked pumpkin and cut watermelon out of my hand into their cavernous mouths was like nothing I had experienced in my life. They were seemingly scary and at the same time gentle. 

Kup, my guide explained to stay always to one side of them as their tails, trunks and ears were in constant motion to flick off insects and keep them cool. He said that getting between two elephants was like “making yourself into orange juice” and I imagined myself being crushed between two 6000 lb animals. 

Today, there are fewer than 40,000 elephants left in Asia and while some of the tourist agencies that once dedicated themselves to using elephants to amuse tourists are now attempting to become their “retirement” sanctuaries, many continue to offer folks the chance to mount and ride them, hand them paint brushes to woo foreign visitors (really – what would make someone want to see an elephant paint? How is that natural??) and leave them chained up with very little room to roam, eat or play when not “working.” 

As travelers, it is our responsibility to travel ethically. To attempt to take only photographs and leave only footprints. To do our best to avoid disrupting the people, environments and animals that came before we came with our curiosity, our disposable incomes and lack of consideration for preservation. We owe it to the elephants. 

We owe it to the people who have lived for centuries before Western travelers decided that X, Y or Z was the next undiscovered destination on the tourist path. 

We owe it to future generations. 

Finding Nemo and Hoping He Doesn't Bite

About five years ago while swimming in Miami beach with my younger brother I was attacked by a man-o-war. Or more accurately I didn’t notice its 6 foot long gelatinous, purple tentacles waving at me  like  poisonous flags warning me to avoid the area as we raced from one life guard stand to the next. One minute I was swimming, one of my favorite pastimes in the world and the next, I was wrapped up in a toxic web which shot me full of venom as I tread water and screamed for help. 

Afterwards, to hear Ross tell the story, he recounts thinking that I must have been being attacked by a shark, so shrill were the sounds coming out of my mouth. To be fair, I can’t tell you that I accurately remember that part. What I do remember is that I knew I had very little time left to get myself safely to shore before I inevitably died from the poison or drowned from the shock of the excruciating  pain of the stings.

 People have asked me what it felt like and the only way I can describe it is imagine yourself being stung by a bee or a jelly fish. Now multiply that by 1000 bees or jellyfish. It’s a sensation that is hard to describe, but I literally could feel the venom coursing through my blood stream as I kicked and shredded my way back to shore while screaming my head off. 

Ross describes that when I got to shore, a large purple, stringy mass was attached to my body, “Getitoff, GETITOFF! GET IT OFF!” I shrieked over and over and over again, no sense of time or space or people around me as I half stumbled to shore. 

Ross took one look at what was causing my pain and responded, “Oh hell no I am not touching that thing.” And trotted off to get help. Seems selfish I know, but actually we needed help. 

Did you know that the Portuguese man-o-war continues to shoot venom into its prey until it is physically scraped off of the surface to which it has become attached, in this case my left arm and my legs. 

I lay writhing on the shore when Ross came back with a bottle of vinegar.

 A crowd had formed and someone suggested Ross pee on me. “Please no,” I whimpered, “Don’t pee on me.” The world was a blur, but the vinegar was no help and did nothing buy make the stings feel more intense. I grabbed sand and tried rubbing the animal off of my skin, but every time I touched it, it also stung my on my other hand. Ross ran off to get help again and then I don’t remember seeing him for a while. 

Later I was told he ran down the beach to where our group was sitting and arrived like David Hasselhoff in Baywatch, “Jen was stung by a manowar!” He then grabbed my sarong and ran off, leaving his wife, her sisters and my friend Perry to look confusedly at one another thinking, “What the heck is a man-o-war?” 

Meanwhile back at Attack from the Creature of the Black Lagoon central, two EMTs were working on me, one talking to me and taking my vitals while the other literally scraped the purple sea animal off of my body and applied hot and cold backs to my burned skin.

“What’s your name?”

“J-J-Je- Jen_Jennifer.” I stuttered unable to stop my teeth from shattering. 

“Got quite a souvenir from Miami now didn’t ya?” he joked trying to slow my pulse and breathing to avoid transporting me to the hospital.

And what a souvenir it was. I have always loved swimming. In pools, lakes, oceans. You name it, I love to swim in it. And actually, while I am never going to win the olympics, I can hold my own at swimming. I can swim for over an hour without stopping and I like it to boot. 

But now as I enter the ocean, especially warm oceans, where there are clear waters, coral and . . .yep you got it – animals that can sting or bite or kill you, I am reminded of my souvenir from Miami beach. Where technically Man-o-Wars don’t actually live, but since global warming is warming up the seas, they are finding more and more of them these days in parts of the world where they had previously not existed. Lucky me. 

So the last few days in Koh Lipe were been interesting. The water is this incredible turquoise blue, with dark spots where clusters of coral sit on the ocean floor. The waters is calm and water and beckons you from where you sit on the hot, sunny beach. Islands off the coast are so close you could easily swim to them in 20 minutes or so and the water is so shallow that even if you tired, you can touch the bottom for hundreds of feet from shore.

But as I enter the water, I remember the man-o-war and I ask at the bar, “Are there jellyfish or Manowar here?” They shrug their shoulders and I don’t know if they don’t know or they don’t understand. 

Out we go to the island, my new friend Lucrecia and I, swimming and stopping. “It’s like walking on the moon,” she says as we take a break and  put our feet down careful not to step on the coral around us. White, translucent looking fish swim around our feet and seem like they are going to come up and kiss (or bite us), but they swim on. 

We continue swimming and as I pick up my right leg, I jump up and let out a yelp! “Something bit me!” She shakes her head and says that maybe I just brushed against some coral or something ran into my leg by accident. 

As we get closer to the island, there are more patches of coral and it’s so shallow that where there is coral, you can’t swim above it without touching it. We walk around the coral and continue on, both of us a little nervous. Towards the shore, there is more coral than water and we turn around satisfied by the little fish we have seen and pink and white coral that looks like another planet and begin to swim back. Sure enough as we stop again, something grabs on to my leg and I swipe it off, my heart in my throat. We arrive at the shore and I look down at my leg, a stream of blood runs down the back of my calf. “See Lucrecia! Something did bite me.” 

But when I ask at the bar, they only laugh and smile. “Maybe a snake?” they offer seemingly unfazed and douse it with iodine and offer me a beer. 

Later as the sun sinks low in the sky, we see a sting ray move slowly along the ocean floor and I think that for sure there are animals in these seas that are way more dangerous than just some Nemo fish and I am nervous about the snorkeling trip I have booked for the next day. 

I know the trip has to be relatively safe as it is heavily booked on the island, but I can’t help thinking of how many people swim every day, all day long at South Beach in Miami and never even see a Man-o-War let along get tangled up in its arms. 

The snorkeling trip is like being on another planet. Brown coral that looks like cooked cauliflower and green ones that look like brains from a science experiment. Sea urchins that seems to stare up at you from the ocean floor, daring you to put your feet down on their poisonous spikes. 

Green and blue fish dart in and out of waving pink plants and a school of yellow and black fish head toward my face and then Y out as they approach me, seeming to open their mouths as they swim by, “Go back to shore!” they yell, “It’s dangerous out here.” And my heart thuds loudly in my chest as the sea envelopes all the noise around me and it is just me and the coral and the sea plants and the fish. 

A barracuda close to the surface of the water is close enough to reach out and touch its  pointy nose and I pick my head up for a moment, hoping the others from my boat are still close by. 

The first snorkeling spot relaxes me. I survive the 30 minutes without being stung, bitten or mauled and we board the long tailed boat to motor off to the next spot. We continue on and visit a small island filled with black rocks and another snorkeling spot with deep cold water and I begin to relax and feel at home with my new fish friends. We eat on an island with white sands as far as the eye can see, large pieces of drift wood litter the shore. 

The third spot is a white sand beach with warmer, more shallow water and I can feel my heart begin to race as I see some small white fish similar to the ones near my hotel. Maybe that’s what had bit me. Manowar live in warm waters. What if there are snakes? The nagging in my head is loud as I remind myself to look Fear right between the eyes and tell him where to go. But something brushes up against my skin and the sound of my heart in my ears is loud as I force myself to keep swimming. “Be at one with the sea,” I tell myself. But I am relieved when the driver of the boat tells us it is time to go and takes us to the last spot. 

One of the guys on our boat, an American guy named Mitch, uses a stick and a plastic bag to collect sea urchins and eat them!? He is surprised when they tell him to stop – the area is a national park and the fish are protected. “There are literally thousands of them,” he says to me as he pries the spines away from the sea urchin’s body with a stick and pops the inside into his mouth. 

“Yeah, but there are thousands of tourists too.” He nods and shrugs and tosses the remains into the sea where a feeding frenzy commences with blue and green fish edging out there slower black and  yellow ones that compete for the now non venomous lunch he as tossed to them. 

The German couple on the boat tells me I should try diving – that it is other wordly and I imagine myself 30 meters below the sea, oxygen strapped to my back, danger at every corner, under every layer of coral. There is no part of me that wants to try diving no matter how cool it is. 

I close my eyes as the winds whip at my hair, my face a mixture of salt and sand as we head back to shore.

 I am humbled by the sea and grateful that this time, she has been kind to me.