Myanmar

Donna Hogge gave a very interesting presentation on Myanmar (Brock House Travel Series) today and it reminded me of my very brief time there when it was called Burma.

I was there briefly on a teachers' trip in 1988. The B.C. government was wanting teachers to know more about the "Pacific Rim" so this trip was organized and we visited Hong Kong and Thailand. I shared a room with a fellow teacher, Sylvia, and Jim stayed home and looked after Richard  She was an adventurous traveller so we stayed on a while longer to go to Kathmandu in Nepal for a few days. She said it would be cheaper to buy our flights when we were in Bangkok. Well, it happened to be some major festival and no flights were available so we stayed on in Bangkok.

We did various things like going out to a local beach called Phuket. Then she had this idea of hiring a car and driver and going to The Golden Triangle. We learned later it was a big drug trafficking area and a very dangerous area to be in for that reason and also there was shooting going on.

"The Golden Triangle^[1] is the area where the borders of Thailand, Laos, and Myanmar meet at the confluence of the Ruak and Mekong rivers.^[2]The name "Golden Triangle"—coined by the CIA^[3]—is commonly used more broadly to refer to an area of approximately 950,000 square kilometres (367,000 sq mi) that overlaps the mountains of the three adjacent countries."

Our driver was great and he took us off the beaten path to see some temples tourists never saw. Sylvia wore quite a bit of gold jewelry and once when we were in the middle of nowhere looking at a temple we both looked at each other and wondered if our driver was going to rob us and leave us there. Well, obviously he didn't. We gave him a big tip and were very glad to get back to our hotel. We had a big gulp of what we called "Mekong Fire Water"...some very bad brandy we picked up at the market.

We also stayed in Hong Kong for a few extra days and went out to the New Territories and had fabulous shrimp for lunch. We had seen the fishermen hauling it in fresh and delivering it to the restaurant in a big basket.

A few of the very few photos (of photos) I took on the trip.Those were the days when I took almost no photos 

Me and Sylvia in front of a temple.

These boys asked us to take their photo. 

Hong Kong Harbour. Quite a combination of old and new.

I did snuggle up to this elephant...it was an amazing experience to hug his trunk.

One morning in Hong Kong we got up early before all the crowds and walked in Victoria Park and saw people doing Tai Chi and some kind of thing with poles, also walking their birds. The birds were in cages.

We did lots of shopping and bought lots of fake watches and fake designer stuff although I did buy a real Seiko watch in Hong Kong for Richard. He specified he didn't want a fake. The Thai people were incredibly friendly and if Jim had been along I'm sure he would have spent most of his time sitting on the sidewalk talking with them and learning the Thai language. He certainly wouldn't have been interested in the shopping or getting up early for the tours.