Mingalaba from Yangon

Mingalaba, according to one video we watched, translates as "may you have auspiciousness." In practice it is a sort of hybrid of "hello" and "bless you." It was one of the few words we mastered fairly quickly. Luckily Yangon (Rangoon under the British), despite being a large congested city with areas of severe poverty, and ruled for years by an erratic and brutal military dictatorship, turned out to be one of the friendliest cities in the world.

Burmese people tend to be beautiful, with easy smiles and open faces. The culture is conservative but decidedly un-macho, so many women as well as men are gregarious and look you in the eye. Most everyone seems to welcome foreigners and many speak at least a little English as Burma was once a British colony. A mingalaba and a smile will almost always be returned and will often lead to conversation. In the few days we had in Yangon before Mike Grafton joined us, we had a lot of time to wander the city and meet people.

At the Shwedagon Pagoda (on which there will be a separate post) we met Varasami, a monk from the World Buddhist Meditation Institute where he studies meditation, Pali (the Indian language of Buddhist scripture) and English. We spent two hours talking with him and he explained many of the mysterious statues and altars at the site. We were surprised that he, like many people we met, talked boldly about politics. He expressed his disdain for the previous military government and his admiration, even reverence for Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. He said that he was one of the monks that marched against the government in 2007, many of whom were beaten, jailed, even killed.

Varasami invited us to visit his monastery which we did at the end of our trip. We met many of his friends who are studying English as well. Hilary is now Facebook friends with a monk named Issariya and I have been exchanging emails with Varasami who hopes to visit New York next year.

Outside a tea shop near our guesthouse, we met U Tin Win (U and Daw are honorifics, basically on par with Señor and Señora but literally translating to "Uncle" and "Auntie") who invited us to tea. We were trying to catch a train so we had to decline. He gave us his address and told us if there was anything we needed we should be sure to come and see him. The morning Mike arrived we visited U Tin Win at home and took him to lunch at a simple (on the sidewalk, no walls, a tarp for a roof, pots heated by fire) but delicious Burmese restaurant that he recommended.

U Tin Win had been a lawyer, at one time for Aung San Suu Kyi ("She is our hope," he said) but has now retired due to health problems. He spends his time reading books in English. When we stopped by he was reading a giant volume of Dostoyevsky containing The Idiot, The Brothers Karamazov, and Crime and Punishment. He was also a fan of John Steinbeck and Jane Austen. He said that there are some good Burmese writers but they are "like frogs singing in a well." He showed us pictures of his wife, an ethnic Shan beauty who had died a number of years before. They have several children and many grandchildren. He is a lovely man.

On our train out to the northern suburbs to see a pagoda with a giant marble buddha and some white elephants we met a sweet young woman named Win Win Aun. She spoke no English but she and Hilary managed to carry on a 45 minute conversation by flipping back and forth through our Lonely Planet Burmese phrasebook.

Waiting for the bus back from the suburbs we met Nyan Lin. He worked for a car dealership and a building company. He was one of the few people we met who had a smart phone. Most people don't have cellphones at all, let alone smart phones. SIM cards until recently cost thousands of dollars and still cost hundreds and many people live on two or three dollars a day. Nyan Lin not only told us which bus to take and talked with us, but insisted on paying our bus fares. As we rode along he proudly pointed out the stone bus shelters his company had built for the city free of charge.

While poking our heads into St. Mary's, the grand and elaborate brick catholic cathedral in central Yangon, we met Raymond who seemed to be a deacon. He is Burmese but looks to be of Indian or Bengali decent. He teaches English to the local youth and wanted us to try to find some workbooks and CDs to use in his class (suggestions welcome). He told of his dream to build a school for the orphans of the city. He played beautiful melancholy hymns on an electric organ as we padded around in the empty expanse.

At our guest house, the Motherland (2), we were well taken care of by the friendly staff who kept track of everything with paper receipts and carbon paper. They sent a group of young men in longyis (the usually plaid sarong-like garment that most Burmese men wear) to fetch us from the airport.

One person I will never forget is the taxi driver who drove us to our overnight bus to Mandalay. I don't even know his name. When he arrived to pick us up a horrific thunderstorm had just let loose. The kind of storm that happens in the tropics (especially in the monsoon season) where you are almost afraid to go outside for fear of drowning. He only realized that he was taking us to the main bus station, an hour outside the city, after driving to a small bus stop 20 minutes in the wrong direction; when he found out he barely changed expression. He calmly piloted his jalopy of a cab with its barely functioning headlights and windshield wipers through the worst snarl of third world traffic I have ever seen, fording temporary rivers and occasionally restarting the wheezing engine. I would have been driven insane with fear and frustration, but our taxi driver was the picture of concentration and equanimity. I was in awe. He made me want to become a Buddhist.

Here are a few more pictures from Yangon: