The road to Burma

As we prepare to leave for a month in Burma we have been researching, reading, and getting lots of travel ideas. We have also been shopping - buying various small gifts that we can give out to the Burmese people like calculators and English magazines (I guess they like to read and practice their English). We have big plans to buy pens, pencils, and other school supplies in Yangon as well. A great friend of ours who as been to Burma suggested scooping up gifts like these and his family is even helping us buy all of these treats for the people.
And just a note to repeat what I mentioned in my previous blog, no news from Burma is good news. We are hoping to be able to update the blog once or twice, but I wouldn't expect more than that in the next month - unless things changed a lot since our guidebook was written (maybe this is possible?). My hotmail address is going to be restricted, email me at globalscents@gmail.com instead. Jay's gmail account should work - the rumor mill is that gmail is not restricted. But don't panic if you hear nothing from either of us, we will be happy and well.

Now I want to switch from business to recent thoughts. In the midst of all of our travels, we have a lot of time to think - bus rides, late night conversations, bus rides, bus rides, dinners, and bus rides. We think and talk about the past and the future - but lately with our arrival back in America appearing on the horizon we have been talking about the future a bit more. Before we left on this trip, I think Jay and I were quite positive about our future plans. We knew we would miss our families and friends, but we were ready to get outta the east coast and see parts of the world. The west coast was the place we wanted to settle in when we came back because we both love it there so much. But now that we have been on the road for almost 11 months, as one would expect, our thoughts have changed. Family and friends have always been incredibly important to both of us and we miss everyone deeply. We have realized that we really are east coasters at heart and the idea of moving out to the west coast has fogged over a bit with confusion about where we belong. I think it is safe to say that rather than gaining perspective on life, we have lost it. Travel does that to you and I am not entirely surprised to find myself more doubtful about what I want in my future (aside from my man, Jay). I am not sure I want to be really far away from my family and friends anymore. But I can't shake that feeling I get when I think of Alaska, or the Pacific NW in general, an incredible feeling of fitting into a place and a community. A few recent job openings have prompted us to pay more attention to our future and they are all on the west coast. Normally both of us would have been dancing around the room at the prospect of evergreens, bears, and small communities of people who love wild places. But now we find ourselves wondering where we belong. Too bad I can't transport everyone I love to the places I love. It would make all these thoughts about our future much more simple. We would move west. Nope, we would stay out east. West? East? Ahh...Buzzard's Bay in the summer is sublime. Alaskan glaciers roar you to sleep in your tent. Maine colors in the autumn are gorgeous. The northwest remains a brilliant green year-round and we like green more than brown. Hugs from nearby family and friends are priceless. So where to from here? I guess everyone will have to stay tuned. We may not have a choice, as we will be broke and in major need of a job regardless of the coastal location. The answer to that question will only come with time, and we still have three months of travel before coming home. And they will be three amazing months for sure.....

What comes with prosperity....

Being back in Bangkok after Vietnam has been quite eye-opening for us. We don't have occasional glimpses of what prosperity brings a country, it is in our faces everyday here. Compared to the chaos of Hanoi, Bangkok seems dreamy (but we miss Hanoi's romantic insanity). In Hanoi and Saigon you had to really watch out for yourself when you walked around on the sidewalks or the streets. In these cities, the sidewalks were generally used as (1) parking lots for all the motorbikes so you couldn't actually walk on the sidewalks or (2) as shortcuts for speeding motorbikes that didn't want to wait in traffic like everyone else. This is not the safest place in the world to walk around if you are easily distracted by other sights and sounds. You have to pay a LOT of attention to where you are putting your feet and to all the motorbikes around you. Cars in Vietnam are rare. It may be the 8th most populous country in the world, but it is also one of the poorest. Thailand, on the other hand, is booming. The relative prosperity of Thailand is shown to tourists just by taking a walk down the streets. Most obvious, aside from all the cars, is the organization in the traffic. They have traffic lights, signs, skytrains, buried electrical wires, and people who obey (mostly!) the traffic lights. Another interesting observation between the two countries...kids, primarily boys, in Thailand have a bit of an obesity problem. I don't remember seeing a single overweight child in Cambodia or Vietnam - they simply can't afford sweets or leisure time like the Thais can. Wealth, prosperity, and leisure time are not always a good combination for the health of people. I should note, however, that prosperity doesn't seem to mean happiness in these countries. The "poor" Vietnamese were smiling and laughing just as often as the relatively "wealthy" Thais in the Land of Smiles. And, a disclaimer, these are just the observations of a shoestring traveller who spent a short period of time in each place and perhaps my impressions are too generalized, but they are interesting observations nonetheless.

Leaving that random information behind, we have great news! We picked up our 28-day tourists visas from the Myanmar Embassy today and plan on leaving Monday the 11th for Myanmar (also called Burma by most folks). Our current plans are to stay there until the 5th of September and then we fly to Nepal. Yeehaww. Some friends have expressed interest in the rest of our itinerary, so here ya go. After Nepal, we come back to Bangkok and fly to Cape Town, South Africa, on the 23rd of September. We will travel around there and drink mucho red wine with our friends Nickie and Carole and visit Mozambique. We arrive back home on election day - rock the vote!! Are you all registered??? You better be. Take a guess who we are rooting for!

Burma should be an amazing trip - but there are some things we should fill our devoted blog-lovers in on. We may not be able to update the blog at all for a month, although I have a feeling this might not be the case. Reasoning for this? Internet access is restricted and owned by the military government. If we pay to use the internet, some of that money goes to the government. During our trip, we will be focusing on putting our money into the pockets of the people and avoiding any government-run services such as the ferries and trains, and government-owed hotels. Apparently email access is also restricted and hotmail is one of the sites that tends to be blocked (although we have some information on how to access hotmail from the two major cities). Therefore - here is a word of advice for family and friends - no news is good news. Jay will probably be able to access his gmail account and if you want to email me, it would be best to use my gmail account (globalscents@gmail.com) rather than my hotmail account.

This information might make it sound like Burma is a super sketchy country to visit. On the contrary! Burma enjoys the reputation among travellers of SE Asia as the safest and most secure country to visit. Our guidebook sums this up well by explaining that if you were to drop money on the street the people there would be rushing to return it to you. Simply put, the people of Burma are the reason to travel to Burma and we cannot wait to meet them. It is true that a fairly heated debate exists among travellers on whether or not travellers should boycott exploring this country that is ruled by an oppressive military dictatorship. Some reasons not to go are quite valid....Aung San Suu Kyi (a Nobel Peace Price laureate and leader of the opposition party in Burma called the National League for Democracy) encouraged tourists not to come in case international tourists are seen as a "stamp of approval" for the military regime. And it is impossible to visit the country without some of your money going to the government. However, I strongly believe in the reasons for going to Burma (Jay is a bit more on the fence). Tourism is one of the few industries that offers ordinary locals a good income and the majority (our guidebook estimates over 80%) of carefully-spent tourist dollars will go into the pockets of these people. I almost feel like NOT going to Burma hurts the people trying to make a living more. Our guidebook also points out this interesting reason for going, "human-rights violations are less likely to occur in areas where international visitors are present." We hope this is the case.

Gettin' Hitched!

No yet, and no it won't be on some wild landscape on the other side of the world. But finally after over five years together we are engaged. Thanks everyone for all your great comments and congrats. I'll admit that the very subtle mention of Julie's wedding dress was a ploy, perhaps more a test, to see how wide the blog readership is. Surely even the most quiet blog readers could not resist inquiring about a wedding dress. But of course the cat got out of the bag very quickly through a variety of channels so our test was not foolproof. But we did succeed in getting your attention!

We'd been talking about getting married for a while, and I had been scheming a proposal ever since we were in New Zealand, but coming up with a good surprise was difficult given that we are together 24/7. So there we were in Nha Trang, Vietnam, about three weeks ago, next stop Hoi An where they are famous for tailors, and we had been talking about getting clothes made for our wedding. It had to be official if we were to get wedding duds made! So one night when we were walking back from dinner we came across a fireworks show along the beach, and crowds of Vietnamese were stopped on their motorbikes in the street cheering on the show. We sat down and watched and I almost surprised myself as much as Julie when I seized the moment and popped the age-old question. It was probably not the setting either of us would have imagined but it was great and we'll definitely remember it.

So Mike, no need to send Geraldo over for the scoop!

Sensational Sapa

These rice terraces might beat Ireland for greeness
Julie with some Black H'mong people we met
Black H'mong girls
Red Dzao woman

Back in Hanoi after four fantastic days in Sapa, northwest Vietnam right next to the Chinese border. With a mountain range including Vietnam's highest peak, Mt. Fansipan (3100m), towering above and green rice terraces etched into the hillsides, this place probably ranks among the top most beautiful places we have seen. The weather is nice and cool, too.

What makes it even more interesting are the many tribes of ethnic minorities, known as montagnards (mountain-people, from the French legacy in the region). Several unique montagnard tribes live in Vietnam (as well as Laos, Thailand, China, Burma, etc) and the ones living in the north have been most successful in maintaining their traditional lifestyles in spite of being bullied by governments. These are people who don't identify themselves as Vietnamese or Chinese, they call themselves Dzao or H'mong or Tay, and they don't give a water buffalo's fart about political boundaries or modern ways of living. That said, nowadays they are forced to pay taxes and thus contribute to the economy by growing things like rice and corn and livestock. Some, especially the numerous Black H'mong, have become pretty good at selling their handicrafts to tourists. They are not the least bit shy and many speak better English than most Vietnamese. They are masters of small talk and before asking if you want to buy something they warm up to you for a while and ask your name, age, nationality (just like in Indonesia, everyone thinks blonde Julie is Dutch), number of siblings, marital status. On walks through the countryside we had quite a few unofficial guides who walked for miles with us, showing us the way and pointing out things like hemp and indigo which they use for making and dyeing their clothes, which are really pretty cool. The Red Dzao people are less numerous and look quite a bit different from the H'mong, and the women shave their foreheads and wrap their remaining hair in red headresses. We were careful about taking too many photos of the Dzao because apparently some beleive that a photograph will capture their spirit. It's really neat to think that there are still many people in the world who don't have a nationality, don't ascribe to one of the major religions, don't use gas or electricity, don't wear the same clothing the rest of us wear, and are totally content with their way of life in spite of the modern world being forced upon them. Let's hope they can keep on doing their thing.

So it's back to Bangkok tomorrow. We'll miss Vietnam.