Yangoon, Myanmar (Burma)

The whole city look like this building. It's in rotting over drive.




They were celebrating their New Year while I was here. To celebrate they have what is called a water festival. During the festival they have a 4 day water fight and it gets really intense. As a foreigner everyone wanted me to come partake in their group and you almost feel like a celebrity here. It made traveling in a difficult country more difficult since it was hard to find transportation. On top of that if you wanted to go anywhere they would all be trying to dump buckets of water on you. It would make you nervous when your packing around a camera and little laptop computer.







This is just one of the lovely transportation options.





It seemed like a fitting place to put in a pool hall. (Pool tables)



Who wants to go for a bus ride in this stink monster? It seems like every bus here smokes really bad and they sell you tickets saying they have AC. They do for like the first 30 min of the trip until they all start to overheat. Then we pull over every hour to let the bus cool down. It's funny but they have stations all along the highway where they spray water on the radiations of all the buses to cool them down. I didn't go on one bus here that didn't have problems with overheating. I am pretty adjusted to riding on buses, but on one bus ride back I was crammed on the bus for 15 hours in a very uncomfortable spot and nearly had a mental break down. I couldn't see because of the sweat in my eyes, the seat was horrible and I was packed between locals so tight I couldn't move! It was one time in my trip where I actually started to think...I have had enough of this! Then I got off the bus, relaxed and though, NAH!



Before I left on my trip and when I thought of S.E. Asia, Burma is what I pictured most places to be like. It's like a flash to the past with poverty everywhere. All the cars are so old, transportation options are not good, and there are 5% of the travelers here compared to the other places I have been in Asia. Like China every other Internet site is blocked and unless your email is GMail, no Internet for you. I couldn't even go to my web site as it was blocked too. As most of you know this military run country is undergoing major problems with their political situation and as they have suffered some catastrophes in epoch proportions. With the refusal of foreign aid, the real losers here are the people. If you want to travel somewhere where the people will really leave a lasting impression on you, go to Burma. There are many places in the country that they will not allow you to go, and you hear devastating stories of hardships, corruption, as well as ethnic cleansing.