BURMA FOOD & TRAVEL GUIDANCE & ADVICE

It’s a week plus since I flew into Toronto from Hong Kong on the last leg of my journey from Chiang Mai. And then I left town for two plus days of escape, so that really I feel I have just re-entered. Those first re-entry impulses: laundry, cleaning the kitchen, looking at bills and other mail, have now been exercised and it’s time to get down to work.

Because of the BURMA book, and because a lot of people have decided to head to Burma in the last year, I’ve had a steady stream of people asking for advice. Mostly they are very nice with their requests: “some ideas about where to stay, where to eat, what to eat…” is the usual request.

And so here I am writing a very straight blogpost, to give some basic info, opinionated, of course, on my views of what where when and how? to travel and eat in Burma. The advice will fall out of date fairly quickly at the rate things are changing, but still the restaurant names should mostly be useful.

Before I get started, I’d urge any of you who are interested in local food to have a good close read of my BURMA book. I’m not talking about the recipes, though they can be very useful as a guide in a new country and culture. (For example it's useful if you understand about shrimp paste as an element of flavour, umami-giving, and come to appreciate just how those curries and salads are made.) No, I’m talking about the section in the front that gives general information about the structure of meals and eating through the day, as well as the annotated bibliography at the back of the book. 

 And so I am assuming that you know that the main meal of the day, centred around rice, is usually eaten at noon. Go looking for a good Burmese or Shan restaurant for your noon meal, and be prepared to eat widely and well. The snack on the street or in noodle shops or tea shops the rest of the time.

The exception to this occur mostly in Rangoon, where there are a number of restaurants that serve big rice-based traditional meals in the evening, mostly I gather because they have become used to serving ex-pats or people eating in an ex-pat pattern.

The general rules for looking for food in another culture or place are always:

Notice what time of day people eat particular dishes or kinds of meals, and then copy them.

Go looking for food markets in the early morning.

See if there’s an evening market to explore.

If you taste something you don’t like, ask yourself why you don’t like it. Then try to figure out why or how it tastes good to others. It’s a useful exercise in understanding the elements of a cuisine and traditional eating and cooking patterns and practices.

All right, now here’s a small list of nice eating etc ideas, mostly about Rangoon:

In Rangoon/Yangon, be sure to stay somewhere reasonably central so you can walk around; tho taxis work fine)

Yegyaw Market in the east end (the extension of 49^th Street north of Bogyoke Road), is small and easy to get hold of. Once you’re familiar there (try the fried doughnuts of many kinds) then you might want to poke along the huge market downtown, that runs south from the Kali Temple that is on Mahabandoola; the street market open-air part is the most fun, but in the rabbit warren of the market building there are amazing sights.

Scott Market (also known as Bogyoke Market) is for souvenirs, pearls, jade, etc shopping. Closed on Mondays. Check out Yoyamay upstairs in the SE corner, for amazing textiles; and next door the lacquerware shop, for antique lacquerware. A great place.

I love tea shops, and especially I love Mercury Tea Shop, on Anuwratha Road on the south side at about 46^th Street. Go in the morning for flatbreads and beans; or have a dosa…I like their black coffee (it comes with a wedge of lime). Skip the steamed dim sum type things.

Other Rangoon noodle stops include any busy-looking mohinga stand out on the street on Mahabandoola or Anuwratha or a sidestreet, especially west of 40^th Street; or else a vendor selling noodle salad. The latter will have a net-covered display of all kinds of noodles, including pale yellow “tofu” that is a Shan tradition and is made from chickpeas or other beans, and is, like the rice noodles, completely gluten-free. Noodle salads are a common and delicious snack at any time of the day, dressed with lime juice, roasted chopped peanuts, herbs, chile powder, and lots more.

And then there’s Osaka, a great little noodle shop open 5 am to 5 pm, on Bo Myat Thun Street, about 1 ½ blocks north of the railway line (four blocks or so north of Bogyoke Road). Order the shwe daung khao swe, coconut milk sauce-bathed pork on home-made (made in the shop) noodles, with broth alongside and great condiments; and the people there are very sweet.

For a spectacular sit-down meal, on any evening but a Sunday, head to Myit Sone (means “the confluence”, as in the confluence of the Irrawaddy River in Kachin State) for a Kachin feast. Have the pounded beef, a Kachin fish curry, potatoes, the steamed mixed vegetables…anything the sisters suggest to you. It’s a completely different cuisine, and a real discovery. Myit Sone is at 22 Baho Road, opposite the Chinese embassy.

The other evening place to eat, this time central Burmese food, is Feel Myanmar near a number of the embassies and very close to downtown (124 Pyidaungsu Yeiktha Street). You can pick out your dishes, food is made fresh all day, including for the evening; there is a huge range of choices, a relaxed generous vibe, and lots of flexibility. And if you’re fine with being in a tourist-oriented place, the Padonmar Restaurant on Kha Yae Bin Road has a lovely garden setting, a pleasure in the evenings in dry season.

Most other big rice meals are to be found at noontime, when traditionally the food is very fresh-made. Try Aung Thuka near the Savoy Hotel, or Khaing Khaing Kyaw (the latter takes reservations). For Rakhine (Arakan) food, with lots of delish seafood options, head to Minn Lan at lunchtime (closed the 23^rd of every month). There are a number of branches of Khaing Khaing Kyaw and of Minn Lan; your hotel can help you find the closest one.

If you head out of town, I have a few recommendations. Mostly, look for the early markets; ask about market days and schedules. And be sure to find a stall with a good view and sit down for some mohinga or other noodles.

In Bagan, eat your noontime rice meal at the famously excellent open-air place under the tree in Old Bagan (and rent a bicycle to get around). Be sure to buy the local palm sugars (flavoured with coconut or with sour plum powder) and also the tamarind flake candies; you’ll be happy to have a stash to give away to friends.

In Yaunshwe (Inle Lake) where the markets operate on a five day schedule, get yourself informed about the places and days. Eat at the markets, on dry land or on the lake. Look for the delicious rice steamed (in a lotus leaf) with mashed potato and fish; and the darker coloured steamed rice that has been mixed with blood and then cooked. Try the steamed rice dumplings and ask around for peanut soup. Out in the lake, Heritage Restaurant is an upmarket elegant setting that serves an excellent lunch; reservations recommended (ask your hotel for help). The Four Sisters guest house by the river has a good dinner, simple grilled fish usually, prepared with a light hand; quirky people but nice.

In the rest of Shan State, Hsipaw for example, and also in the far eastern Kengtung (ChiangTung) north of the Golden Triangle, eat Shan noodles for breakfast: rice or egg noodles with a tomatoey meat sauce and fresh greens and herbs on top.

And for hotels etc in Rangoon and elsewhere:

In Rangoon I stay at the nice-people-but-not-beautiful Eastern Hotel on Bo Myat Thun; the East Hotel seems OK too, more central, but is more expensive .

In Bagan I stayed a couple of years ago at the Aung Mingalar (near the bus station) and liked its location and the people; reasonable price too. The market in Nyaung U is great, and busy, but now there are touts because of greater tourism. Just ignore them and head for a noodle soup near the back. Take a trip to Pakkoku, by boat or road (now that the bridge is built) where things are quiet and not at all touristed in the market.

In Yaunshwe (Inle Lake) the Gold Star is another hotel in the unfancy but perfectly nice category, and not too expensive. It’s also a great location, an easy walk to everywhere; rent a bike to excursion around. The same goes for the Four Sisters, which is small and less money than Gold Star.

In Hsipaw, Mr Charles still seems to be the best place; in Myitkyina, in Kachin State, if it ever opens again to travellers, the YMCA is very basic and a great place for conversation about all kinds of news; in Hpa’an in Karen State, the Soe Brothers is another very basic warm-hearted landing place; in Mrauk U (another place that is closed at the moment) plan to stay four or five days at the Prince Hotel, rent a bicycle, and take your time.

Enjoy! and take things as slowly as you can...

OUT & ABOUT IN RANGOON

It’s Saturday evening in Rangoon. People are out and about drinking and doing karaoke, eating hotpot out on the sidewalk, or just strolling in the warm air. What then am I doing sitting inside typing on this keyboard?

Well I think I’ll move to a small café nearby, so I can have a snack and a beer as I write this. But I do need to be writing, for life is about to get a whole lot busier in less than twelve hours. A good friend named Min is coming by for breakfast at 8 tomorrow morning, then I have some further research for an article to do mid-morning. And after that there’s the move to the Summit Parkviw Hotel, where I will meet the Burma immersethrough food group tomorrow afternoon and head out with them before sunset to Shwedagon and then to supper.

It’s strange to be here as a tourist and yet at the same time have a rather full work agenda. For over three  years I made regular trips to Burma to do work for the BURMA book. And during that time I was rather single-minded, with a sense of urgency, on every one of those trips. I avoided local ex-pats and also anyone who was “connected”, not wanting to lean on anyone, or be a parasite. I needed and wanted to find things out for myself (for better or for worse!).

Now that work is done. I have the tour work coming up of course, but I have also had almost a week of hanging around in Rangoon. And that has produced all kinds of interesting encounters with ex-pats, Burma specialists, and others. I have learned a lot of gossip, and heard about deeply interesting Burma-based research in linguistics, agriculture, and more. I’ve also seen an incubator kitchen in action and heard other food-related projects being explored in talk.

Some of this stuff is entirely new, a product of the changed political and social landscape here. Some of it has been going on in one form or another for while, but I have not known about it because of my wilful avoidance of ex-pats and connected Burmese. I have no regrets, I have to say. Hearing now about exciting ideas and projects in Burma is like watching the desert bloom after never dreaming it could rain a drop.

And at the same time of course, this energy and forward movement is happening in a fragile place and space. There’s still fighting in Kachin State, and huge perhaps never-resolvable tensions and hatreds in Rakhine State. Daw Aung San Suu Kyi was at the photo exhibit I went to late this afternoon after the book launch party. She was there as its patron and as a judge in a photo competition. The press of people wanting to see her, photograph her, get a whiff of her fairy dust, was a little dismaying. It’s natural I suppose, this elevation of a remarkable person to icon status.

But it can’t really be doing her any good, can it? Like everyone else, she is only human, and the strengths that saw her through isolation, harsh choices, and house arrest, may not be ideal attributes for a leader who needs to build a strong political party. Do people dare to disagree and argue with her? Is she getting tough talk form anyone?

I sure hope so. For the isolation of a person who is idolised is a dangerous thing, and it must also be so lonely in some ways.

Here I am coming to the end of these thoughts. I never made it out to a café. Instead I am sitting in the charmless lobby of the Eastern Hotel, sipping beer between sentences, and listening to the casual chat of the guys on staff. I love the sound of human voices speaking a language that I don’t understand. There’s the comfort of voice without the intrusion of meaning. What more can a tired person ask for?

The sound of other humans reminds us that we are not alone. And the absence of comprehension leaves me free to think my own thoughts, shape my own sentences. What a pleasure.

LION DANCE MOMENT

The sky is limpid, pale blue with touches of pink-tangerine. Sunset was half an hour ago.  Once the sun had disappeared the sky to the west was a glowing orange - not red, not pink, orange – bordered with the purple-blue line of the steep Shan hills that run north-south and frame this lovely Inle Lake world. 

I wrote that short paragraph a few days ago, when I was staying by Inle Lake for three days with the valiant group of people who came on my first immersethrough food tour to Burma.

But we were busy, engrossed with travelling on the lake, exploring around, cooking, talking…and so I did not manage to write anything more. My apologies for the long gaps between postings here. I last posted at the full moon, and since then the old lunar year has ended with the arrival of the new moon.

Of course in all this time I’ve had many thoughts and ideas, things I have for a moment looked at in my mind’s eye as I thought, aha, that would be a good thing to talk about in my next blogpost. But unless I write ideas down or act on them fairly quickly, they vanish into the ether. All I’m saying I guess is that this long gap does NOT mean that I have more to say right now. It may be somewhere in my head, that messy stack of undeveloped thoughts and ideas, but they are not retrievable at will. When they choose to surface or show themselves, as I hope they do, at least some of them, then I’ll have more to work with.

For now, sitting here in Rangoon, in the charmless but confortably familiar lobby of the Eastern Hotel (the place I stay when I’m here on my own; with the group we stay at the Summit Park View near Shwedagon), with the familiar faces and voices of the long time staff around, I’m happy to be sipping a Myanmar beer and eating a ripe avocado spoonful by spoonful. My only seasonings are salt and a squeeze of lime juice. It’s part of my renewing and recharging day. After a week of large convivial meals, I needed a break in the pattern. That meant a simple nan-piar with black coffee this morning, a rice with chickpeas in it and fried egg on top for late lunch, and now this green supper.

Today is a holiday in Burma, “Union Day”. There are many closed shops, and a wonderful shortage of traffic on the streets. They’re even less busy than on a Sunday. And people are out walking with their little kids, strolling through the local markets and visiting temples.

At around noon I walked up to Osaka, a little noodle shop that makes fabulous Shwe daung khao swe (noodles topped with a light coconut milk and pork dressing, with a good broth and plenty of interesting condiments and pickles), only to find it closed for the holiday. I can’t blame them. After all, usually they are open seven days a week, from 5 am to 5 pm. On the walk back, I strolled through Yegyaw Market, quiet today but still open for business, bought some laphet thoke makings (fermented tea leaves in two forms, plus the nuts and crunchies mixture that goes with them), then started across Bogyoke Road.

But there was a large crowd gathered on the side of the road, clearly waiting for something to happen, so I walked over to have a look. It was like a medieval or village festival in feel, as the crowd stood quietly and expectantly waiting in the shape of a large hollow rectangle. In the centre were 16 or 20 poles, in pairs , some about three feet tall, some more than five feet, each topped with a small flat metal surface. A supple coordinated-looking young guy was walking on them, stepping from one to the next, then pausing, testing its stability. Sitting on the ground, holding onto each pole to keep it steady, was a crowd of young men, all in red king-fu club tee-shirts and loose pants.

Aha! Suddenly I understood. This was prep for a lion dance. With all of the poles tested, the guy and his partner, each wearing pink-and-silver-patterned leggings, picked up the fluffy fluncy lion dance lion costume, pulling on the head so that its long-lashed eyelids fluttered, and swishing the body as they settled under the “body” covering.

The drum started, first enticing, then exciting, as the lion twitched and glanced around, the crowd still, attentive, unmoving. Then suddenly the lion leapt up onto the poles, one leg on each, swayed, nodded and rolled its head, then leapt again. It  crouched, wiggled, looked back over its shoulder…  And so it went on, as the drum intensified in volume, then paused, shifting the pace, then picked it up again: all artistry and willing suspension of disbelief. It was magic and enthralling, not just the lion, but the complete engagement of the adults and kids watching.

Chinese New Year has never looked so good to me. And the about-to-vanish-in-modernity charm of Rangoon still lingers… There may be traffic jams now, and SIM cards for cell phones (I just bought my first Burmese one today), and money-change emporia, and ATMs (all very recent changes, in the last few months), but people are not yet jaded, and they don’t take pleasures and treats for granted.

It’s all a reminder that we can all do with a pause to appreciate whatever treat or privilege or pleasure we receive in a day. Often in my rush to move on to the next thing, I forget to take that moment to savour things.

The lion dance moment.

Happy year of the snake. May it help us all shed our old skin of stale dry habits and see life and people and the world generally with fresh vulnerable eyes.

AN EVENING IN RANGOON, ON A DAY WHEN TWO WOMEN MET

Dusk and nighttime in Rangoon are enchanting, welcoming, and full of life, especially on a Friday evening. The sky glows a faded pink, the air cools slightly, men in white walk in pairs and groups, freshly washed and wending their way to a meal or homeward after Friday prayers at the mosques.

As I walked west this evening along Mahabandoola Street headed for Chinatown, the gleam of Sule Paya, the tall golden dome that sits at Rangoon’s major downtown intersection - a reminder of the central role Buddhism plays in the life of the country - pulled me forward. I passed vendors frying snacks, small hotpot stands steaming in the dusk, with a few small plastic stools around the pot, flower sellers, shops gleaming with watches or cameras or packaged snacks, as all the while buses streamed past, their tired engines roaring and groaning, the ticket collectors shouting out the bus destinations.

Once past the huge Sule Paya roundabout, I was in India town, where most shops are South Asian, the restaurants sell pulaos, little shops with Indian sweetmeats invite the esily tempted passer-by, paratha-makers stretch and flap their springy thin gelaming-with-oil sheets of dough, then fold them with several graceful twists of the wrist and toss them onto a hot griddle, and men sit in tea shops or in the doorways of small shops and sip tea and chat and laugh now that the weight of the day is almost done. There are scents of sandalwood and fresh orange, fennel and hot oil and hints of cardamom as I walk past the small vignetted shopfront scenes.

And then, after the piles of oranges and bananas and avocadoes and pineapples at the end of tk street, Mahabandoola becomes Chinese. Suddenly the shops are selling ginseng root and strings of dark red Chinese sausage and tall tins of English style biscuits (not quite Peke Freans, not quite Cadbury or Mackintosh, but close enough to be familiar-looking), and there are small eateries along the sidestreets with trays of meat and fish waiting to be grilled, and people sitting at low tables drinking beer and having a night out. Chinatown by night is the most lively scene in Rangoon. It doesn’t last long: the fruit vendors pack up by eight. But on the sidestreets the grilling and hotpots and noodle places, and the beer halls, stay lively until ten or so.

I meet a friend on the corner of Latha and Mahabandoola, by the large Chinese Temple, and we stroll, picking our way along the bumpy lumpy sidewalks and navigating the fruit stalls and small vendors. She wants me to try the grilled stuffed fish, so we pick one out (tilapia, now being farmed not far from Rangoon), and order hand-cut Myeik noodles and a lime juice each, as well as skewers of grilled garlics, then sit at a low table streetside. The noodles are spectacular, flat rice noodles tossed in a wok with a few small beans, small fresh shrimp, slices of Chinese sausage...delish. The fish is tender and perfectly grilled. The finely minced filling seems to have saw-tooth herb and minced shallot and some minced sour fruit. My friend says it’s called a quince in Burmese; you could use green mango, mashed to a paste, or perhaps a very tart apple or plum. We sucked the fish off the bones, using hands as well as chopsticks to navigate it all, greedily and happily.

We wandered some more, had another pause for another lime juice, and then it was time to part ways. I decided to walk back the way I’d come, about 30 blocks. But now it was quite dark and shadowy in many place. The only light came from some still-open shops and the headlights of cars, as well as the occasional streetisde paan vendor with a small cnadle lighting his stand. The streets near Sule were lively with people, but most vendors had packed up or were in the middle of closing down. The headlights lit the uneven paving stones of the sidewalks, casting shadows and setting them all in relief for a moment, before vanishing and leaving me in darkness again. I ploughed on eastward, past the Immanuel Baptsis Church with its blue neon sign, and wider patches in the sidewalk where people sat at low tabes eating noodles.

Walking on rough ground, where there’s the occasional hole, steep curbs, and generally rough unpredictable terrain, is a lot slower than moving swiftly along a sidewalk in Toronto or London and takes more concentration and more effort. I was sticky an sweaty by the time I got back, even with a small pause to shoot some video of the action near 37th to 40th street, with honking buses, shouting vendors and conductors, and people walking in both directions along a sidewalk busy with small evening vendors. I’m looking forward to showing it to people at home. I realise that my few words can’t paint the scnene nearly as effectively as a short bit of video can.

And yet I always feel the urge to try to put some of all this into words. I want to convery my wonder at the life and good humour in this place, and the current surge of optimism.

Earlier today, just after dawn, Hilary Clinton was due to come and talk with her at 9.30. went out in a taxi with some friends to Aung San Suu Kyi’s house to see the media scrum. It was amazing to have a pack of journos at the gate, all waiting to get in; the State Dept person had a list, and some got in and some did not. Just over a year ago this house was a prison in which Daw SU was confined, and now here she is the focus of the world’s press, and free to meet with the world leaders.

Meantime there was endless traffic on what is normally a quiet street, as now-confident Burmese drove slowly past, smiling and waving, and craining their necks to see what they might see. Old NLD guys (the oppostition party Daw Suu heads) arrived one by one, dignified after years of jail and struggle. And then came the press corps in buses and after them the Clinton motorcade, all SUV’s, swept through the gate.

Here’s hoping that the world keeps Burma in mind, and that Burma keeps on opening up, maintaining and strengthening its openness, regaining free speach and the rule of law, and frees political prisoners, in short becomes the powerhouse and remarkable place its people deserve.

Meantime, I feel very lucky to have been here in these early optimistic times.

I am heading north to Inle Lake (where I first was over thirty years ago, on my first trip to Burma; and then again with my kids in January 1999), and after that west to a town just on the edge of Chin State called Kalaymyo. I doubt I’ll have much reliable internet access while I’m away, and in any case I’m leaving my laptop in Rangoon. The next posting here won’t be until December 11 or so. Hope you have your Christmas shopping done by then....I haven’t even started.

A SURFEIT OF RICHES TO ABSORB & APPRECIATE

I'm feeling full-to-bursting, as we used to say after a huge meal when I was growing up. But at the moment it's not my gut that's full but my head and my mind's eye and perhaps my heart too. I'm just back from Burma. It's a pleasure to be back in the ease of Chiang Mai, but I feel a pang too. I'm missing the complexities and textures of my days in Burma.

I think iit's a good sign when I'm not ready to leave a place. That means I've dug in and found a comfort zone, taken local patterns into myself and in some small way become immersed and part of it all. What a luxury to be able to do that, in even a small way, in another country and culture. I've made friends in Burma, in Rangoon in particular, and learned my way around the city, especially many of the markets and small restaurants. It's hard to remember how little I knew and how intimidating Rangoon felt to me two and a half years ago.

Of course, on the other hand, as I've said before, the more I learn about Burma and the food cultures and other aspects of culture and daily life there, the more I realise I don't know. And that's healthy too, if sometimes unsettling!

On one front I've made some very slow progress: I've been slowly working on my literacy in Burmese. Because I'm an on again-off again kind of student of language, on this last trip I found myself sometimes sitting down for several hours practicing Burmese letters, and other times not being able to make myself open my notebook. But always there was a pleasure in trying to decipher, syllable by syllable, the street signs and menus and other writing I came across each day. The letters in the Burmese alphabet are beautiful, rounded and curving with the occasional squared off line, just fascinating to the eye.

The advantage of this nibbling away at the alphabet is that now I understand why Burmese is transcribed into English in the way it is. For example, the word for the currency is written "kyat" in our (Roman) aphabet and is pronounced "chat", approximately. It doesn't seem to make sense, until you learn that the combination of the Burmese letters that are pronounced "k" and "y", when written together in Burmese, becomes the sound "ch" (roughly). Aha! It's just like the English combo's "ch" and "sh". There's no rule that says that an h sound after an s should produce the English "she"; it's just a convention.

And all this leads me to think about our conventions and assumptions about ourselves and others. We assume before we know other languages that "sh" is always pronounced as we pronounce it in English. We don't understand why "ky" should mean "ch". SImilarly we don't understand why we shoud take our shoes off in the house or at the temple, when we are in say Thailand or Burma or India. From the other side, people from those countries are horrified at the idea that we DON'T take our shoes off. How dirty! they think (and I agree... but that's another topic, street dirt in the house...).

We also assume things about other people, all the time.. and often we don't get to find out how wrong we are. Today I had the pleasure of meeting a remarkable person (he would not characterize himself this way I'm sure) who is not "categorizable." I met him at the Irawaddy, the newspaper of Burmese people in exile, where he works as a writer and editor. He was imprisoned as a very young man, a student, for eight years. I can't imagine what it's like to be in prison, let alone to lose eight years of your life, at a young age. Yet here he is, doing productive work, not wearing bitterness on his sleeve but instead conducting himself with grace and humour and dignity. He has not lost his self-respect.

While I was in Dawei, a town in southern Burma that is sleepy now but about to have a deep-sea port developed nearby, I had another encounter with a remarkable person. In fact, I could say that I met a number of interesting people who are all connected to this amazing man, a monk who is a "muscular buddhist", you might say. What I mean is that rather than study and meditate only, he also believes that he should engage with trying to alleviate suffering. So on the one hand he gives public talks on the dharma almost every evening, and on the other he works to build schools and hos[pitals in underserved areas of Burma. He's also managed to connect to gifted doctors living in other countries; they donate weeks of their time and of their students' time, to working at the hospitals, treating patients and training local staff.

It's a brilliant strategy, for he is doing good not by being a political or elected person, but just by taking direct action, acting as a force for good in the country.

The organization is called Sitagu, and the monk, as a teacher and leader, is known as the Sitagu Sayadaw. Do go have a look at a website about it all, at http://sitagu.org/burma/

Full-to-bursting is how I started this blogpost, and writing about just a fraction of the thoughts this trip has given me makes me feel even fuller. More later. For now, as I head north for a couple of days with a friend to try to visit the part of Shan State immediately north of Mae Sai, in particular the old trading town and Shan principality of Chiang Tung (often written Kengtung in Burmese contexts), I'll go on trying to digest this richness... And I will remind myself again of how lucky I am to be able to engage with this part of the world, with all its complexities.

AND ON A FOOD NOTE: I went to Dawei for many reasons, one of them to taste Dawei mohinga, a uite different take on the dish. There the soup is much thicker than in Rangoon, more chile hot, with large pieces of lovely fresh fish in it, and some galangal too. One of the people with Sayadaw was a man from Rangoon who gave me the names and locations of several mohinga restaurants/stalls in Rangoon, as well as of a place called Osaka that makes a brilliant noodle dish called Shwe Taung Khao Swe. Delish! Now to figure it out for the Burma book!

SOLO TRAVEL AND THE SENSE OF WIDE-OPEN POSSIBILITY

Because blogspot has been unavailable to me, I’ve had a couple of extra days to reflect on my time in Burma these last weeks. My days there felt so full at the time, and in hindsight the whole trip now appears even richer to me. The richness was of the best kind, a generosity of good luck and wonderful encounters.

A few months ago an old friend who lives on the other side of the country sent me an email asking if she could join me for some of my travels in Burma. I enjoy her company and know that she’s wonderfully open and resilient too: I don’t have to take care of her or worry about her. But still, I ended up writing her a letter that said, I’m very sorry, but I think I need to travel by myself. I’m sure she felt hurt and rebuffed; I would have in her shoes.

But it was and is true, that travel is very different when I am travelling with another rather than on my own. With another there is company and conversation, a chance to talk over the day’s events and have ambitions and fresh ideas about plans for the following days. On my own there is loneliness and there are times of self doubt, or self-criticism, and of anxiety. But still the plusses outweight those minuses.

And the plusses of solo travel? The biggest one is my opennness to new people and chance encounters. There’s more room for the unexpected connection with a stranger when I travel alone. And it’s those encounters that enrich travel. The casual conversation with my Burmese seatmate on the overnight bus (a woman from northern Shan State), the monk and his cousin-brother who took me temple-hopping in Rangoon on an earlier trip, none of this would have happened if I’d been travelling with a friend, enclosed in the cocoon of familiar company.

Another, related plus of solo travel is that it leaves open more possibilities for serendipity, for unexpected events. Yes, they are often connected to the chance encounters, but not always. And I love the unplanned and unexpected. I don’t want to know what tomorrow will bring; I want to discover it as I go. For if I did only what I planned to do, or what I could imagine before the trip began, then my trip would be defined and shaped by my limited knowledge and imagination. But if I am open to the unexpected, then the sky’s the limit.

I was sitting in a large teashop in Rangoon the other day, drinking black coffee (in Burma it is served like black tea, sweetened with sugar and with a wedge of lime alongside) and eating “nan-piar” a tandoor-baked unleavened flatbread, when an older man came over and said hello. Japanese from Osaka, a retired busniessman, he has been teaching Japanese in Mandalay, at the YMCA, for three years. He wants to help broaden the minds and imagination of young Burmese, and he’s doing it, student by student. He’s an interesting guy whom I hope to meet up with again, open and optimistic, and also generous-minded.

A woman I stayed with in Pakokku ten days ago, a small town up the Irrawaddy River from Pagan, taught me some delish Kachin dishes, a real piece of luck. I also learned a lot of central Burmese food technique from her daughter and from her daughter-in-law, a brilliant natural cook. They made fish curry, frying the fish first, then putting it into the long-simmered sauce just before serving. The chicken curry was a new version to me, and so was the way they fried chicken (simmering it first in a little water, until the water evaporated, before frying it in oil). The salads they made, one of green mango and another of peanut paste, were spectacular.

But best of all was the chance, as a solo traveller, to become, if only for a few days, a part of an extended family. I watched in the morning as the daughter put thanaka powder on her ten-year old son’s face, and on another morning as he did his own before school, carefully smoothing it into his skin, then using a toothbrush to make sure his eyebrows were smooth and perfect. A granddaughter, a beautiful tall twenty-year old engineering student, was going to a wedding next day. What to wear? We sat around one evening as she tried on a couple of outfits (both were traditional: short-sleeved fitted top over a longyi, a full-length straight-wrapped sarong). We all agreed which one was best, though she didn’t seem convinced. Next day she got dressed in the less cheerful combo(greys and blacks, elegance but no warmth), but then suddenly at the last minute changed her mind and opted for the pink top etc that we had all preferred. I took a photo of her in the pink, looking shyly beautiful as she headed off to the wedding on a motorcycle.

Pakokku sees only a trickle of foreigners, so I was a curiosity. Several times I was taken by the arm, by an older woman, and led to a monastery or temple and shown around. Each time we’d be followed by a circus of kids, mostly boys, who gambolled and laughed and cartwheeled and showed off in the freshest and noisiest and happiest way. The monks we’d meet smiled at the kids or tuned them out. There was no scolding, no false reverance, instead a wonderful exuberance.

There are urgencies in Burma and pain and suffering, especially along the borders, but elsewhere too. And at the same time there is this potential in the young, an energy and imagination. Totalitarian states clamp down on that energy, but from the things I heard from NGO workers and from others living in Burma, there is action, movement forward, even so. The internet is a huge boon, a help in networking of all kinds. And now there are growing self-help networks, some focussing on education (English language, civil society, conflict resolution) or health care (improving both access and quality), others on environmental change and sustainable agriculture.

And with the release of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi there’s a perceptible feeling of relief in people, almost a lightness in the air as you walk along the street, especially in Rangoon...

PS I discovered that my problem with making a new posting lies with Safari. I tried opening "new post" with Firefox, and here I am. Apologies for the delay and my techno ignorance!

OFF TO LEARN ABOUT DAILY LIFE IN A HARD PLACE

Here it is at last, the day I get back into Burma. I have tried not to get too attached to the idea of getting a visa, but of course the hope was there, always, and the worry that I wouldn't. And in the meantime I've been reading my way through stack of books of travel and history, mostly history, of Burma and area. I sometimes feel I'm drowning in it, but that's the only way I can understand things, by immersing in a rather over-the-top way.

The visa came through a couple of days ago and this afternoon I have a ticket for the direct Chiang Mai to Rangoon flight.

Among all the other blockages the totalitarian regime in Burma imposes is a block on many websites, including blogger (though the New York Times etc is all available, at least until they start charging for online access; that business decision will be very harmful for people who need the oxygen of outside news and ideas and have only the internet sporadically for access) . So I won't be writing here again until after my return to Chiang Mai on December 9. And even then, there will be lots that I cannot say.

The important thing in travelling in a place like Burma is to try to do no harm to people there. That means not asking people political questions unless you are in private and they have raised the issue first, not writing about indiscreet things that people tell you (at least, not in a way that can identify your source), etc. The fact is that all of us who travel in Burma are affected by the regime, work around it, try to avoid direct trouble, censor ourselves. These small infringements on my freedom, limitations that I am asking for, in fact, at some level that I am choosing to take on, by travelling there, are nothing compared to the restrictions on people who live in Burma and have no choice in the matter. Yet despite the fear and tightness and limitations of life, people in Burma are of course still human beings with hopes and ambitions and the normal cares about doing well for their children and coming through on their family and religious obligations.

And that's why I think it's important to go there, and to bring back news of the everyday there. What is more "everyday" than food and cooking? And so that's why this project of mine, to learn what I can about food traditions in various places in Burma and to write about them. I hope that through the book people outside the country can connect in an immediate way with the humanity of people living there. It's a small effort, this, compared to the heroism of political activism and on-the-ground aid work with refugees and Internally Displaced Persons. Still, as my mother used to say (she was a physio who worked with disabled children all her adult life), even a small contribution can make a difference.

This trip I am hoping to spend time in Rangoon and then up in and around Bagan, where I've never been. it is the site of an ancient capital, full of stupas and other ruins, a magnificent site especially before the devastating 1975 earthquake, and now diminished further by ham-handed reconstructions and bad lighting etc etc imposed by the regime. Yes, that's why I've not gone until now. It is a heartland symbol of the country, and also in the Irrawaddy valley south of Mandalay, rice country. I am still a beginner with Burmese food, despite the recipes i now have under my belt. I'm hoping to emerge from this trip with more from the villages and small markets...

Since the rainy season went on late in the region, the countryside is still green and lush. And that's another reason for heading to central Burma, for last time I was there, in February and March of this year, it was the middle and end of dry season, and the landscape was parched and fairly bare.

Wish me luck and good judgement, please!

BUFFER DAYS AND SOFT LANDINGS

It feels like such a soft landing! Here I am after a brief less than ninety-minute flight from Rangoon, sitting in comfort and airy privacy in Chiang Mai. Whew!

Many thanks to people who posted comments this last month. I could not get any access to blogspot during my three weeks in Burma, so couldn't post anything. The comments are now up. Thank-you for your patience, all.

Of course while I was away there was a lot of time, on bus rides or train rides or just generally in the course of unstructured days, to think about all the things I might write about here... But I kept coming back to an idea that Dom, my lovely older kid (now a man of twenty-two, so kid is not exactly the word) came up with and talked about in December. It's a concept he calls "buffer days" and for him, and for his brother, both students with heavy work loads, it's about allowing ahead of time for days when you can or will get nothing done.

If you don't allow for buffer days, as a student, say, then you are always in the position of getting less done than you intended: "I wasted Saturday"; or "I planned to read ten chapters but couldn't concentrate so I'm four chapters behind"... etc. You get the picture, I'm sure, since we've all been there, haven't we? If instead you assume that there will be days when you cannot work or cannot make yourself work, then you save yourself from that terrible feeling of always coming up short. I guess, put another way, you make your ambitions more realistic and achievable.

But the concept of buffer days is more powerful than that, I think. It's about generally giving ourselves permission to daydream or change plans or be less than strictly "productive." And surely it's in those in-between spaces that we rest and have creative dreams and new ideas. As parents we need to give our kids the confidence that time out and time off is good, wonderful in fact. And we need to take the advice seriously for ourselves too.

Of course as we age, life seems shorter, is in fact shorter in prospect, so perhaps the idea of "slacking off" or "wasting time" seems even more threatening because there's less time available. But if life is about enjoying what we have and where we are, then we need to give ourselves the buffer day or buffer time to raise our heads from our immediate tasks and laugh or play or talk to our neighbour, or daydream.

Don't we?

Just back from a place where most people have to work hard to maintain themselves, because infrastructure is not there (so water has to be hauled, or the generator turned on when the electricity cuts out, as it does so often, even in Rangoon), I am reminded of how easy life is when we have health, a relatively comfortable living situation, and are not deeply beset by money anxieties or worries about war or violence. It's a privileged situation.

I guess, in talking about buffer days, I'm suggesting that we take more opportunity to enjoy the moment, or pause to talk to a friend or a stranger, rather than perpetually hurrying to get the next thing done.

Talking of taking things slowly, I spent time pottering around on a bicycle in Mandalay. I don't know why I forget, in between times, how pleasurable it is to ride around, in a new place or a familiar one, looking at things. Ivan Illich thought the bicycle was the perfect mode of transport, slow enough that we can see and be attentive to the world as we pass by, yet much easier than walking. I can't disagree. It was a real treat to explore small back roads and lanes (all in a grid pattern, but otherwise unregimented and varied) and come upon little markets or morning vendors or monks making their rounds or...

The street food and food generally in Burma is so interesting and varied that I'm all fired up to start trying to figure out recipes. I promise to post the odd descriptive recipe, once I feel I'm getting somewhere. They range from salads that are in the Southeast Asian idiom, but a distinctively Burmese take, to south Asian dishes like dosa and samosa and dals of all kinds, to inventive sweets, to wonderful simple deep-fried snacks that give texture at every time of day.

Oh, and then there are all the noodle dishes, and the "curries", and, and... It's a rich food culture that I feel I'm only starting to get a small idea of.

Yes, you're right, I'm looking forward already to getting back to Burma... not sure when, but soon, I hope.

Happy Year of the Tiger everyone!

ENGAGING WITH THE NOW AS THE DAY EVOLVES

I woke this morning just at dawn to see the whole Chiang Mai valley aglow. There are mountains in all directions, but they are often invisible in haze of various kinds. Not this morning though, when their finely etched blue outlines carved shapes against the pink radiance of morning. Thrilling. And as I was marvelling, suddenly the orange ball of the sun emerged from behind the eastern ridges, brilliantly aglow.

The lovely impermanence of dawn, its reliability (in my lifetime so far, despite Hume’s leaving us room for doubt) and yet its evanescence, are daily reminders, when I’m up in time, of the imperative to tune in and engage in the present. If I get distracted by a thought or an errand, only for thirty seconds, I risk missing the fine glow of light or the arrival of the sun or whatever else is briefly on offer to my wondering eye. This morning felt like a special treat, laid on as part of the general full moon beauty of the last few days.

Today is a recovery day, a time to breathe and clean up and take stock. The immersethrough tour ended with a delicious leisurely cooking and eating and drinking session last night. Everyone experimented with new ingredients or combinations, and we also made some Issaan (northeast Thai) classics: laap gai Issaan, in two versions (one with pla ra - fermented fish paste, known as padaek in Issaan - and one without); som tam (green papaya salad) in three versions, one northern, one Issaan, and one more to foreigners’ taste, with no crab and no pla ra; and moo nam toke, Issaan-style (grilled pork cut up and dressed with lime juice, fish sauce roasted rice powder, etc.

We also experimented with gin-based cocktails. I know, I know, you purists, we should have been working with lao khao (local rice liquor), but instead we infused a little gin with lime leaves and lemongrass and another small glass of it with chiles, then added spoonfuls of each to plain gin to see how things worked together. There were some delish combos...

Jacob it was who came up with the definitive one, which we agree should be named Chiang Mai Cosmo. This town is inclusive, very cosmopolitan, fun, and classy too, and the cocktail reflects that.

The drink is far from the cranberry, Cointreau, vodka, and lime juice in a martini glass classic Cosmopolitan. It uses about a tablespoon of gin infused with dried red chile (one broken up dried cayenne in a quarter cup of gin, infused for ten minutes or more) and two scant tablespoons of gin infused with wild lime leaf and lemongrass (two stalks of smashed lemongrass and several lime leaves cut in chiffonade, then muddled with about a half-cup of gin). Make a gin and tonic in a chilled glass with plain gin plus the infused flavours, pouring it over ice, stir, then add a splash of blended whiskey. (To keep the flavours clean and clear, remove the ice after a minute or less.) That’s it, a mild whiskey entry followed by aromatics and then the intensities of tonic, gin, and chile heat.

Now I am already missing the group, the energy of all of us together as well as the personality of each person. I guess people who do regular tours learn to hold back and not engage as intensely. But I do this only once a year (though I’d like to try to do two sessions next Jan-Feb) with a small group of like-minded people who come to Chiang Mai and north to Fang because they want to be immersed. And so it’s hard not to get intensely involved in squeezing the most fun and information and experience out of each day.

No wonder I’m feeling a little tired and languid today!

Tomorrow I have a flight directly to Yangon/Rangoon, a new service twice a week operated by Air Bagan. “My bags are packed, I’m ready to go” says the song, but in fact I still have a little sorting to do. I want to have only one small pack as well as my backpack-style camera bag. The temperatures this coming week in Mandalay drop to 11 Centigrade with highs of 30, so I’ll be working with layers! The lows are even lower in Hspipaw and other more hilly places further north.

I hope to be in Burma for three weeks, mostly in the Northern Shan States is my plan right now, returning February 21.

I’m pleased to be able to go back. We made some delicious clean-tasting Shan dishes up north at Fern’s farm in the Fang area this week. And we also figured out, with lots of help, how to make tua nao the disks of fermented soybeans that provide the flavour base for much Shan cooking, as well as some northern Thai dishes. Of course we had to experiment with different flavourings, pounding them into the soybean mash. The flattened sun-dried disks that we made were delicious, and interesting too because tua nao are a vegetarian source of deep umame flavour. I’m hoping to learn more about Shan cooking, in all its lovely variety, on this trip. And as with earlier trips, I’m asking you to wish me luck!


POSTSCRIPT: It was impossible to post here last fall when I was in Burma, and I assume there will be the same problems with internet access this trip, so I will probably not be posting again until Febrary 22 or so...