A Rare Opportunity, Home for sale in Pyin Oo Lwin , Mandalay, Myanmar

You might not see somthing like this at this price again! ever!

FOR SALE

Beautiful 3000 sq ft family house

Anisakahn near Pyin Oo Lwin

This spacious, immaculate house, with parquet throughout, includes 3 tiled bathrooms, 3 double bedrooms, two kitchens, split level living room, vaulted entrance and reception room.
Porticos, one at the front and one at the rear, protect the generously proportioned front and garden doors.

This house is near the Monastery of Sin Gaun Gyi, and has extensive views over the new airport at Anisakahn

The whole property is ideal for a family, or, because of its extensive hospitality amenities, as a Guest House.

Electricity, solar and electrically heated hot water in all bathrooms and kitchens, a tube well, and a garden well make gracious and easy living a pleasure here.

A 50 foot balcony to the east, and bedroom balconies on the north and south sides provide pleasant outside relaxation.

All enquiries to 09-510-5427 or
English House, Sin Gaun Gyi, Anisakahn
or EH, 149 Forest Road, Pyin Oo Lwin(near Thiri Myanmar Hotel)

3% commission. Target price 1500 lakhs, negotiable,

and can be paid in forex offshore or kyats onshore.

Best wishes

Keep Your Camera Ready

I was in Myanmar for the first two weeks of February.

Between appointments, I came upon a movie shoot in the middle of Yangon in a Shopping Mall.

So I took a few minutes, to get myself photographed with the stars.

And they wear so such nice and sweet people.

Wishing them all the best for their movie.

My advice - keep your camera all the time for moments like these.

Trip to Angkor Wat, Cambodia (10)

The next day was more or less of the same temple trudging for me. The names elude me now, but there is one I do remember: Neam Preak : it's a man-made lake with a horse in the middle of it and in the middle of the jungle. It is forever etched in my mind, cos the walk there was the longest and most gruelling.... like walking on hot embers or stakes of iron.

Was dehydrated, in need of constant liquid replenishment and to be honest I had had enough of the temples. Had a picnic lunch of stuff I'd bought at the shopping mall (try that it's cheaper and much more convenient). Back to the town, but first, a final look at Angkor again.
Hordes of tourists were descending from buses upon one of the wonders of the world. The walkway to the temple was full of them. There was a Cambodian child in pram with a deformed and enlarged head. My mum who had once worked as a nurse in hospital children's ward said she had seen children like that and that their lives were short. She stopped to play with the child. It made gurgling sounds and gave us what we thought was a smile.
Some local girls in Cambodian dancer dress were lined up by an enterprising guy who was charging 10 dollars to photograph them or topics with them. My mum took a pic of them not realising it was a business venture and when the guy asked for some money she promptly erased the offending photo in front of him.
So to the swelling crowds, the dust and heat and famed temples of Angkor, I bid farewell. We were satisfied.

Ankgor had been good.

The carvings extrordinary. Certainly a place one should visit. Was a bits orry to say goodbye to the stone faces of Bayon and the Victory gate.

They were my favourite stone figures.
Maybe I will visit again one day.
One last trip to the tourist trinket market in the Old quarter of Siam Reap full of stuff mostly from Thailand. The multi-coloured rice-sack Saigon chique handbags were nice. But I really think the Cambodians should try a bit harder and produce stuff that is more of Cambodian origin.
Now it was for us to continue on to Ayutthya. The Cambodians say a lot of stuff was taken from Angkor and environs to Siam. So we were to go see on the morrow the remains of the place that had sacked the place we were in now.
We jump forward to Bangkok!

Trip to Angkor Wat, Cambodia (9)

After a forgettable foot massage, I chatted online for 10 minutes to my bro in S'pore. Now internet access is cheap 50 cents an hour. So have some of that Cambodian money on you or you'll have to pay a dollar. Some places just do not want to give you change at all. Siem Reap is hot, muggy ..humid even in December. There is no cool season there at all. At least here in Mandalay we have about three and half months cool season and its even a bit chilly in the mornings. 42 miles from Mandalay, there is a hill station where it can get a bit freezing at night. But Siem Reap is just plain hot. So if you are ever going there pack those shorts and T-shirts. How long a stay should I stay in Siem Reap? I hear you ask! Well, for those not really into culture / archeology / social work / cooking classes, I guess about three days should be just about right. Two days for the temples and one day for exploring the town. They say there are other places like lake-dwellers communities and faraway temples but you would need about another 2-3 days to visit them all. Siem Reap has a newish shopping mall and I think I also saw about 2 others in various stages of development. When I told my friend Chris when I got back from Cambodia, he was astounded. What? Shopping malls?

Crikey !

Cos there weren't any in 1994ish when he was there. Man, " Only Angkor was open to the public then and we had an armed guard and they were still clearing landmines, so all the other temples were off limits. "Well" I told him "Times have certainly changed." Yes the town and temples and number of tourists has certainly changed.

But what of the people? Especially the younger ones? And orphaned ones? I am sure there are respectable organizations working in those areas, but I saw some very badly written (in English) fliers distributed by 7-8 year old kids who said they were from orphanages with donation boxes in front of the Romulus temples asking for donations. Shouldn't these kids be doing lessons? And I guess so many tourists has sadly turned some kids away from going to school, but starting off careers in tourism by beginning with asking for a dollar for stuff like rearranging your flip flops at monastery door unasked. The "one dollar please" here, and "one Dollar" there can be a nuisance. I had to borrow a pen off one lady tourist in a temple and she sarcastically said, "One dollar" as she gave it to me. But enough of this stuff. Who am I to criticize others ?
But anyway, I advise you to check out credentials in depth / detail, any orphanage anywhere in Asia ( or the whole world for that matter ) as some people try to make a living off being a " Director of so-and-so Orphanage ". You know, kind of like the kids are like the Giraffe women of Burma on display in pseudo villages for tourist perusal in Thailand. I mean the kids are brought (with consent of parents ) from genuinely poor families ( so not technically orphans )and fed and taught badly and then discarded or sent back without the means to make a livelihood when about 15 years old to make way for the younger ones who will bring in more donations and cement the livelihood of the so-called directors or founders of the place.

It's sad.

In the morning as we were off to the Romulus group of temples we saw an on-foot procession of locals, proceeding to the monastery with offerings all carried by hand. The town gentlemen were in smart trousers and shirts, the town belles were all made up, coiffured and in silk sarongs. My mum remarked she was getting a Cambodian sarong after seeing their nice colours.

It was wonderful that customs like that are still in existence.

Written By Mr. Soe Lwin, Principle of BEST Language School in Mandalay.

These posts are relayed from Singapore.

Trip to Angkor Wat, Cambodia (8)

Personally, I have no idea on "how to go about being a tourist". Seems funny doesn't it. Going all the way to Angkor and saying that! Yes, laugh all you want. But I really mean it. I mean some people do or I think they do know how to go about it. You know, some strut, some explore meticulously, some romance through or look for it in places. Some looked bored or exhausted. Some try to interact with the locals. Some try to have the wildest hedonistic times of their lives. Some pretend they are Audrey Hepburn and (forgot his name) waltzing thru the Cambodian forest on a tuk-tuk (in lieu of a Vespa). OK, OK, I trudge through places, I guess that's my style. Anyways, then came the question of how the local people of the "tourist places " in Asia identify me as a tourist from a thousand paces. Me, I am as brown as any of them. Not particularly sophisticatedly dressed either. I am in cheap Chinese made togs like the locals too. Same haircut and etc. But then the answer strikes me. My looking at ordinary everyday stuff for them with interest, my furtive glances in all directions at a crossroads and hesitation before choosing a direction, my very presence at places where no locals go except shopkeepers go and then the big one: THE LOCALS HAVE NEVER SEEN ME BEFORE!. They (Asian locals) may not be able to differentiate the subtle (or not so subtle) differences in Caucasians, blacks etc but they do know whether my Asian mug is one they've seen before, whether it's one that grew up in that town or not. And there must be more signs that rule me out from being one of their own.
Now in Siem Reap, lots of eating places, that any tourist sheet can tell you. But what I ate was more local. And cheap. Forgot how much but was cheap. It was some instant noodles done up in a soup and with pork and veggies. In other Asian countries it will be locally freshly made noodles but there in Siem Reap, the noodles came from a packet. That I did not like. Taste-wise I dunno cos was so laced with MSG and got me thirsting for the next 3 hours. After the whole day trudge. My feet were killing me. Like walking of nails or raw bone. I soaked my feet in hot wate, I kneaded them myself. I poured myself a gin-medicine-painkiller and rushed it down my gullet. And then another one. And then, only then, I realized the significance of all those " FOOT MASSAGE AVAILABLE" signs.

Written by Mr. Soe Lwin, Principle of BEST Language School in Mandalay. He is my brother, he took a trip to Cambodia and Thailand with our mom last December and these are the records of his travels.

Trip to Angkor Wat, Cambodia (7)

Next day at dawn there we were at the mythical Angkor. From the car approaching we could see the enormous moat surrounding the temple complex. Our guide started to explain about the place. My mum tramped off on her own leaving him with me. The day was a bit cloudy, you know murky, so there was not a grand hit-you-in-the-face first view of the Angkor. But it was good enough, the first sight of the place. Beckoning one forward to the mysteries of its interior and history. Actually Ihad not read up much on the place at all. Some people like to read in advance about everything about a place. Some like to read 'n look. I like to read everything afterwards. That way I get to kind of like, visit the place twice. Match the scenes and views in my mind with the opinions and information of the books. I leave the names and places of the various temples for your perusal of guide books, in the information on the internet and expert analysis for the… the..experts. I will just tell you that we took the "Mini-tour" the first day which means all the "must see places". But I tell you the temples, murals, art, architecture was fabulous. The names I remember: Angkor Thom, Bayon, Terraces of the Leper King and Elephants and the Angelina Jolie Tomb Raider temple and whole lot more. All with their own large compounds, heaps of fallen stones to negotiate and crannies to explore and photograph. And take photographs we did. Of ourselves, in turn. Me and my mum's photos snapped by otherpeople. Other people by us. It was eerie, strangers from many foreign lands exchanging modern cameras in ancient temples, and capturing their souls and those of the temples to take home with them for display on screens if anyone would look at them photos. Sharp photos, murky outta focus ones, pics showing sweat smears on the lenses, all were taken back as booty from our own personal tomb raids. Cameras of all shapes, lengths, and sizes were out of their holsters and "shooting" away. We needed to record our journeys to one of the wonders of the world and record we did. That digital archive by all of us will remain until the end of time or until digital records are destroyed by some computer virus.

Jigging in Myanmar

Got back yesterday.
Great trip!
Now I am full of confidence for the next few weeks.

Just a little jig to show how happy I was during some stages of the trip.

Enjoy!

Some Photos of Mandalay

Somewhere along the way to Sagaing (I suppose, I got to guess by looking at the photo)

Sunset from the Ayerrawaddy (from the Manadalay side of the river)

January 2009 morning in Manadalay (around 7:00am?)

The pagoda beside the Maha Muni Pagoda.

On top of the staircase on the Yankin Hill

The U Min Thonze Pagodas at dusk, on the Sagaing Hills (a real magical place to visit, make sure you hve time to sit there and let the place take you in!)

Ever since my brother has gotten his camera he has been popping away.

A few more of his work.

Beijing welcomes you - Great Video

I know that I am probably a million years late. But when the world saw these videos I was in Myanmar, and missed all the good stuff.

And must say the sub-titles are very very well done.



Enjoy! I surely did.
China did amaze me.

Trip to Angkor Wat, Cambodia (6)

The car from the hotel was there to pick us up at the airport and on the way there we saw hotels of all sorts. Most of them looking very similar. Big blocks of pale brown all with signs with the word, "Angkor" in them. Angkor Central Hotel, Angkor Millennium Hotel, Royal Angkor this, Royal Angkor that. There were LOTS of hotels, the whole town seemed to be full of hotels. Our hotel was not on the main road but on a quieter side street.
After checking in, arranging a guide and transportation for the next day, we went off on foot to see the town. The guide offered to take us around and show us the sights of Siem Reap, but we declined. We wanted to see, explore and feel out the place ourselves. The back streets of the town seemed pretty much like Myanmar in many ways except for the numerous phone card and handset selling shops. I noticed that the motorcycles and tuks tuks went SLOWLY! Can you believe that ? Slowly, gently, not a lot of honking at all. This must be what the traffic is like in heaven . LOL. We strolled along the main boulevard, dropping into replica antique shops, handicrafts shops. But why were there so many "foot massage" places? I was to know on the morrow.
The Cambodian currency is the "Riel" but dollars are accepted too. The problem is if you pay with dollars there no change. A Coke is "a dollar" whether it is really 50 cents in Riel or at a supermarket. So change some money into Riel (the rate was 4000 Riel to a dollar then) if you ever happen to be there. Yes, you can use the US dollar everywhere but it is good to have some riel on you too. Much cheaper!
On the main road to the main "Old Market" area we stumbled into a comparatively dimly lit market with tourist knick knacks and lots of stuff. I wanted a T-shirt with the word "Angkor" on it and got what I wanted: an "Angkor Beer" T-shirt and another one saying, "Danger! Landmines ". But that was after some hard haggling. Those XXL size ones for me cost 2 bucks apiece, that whittled down from an initial 5 dollar asking price.
My mum got 3 small T- shirts for 4 dollars, a good price but only after checking out the quality of them. They come in so many types and qualities that you must be careful.
After a so-so meal of noodles and a warm "Angkor Beer", we went back to the hotel with our plunder. Around 9 my mum said she was a bit hungry again and out I went for some bread. I took a tuk tuk to look for a bakery with some fresh bread and found a marvelous French bakery called the "Purple Pumpkin". They had great ice-creams too. But the tuk tuk driver was a bit of a nuisance offering to take me to night clubs and asking if I wanted companionship of the female or boy-female kind.
I politely declined.
Anyway the next day at dawn, we were to be at the famed Angkor Wat and after some late grub we dropped off to sleep.

Mr. Soe Lwin is the principle and teacher of the most respected English Language School in Mandalay.
He took our mother, on a trip of her dreams (her latest dreams) in the last week of 2008.
Please read previous posts for a full account of the trip.

Trip to Angkor Wat, Cambodia (5)

By Soe Lwin, Yangon

Please accept my apologies for not posting in the last 2 weeks. Since returning from Cambodia, tons of work was awaiting me. A backlog of truly epic proportions that dragged me down and ate all of my time, like a monster from the deep.
But yesterday I managed to get that beast of work under control and now happily will continue my posts of our travels. The trip to Mrauk U, I will fill you in on later.
We jump to the Angkor episode first.
Well we were ready to go and frankly speaking, a bit apprehensive.
What if…. this or that happened… would we … could we … be able to …..?
All that stuff goin through our minds. At the same time we had an "OK, we'll get there when get kinda acceptance". So away we were at 8 am on the 26th of December to the Yangon airport which is about 10 minutes from my mum's house on my brother's car, a small Suzuki 4 wheeler, me at the back with the bags when I heard a shrieking scraping noise from under me, from the rear suspension.
Here we go again. Another obstacle! But one of course that could be surmounted with ease. “Taxi!", I shouted and that was that. The flight to Bangkok was good. Thai Airways is pricier than a lot of other airlines but sure does serve good grub in card board boxes. I loved the touch where they offer you wine in the morning although I didn't have any. My mum remarked male cabin attendants had a thin layer of makeup on their faces and looked a bit girlish.
Suvarnabhumi airport, to me at least looked like a flat cake with big triangles painted in tidy patterns on it. So modernistic and futuristic it was that it looked "un-Thai” to me. If you don't use the moving walk-ways, getting about the place is hard on the feet too.
No need to visit the gym after going around that place. It looked half-finished and cold. Must have been a jollier place during the demos of last month, I thought.
We identified some Burmese military attaches and their families and introduced ourselves to them. They were going to their first postings in Hanoi and Phnom Penh and my mum proceeded to give them some advice about living abroad and to save and not spend on frivolous things etc.
I guess she was nostalgic when seeing them as our family had been like them 40 years ago. A bit out of our element she said as she was then and they must have been like that too.
The restaurants at the airport were all a bit pricey but a friend had told me there was a small cheap shop on which floor I had forgotten that was quite alright.
Then after a few hours we caught the Bangkok Airways plane to Siem Reap. The airline calls itself a "Boutique Airline". I am still scratching my head about what that means and how it is different from other airlines. The turkey sandwich in the paper lunch box was good. Out the window we could see the Cambodian lakes and marshes and after about 40 minutes we landed at Siem Reap Airport.

Mr. Soe Lwin is the principle and teacher of the most respected English Language School in Mandalay.

He took our mother, on a trip of her dreams (her latest dreams) in the last week of 2008.

Please read previous posts for a full account of the trip.

Food-For-Work by WFP, My Personal Comments

The pond in the summer before we got there, renovation for the pond was requested by the villagers through the village monk who contacted our office. (you can barely see the monastery and village pagoda)

The villagers have to scoop out the muddy water for domestic use. (but not for drinking)

Old lady from the village has to take 2 hours to fill that bucket. That's the conditions that I was determined to fix.
Some work done already, dig out the silt and heap it on the embankment, also needed a civil engineer to help with something this big, the size of the embankment, the spillway etc..

The article that prompted me to write this;

YANGON, 26 December 2008 (IRIN) -
"The UN World Food Programme (WFP), in collaboration with its implementing partners, will soon begin an ambitious food-for-work programme for thousands of Cyclone Nargis survivors.
The programme aims to rehabilitate local assets and restore livelihoods in affected communities, and will target 40,000 participants and 200,000 beneficiaries in Myanmar’s badly affected Ayeyarwady Delta.
“Food-for-work activities can make a significant difference to food-insecure residents of the delta, and at the same time help households rebuild their individual and community assets,” Chris Kaye, WFP country director for Myanmar, told IRIN in Yangon, the former Burmese capital.
WFP is currently screening projects proposed by its partners, with expected project sites to be announced soon.
The programme is set to begin at the end of January and run till the end of April, with a focus on the construction, repair and maintenance of roads, and the construction of wells, dykes, dams, ponds and drainage ditches.
Reforestation, land clearance and irrigation projects will also be included. Individual projects will last 15-45 days."
Yes, news like that gnaws at my heart.
I was a Team Leader for World Vision (Myanmar), based in Yenanchaung Township, that township is 662 miles north from Yangon by way of the Pyay-Magway-Bagan highway. This distance took 14 hours to cover in a "express bus", and I have taken the trip dozens of times.
During my period of assignment there, I lead the World Vision, Yenanchaung Team to complete over 30 drinking and domestic-use water ponds, the largest had a water surface of 28 acres (the pictures), building 14 schools, and an assortment of activities such as fly proof latrines, hand pumped tube wells, rainwater collection tanks and so on.
The primary method of achieving these objectives were by means of the Food-for-Work programme.

I have implemented and observed many different rural development activities in the past, during my service with Food and Agriculture Organization(FAO) projects, cash for work, seeds for work and etc.
All of these methods are extremely effective, but only under the strict oversight of a project leader and supervised by a team of trained team members. If you don't know what you are doing, better leave the village the way it is (they may be poor, but they all help each other, to the extent not seem in cities). This team has to be coordinated and guidance given for strict adherence to the project schedule and budgets.

Personally I endorse the FFW (Food-for-work in UN shorthand), for the following reasons;

• The food that is received as wages, immediately and directly provides relief upon the food security stress the beneficiary household bears.
• Excess food may be sold or barter for other condiments. This excess is determined by the spouse of the head of household, and a very comfortable safety margin is considered.
• Normally the cash intended for the purchase of food may be used for further investment of paying of the school expenses of the children.
• In many cases if cash is paid, it is collected by the head of household, and there lies a great chance that much of it not reach the household. Normally it is used to repay any debt or other less admirable activities such as a drink or gambling may be undertaken. Regardless of the purpose that the cash is used, a small percent of it reaches the household and most of the time the amount is too small to contribute to anything significant.

Again as I have mentioned this has to done under the oversight of a trained team and a experienced team leader.

The entire project must be reviewed completely in every aspect before implementation. All the food, tools(if needed), documentation, logistics must be ascertained well in advance and the entire team must know the backup plan- cold.

After the project was completed, 28 acres of water surface (this pic above), supplying 4,000 people of 6 villages with all-year round water. It used 56 tons of rice and provided short term employment for thousands of villagers.

What did I get? I got the satisfaction of getting a really big job completed, and the criticism of not following 100% the guidelines of WFP. We put a 18 person team of villagers to run the labor and work allocation, and they parceled it out to workers from 6 villages. Although there are guidelines that say that only the villagers from the immediate beneficiary community may be employed in the work, but to them they is no way on this earth that they can say no to a fellow villages living 2 miles away, a person they have known all their lives, and they know that he is in the same situation, maybe worse, then they are. They let him and his work at the site, with my blessing (they didn't need my blessing, but I wanted to encourage them, its supposed to be called empowerment or something of the sort), besides I needed that pond done and finished before the first rains. I adhered to the principle that if any community used the asset, then they could participate in its renovation. Well anyway, regardless of the conflicting concepts. I made sure the job got done. (eveybody knows me over there in the village, its nice to know that there is a couple of places in the world that you are welcome- anytime.)

99.997% to the target set.

If anyone need some advice considering the field implementation of Food-for-work activities, I would be more than glad to provide free consultation.

Great News from Home

Ah! The joy of being a father.
I got letter from my daughter today. It was written in her cute handwriting.
A simple little letter to her daddy, saying that she got the top scores in all of her subjects in the latest exams.
And now is 1st in her class. And, of course, then there is the part where she says that she loves me.

Looking back to my own past, the highest that I ever made was 7th in my class, I think, but there was only 15 kids in the class so that does not mean I was great! So she is 1st, and the amazing thing about it, I think is that she said she was going try really hard, to be better than everyone else in her class.
And by golly, she meant it, even though she is just 6 years old.
Come to think of it she used two languages in her letter, English and Myanmar!

News like this really energizes parents.
Wishing all the parents who read this blog to receive news like this in the coming week.

Trip to Angkor Wat, Cambodia (3)

So we were off to our alternative destination of Mrauk U. The 11 am flight to Sittwe was as boring as any flight. But we met this Rakhine guy (who was a writer )on the plane and he kindly told us where to stay in Sittwe and, and, and …… that there was NO boat going to Mrauk U for another 5 DAYS. Arghhhhh……
But then he suggested renting a car round-trip, so we were OK again… Phew……
After landing and settling in to the Classic hotel ( 20 USD a night ) and haggling with the taxi which would take us to Mrauk U, we made our way on foot to the Rakhine Cultural Museum and did that place need exhibits, display ideas and funding. Just little clay models and pictures of the ancient cities in their vicinity were shown. Then the Sittwe Market…. which is pretty much like any market in Myanmar, bustling, dirty and selling Chinese wares and local produce except its near to the sea and smelled fishier . Beside the market was the old British "Customs Office" very much looking its age by the jetty.
Next was the "Point" as they call it, a little lighthouse on the tip of the promontory of the slip of the slender peninsular that Sittwe is on. Off we were there on rickshaws or "side-cars" as they call them here. Standing at the tip of the tip of the "Point" the fresh sea air filled my lungs. That was a blast of pure energizing O2 and various other gases minus the dust and dirtiness of the cities.
Lots of photos of the sunset I took. Mum walking alone along the beach way ahead of me. I still remember after Dad died, she and me went to Ngwe Saung beach and she spent hours staring at the beach. She's a strong one, my mum is. But there she was on a beach again and walking alone. You see she lives in Yangon while I'm in Mandalay. I guess the photo of her walking on the beach alone ………….
OK now! Dinner at the Gissapandi Restaurant, Very good place I recommend it. Nothing fancy the fixings of the place. But the chow was good. A whole plate of medium sized shrimp was only 2700 Kyats. That is about 2 dollars and it tasted great about 40 shrimp on it. Filled up us good.
morning we were up at 5am, took a look at the hundreds of fox-bats hanging upside down on the trees in front of the hotel and on our way on the rough, dusty road to Mrauk U.

This post is written by Mr. Soe Lwin of BEST Language School in Mandalay
He's my brother.
At the time of posting this he is packing his bags to go down to Yangon to fly to Angkor Wat - again!

Trip to Angkor Wat, Cambodia (2)

One of my friends is a travel agent, well connected to the domestic airlines, who could get me tickets when getting tickets is a difficulty. How ? I really don't know she does it or would do it, but she must have ways. She once got me a ticket to get back to Mandalay when everyone else said : "No, all the flights are full, blah blah blah !"

I popped over to her office and asked her for the favour.
And Voila !
One phone call and it was : " Come get your tickets to Sittwe at 2".
Me : "OK ! Man !, Real cool, U the greatest !".
She : "No problemo friend !"
After the frustration of the previous day I felt a tingling warm satisfaction. Mum jumped for joy when I called her with the good news (I actually didn't see her jump up and down but could feel it). Yesterday I had had to put on a brave face myself when I found out our Cambodia trip was out of the question (at least temporarily). Now things were getting much better! The sky was bluer!
A bit about Mrauk U now. You get there via Sittwe, capital of the Rakhine Division which is about an hour's flight from Yangon. Then it's a 7 hour boat ride or a 6 hour car ride over some of the country's worst roads. And it's about 70 miles to the Bangladesh border. Mrauk U is famed for its 14th, 15th and 16th century Buddhist temples. Of course, it's not so well-known as Bagan or Angkor but the temples when I saw them, were fabulous in their own way. A real photogenic place. The temples are all scattered around the town and most of them are located on hill tops. A very un-touristy place too. No touts at all, trying to get you to buy trinkets etc. And that is refreshing. The local population depends on other means of survival than tourism as there are, I guess, only about or at most a thousand foreign tourists coming there a year. Fishing and farming are main local trades. For Myanmar people to get there cheaply it would mean a 600 mile, 2day and 2 night bus ride from Yangon over the Rakhine Mountain Range with roads that are barely acceptable for only the first 200 hundred miles. So the domestic tourists who want to get there cheaply really have to think about it. It's rough, it's dusty, it's dangerous but I am sure it would be wonderfully beautiful. I sure would have taken that route if I were 20 years younger. But this time it's with my elderly mum and me getting a bit older too, so that route's a no go!
So the next day we were off to Sittwe and then on to the Indiana-Jones-like temples of Mruak U.
To be continued. Ciao for now !

(Actually ,it's the 22nd of December 2008 today as I write this post and I am to be off to Yangon the day after tomorrow and in Angkor on the 26th )

The author of this post is Mr. Soe Lwin, an Engish Teacher, BEST Language School in Mandalay See his blog at the links, and he is my brother

The neighbourhood "Pagoda" Festival

Now every year in Mandalay, and lots of other places around this country too, in the cool months of November to February, there will be a "Pagoda" Festival to mark the founding or celebrate the existence of a neighbourhood pagoda or religious building. Although it may sound a serious and somber affair, actually it is a time for the community to get together and have some communal fun too: dance and song, slapstick comedy and a bit of a country fair-like atmosphere with hand pushed ferris wheels and merry go-rounds. That does not mean the monks and religion are neglected, most probably they'll be attended to by the elders of the neighbourhood, fed, donated to and their sermons listened to but after that in the evenings the neighbourhood comes to life in a way much different than normal. In the evening the street comes alive in a way very different from normal. Merry-making is in the form of a stage erected, a band on it, singers from the band crooning the old, the new and corniest songs . Neighbourhood wanna-be singers paying 5000 Kyat so their voices will heard amplified and backed by the band. An audience composed of the community sitting on rattan mats, is clapping, booing and giggling. Then come the comedians: the jokes are crude and critical but they water it down when the "Anyeint Minthamee" or dancing princess performs a traditional dance for everyone. That's the part I like. Takes me back to olden times and gives me a feel of what my grandparents felt at performances like this. The chill in the air does not deter anyone from going indoors even though the festival may be at their doorsteps. Street vendors selling and assortment of fried delicacies and fruit are out in numbers. I think the kids enjoy it most. They should. I certainly did when I was one. It breaks the school-home-television monotony of life for a child. The dash of electric colour from the whirring merry-go-round and the twinkling lights of bulbs of the vendors and the shouts of joy from most people surely attracts the most bored of children. Paper-machie masks of all sorts, balloons and bamboo swords are for sale. Clay mini-utensils are very popular with kids too. Next day they can start playing-acting cooking with them. By 1 pm the yawns start and the crowd thins. The last songs from the stage are announced. The chill air drives the youngest and oldest indoors first and the rest follow reluctantly. The pagoda festival ends for this year. And a jolly time it was. And everyone knows there'll be one in the next neighbourhood next week for them to visit. But the festival in your own street, I guess is the best.

By Soe Lwin (BEST Language School, Mandalay)

A brief look at the jobs market, and something for 2009

"MANILA, Philippines - More than half a million overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) in at least six countries are at risk of losing their jobs, data from the Department of Labor and Employment (DoLE) indicated. An estimated 575,000 OFWs may soon join the ranks of the unemployed as the global credit crunch cuts demand for goods and services, prompting companies to reduce jobs just to stay afloat."

If the pinoys are in trouble then we Shwe's, are bound to be in a worse situation, could there be a huge reverse migration of overseas Myanmar workers (OMWs) going the same way as the Filipino?

Maybe not, (cause I don't wanna go home, haven't made my fortune yet!) and maybe its because that we are more willing to accept pay cuts and other stuff like that to stay afloat.

Well, I talked a bank executive (deputy CEO level) yesterday and he says that although 2009 is going to be a hard year, it will NOT be so bad, couse there are now so many smart investors who wil take advantage of this situation to snatch up real estate and under valued stocks. affiliated marketing
So this means that the economic boom coming right after this recession is going to be one for the history books.
So my advise would be to upgrade yourselves skills-wise so that you that you can compete for higher value jobs. There's going to be a lot of millionaires who will want to hired good help!

Blue Eyed Asian Boy and Gals Coming your Way

Time have changed, I still remember when I thought that black hair was dazzling (it still is, and I still do!), but the change of times, or rather the acceptance of change and attitude, has caused us Asians, especially those in the Far East, to feel we must no longer stick to black hair. Now, no one bats an eye if we have red, purple, brown or blond highlights in our hair. ( I weep, but for a short time only because some of the color hair looks very fine indeed!)
After that, surely changing eye color is the next step and a small one. I remember one Myanmar model sporting the blue eyes look (in Myanmar?!) So one company from Malysia certainly hopes so and is staking its claim in the cosmetic contact lens market.
The company is called Maxvue Vision Sdn Bhd, based in Seremban, and is four years old. I read about it the other day and even with the briefest outline, I was impressed. A company that had identified that such a trend is just ready to start and they are ready, quietly and steadily started making its presence felt in the European and Middle Eastern markets with its range of cosmetic color contact lenses called Colourvue. And they are going to be the latest trend I predict it! (Gotta take a chance with something!)
So with my two headlights dressed up in these colorful sparkles, I certainly hope that some of my years will fall away even if my tummy doesn’t.
And I love the thought of people crying; ‘Hey look at the blue eyed Asian guy!’
Or Maybe I should just dye my hair green!

Adsense, trends, headlights, blue eyed, company

Iron Cross Show & Me, DEC 7, 2008

Yep, there I am, together with Ko Chit San Maung, the lead guitarist of Iron Cross, the hottest, and talented Myanmar Band.
Oh! and the guy, there beside us is Ko Aung Myo, my old friend since the days of Yangon University.
It is their last stop on a 4 month tour of the UK and US, where Ah Nge is suffered a serious episode of homesickness.
Man! I'd like to tell them what real home sickness is all about!, At least these guys had each others and have been friends for years and years now.
Nothing a little Ngapi curry and mohingar could not cure.
Anyway it was a great, jumping, shouting, dancing, singing, entertaining evening. Well Done ! Guys.

And by the time this post is up, they will be reunited with their families, toys and souvenirs distributed. Homesickness dissipated.

Always great to be back home.
We know Ko Ah Nge! What you mean ever so much!
So next time keep it off the stage!
And don't stop singing!

Iron Cross at Jurong East 2008

Yes my Myanmar Friends!

Iron Cross will be ripping across Singapore on the 7 of December playing some real music!

Chit San Maung to be stumming his six string!

And i will be there there enjoy it, and to bring some of the enjoyment back to YOU!

See the advertisement that they put up in the Peninsular Plaza.

My ticket cost 30$ and that is on the cheap side of things.

Singers include Ah Nge, Myo Gyi, Wine Wine Zaw Paing, R-Zarni and Naw Naw (who's the heck is he?).

They will perform at the Jurong East Sports and Culture Center.

Actually I am looking forward this very much!