slow voyage to the chin hills

Slow Voyage to the Chin Hills

Burma Center Slow Voyage to the Chin Hills

Slow Voyage to the Chin HillsExperiences from a journey in the Rakhine State, Myanmar, January-February 2009

First published in April 2009 by: Burma Center InternationalP.O. Box 4034, 181 04 Lidingo SwedenE-mail: [email protected] page: http://www.burmacenter.org

Layout and Illustrations: Burma CenterAll photographs Ann Frances and Bo A.Olson. Maps Burma Center, Satellite image Google Maps.

Copyright: Burma Center International 2009

ISBN 978-91-974357-3-4

Introduction

Writing this, on a beautiful deserted beach listening to the sound of the incoming tide from a peaceful Bay of Bengal, you cannot help feeling a bit sad.

Turning away from the sea, behind us we find a half-built hotel, obviously abandoned in the middle of construction. Next to it there is another one, and yet another. Other hotels, already completed are barely able to keep going. Small, family-owned restaurants nearby are struggling to make ends meet. And this at the height of the tourist season in Myanmar.

Many exile Burmese, supported by foreign activists, are critical to Burma Centers regular journeys in Myanmar. Naturally, they cannot be carried out without supplying the country´s military leaders with a few dollars, but on the whole, it is a dwindling percent of what they get anyway through selling out the country´s natural resources. The contact with the outside world that foreigners provide the “man on the street” cannot be valued in terms of money.

To fully understand what is happening in this, one of the most isolated countries in the world, you cannot just listen to what the government says, or the opposition. One has to go there with open eyes and an objective mind and then tell the story.

The views presented in this report are however the authors and the author´s alone.

We have throughout the report chosen to call the country by its official name Myanmar instead of Burma. After all, it is the official name and also what the Myanmars, the people living there, themselves call their country.

Ngapali, Februari 2009Ann Frances and Bo A Olson

Contents

Spread 3 Yangon 5 Sittwe 8 Mrauk U 13 Chin Hills 16 Ngapali Beach 19 Reasons for visiting Myanmar 22 About Burma Center, the authors and the report

Slow Voyage to the Chin HillsExperiences from a journey in the Rakhine State, Myanmar,

Ann Frances and Bo A Olson, Burma Center, January-February 2009

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The Old Banyan TreeYangon - where it all begins

In Yangon there is, in a quiet corner of the ancient Shwe Dagon Pagoda com-pound, a very old banyan tree. Not many visitors find their way to it but for those who do, it is a perfect place for experiencing mental peace and deep meditation. It is also a good starting point for any journey through this tormented nation.

On arrival in Myanmar one usually has to stay a couple of days in the for-mer capital Yangon to arrange certain things which cannot be done from abroad. Despite the official capital having been moved a couple of years ago to Nay Pyi Taw, a jungle clearing upcountry, most people don´t even know exactly where it is, Yangon is still the major hub for everything that matters nationwide.

Yangon seemed surprisingly pleasant for a brief early January visit. The heat didn´t hit you as it sometimes does and there was no unpleasant humidity. Even the new airport terminal was impressive, far from the traditional havoc in the old one. Customs and immigration procedure was smooth, although there were still two stamp-equipped officials approving your entry - the first sign of Myanmar’s continuing dependence on manual labor.

The new system with “visa on arrival” seems to work satisfactorily, but as on some occasions even visitors with these have been denied entry at the airport, we had decided to play it safe and arrange visas through the Myanmar Embassy in Bangkok. This proved to be a good precaution as Ann Frances´ visa application was rejected due to the authorities’ current paranoia regarding teachers travelling on British passports. Apparently a couple of female English teachers with tourist visas spent their time “illegally teaching politics” a year or so ago and this now has created obstacles for their countrymen in the same profession. This has also caused another problem for some tourists as it isn´t so easy anymore to get your four weeks visa extended by an extra week or two.

But Burma wouldn´t be Burma if a rejected visa application was to be the


as well, is that the large red billboards with government propaganda slogans are gone. They are now replaced by commercial advertising boards which often have messages partly in English. Instead of on the billboards, the same old slogans now seem to be restricted to less dominant places like framed boxes in State media and on title pages of Government sponsored publications.

Most ordinary people you meet in Yangon are welcoming to foreigners. They are definitely not as shy and watchful as a few years ago and it is a pleasure to sit down in a tea shop and “chew the fat” with the locals. If you want to meet strangers, it is clearly an advantage if you are walking the streets by yourself as people have a tendency to avoid contact if you have company. If you are alone and stop anywhere, you seldom have to wait long before somebody approaches you in a friendly and helpful way. Either they think that you are lost or they just want to practice the little English they know, or as in one case, a man grabbing your arm when he thought you were looking in the wrong direction when crossing the street. In any case a smile and a few friendly words exchanged means so much to these people.

You always hate to leave Yangon but it is a big country with plenty to study and this journey would take us through the Rakhine State and then eventually into the Chin Hills as well.

end of the story. A day later a new application was handed in to the Embassy with a less suspicious profession chosen. This, and a few added dollars did the trick and we could, in the end, depart from Bangkok for Yangon as planned.

By now, after numerous visits, we almost look at Yangon as a second home town. So many familiar streets to walk, places to visit and old friends to meet. Our team was to survey the general situation and bound by a commitment not to discuss domestic politics with locals. This was not difficult to stick to, as very few seemed seriously interested in politics at all. Life in the city had not changed much from the year before and, as usual, almost everybody just complained about the economic situation in general and their own in particular.

Strangely enough, having listened to numerous reports from international NGOs stating otherwise, people in general did not seem to be any worse off than during our preceding visits. But then, by now the people have had plenty of time to get used to their situation.

“The Lady” was mentioned on a couple of occasions. We got the feeling that the reason was more a way to approach a visitor than any serious concern for the Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, detained in her lakeside residence on University Avenue. Touts and taxi drivers actually offer detours taking you by her gates, which at the time of our visit were not blocked by police or soldiers. Even if curious visitors are not allowed to stop and take pictures immediately outside, there is little doubt that “Aung San Suu Kyi Street” is becoming one of the city’s major tourist attractions after the top pagodas. Question is how far the authorities will let it go before erecting the barbed wire roadblocks again.

Almost everyone we talked to actually knew about the upcoming elec-tions next year, but very few thought that much would change afterwards. Police and soldiers kept a low profile throughout the city, apart from one day, when policemen armed with what looked like American M16 assault rifles, were stationed at most of the strategic locations in the city, includ-ing all entrances to the Shwe Dagon Pa-goda. Nowhere did they obstruct our com-ings and goings, and in some instances they were even helpful. Gone seemed to be the old suspiciousness and brusque behavior, not so seldom actually replaced by friendly smiles instead. In some cases you could even conduct a pleasant conversation in broken English with the soldiers; all this rather new to us who have been used to meeting with a considerably rougher atti-tude from Myanmar authorities.

One very noticeable thing in Yan-gon’s cityscape, and in several other towns

The magnificent Shwe Dagon should be admired from a distance at sunrise or as here, at close hand after nightfall

Diesel generators step in when ordinary power fails

Monks do their rounds every morning to collect food for the day. Sometimes young

novices even ask for money nowadays.

Street commerce, downtown Yangon


Waiting for the Oil Sittwe - the China connection

Foreigners are not allowed to travel by car from central Myanmar all the way to Sittwe, the capital of the Rakhine State. Even if it were possible, it would not be worthwhile to take so much of the visitor´s precious transit time strug-gling on these cumbersome roads anyway, so our little team purchased one-way air tickets from Yangon to Akyab, the old name for Sittwe which is still the name of the airport. We decided to fly Air Bagan, thus risking additional flak from activists who claim that the company, although private, is owned by someone close to the junta. Actually, there are not so many alternatives if you want to travel safely and reasonably smoothly. You can of course go by boat to Sittwe, but it is a two day trip from Yangon, and the question is whether you actually supply the regime with that much less money anyway.

Security checks for domestic airline departures to and from Yangon are rath-er remarkable. In Yangon, the officials have electronic devices but nobody seems to take them seriously. We were checked by two female guards each using a metal detector. The gadgets gave constant sparkling sounds when moved along our belts and pockets but the girls just giggled and waved us through.

Smaller airports, such as Akyab and Thandwe do not have electronic con-trols. Both the checked luggage and the carry-on bags were gone through manually by airport staff who were not too careful when fumbling around in our personal be-longings. They did not so much look for weapons or other sharp objects it seemed but for antiques being illegally taken away. At no airport did they seem interested in water bottles, other liquids or creams carried in the hand luggage, not even on the international departures.

Sittwe is often considered nothing particularly special and is primarily a base for travelling further into the northern Rakhine State. This is not really fair as it is actually quite an interesting town, partly because of it´s historical background but


also because it is a place where often political protests start which later spread to other parts of the country. It is well worth spending at least a day in town. Not so many attractions to visit maybe, but the townsfolk are rather special and this part of Myanmar seems so different from other parts of the country we have travelled in.

When walking around in Sittwe, at first you get the impression that virtually everyone speaks English. Even in the pitch black before dawn you hear the “hallo” and “goodbye” from the people you meet, not necessarily in the right order though. However, you soon discover that that is most people’s total foreign vocabulary.

In most places in Myanmar, as here, there is a definite desire to please foreign guests. Visiting restaurants you often get an “English” translation of the menu even if most of the time they could just as well have left you with the one in Burmese. The words are obviously taken directly from a dictionary, often a rather ancient one at that, but without any English speaker checking the translation.

Often when Rakhine State is mentioned these days, it is in connection with the Rohingyas fleeing the country in boats and being washed ashore in Thailand and Indonesia. We did not find any distinct signs of the ethnic Rohingya minor-ity in or around Sittwe. Obviously, a good part of the local population consists of people with either Bengali or similar ancestry, but when asked about their ethnicity they all claimed to be “Myanmar Muslims”. We were given the impression that the word “Rohingya” was avoided, even by Buddhist Rakhine.

There are a couple of decent hotels and guest houses in downtown Sittwe and we decided to stay at the Shwe Thazin on Main Road. It was a bit more expen-sive than our usual accommodation, but it offered a formidable view from the roof terrace of hundreds of large fruit bats resting in the trees in the old University com-pound across the street. There they hang from dawn to dusk, waiting for the night´s excursion to the islands just off the coast. The roof terrace was the highest point in town and on a clear day you also had a nice view of the Lokananda Paya, locally known as the “Than Shwe Pa-goda” after the junta chief who had it built in 1997.

As in most other Myan-mar towns, electricity was re-stricted to just a few hours a day. The use of diesel genera-tors was not as common as in Yangon, however, which was very noticeable if you walked along the main street after dark. Several shops depended on car batteries, charged dur-ing the time of day when cur-rent through the mains was available and used to give life to some fluorescent tubes.

One of the reasons why we chose this part of Myanmar this time, was that it is probably the part of the country most likely to change in the near future. Some of Myanmar’s major oil and natural gas finds lie just outside the coast near Sittwe. However at the time of our visit there were no signs of any tankers, oil still entering the port the traditional way with some of it being stored in a few rusty old cisterns near the harbor.

The contract between Myanmar and China was signed late last year and construction of an oil and gas pipeline through Myanmar is expected to start this year. Peaceful, rural Sittwe will presum-ably change into a busy terminal city for all the gas and oil deliveries and be filled with construction and rig-workers as well. At the time of our visit there were no signs at all of any construction work going on, nor of any Chinese nationals. There was

however, a slight air of anticipation noticeable among the locals, maybe not hope as yet, but at least the people did not show complete despair as in some other towns. You could compare the atmosphere with what we experienced in many parts of the country after the introduction of Visit Myanmar Year 1996 but before western economic sanctions and boycotts put an end to their hopes. Hopefully the Chinese involvement will prove more long-lasting for ordinary peoples´ livelihoods.

Even if no signs of large-scale construction were noticable in Sittwe, there were reports about major work being done on Ramree (Rambree) Island, the larg-est island in Myanmar with a population of some hundreds of thousands, situated just off the Rakhine coast between Sittwe and Thandwe.

Thus, it is not only a question of the Myanmar oil and gas which will affect Sittwe when the Chinese pipeline is completed. Large tankers will arrive with oil from the Middle East and Africa and unload in ports nearby to feed the pipeline. What this will do to the local environment in the near future is an open question.

Although Sittwe is a major naval base, there was very little military activity. A few naval ves-sels were anchored in the harbor, perhaps a sign that the border is-sue with Bangladesh was not quite

Fruit bats and distant Lokananda Paya

The Colonial clock Tower, Sittwe

Rush hour on Main Street, Sittwe


solved yet, but there were no soldiers in sight and just a couple of sleepy policemen prepared to sort out possible traffic jams on the road around the new clock tower.

There are some memo-rials still remaining after the British, for example the old clock tower at the other end of the main street, more famous but now a rusting monu-ment over a past colonial era. Though considerably more picturesque, it is not in use any more and has been replaced by the new tower with working clocks, and of similar design to new clock towers in many other towns across the country. Apparently the old tower was looked upon as a symbol of colonialism and thus felt not worth repairing.

Apart from being a naval base, Sittwe is also a centre for the fishing industry. A visit to the local fish market when the fish-ing boats arrive and offload the night´s catch at the docks early in the morning was a must. From dawn to dusk the commerce contin-ues, with thousands of small fish lying drying outside on the ground before being packed tightly into huge bulky sacks for onward shipment to Yangon and elsewhere. Much larger fish were hanging, cut into strips, for faster and more thorough drying.

Nearby, there was the busy vegetable market common to all Myanmar towns. We were amazed to see the variety of produce on sale, in particular potatoes sorted by size, of which the smallest offered would clearly have been rejected in any European potato harvest.

Rice, of varying quality, is still the most common staple in the Myanmar diet, although fast-cooked noodles are becoming increasingly popular.

Being mainly a Buddhist country, dogs are allowed to room freely everywhere. They

Dried fish packed for shipping, Sittwe harbour

Fish drying in Sittwe harbour

seem not to bother much with peo-ple and nowhere were we chased by a pack of stray dogs as occasionally happens in some Thai towns.

Sittwe port is the starting point for almost all travel in this part of Myanmar. As we were to contin-ue up north to the former Arakan capital Mrauk U (Myohaung) and places beyond, we decided it would be a good investment to hire a guide/interpreter; a young Rakhine student living in Sittwe. Not that it was absolutely necessary as there are quite a few guide books in Eng-lish for the area around Mrauk U, but it solved a lot of problems and misunderstandings having some-body on hand who could speak the local dialects as well as negotiate with officials. This is just about a must if one, as we did, intends to continue the journey into the Chin Hills where all kinds of permits, of-ficial as well as unofficial, are required.

There are government ferries as well as private “express” boats trafficking the waterways to Mrauk U, but not on a daily basis. We decided however to hire a slow-moving private vessel with its skipper and assistant. This way we had no fel-low passengers to consider, and, apart from certain tidal conditions, we felt almost in complete charge of things when we at daybreak one morning cast loose and set off for the eight-hour journey upstream on the mighty Kaladan River.

Potatoes of all sizes, Sittwe market

Early morning departure from Sittwe Harbour


Ancient Mrauk UHistoric Rakhine capital on the way to Chin Hills

Leaving Sittwe port at the first light of dawn was an adventure in itself. Berths for smaller private craft were scarce, so boats arriving the evening before were tied alongside the others. The biggest ones, Government ferries, closest to the pier and then the others according to status. Thus, to reach our small private boat we had to first scramble over three others.

The pleasant boat trip to Mrauk U was estimated to take about eight hours, first following the wide Kaladan River north and then turning northeast on the increasingly narrower Kalabon, Pyaungbya and Chaung Rivers. Departure time from Sittwe was set to coincide with high tide upriver where the water is shallow and the sand banks treacherous.

Kaladan River is, if the Indian Government gets it´s way, going to be devel-oped into the major transport route from the Bay of Bengal to the Indian state of Mizoram. This is another reason why Sittwe may change considerably in the future when the work to deepen the river commences and even more so later when goods destined for the Eastern parts of India will be transshipped through Sittwe port.

But today, the Kaladan River is still a very peaceful part of the world. Apart from a couple of rusty warships belonging to the Myanmar Navy and one or two smaller freighters, traffic at the river mouth consisted primarily of smaller boats arriving with agricultural products or departing with cargoes aimed for villages further upriver.

A short while after having left the harbor, we passed a vessel anchored beside the main river channel. It belonged to the Myanmar Navy, and apparently its pur-pose was to observe the boats passing by and collect customs duties where appli-cable. Crew members followed our passage through binoculars without reacting.

For the next couple of hours we met several fishing vessels and smaller boats, heavily loaded with rice and other agricultural produce heading for the market. We


also met several long rafts consisting of teak logs or other timber tied together on their way downstream to sawmills or for export. Further up the rivers these rafts consisted of tall bamboo stems, of-ten with a little tent erected on top for the man in charge, who virtually used the raft as his home until he deposited his bamboo load in Sittwe, packed his things and hitched a return ride only to start the whole procedure all over again with a new bamboo raft.

In all the rivers here, you can expect loose timber which has broken away from the rafts and which is a po-tential danger to other boats. However, the lookouts also have to be alert all the time for underwater sandbanks which may change position each tide. The lookouts usually manage to spot other

kinds of debris to avoid in good time - in daylight that is. What struck us was, that apart from pieces of driftwood, the rivers were amazingly clear of floating garbage. Even the riverbanks were fairly clear from plastic bottles and other junk, which one is used to seeing along rivers in other parts of the world.

On the way along the upper rivers we took the opportunity to stop at a couple of Mro and Kamee tribe villages situated near the river. The inhabitants are primarily Buddhists and belong to the Chin nationality, but some are also related to Bangladeshis. These villages are quite easily accessible from the river but most pub-

lic transport passes them by. Thus an unannounced visit from westerners was a big event and attracted a lot of attention. In one of the villages, A Gyi Taw Ma, the head monk in the monastery had died and preparations were being made for a grand farewell funeral. Girls were practising tradi-tional dances to the beat of drums and other instruments. The monk had died in December and it struck us as remarkable how long a dead hu-man could be kept in the heat before cremation, but methods for preserv-ing bodies in this tropical climate ap-pear to be quite far advanced.

In these Mro and Kamee vil-lages we noted for the first time, the use of tin vessels to carry water, which actually are native to Bangla-desh. They are very light compared to the clay pots used in other parts of the country and are much easier to keep clean. Fresh water is collected in dams filled by the rain during the mon-soon season. It is mostly women who collect the water, often young girls who would manage to carry them on their heads or by hold-ing them with one hand against a hip. When filled these vessels are very heavy indeed and we admired their dex-terity in managing to carry them up the bank, let alone lift them. At no time did we notice a male doing this particular job?

These villages are self-sufficient to a high degree. They have, for example, their own schools, a rice mill, and village craftsmen produce much of the equipment needed to carry on with their daily life. Apart from fish-ing, they breed pigs and various kinds of poultry. We were invited to share a meal but politely declined when we noticed the hundreds of flies buzzing round the raw piece of meat on offer.

During the last stage of our journey to Mrauk U, the water in the river was so calm that it almost ap-peared not to move at all. This is not always so, espe-cially during the monsoon season. In November 2004 a speedboat was overturned by a cyclone which hit just after dark and five Italian tourists were drowned.

We arrived in Mrauk U in the late afternoon. Long before arrival, on the narrow, shallow and wind-

Myanmar Navy patrol boat on Kaladan River near Sittwe

Transporting goods up the Kaladan River

Fetching water - a woman´s job

Lunch anyone?


ing Chaung River, we could see a num-ber of stupas lined up on the mountain ridge surrounding the town. Suddenly rounding a bend, we noticed several boats tied to a little jetty - the next stop on our trip.

For those who are more in-terested in genuine archeological sites than easy-to-reach tourist landmarks, Mrauk U is far more interesting to visit than, for example, Bagan. There was a certain special feeling, on being given an opportunity to explore all these historical sites totally alone, both interiors and exteriors, in the absence of other tourists. One thing that irritated us in Mrauk U, as with so many other Buddhist temples across the country, was the fairly recent custom of surrounding the magnificent golden Buddha images with a halo of flashing electronic diodes in a variety of colors. It seemed to us an abbera-tion of an otherwise respectful atmosphere.

In Mrauk U as with anywhere else in Myanmar when visiting Buddhist sites, apart from being properly dressed, it is completely forbidden to wear anything on your feet. This means no socks either and not only inside the actual buildings

themselves, as, for example in Thailand, but within the grounds as well. This can be a bit of a nuisance if there is a long hike up a steep slope to a temple. We found that some antiseptic tissues for cleaning one´s feet afterwards and a few band-aids came in very handy. This strict rule is one of the very few

in Myanmar that does not just discriminate civilians - military personnel have to follow the “no foot-wearing” rule as well. Some monasteries do however allow shoes in the grounds although not inside the buildings.

As in all other towns we passed through, a visit to the lo-cal market was of course a “must”. The market was open and busy every day except Sunday, and it

was amazing to see how in the early morning the stands were overflowing with all kinds of fresh fish, meat, vegetables, fruit, and other food products. It was just as amazing to see how by lunchtime all the fresh food had been sold.

The market also had sections for all kinds of consumer goods, as well as tailoring and dress-making, where women were sitting at their an-cient manual sewing machines all day, mostly doing alterations but also sewing new clothes to order as well. We very much liked the idea of so much used clothing being offered for sale, this was of course due to most people’s poor eco-nomic situation, but also to some degree a sign of a refreshing new environmental thinking in Myanmar,which was also evident in the fact that everything was re-used in some way or another, thus leaving the garbage collector with very mea-gre “pickings”.

Although the countryside is so beautiful and there are so many spectacular sights, it was almost impossible to get hold of any postcards. If you are lucky enough to find any at all, they usually depict some famous place far away. Not even in the local tourist office could they supply a postcard showing a local point of interest. Surprising, as the mail service from Myanmar nowadays is quite reliable most of the time.

In Mrauk U we had booked a semi-de-tached bungalow in the very peaceful Vesali lodge, named after the first Ra-khine capital now only a nearby ruin. We had hired a jeep with driver for a few days so it did not mat-ter much that our lodg-ings were a kilometer or so from the town center. The electrical supply was more of a problem with the hotel generator only working a couple of hours in the early morning and then again in the evening. As almost everywhere else in these parts there was no electricity supplied through mains.

Entering Mrauk U

Tailor shop in Mrauk U market

Buddha Image with the Koe Thaung Pagoda in backgroundMilitary - shoes off as well


You could easily walk into town, or borrow a bike from the hotel, but we found the jeep very con-venient to use on the rather rough roads between the ancient monuments, many of which lie quite far apart from each other and espe-cially when climbing ridges to get an overall view or to watch the sunset.

As in so many other parts of the country, there were constant road works everywhere, progress is painfully slow as almost

everything is done manually, often by the women with a male supervisor. Not so far from our hotel there was a construction site; women were crushing the larger stones into smaller ones, to be used as fill for the new road. The actual crushing was done in an old-fashioned machine which the women fed constantly. We had the oppor-tunity to talk to the work crew and they seemed to be happy in their work and to be getting an income from it. It was however both noisy and dusty in the extreme and there was no protective clothing or footwear. In fact, nowhere in Myanmar did we see any type of protective clothing or ear protection even in the noisi-est of places such as at the lo-cal airports. Everywhere flip-flops were the only type of footwear, apart from once in Yangon, when laborers raking tar on the road were actually wearing rubber boots.

As very few tourists come to Mrauk U, there were not many local village indus-tries left. Those there were produced items needed locally, such as fans and hats to shield the sun. The people doing the work, mostly women here as well, did not earn very much as the cost of raw material cut into their profit, not to speak of the middle men who provided the material and then handled marketing of the finished products. If you were thinking of buying any souvenirs at all, it seemed to us a good idea to buy directly from the person who makes them.

Road work often manual and by women laborers

We also visited a private liquor distillery in one village where some sort of rice whisky was produced on license from the local authorities. There were no counters or work benches, and like most other places we visited to see the various kinds of locally manufactured items, the whole procedure was carried out on the ground. In this case there was only an earthen floor, and the shed a very dark and dreary lean-to on the side of the bamboo family house. The set-up was exactly as we´d imagined the old hillbilly moonshine factories to be. Here too, only women appeared to be involved in the distilling process.

It is remarkable how very few intoxicated persons one sees being aware of the fact that so many people in Myanmar are very poor and supposedly disillusioned as well. Beetlenut chewing is common everywhere, though this is to most westerners such a disgusting habit. It also works as a slight stimulant, leaving users with red-stained lips, gums and teeth and ugly red blobs of spit everywhere..

Entertainment, apart from the occasional puppet shows that are so special to Myanmar, consists mainly of watching videos. People do not have their own equipment but in most villages there is a sort of movie house, a shed containing an old TV and a video or even a DVD player. The features, often films produced in Myanmar, are announced on posters nearby.

The daily routine for most people is work from dawn to late afternoon, seven days a week. After work they spend considerable time washing themselves as well as their clothes at home or in the river. Then, after the evening meal, they

may have a little time to relax with their families or friends. We were told that the reason why so few men were in-volved around the village was that many of them worked in the fields and oth-ers in various “beautification projects” commissioned by the authorities.

Unknown to us, we had arrived in Mrauk U a day or so before the Myan-mar Prime Minister, Number Three General, Thein Sein, was scheduled to make an official visit. This meant that soldiers were within sight everywhere

Liqour distillery near Mrauk U

Village cinema near Mrauk U

Village industry making fans


Sunset, Mrauk U

in this otherwise so military-free area. Wherever you aimed your camera, a soldier was bound to step into view which caused a problem as photographing armed soldiers in Myanmar is taboo.

The soldiers were mostly friendly enough and did not stop us anywhere, not even when pass-ing close to the two large con-crete helipads built right next to the Dukkhanthein (Htukkant Thein) Pagoda, one of the major historical sites in the area. Of-ficers looked a bit suspicious, or perhaps we should say curious, when we took a closer look at the bright yellow party tent erected at another prominent site, the Koe Thaung Pagoda also known as the Ninety Thousand Images Pagoda, obviously intended to shield worshiping dignitaries from the sun.

Most locals seemed to take a positive attitude towards high level visits like this. It gave them a chance to sell some more of their produce, not to mention all the flowers and palm trees that had to be planted along the visitors´ intended path, which meant paid jobs for those hired to do the planting and watering, as well as

an extra income for those required to spruce up the surroundings in general. Usually, before important visits like this, one or two of the ancient pago-das are given a little extra attention as far as basic repairs and general tidying up are concerned.

Like Bagan, the temples in Mrauk U have suffered considerably over the centuries from earthquakes and other environmental disasters. However, the question is if they have not suffered even more from mod-ern “restoration” in the hands of un-skilled “restorers”. Perhaps fortunately enough the overall economic situation has actually prevented too much work being done on the sites here as yet. We met an official who spoke of the pressing need for expert archaeologi-

cal advice on the proper way to restore these ancient temples, many of them dating back to the 15th century and the desperate need for funding to save them for future generations. We were especially thrilled to be shown a small section of the ancient city wall, virtually untouched by human hands, except for some tiny gold leaf of-ferings attached by local worshippers.

To us, apart from being awakened at four o’clock one morning by an ex-

tremely loud mobile pa-system, the Number Three General’s visit did not interfere much with our own plans. We actually found it rather interesting to observe the whole operation. We could have got into trouble the last morning however, when we were due to leave Mrauk U to return to Sittwe, as the army had started to req-uisition all civilian jeeps in the area, including the drivers. Thus we had to leave well before dawn. Our jeep was not equipped with headlights so we drove all the way to the dock in the pitch black and thus made it aboard our boat well before the military had a chance to intervene. The problem now was that it was a little too early for high tide, which was evident an hour later when our boat ran straight into the shore in the early morning fog. As if that was not enough, an hour or so after we had managed to dislodge ourselves; our propeller got stuck in a fishing net and during the effort to free it, loosened and dropped to the bottom of the muddy river. Later we managed to hitch a ride with another riverboat passing downstream. Ap-parently, such mishaps are more the rule than exception in these parts but, thanks to mobile telephone availability, scheduled airline departures can be adjusted ac-cordingly.

Soldier on temple wall, Mrauk U

Welcome to Mrauk U


“I can see the coconuts” Medicines, school supplies and eye glasses (!)

Early one morning we set off from our base in Mrauk U towards our final destination; the Chin Hills.

The Chin Hills lie far from any tourist route, not even many Myanmars themselves find their way to these remote vil-lages in this rugged area. This made it even more vital for us to visit some of them and perhaps take with us needed supplies, as well as giving them a brief opportunity for contact with strangers from the outside world.

In Mrauk U market we had purchased some medical supplies with money kind people back home had donated. Some of the medicines were officially approved for general ailments such as fevers, headaches, etc, oth-ers were traditional medications widely used for generations, and to be used for various stomach problems and were thus much more trusted locally. We had also brought with us a fair amount of school supplies such as writ-ing books and ball point pens, badly needed in these ill-equipped village schools.

We started off by jeep for Nam Gya Village a few very bumpy miles away on the banks of the Lemru River. We were actually on the one and only road connection to Yangon and could quite see why it was not approved for tourists; there were far more potholes than Pharmacy in Mrauk U market


road surface. One could only imagine what it would be like in the rainy season. On leaving town we hit a cow which unexpectedly ran out into the road. As there was no noticeable injury to the beast or the vehicle we continued without much delay.

In Nam Gya we hired a boat to take us the long way up the winding river to a couple of Chin villages seldom visited by Westerners, partly because of the distance and partly due to restrictions laid down by the authorities - often local permits are required, which usually means paying-off some lower ranking officers.

Our skipper was a bit reluctant to take us all the way and suggested some other, more conveniently located villages, instead. However, these did get foreign visitors occasionally, so we insisted on sticking to our initial plans, especially as we had already spent money on supplies intended for these particular villages. There was a brief discussion but in the end the crew agreed to take us all the way.

We reached the jungle-clad slopes of the Chin Hills early in the afternoon. The river was fairly wide even up here, but very shallow. In some places you could see fishermen stand-ing in the middle of the river with wa-ter up to their knees only, but our skip-per always managed to find a narrow channel through the sandbanks, just deep enough to get us through.

We had to walk the final bit to the villages though, as the river was far too low at this time of the year. We left our boat on the river bank, and taking the supplies in our backpacks we set off for the first village. Immediately on ar-rival we were virtually surrounded by all the village children. Later many of the grown-ups joined us as well, and through an interpreter we explained why we had come and gave directions for using the medicines.

These villages are unusual and rather special for here you can find, in their own familiar surroundings, some of the few remaining older Chin ladies who still have tattooed faces and elongated earlobes. As among the “long necked” Padaung women in Kayah State with brass rings around their necks, the tattooing of faces among the Chin is a dying tradition as the young girls prefer not to adhere to this deforming practice any more. No doubt the older ladies themselves think they are very pretty. Most of them had ac-tually never seen their own faces until they saw them on our digital camera screens. We do wonder if they really believed us when we said it really was them.

Luckily, greedy tourist “services” have not yet managed to exploit these Chin people, as has been the case among the Padaungs, especially by less scrupulous Thai agents.

We were shown the new school being added to for the village children. There was a pile of bricks stacked on one side of a cement wall. The villagers were very proud of it but being a Saturday the teacher was visiting in another village that day.

In Western countries we wait until we have financing ready before we start infrastructure projects. Here in Myanmar people realize that they would never get anything at all done if they waited for sufficient funds, so they decide what they want and then they do it bit by bit as money and material become available. The partly finished structures are, in the meantime, used for their intended purpose. In this case the school benches were just moved slightly when another little bit of the roof had been completed. Blackboards, rulers etc were all in place with even an old-fashioned hand bell to summon the children to class.

Main road Mrauk U - Yangon

Bamboo shipment on the Lemru River

Chin Lady with traditional tattoo and elongated ears


The writing books and ball point pens we brought were very much ap-preciated as writing material is much in demand. However we wished we had also brought colorful magazines, picture calendars or plastic wall illustrations showing local crops, fauna and flora etc. Those could be bought in Yangon very cheaply.

After having spent some time looking round the first village, we walked along the riverbank to the next one. Here there was actually a small, very basic in-firmary, with a young native paramedic to hand over the medicines to. He was also in charge of the village school and quite pleased to receive more writing materials.As previously, some of the medicines we had brought had printed directions in Burmese attached but others, in the category “traditional medicines” for acute diar-rhea for example did not need any instructions as they were so well known.

It was late afternoon, and so having achieved what we had set out to do, it was high time to return downstream. Travelling by river in the dark is definitely not to be recommended, partly due to shifting sandbanks but more especially because of the timber floats and tied-together bamboo cane rafts which are floated down stream all the way to the sawmills in Sittwe. Sometimes one could make out a flickering light from a small cooking fire on one of them but mostly there was no warn-ing at all. These long bamboo canes are very hard and sharp and could easily damage any rickety wooden boat which might run into them.

A school being built in a Chin Hills´village. Calling the children to class

As we continued downstream, we reminisced over the memorable moments of the day – perhaps the most touching was a meeting with one of the village heads-men. While handing over the medicines for the grown-ups and Marie bisquits for the children to eat, this old man was squatting quietly nearby on his heels with his longyi hitched up, as so many Myanmars do, chewing beetlenut, a quiet smile on his face. When we had finished reading the labels on the medicines, we ap-proached him carefully realizing immediately that he was having difficulty focus-sing on the pictures on our digital camera, so we lent him our spectacles just on the off-chance. Having studied the photos once again, a big grin appeared from ear to ear as he pointed upwards to the coconuts and exclaimed ”I can see the coconuts now”.

Needless to say, on that special Saturday, we left our spectacles behind in that remote Chin village.

Sunset on the Lemru RiverDelivering urgently needed medicines and school supplies and popular Marie bisquits in the Chin Hills

Seeing yourself for the first time in a digital camera Navigating the shallow waters of the Lemru River could sometimes be tricky


Days in ParadiseWrapping up the journey at Ngapali Beach

After a few weeks of struggling in remote areas, the Burma Center´s fact finding teams usually need a short break, before returning to what our western colleagues especially, mean by “civilization”. Thus the two of us decided to spend a couple of days on a beach, relaxing and comparing notes.

However, this time we did not choose a place elsewhere in Southeast Asia, but decided to stay on in Myanmar. We considered one of those maritime recre-ation areas which play such an important part in the life in the country and are so well spoken of by Myanmar travellers. This obviously needed some further research as well.

Ngapali Beach by the Bay of Bengal in Southern Rakhine State, was sup-posed to be a popular maritime paradise, so we booked a flight from Sittwe to Thandwe, formerly Sandoway, the second largest town in the state. The flight took less than one hour, and from the miniscule Thandwe airport, we took a taxi a couple of miles down to Ngapali Beach, a three-mile stretch of beautifully clean, white sand and with several hotels right on the beach.

This particular resort was intended to welcome hoards of Western tourists, and certainly all the facilities are there, but very few tourists come due to tourist boycotts and other occurrences which have scared foreigners away. As the hotel prices are steep for average Myanmars, the place was rather empty. We could count the foreigners on the fingers of one hand and domestic tourists on the other, and that was on a good day. There were actually more locals trying to sell coconut drinks, bananas and handicrafts from little stands on the beach than visitors. We were happy to see too that we were left in peace however and not approached by anyone pressing us to buy. On one occasion a souvenir seller actually had to be woken when we approached her beach stand in the heat of the day with a handful of kyats!

Another very positive thing in Ngapali and other Myanmar beach resorts


is that, unlike most other private re-sorts all over the world, the strip of beach between the hotels and the water is public. This means that you may swim, walk, jog or relax a n y w h e r e along the long sandy beach without fences or other restrictions. Walking or jogging was especially nice as the sand closest to the water was soothing for bare feet and not too soft for running. We did not at any time notice any broken glass or other garbage anywhere on the beach. Not even sharp sea shells as they were quickly picked up by local beachcombers at the turn of the tide and were due to become handmade necklaces and other souvenirs.

Usually, it is much cheaper to book a hotel in advance through Internet than paying the “walk in” rate. Due to the lack of tourists this was not quite true at Ngapali Beach at the time. Rates on rooms normally quoted at around fifty dol-lars a night could be negotiated down to just over ten. And many hotels are rather comfortable with hot and cold water, air conditioning and mosquito nets. Electric-ity supplied by generators both mornings and well into the night was a pleasant surprise, as was an excellent breakfast included in the cost of the room.

Apart from swim-ming and enjoying the peaceful beach itself, there was not much else to do in the vicinity. You could hire a small fishing boat with skipper for a half or full day, taking you out to Pearl Island nearby for snorkel-ing. The corals were rather disappointing but fish of many kinds were plentiful. You could also try fishing yourself, either with con-ventional rod and hook or by spear. Afterwards you were taken to a tiny island, actually just a sandbank at high tide, with cooking

facilities where you could enjoy eating your own catch for a dollar or so.

A couple of fishing villages can easily be reached from Ngapali Beach, either walking or by rented bicycle. They are filled with activity when the boats leave in the evening or return with their catch in the early morning hours. The local fishermen seemed a bit wor-ried as they had noticed a drop in the amount of fish caught in the beginning of 2009 which nobody could explain.

There is a souvenir shop by the road at the north end of the beach where you can purchase locally-made handi-crafts and even postcards, the latter be-ing rather scarce in Myanmar, and all at very reasonable prices.

The closest town is Thandwe, three miles away. Local minibuses, type small pickup trucks, frequent the road behind the hotels at Ngapali Beach and take you to the town market. The mini-buses are cheap but rather uncomfortable as in addition to plenty of passengers of all sizes you often have to cram in amongst large sacks of rice, oil barrels and cumbersome household paraphernalia as well. To hang on, standing on the little narrow step at the back of the bus may actually be more comfortable despite all the potholes and bumps in the road. The cost for a minibus ride from the beach

to Thandwe is a couple of hundred kyat. As the smallest bills you usually use are 500 kyat we do not know exactly how much we paid. To give change to a tourist was not a com-mon practice in Myanmar when it came to local services like this. Visitors are considered extremely wealthy people as they can afford to travel so far away from home.

There was nothing special to see in Thandwe either, although just walking around enjoying the busy country town, to which people come from all over to sell or buy at the market was an experience in it-self. Do not expect to meet any other tourists though, and be aware that very few signs are in English. From the illustrated signs you can usually figure out where there is a place to eat and so on.

Otherwise the most popular thing to do with your spare time at Ngapali Beach,

both for tourists and Myanmars, was to walk along Fruit vendors, Ngapali Beach

Ngapali beach is great for all kinds of fishing

3 km white sand virtually to yourself

Catching the bus to Thandwe


the road behind the hotels, chatting with the friendly locals and choosing a place for your evening meal.

Like in most other places in Myanmar, if you go out in the late afternoon, you are advised to bring a flashlight as activities are spontane-ous and do seem to carry on into the evening. Even when taking yourself back from local restaurants after dark a flashlight is recommended. How-ever people you meet are not terribly happy if you accidentally shine yours in their faces hindering out their own night vision. Bicycles are not usually equipped with lights at all, and there are no sidewalks, so it is best to be on the lookout at all times.

Most of the hotels along the beach actually have their own restaurants although prices can be a bit higher than other local eateries and business hours more restricted. As tourists we sincerely believe that you should spread your money around locally and not spend all of it in the same place, and definitely not all at the hotel where you are staying. Just behind the hotel strip there is a road lined with several small restaurants serving excellent food at what seems to be all hours. These restaurants, mostly privately owned by locals, were established before the political confrontations and natural disasters of the last couple of years scared away foreign visitors, and they now struggle on the brink of ruin. But like most other private initiatives in Myanmar, they simply refuse to die.

One evening, walking along the road, we stopped to talk with a young man who was busily chalking the evening menu up on a blackboard in front of

his little establishment. “European Restaurant” it said on a big white sign, and, like all other eating places nearby, this was an exotic open air establishment with a wooden floor raised above the ground, a traditional roof on wooden posts and beauti-fully framed by palms and banana trees thrusting their leaves in from all sides and making it all seem rather cozy and inviting. The only sign of anything “European” we noticed was that of a pizza squeezed in far down on the handwritten menu.

The young man’s name was Tony and apart from managing his wife´s family’s restaurant in the eve-

nings, he was like so many other Myanmar entrepreneurs a “Jack of all trades”. In daytime he arranged fishing trips and boat excursions on the Bay of Bengal, just a stone´s throw away and his English was good enough to be the guide on these tours himself.

Tony told us that his father-in-law had previously been the chef in a couple of luxury hotels along the beach but had now on retirement been talked into open-ing his own place. His specialty was, despite the name of the place, Myanmar food and then, naturally the seafood caught locally the same morning.

Tony suggested that we should step in and try the food, something we did not regret. The slices of barracuda and deep fried giant prawns in curry and coco-nut milk were definitely a culinary hit. To be honest, we wondered if we, at any time before, anywhere, had eaten anything fresher or more delicious and definitely not at that price. What surprised us though was that we were the only two dinner guests. Tony smiled a little nostalgically and agreed that the influx of foreign tour-ists had not become what he had wished for.

The restaurant looked the same as all the others nearby and we couldn´t help suggesting that maybe he had just chosen the wrong name. Most foreigners who travel to these faraway places are hardly looking for food they can eat every day at home. Maybe he should change the name to something more appropriate to de-scribe the delicious traditional marine food being served, so special for Myanmar, making a point of the fact that the proprietors were a local family? Tony nodded thoughtfully and we said goodnight and did not think more of it.

Two days later, on the eve of our departure, we decided to return to Tony´s place once more. We searched and searched but could not find the big white sign with the text “European Restaurant”. After having walked back and forth a few times we suddenly recognized Tony´s wife, who had seen us looking, and had come out onto the road. Then we discovered that the old sign was gone, replaced with a brand new one with the hand painted letters “Myanmar Family Restaurant”, the paint barely dry. It was even nicer to see that the place that evening was just about filled with dinner guests.

After having visited Myan-mar again, we were more con-vinced than ever that the Myanmar people really need our constructive support far more than boycotts and other political mumbo jumbo. This could be in the form of ad-vice or why not some gift items, easily copied and locally manufac-tured for the local tourist trade? It must be so much better to give people opportunities locally and good ideas so they can be given a chance to run their own lives and thus shape their own futures. Tony and his family at Ngapali Beach was just one example.

“Barber shop quartet”, Ngapali Beach

Tony´s place, Ngapali Beach Evening view from our bungalow, Ngapali Beach


“Please, tell Bag Lady I sad”Reasons why you should visit Myanmar

For Myanmar 2008 was a disasterous year for tourism. In the beginning westerners still avoided the country because of the unrest in connection with pro-test demonstrations in September of the previous year. Then came the cyclone catastrophe in May with over a hundred thousand people dead or missing. Even if the disaster only devastated the Irrawaddy delta, a region only sparsely visited by tourists anyway, the scare kept foreign visitors away from the country as a whole.

Finally, in December when the tourist season normally reaches its peak, and just when it looked as though bookings were picking up again, political unrest in neighboring Thailand resulted in the occupation of Bangkok’s International Air-port, thus closing the main entry route to Myanmar for weeks and causing a vast number of cancellations as visitors played it safe and chose other holiday destina-tions. The situation in Yangon itself was chaotic as well, with hundreds of stranded visitors trying to get out.

Many foreigners are interested in visiting Myanmar but they ask themselves if it is morally right to visit a country ruled by such a repressive military dictator-ship.

The answer to this question is not entirely simple as opinions are so di-vided. According to the political opposition to the current regime and its support-ers worldwide, you should definitely not visit the country at this time as this only supplies the military regime with money for further repression. At the same time, many experienced Myanmar observers claim that visiting the country does the people considerably more good than harm.

Naturally, Burma Center leaves it up to each individual to make their own decision. We do however encourage people to scrutinize the “facts” objectively be-fore making a decision.


It is easy for young Myanmar ex-iles who are lucky enough to have escaped and are now living fairly comfortable lives abroad, to say that they can wait dozens of years for the type of democracy they want to see in Myanmar. Many of them are get-ting a very good education abroad, some even with the intention of returning home to take up a political role when the oppor-tunity arises. Ordinary people in Myanmar towns, villages and rice fields also want a better life free from harassment, but they may not be willing to wait as long and thus are likely prepared for the time being to ac-cept a somewhat lesser degree of what we westerners mean by democracy.

The problem when most Westerners look at Myanmar is that they use western standards as reference. You have to keep in mind things like various cultural aspects, local living standards and the fact that the citizens have virtually no democratic tradi-tion.

Gandhi said for example once that “I want all the cultures of all lands to be blown about my house as freely as possible. But I refuse to be blown off my feet by any”

To be strictly selfish, visiting Myanmar when we did was perfect, especially as there were not many other tourists to compete with. Another good thing about the tourist boycott, and thus the isolation of Myanmar, is that so far the country has not suffered from the same cultural devastation as for example neighboring Thailand.

The political opposition is quite right when it says that even if you chose to utilize private accom-modation, transport etc, there is no way to visit Myanmar le-gally without supply-ing the Government with some money. Just through paying visa fees, departure tax, certain entrance fees as well as taxed

transportation, hotels and restaurants supplies the authorities with some fund-ing. However, that this should be a ma-jor source for Government income is a myth compared to, for example, the sale of the country’s natural resources.

The fact is that western economic sanctions and tourist boycotts do hurt the ordinary Myanmar people much harder than the government as they can-not get work, especially in the export or tourist trades. Neither are they able to sell their own manufactured products or services to visiting foreigners. Maybe saddest of all; they are through the lack of foreign visitors, denied virtually the only communication channels with the outside world ordinary citizens can hope for, something that we in Burma Center see as particularly hard.

Myanmar rulers have no doubt many grave deeds to account for over the years, not only the brutal treatment of their own citizens but the breaking of other international laws as well. To be fair though, some of the latter may just come out of the isolation by the international community. Just one example in Myanmar

is the widely accepted practice of pirate copying CDs, DVDs and books. When leaving Myan-mar we bought at the airport a copy of one of few fiction novels written about Burma; Ami-tav Ghosh´s The Glass Palace. At first glance it looked like any quality paperback produced in the west, and it even had all the publishers’ information on the title page. However, sit-ting on the airplane back to Bangkok leafing through the pages, we noticed the printing was of rather poor uneven quality, just like in some of our own reports when the toner in the laser printer is running low. Looking even closer at the cover indeed, it proved to be some ink-jet print covered by a thin protective plastic coat-ing. It was so obvious that this was not a book printed and bound by HarperCollinsPublish-ers in London as stated. But, what choice do the Myanmar book producers and sellers have as they cannot import the original books from abroad due to western sanctions?

Metal workshop in Thandwe. Safety precau-tions are scarce and a lot could be adopted from western standards.

NLDs headquarters (right) squeezed in beside a fashionable furniture show room on Shwe Gone Thaing Road, Yangon

Book stalls are plentiful on Yangon streets, mostly used and copied books for sale

Although many things have become much better over the last decade, life in Myanmar is still severly restricted


for small private businesses, type village industries, and thus when the Government launched the “Visit Myanmar Year 1996” hoping for a massive influx of wealthy foreign tourists, he decided to quit his job and start a business making garments and other handicrafts for the tourists.

Assisted by his family he soon had a promising little business going. Initially he found a market for his products in the nearby developing tourist resorts. Some of it was shipped all the way to Scott (Bogyoke Aung San) Market in Yangon and even bought up by traders for export to Europe and the US.

He borrowed money, bought a few pieces of new machinery and employed some local women with the intention of expanding. After all his years in a daily rut, his project not only gave him better prospects but also injected new hope through the entire village, something that had not existed for decades.

Then, in 1997, came the US Government sanctions against Myanmar. EU, led by Britain followed, and virtually all exports of garments and other handcrafted items from Myanmar to the West came to a stop. An even greater blow was the tourist boycott spearheaded by the British activist group Burma Action Group UK, popularly called BAG, and it´s dedicated female spokesperson, Yvette Mahon. No doubt the well-meaning lady was acting at the request of the by now, in many western nations, so very active Burmese exile communities, but to some Myanmars left inside the country, she seems to have become a reverse symbol for just the op-posite.

For obvious reasons, these ordinary people, desperately trying to sell their crafts in local markets and streets, cannot easily communicate their views abroad, so they depend on occasional visitors to take their messages out. Thus, when we left our new acquaintance there rolling his cheroots and beetle nuts, and went on to enjoy our own hotel breakfast, it was with his last departing words still ringing in our ears: “Please tell bag lady I very sad...”

Every time any of us, who have participated in Burma Center´s annual fact finding journeys over the last 25 years, return to our home countries, it is with varying experiences and evaluations. The one thing we all have in common though, is the sincere determination to return, and then again and again for, as Rudyard Kipling once wrote: “Burma is like no other country you have seen”. You do not return from it with memories only, for the country and it´s Peoples remain in your blood for ever.

Few people we talked to however were really aware of the economic sanctions against their country imposed by the West. They are so used to living under economic hardships, that to them it does not seem to make much difference.

When it comes to the tourist boycott however, lots of people you talk to express disap-pointment and wonder why this Western stand against visiting Myanmar? This disappointment may best be illustrated by a man we met an early morning near the market in Sittwe.

Burmese people in general are early risers, and one of the fin-est things we know is to take an early morning stroll in the near pitch black, in any place in Myan-mar, stopping occasionally to ex-

change a few words with somebody on his or her way to their daily tasks. This particular morning, in the yet near-empty market, we came across a

middleaged man who was preparing the day´s stock of cheroots and beetle nuts behind a small stand lit by a fluorescent light powered by a car battery. When he saw us, his so commonly used “hallo” was actually followed firstly by some more words and then by whole sentences in surprisingly good English. Without stopping his work, wrapping the crushed nuts into leaves and adding a sprinkle of lime, we started a conversation and he told us his story:

He had struggled for years as a petty civil servant in a village in Southern Rakhine State where his family still lived. The Ne Win regime had not given people many opportuni-ties, but when the current military regime took over in 1988 and later started to encourage private enter-prise, he could envision a ray of hope for the future. Taxation was set favorably

People do what they can to earn a living. This boy offers people a chance to weigh themselves

Give a few pennies and set a captured life free again

Burma Center

Burma Center in a nutshell:

About the authors:

About this report:

An international, independent, non-profit organization for objective research and information on all matters regarding Burma/Myanmar. Based in Sweden since 1983.

Organizes annual fact finding journeys to various parts of Burma/Myanmar.Produces reports, exhibitions and displays as well as giving lectures.

Staffed by volunteers who work without pay in their spare time. Those participating in the fact finding journeys do so at their own expense.

Ann Frances ([email protected]) and Bo A Olson ([email protected]) are writers and illustrators with international backgrounds in the fields of education and anthropology.Both are volunteers with Burma Center in Sweden and together they have spent more than two years in Burma/Myanmar since the first visit 1979.

Burma Center has for more than 25 years conducted annual fact finding journeys in various parts of the country. This time the turn had come to the Rakhine (Arakan) State where the authors spent a month in the beginning of 2009.

The primary objective was to survey the general situation in this historically interest-ing State, somewhat far from the regular visitor’s path, and also to record changes since our last visit to the area a few years ago. The secondary purpose was to deliver medicines and school supplies to remote villages in the Chin Hills.

The Burma Center charter requires its representatives to do objective research. Thus we may be critical of the Myanmar Government but also of the political opposition and, especially of the outside world for its incapability of finding way to support a realistic democratization process leading up to a peaceful and prosperous nation.

The report is also available in a printed version ISBN 978-91-974357-3-4

For further information or comments, please contact:Burma Center, P.O. Box 4034, 18104 Lidingo, SwedenE-mail: [email protected] page: www.burmacenter.org

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