Myanmar Travelogue: An Aquintance With Budhism

I visited Myanmar for the first time in last July 2010 and will visit it again next week. When speaking about Myanmar or previously known as Burma I associates it with a beautiful heroine Aung San Su Kyi. She has won an election in the country in 1990, but lately was declared illegal by its military government. Since then the Military took over the government and maintains its military dictatorship. Thus Myanmar is the only country in the region which is still under military dictatorship to this day. In November election this year, Aung Sang Su Kyi was not allowed to compete in the election, and unsurprisingly the millitary backed parties won landslide about 80 percent of the vote. Well at least with the election, there would be hope for a democratic seed since the military regime promissed to implement the new constitution.

The feeling of anxiety had already on the air weeks before my departure. The country seem like not really welcoming vistors. This athmosphere was apparent during my visa application. Visa processing in Myanmar embassy was not so easy, we need to go directly to the embassy to get the form. Filling the application form we need to write an avidavit that we wont involve in any political activism in the country. They also asked for an introduction letter from our employer, which is a bit strange for me because they asume that everyone applying must be working. How about housewife or unemployed persons? Were they not allowed to apply even for tourist visa? As I intended to apply as an independent researcher and would like to have tourist visa, I refused to send the introduction letter. Well it was why until the day of my departure, a week later, my visa had not been granted :))

Fortunately at that time we can apply for visa on arrival by online application, one thing that has been dropped since september this year (for country which has embassy office have to apply directly to the embassy). I did online application and one travel company, apparently have a working connection with Tourist department, contacted me offering its help. Its pretty easy, we just departed and the travel agent would taking care of our visa upon our arrival and charged us with USD 50 (which is twice time more expensive than the normal processing). At this latest visit I followed what they want, including an introduction from the office, and in four days they gave me a visa.

After arrivinng in Yangon, I could see that people of this country was surprisingly the opposite to that of the government closeness. Myanmarese people were very friendly and open to the visitors. As a friend of mine Kyi Kyi comforted me when I was complaining about the visa difficulty : don't worry Tatak, they may dont want to host tourists but the people would happy to host you. I know this is trully correct. This beautiful friend of mine, Kyi Kyi Sein, was very nice. And so do many other Myanmarese people I met. I did notify that they are wonderfully friendly, religious, and willing to help others. I can not imagine how people who live under such long time military authoritarian regime could stay calm and happy. My other friend told me: we can do nothing anyway, so we love to have laugh to release our stress. Well may be thats indeed a good idea :))

cleaning service girls at swedagon pagoda working early in the morning

people are praying in front of Budha statute in bronze pagoda, budhist doesn't consider budha gautama as God as they actually have no god 



young people meditated at bronze pagoda



morning meditation in front of the pagoda

 As Myanmar considered as unfavoarable country due to its military regime dictatorship. The country faced embargo from many counties in the world and him self tightly close his door from outside influence. This has made the country economic less developed: old buildings with broken paint, dirty markets, a few malls or department stores, old cars on the streets and crowded public transport. As usual the poor people suffer the most. I saw many poor people around Yangon, but surprisingly beggars were not so many.

a monk want to ride a crowded public transport

normal sight of public transport in yangon

child workers

a little girl working at a fishing port

Among those old buildings there are some nice hotels. I stayed in Park View hotel, a nice hotel close to the centuries old Swedagon Pagoda. The hotel is clean and beautiful with reasonable price. The most important is it has very strategic location, which only less than 1 km away feom the Pagoda. So in the morning we can do jogging exercise around the serene garden of the pagoda, climb up to the pagoda to meditate or admire the beautiful golden budha. I do jogging every morning during my three days stayed and bought some roses for my self.

Parkview Hotel from a distance in one foggy morning

people did excercise around swedagon pagoda at every morning

guardian lions at the west gate of swedagon pagoda

tens of golden pillars guided us to the top of swedagon pagoda

a small meditation place at the swedagon pagoda garden

Oh yeah if you were in Yangon you would see many people sell various kind of flowers: rossess, jasmines, daisies, lilacs, and many other more. Myanmarese are mostly devout budhist and they love to buy flowers, not to beautify their houses but to give it as offering at the pagoda. At every pagoda you will see many people do meditation in front of budha statute. Some others poured waters to different kind of statutes. Kyi Kyi told me that in their belief system they believe that person born with different characters. People born on sunday would be having different character with they whom born on monday and so on. Some characters are goods while the others considered as destructive.

Someone poured water or gave flower offering to his sysmbol statute to remind them to be able to maintain the good side of their character and control the bad side of them. Pouring water means they hope that their mind would be as cool as the water. By giving flower offering they hope that their character would be as beautiful and having good scent as the flower.

selling jasmine

these people pour water to the head of budha statute to remind their mind to be cool

Well I know religious ritual could be various but the most important is how it could be sincerely practice. When we are practicing it we need to internalize the value within our own self, by doing so we would be able to tame our destructive emotions in our mind and soul. I just read Dalai Lama great book "being enlighten", its about budhist teaching I know and I do feel it very useful as it have many commonality with my Islamic belief actually.

these are different budhas from different ages, the eight budha was believed to reincarnate to the last Budha Sidharta Gautama 

On destructive emotions part the Dalai Lama said that it may emerge from something pleasant, with the name of lust. Yet it can also raise from something unpleasant wich we can call it as hatred. Both emotions are equally dangerous and may threaten our true happiness. By maintaining lust we tend to adore someone beyond his original quality, our perception to be 80-90 percent subjective. So do when we hate someone, our perception tend to be exagerated beyond his trully situation. Adoring or loving someone, which was triggered by lust, would ended in suffering as we tend to hope that he response as we do. Otherwise we will angry and suffer. So do hatred works in our mind and soul. When we hate someone we tend to be inconvient and disturbed even by his present only. Therefore the best way for us to get true everlasting happiness is by loving, caring people sincerely. Without hoping for equal feedback from the person.

a monk reciting scripture next to budha statutes at swedagon pagoda early morning

full concentration with the scripture

a monk feed the birds around swedagon pagoda

Well I do think that people of Myanmar is practicing budhist sincerely, and take it as their way of life. We can easily find monks around Yangon. It is said that in the country 2 percent of its population was monks. Monasteries are everywhere. Even lay people they also sometime do short time ascetism excercise, by wearing brown robes and frequently chanting budhist scripture. Kyi Kyi my friend was once time shave her hair and practicing for being a nun for two months.

two nuns at the swedagon pagoda one morning

Comparing to their budhist neighbouring countries as Cambodia or Thailand, definitely Myanmar people is more religious. I did sense that it is not only Budhist whom are practicing religion in their life  Muslims and the Christians that have significant number of followers in this country were also very religious. One evening I did pass by a mosque at one street of Yangon. I stop there to do my magrib prayer as well to get to know the people there. I saw many people went out from the mosque after praying. Many Muslims in the country have different look than their fellows Myanmarese. May be because most of the Muslims come from the state that share borders with Bangladesh.

a Myanmarese moslem

a mosque in front of scott market

I was lucky to have nice friend like Kyi Kyi in Yangon. She brought me around the city with her car. Buying a car in Myanmar was extremely expensive, as the government taxed it a lot. So absolutely only the rich can afford to buy car there in the country. Kyi Kyi was used to be tourist guide in her university days, so I was really really lucky to have her accompany me and tour me around the best part of the city.

We visited many pagodas and temples: silver pagoda, sule pagoda, reclining budha temple. We visited replica of royal ship in the middle of lake in the city. All of them are gracefully beautiful and lively of good spirit. I do love Yangon a lot.

this is imitation of the royal ship at the lake in the middle of Yangon, the sight at night

Myanmarese traditional costume displayed by two models

There is always good side of everything I believe. And for Myanmar I think, there is one good thing of being a close country for long time: the Myanmarese are getting more religious to escape from pressure. Secondly they are able to maintain their traditional culture due to their limit interaction to international community. You can find people walk around the city with their traditional sarong, women put white powder in their cheeks, ladies put beautiful flowers in their hair. Everything is lovely there, this is I think one of the best city in the region.

this lady wore tanaka, a white powder, at her cheeks to beauty her face

look at beautiful flower in her hair

this man chew bettel leaf to keep his teeth healthy

selling traditional hats in the market

When it comes for shopping, Scott market is like heaven. You can by many goodthings with cheap price: beautiful gems, jade, art works, silk, paintings and so on. There in the market you can even find Batik Keris imported from Indonesia.

traditional music instrument

beautiful paper umbrella available at scott market

gems with rationable price

imported batik keris from Indonesia

British colonial in Myanmar could be traced around the old city of yangon. There you can see city hall, sule pagoda, and some beautiful colonial buildings. British colonized Burma since 1886, and a brief Japanese occupation in mid 1940s gave a space for the Myanmarese to grab her independence in 1948. Sadly the true independence for the Myanmarese people live very shortly as the military regime soon took over the government.

colonial building

Kyi Kyi and me in the corner of old city of yangon

It only the food that I enjoyed the least. They were curry like foods: oily and fried stuffs. However there were some good restaurants and Kyi Kyi got me into one good chinese restaurant there that had very wonderful foods. I forgot the name but will soon find it later.

we look at the foods that not so appealing. look at the girl at the right side, she restlessly kept us cool by waving her fan



some wording similarity with Indonesian bahasa words (from the bottom: talo goreing dodo, daging rencia, talo gereing, ikan goreing, u dang goreing etc)

 
Well we can get delicious foods anywhere in the world easily, but you would never got food for your soul if you don't really looking it within your own self. So it is not food that I was looking for in Yangon. I considered it as my spiritual journey to get aquintance with Budhism, and thats the most important for me. I will learn every good teaching whomever taught that, and I will practice them to beautify my mind and soul. Hope we keep looking for this spiritual foods through our other journeys, and may peace and happiness be  always with us.

me taking picture with budha statute at strand hotel



The Scent of Freedom in the USA - October 2010

Last October 2010, I traveled to the United Stated of America for 10 days particularly to North Hampton Massachusetts and New York. This is my second trip after another brief visit one and half years ago also to Massachusetts.



I remember hundreds years ago, a French scholar, Alexis de Tocqueville, travelled around this country for two years and produced a really really great book about democracy in America. Comparing to him my trip is nothing, as Indonesian said that my trip experience would no more than a tip of his dirty nail :) Moreover today in this ITC technology era, when the world becomes flat like a village in which people around the world seems like know very well of what other people doing in the other part of the world. Writing a travelogue like this is maybe like putting salt to the sea, useless.

Nonetheless I still feel very fortunate and want to share my deep skin impression about this superpower country. So here is all what I experienced about this country.

I landed at Detroit Airport, spent a night and with other friends from Bangladesh, the Philippines and also our American friend continued the travel by car to Massachusetts. I was really excited knowing that autumn season has just arrived. It was like magic to witness the beauty of green threes turn into bright yellow red. My previous visit in this country was in end of winter so it was snowy white everywhere and very cold. I always amaze to the beauty creates by this changing season, so my romantic mind thought that they are lucky to have opportunity enjoying every moment of Summer, Fall, Winter and Spring. Always then a poem came out from my mind ^.^

The Autumn of my life

It was young autumn who arrive in front of the door of October,
He handsomely smile and smoothly took my hand
Walk around New England
To witness all the threes turned bright yellow and red
In solitude one last leaf fell down from a willow three

Every green will finally turn yellow and fall
Reminding the fragility of my own life
Some day I will be the yellow leaf my self
Who at the end fall separated from the ones beautiful and beloved
Oh life nothing stay forever





Well I am also pretty sure that this change of weather would be very tough for the poor because during winter the temperature is very cold, far bellow 0 degree Celsius. I imagine being poor and homeless fellows in a four seasons country would really like getting a curse from the hell. But a friend told me that in Northampton the local government provides the poor with cheap housing that they can stay with a very cheap rental cost depending on their income. Look at below picture of the house for the poor that my friend told me. It does not look like poor at all for Indonesian standard actually :-))





During the land travel from Detroit to Massachusetts I learned about how the principle of freedom of expression implement in daily life. We all know that the US constitution guaranteed freedom of expression, but I have never sure how this principle implemented in their daily life. My friend told me that only a couple days before, one of his neighbor raise a Southern flag in front of his house sang a song and all activity to express his longing for the idea of Southern State. As you know hundreds years ago the US has a very bad civil war involving the Southern states versus the Northern states due to their different policies on slavery. Many of the slaves from the Southern countries flew to the North to pursue freedom. Well it is a fact that some people in the country still want to have a separate Southern State, just like one neighbor of this friend of mine. What impressed me was that the police allowed him to do so respecting his freedom of expression.Only after the neighbors complained because the noise had disturbed them, the police asked him to stop the activity.

Well this kind of thing would never ever happen in Indonesia. Once you rise other than Indonesian red and white flag, a police would arrested you with the charge of rebellion. And many people are indeed in jail because of such case in Papua, Maluku, Aceh and even sometime ago in West Java.

I also noticed how politicians sometime harshly criticize their opponent because they are guaranteed by freedom of expression principle. At that time some politicians from the Republic party amplified by mass media were accusing Obama as a Muslim and or as a Communist, and nobody filled libel for that accusation. I recalled this kind of thing would never happened in Indonesia. High profile people in Indonesia are very much caring to their good names and reputations so any accusation would be taken as serious offense.



After driving about an hours we arrived at North Hampton. It is a very beautiful old city. I love to see flowers blooming everywhere in the streets and in front of houses. It was amazing to look at old building and old architecture houses in the city. I was thrilled to see people who are very patient in waiting the traffic light turn from green to red before passing the street, while the cars were also all abiding the traffic signs.



On this particular fact one Indonesian friend whom have been stay in the US for two years have a reason. He drives also in the state and he does it very carefully unlike when he drives in Jakarta. Why? He said he want to make his record clear from any legal violation because otherwise it will have a serious consequence for him. Not only that your driving license would be cancel when you have bad record in abiding the traffic regulations, but you may also have difficulty in other business for instance in borrowing money from the bank and many others businesses. So this friend would always carefully check how long he has park in the street to avoid overtime and so on.

North Hampton is a small town, we can reach almost anywhere just by walking. Just like other small city, this one will also ready to sleep in the evening. Many of it shops will close by 5 or 7 o’clock in the evening. Only on weekend, starting at Thursday evening all the shops open late giving chance for people to have more fun for shopping and drinking outside. By walking you can find restaurants offering various kind of foods, and they are delicious.



At least foods I tried there were all delicious :) I tried one pizza restaurant that has all very good foods: margarita pizza, pasta with eggplant and cheese on the top, and wonderful salad with olive oil sauce. I tried Moroccan kebab which located in one corner of the town. Another restaurant, I forgot the name, was also having very good roasting salmon with potato.





This city has everything people dream of: beautiful houses with large garden, good hotels, many restaurants offering various kind of delicious foods, universities, and the most important is heavenly scenery with all that beautiful lake, river, gardens, houses, old buildings, flowers and so on. No wonder people want to stay here. Hotels are fully booked during the summer as people want to enjoy this piece of heaven in earth.







The hotel I stayed in, Northampton Hotel, was an exotic building. Its tagline “an inn of colonial charm” is reflected in all its architecture building and interior design. I like the hotel: the building reminds us to the British colonial history, the interior design also reflects the past century comfort, and the foods are great. I was lucky Verite paid the hotel for me this time, but if we want to stay there next time we need to spend about USD 200 per night. Whew pretty expensive, doesn’t it? But I think its worth for the beauty the hotel offers.








When I was there, one wedding was just held there in the Hotel ballroom. It was not an ordinary wedding (in my Indonesian opinion) because both the groom and the bride were male! Oh yes it was a gay wedding. This is another form of freedom adopted by this particular state, off course not all states in the country legalize a gay marriage like this one. Well they said that generally New England people are more liberal and tolerate to difference cultures and views.

I only spent about 5 days in this beautiful town and did not feel enough. Really want to comeback some day and enjoy more the city when another color of season changed.





Before flying back to Jakarta, I spent one night in New York. I was lucky because one Indonesian good friend, Abidah, was very kind invited me to stay in her apartment. She cooked nice Indonesian foods, rawon and lontong. She treated me for dinner in one Indonesian restaurant. She shows me around New York.



This is the first time for me to meet Abidah actually after long long time ago we always heard each other name mentioned by common friends. But student activits you know always close one another because we share the same critical idea, the same dream of a better Indonesia. We talked a lot and everywhere: in the bookstore, in the train, in the restaurant, in the car and offcourse in her house. We discussed everything and that was really exciting.

We went to Isles Island where the liberty statute located. It was Friday 10 AM o'clock in the morning, and we stucked with very very long queue (about 1 km). And all of them were waiting to board in ferry that will bring them closer to the statute. The ticket was USD 12 each. If you want to go up to the statute, go there before 8 AM in the morning because they set a quota for how many people could go up the statute for each day.




Well I ended up with taking picture with the liberty in the far distance background. And thats not less fun I think. Because for me happiness is not depending to outside factors but within ourself.




We took picture with George Washington statute in Union Square, a place with so many people whom did free activities: playing chess, selling cute T-shirt, selling tomato, pumpkin and other farms harvest and so on.
















We visited a popularly cheap bookstorne called strand bookstore. I bought some books and merchandises there.





We then enjoyed the walked to the UN center and took some picture together with the the organization peace symbol.






With all those tall buildings, busy people, and sleepless city no wonder they called it as big apple. A big fresh apple in which everyone looking for with passion. However I personally did not see it attractive or want to stay there. I prefer to call it as the jungle of New York. When you are not inhabitant of it and get lost, you will feel lonely and confuse. I think I love New England more than New York. With all those busy people in rush; with all those arrogant tall buildings around, with all those depressed homeless people in sight, I just felt like nothing and depressed.






Well still even in this dry energy of New York, I can still find an oasis and that was in book stores ^.^ You can always find peace in spiritual books written by Dalai Lama, Karen Armstong, Thich Nath Hanh, Paulo Coelho, Deepak Chopra, Rumi and many more. Actually I was not alone to seek refugee in this spiritual haven of the bookstore. I can understand that at one point people need to take a rest, from the crowd to solitude, from the ambition to achieve carrier ladder to a more relaxed journey to find the true self. I shared the feeling and understanding to the people in that corner and pray for them, may peace and happiness be with you!