10 Days - Part 13!!!!!
Friday, September 19, 2008

After the bargaining concluded, we were taken to pick up our plane tickets in the center of Yangon, the capital of Burma. On that ride, I got my first true taste of a third world country: buses packed with bodies like sardines, people sitting on TOP of the bus and hanging off the back, cars that looked liked they were from the 1930’s that traveled no faster than 30 miles an hour, women carrying baskets on their heads. Everywhere I looked the sights and sounds were new to me.

Before we picked up our plane tickets, we were taken to see the reclining Budhha, a beautiful, gargantuan statue that is so large that it I have yet to find an image of it that can capture the entire statue.

Then we went and had a traditional Burmese lunch. I looked at the spread of food on our table. It sat in pools and pools of oil. I didn't recognize any of the vegetables and I didn’t trust the fish. As I cautiously tried a small (and I mean MINISCULE) amount of most things on the table, I realized that if this was traditional Burmese food, I was going to have a very hungry trip. I drank a lot of water and moved the food around on my plate. I had been told I was rude for being loud in the airport. I didn’t want to risk that again.

We were told we had to pay for our plane tickets in FEC (the government’s money.) Since we’d practiced our bargaining skills and hadn’t exchanged enough FEC, we went back to the airport to exchange more money and get our flight. Burma Boy proceeded to spend 45 minutes debating with the government about the fact that they wouldn't let him exchange his Hong Kong dollars for FEC. The government only wanted US dollars even though the Burmese embassy in Hong Kong told him he could use Hong Kong dollars. Burma Boy was not just a bargainer. He was what he would call a fighter. I would call it relentless and stubborn. I would call it a pain in the ass. After about 5 minutes, it became clear to me that he was going to spend quite a long time defying the government officials in this country known for its oppression, and I had to walk away. I had to walk away because I wanted to yell at him that we were going to miss our flight. I had to walk away because I wanted to tell him that it wasn’t the smartest idea to argue with government officials in a third world country where people were known to disappear. I had to walk away because if he did get thrown in jail, I sure as hell wasn’t going to be around to get dragged in with him! An hour later, Burma Boy lost his battle to use Hong Kong dollars but was allowed to use his credit card. We exchanged the money and went to wait for our flight.

I'd had about 2 hours of sleep in the past 40 hours and very little food. I was starting to get a little delirious. While we waited for the plane, I put my head in Burma Boy’s lap and my feet up on the airport bench. According to Burma Boy, having my feet on the airport bench was disrespectful. That was the last thing I wanted to be so I quickly removed them, although I found it interesting that putting my feet up on an airport bench was disrespectful while arguing with government officials for 45 minutes was completely fine.

We finally landed in Bagan around 7 PM on Sunday night. We walked out of the airport to several taxi drivers waiting to take us wherever we wanted to go. The taxi drivers quoted us a price of what was equivalent to $3. According to our Lonely Planet, it should have cost usabout $2. Well, clearly this was completely unacceptable. Burma Boy was not going to be jacked because he was a tourist. You'll never guess what he did next...he tried to bargain! But to no avail. Now, I can understand trying to haggle for a few minutes. No one wants to be taken advantage of because they are a foreigner (myself included - unless I’m going on 2 hours sleep and a chocolate croissant and apple juice from breakfast). But after every. single. cab driver said no about 10 times, it was clear that these people weren’t budging. At this moment I realized that Burma Boy and I were EXTREMELY different people. Being that I was going on pretty much ZERO sleep at that point, and that I just wanted to get to a bed, and being that we were in a third world country where $1 meant a HELL of a lot more to those people than it did to me, I would have gotten in the cab and gone without anymore questions. Hell, I would have paid $5 for a ride to a clean room where I could put my head on a pillow. Burma Boy, on the other hand, loved the fight. He refused to pay, told them we would walk. He was not backing down. At this point, I turned to him and told him that he could do whatever the hell he wanted to do but I was getting in a cab and going to the hotel.

Finally, after what seemed like hours, he gave in.

When we arrived at our hotel, I felt immediately relieved. We had done well. It was cute and charming, it overlooked the Ayeyarwaddy River, and we had our own little bungalow. It was light and it was clean. I was happy.

We decided to walk to a local place up the street for dinner. At least it’s what they called dinner. I called it HELL. You have to understand, I was famished. I was past the point of low blood sugar, past the point of shaking. I just knew that I needed to get some sort of nourishment into my system. My body clock was all off and the airport shu mai from Japan had long since been utilized for energy by my system. So when the first thing they placed on the table was a bowl of 3 inch long whole fried fish with the eyes staring directly into mine, I lost it.

“Please, can you take those away???” I pleaded with our waiter.

Burma Boy looked at me as though I’d just insulted his mother.

“You’re in a foreign country!” He hissed at me. “You’re being completely disrespectful. This is why people don’t like Americans.”

I stared at him in disbelief for a moment before I started to feel my eyes well up. I immediately averted my gaze down to my empty plate and refused to look up again until I had sufficiently blinked back the tears. I was exhausted and I was hungry and I hadn’t asked anyone to bring me whole fried fish, eyes and all. Perhaps I could have been a bit more polite, but I didn’t think I was disrespectful. And I certainly didn’t need to be scolded. Not by the boy that I had just traveled 18 hours across the country to see. I felt like a 12 year old who’d gotten in trouble with her dad. I found myself trying to calculate the date to know how many more days I had left...It felt as though we'd already been together far too long.

We finished the meal in near silence. I mustered up the strength to eat a few bites of the unidentifiable vegetables and drank a beer, which helped to send me into much needed slumber. Liquid bread had never tasted so good.

We walked back to our “home” and I crawled into bed. I was too tired to ponder, too tired to think. I’m not sure my head even hit the pillow before I fell asleep. I was just grateful to be somewhere where it was acceptable to put my feet up and relax.

Posted byMeesh-elle my Belle at 5:59 PM  

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1 comments:

megabrooke said... September 22, 2008 at 8:42 AM  

oh boy. this journey isn't going well. im waiting for it to get better!!

and the story of you at the restaurant (sans the fried fish and all), is so familiar to me. i was with an ex once, and i remember he was giving me a hard time about something i forget now, and i just remember looking down and feeling like id been... scolded. and i tried so hard to blink back the tears- so similar to what you described.

here's hoping your story ends better than mine did!

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