Adventures with Julia

Monday, October 29, 2012

On the Mrauk U Princess….

….a 60 foot “wooden tourist boat” built in 2012, motoring up the Kalanden River to Mrauk U or, as Mark described it, “cruising up the river on our spacious yacht, having had a sumptuous lunch in the salon and spent the afternoon on the sun deck, being meticulously catered to by seven crew members”.

Cho, the Tour Mandalay rep in Yangon, picked us up at 9:30 this morning and accompanied us to the airport.  She speaks excellent English and provided us with many details we had missed during our last few weeks.  The 1-hour drive flew by.

She talked about how Burmese people are named for the weekday on which they are born.  Each day has a few characters of the Burmese alphabet assigned to it.  She was born on a Monday and could have been named using any one of the first 5 characters of the alphabet.  Each day is also assigned a planet and a number of years during which that planet affects the person.  Monday, for instance, is under the influence of the moon, so she was affected by it for the first 15 years of her life.  Tuesday is connected to Mars and she was under its influence from age 16 through 23.  Then comes Wednesday, which is influenced by Jupiter.  She was under that planet for 17 years.  Currently she is under Mercury, the planet for Thursday and will be with it for 19 years.  That will be followed by Friday’s planet, Venus, for 21 years, then Saturn for Saturday for 10 years and finally the sun for Sunday for 6 years.  After which the whole cycle repeats.  It is very bad luck for a family to have a firstborn child on a Saturday.  Saturn, in Burmese cosmology, is a bad planet.  Her father was such a birth.  So his parents gave him to his grandparents, who adopted and raised him, as he was not their firstborn child.  Cho agreed that it was all very superstitious, but people still continue to do it anyway.  It reminded us of the naming practices in Bali, where every child is named according to their birth order—first born are called Wayan, second born are called Made, third are Nyoman and fourth are Ketut.  The naming starts over with the fifth born.  Fortunately, children in Bali often get second names.

Then we got on the subject of calendars.  Myanmar uses three.  For business and every day they use our Christian calendar.  Buddhists use the lunar calendar, since Buddha’s death in 703AD, to determine Sabbath days, as I have explained earlier.  The Myanmar Calendar, which was adopted from the Hindu calendar, came into use in 638AD.  The people in the area were a mix of Hinduism, Buddhism and other religions for centuries and did not take up pure Buddhism until 1057AD.

Buddha, as he is known, is the 4^th person to have reached enlightenment according to his teachings.  The previous Buddhas are unknown.  According to him, his teachings will last for 5000 years.  Therefore, the 5^th and final Buddha is not expected for another 2400 years.  Just then, you will be relieved to know that we had arrived at the airport and the lecture was over.

Our flight to Sittwe was uneventful, except that I managed to finish George Orwell’s 1934 book, “Burmese Days”, which describes Burma rather well and tells a sad story of life in a British settlement.  As we approached the city we could see many rice fields.  This area is much more fertile than the north from our perspective.  Once on the ground, we were again the only tourists to deplane.  Others carried on to the popular beach areas at the next stop.   Our guide, Kyaw (pronounced Chaw), was waiting and soon we were headed to the jetty on the other side of town.  There are 300,000 people in the area—70% Rakhine and 30% Muslim.  The streets are crowded with pedestrians, tuk tuks, bicycles, rickshaws and motor scooters, but not many vehicles.   We observed a number of military personnel standing guard at the airport and in the city and later learned there are army squads who are keeping the area around Sittwe and Mrauk U peaceful.  This was good news after all the conflicting reports we have had about serious unrest in Rakhine State, where the capital, Sittwe, and Mrauk U are located.

The local unrest is historical in origin.  In 1942, Muslims living in Balgladash, about 60 km west of Mrauk U, moved into Myanmar and killed many indigenous Rakhine people to occupy the area near the border.  The Rakhine moved east to Sittwe and Mrauk U and neighboring towns.  Things remained mostly calm until this last May when a 16 year old Rakhine girl was raped and killed by 3 Muslims 20 year olds men in a village about 100 km south of Sittwe.  At the time, the government did nothing about it.  The Rakhine people were very angry, especially after seeing the gruesome photos of the girl’s death on TV.  In retaliation, some of them killed 10 Muslim men 150km south of Sittwe in early September.  Killing and house burning escalated and the fighting is still going on in some remote places.  Near the Bangladesh border Muslims killed some Rakhine and burned their houses and now the Rakhine are retaliating by killing some Muslims and burning Muslim houses wherever they find them.  It is all very messy.  In early October the government stepped in to put a stop to the fighting and burning.  All this explains why our plans to come here were revoked in September and reinstated on October 4, just before we left home.  We failed to mention this to any of you as we did not want to alarm you.  We were not afraid for ourselves and we are glad we did not let the conflict stand in our way.

At the jetty we boarded our vessel, the Mrauk U Princess Resort boat and departed immediately.  We were served a very nice lunch aboard the “yacht” and settled in to read and while away the hours of “stinking” sticky heat until the temperatures finally cooled and a breeze picked up.  Only then was I able to write.  Soon we were watching the nearly full moon come over the flat horizon and the sun set at the same time.  Shortly, we were motoring by moonlight.  There are no lights anywhere on the shore.  A few fishing boats flash a light now and then to call out their position.  Finally, after nearly 6 hours on the river, we pulled up to the Mrauk U Princess Resort’s jetty.  This place was lit up nicely.  Once on shore we were greeted by several staff and presented with the usual cold towels and juice drink.  A short walk led us to the reception where we met the manager and several more staff.  Sure enough, we are the only guests.  The last ones checked out a couple of days ago and the next ones arrive after we leave.  We are in one of 30 bungalows.  This facility is no match for the Malikha Lodge, but it is attractive, with many lotus ponds and spacious, charming bungalows.  The heat is our issue and the fact that none of the spaces are air conditioned, except our bedroom and there is no other place to cool off.

We head straight for our bungalow to get a shower.  The AC was turned on only when we walked into the room, so we were disappointed that we had to wait quite a while for cool air.   The bathroom was very toasty with no AC at all.  On the other hand, the bed had flowers placed on it in the shape of three hearts and the bathtub was half full of cold water and flowers.  What can you say?  We showered and hoped the room would cool down enough for us to sleep.

The dining hall is an open-air room upstairs above the reception.  The place felt cavernous, with just us and the staff.   Thankfully, two electric fans blowing on us kept us from wilting.  We were too hot to eat much and I made the mistake of asking for my salad to come spicy.  It was so hot I could not eat but a few bites.  The heat stayed in my mouth a long time.  Mark took it and finished it off without a problem.  The spicy dishes we have had in other parts of the country have left a warm glow in my mouth and throat.  Nothing so intense as this.

After dinner Mark tried to get on line in the computer room next to the reception, but was unsuccessful.  I suspect we will not be able to send anything until our next stop in Bangkok.  The room was much cooler after dinner and we were able to sleep.

The Resort manager has agreed to try and help me send posts.  We shall see how that goes.     Julia