A Prelude to Yangon, Myanmar

Horns beep non-stop. It’s the music of congestion and roads without rules. A barrage of open-top trucks chug past overflowing with people, young and old, men and women, babies and children. A lady with a basket of green leaves perches on the back of a vehicle and her legs dangle by the exhaust pipe. Motorbikes snake between buses and cars, helmets don’t appear to exist, just string vests, flip flops, and the wing of a prayer for protection.

A rickshaw turns a corner at snail’s pace, the driver must be no younger than 80 years-old. His body is sculptured by prolonged strenuous movements, all sinew and little of anything else, his skin darkened from a lifetime of work under the sun. He wears the expression of exhaustion as his mouth gapes open and his head nods forward in defeat. The next few spins of the pedal look as though there’s an inner mountain to climb.

Dust flies through the air and even though my windows are closed, I still hold my breath. Those fruit and vegetables don’t look too appealing. On the pavement I spot a neat row of Buddhist monks dressed in Crimson robes. They look beautiful and holy but something within me feels disturbed. Surely they are too young to be indoctrinated into a life way beyond what’s expected of their age? They are only children.

We’re stuck in traffic. The beeping has now become a monosyllabic  drone. It’s China all over again. All the men are wearing sarongs on the street, I am reminded of my father who wears them in the comfort of his own home. I must send him an email. There’s a queue of people waiting at a bus stop and only now do I realise the woman who stamped my visa at the airport with yellow paint on her cheeks is following a tradition. It’s not just some cream she forgot to rub in. I pass by women with the same lemon yellow paint coating their cheeks, and sometimes their nose and forehead. It’s called Thanaka, made from the wood of several trees. It’s seen as a statement of beauty but also protection from sunburn. I’m curious to see if it works. If Burmese women are anything to go by, I reckon it does.

Despite all the traffic and people there are far more trees than I imagined, making the landscape look like a fusion of a tropical oasis and a post-colonial dystopia. It’s a battlefield of contrasts; huge gold pagodas sit side by side with colonial buildings that once must have stood just as impressively but are now peeling and left to accumulate a veneer of grey and black presented by pollution and ill maintenance. It’s like nothing I’ve seen before.

Dominating the cityscape are these brightly painted communist style building blocks, they are as shocking as they are beautiful as they are chaotic. I can’t even describe them to you without feeling like I’m going terribly wrong with my description some way or another. I want to say some exterior patterns look distinctly art nouveau but chalk and cheese springs to mind. Other blocks covered in tiles and little balconettes are reminiscent of historical Lisbon, but whatever commonalities I might see, these two places are worlds apart.

There’s so much before me yet so little I understand. All this, and I haven’t even stepped out of the taxi from Yangon International Airport to my hotel.