Day-to-day life in Myanmar

[simon43]

I'm living and teaching back in Myanmar again (I'm in the city of Mandalay again, where I note that the nearest fighting is only 13km away).  \

 

Anyway, I won't comment about the political situation, but I'll maybe post about my day-to-day experiences 🙂

 

So I'm teaching Science at an 'international' school in the city.  As I'm a scientist, and as I've been teaching science previously in Myanmar, the job is very easy and enjoyable.  In my first few days of class, many of my young students asked me my age (I'm going on 66 years old). I gave them a quiz a=25, b=45, c=65, d = 85 years old.  The majority of my students chose 45 years old!!  So they have already qualified for top marks in whatever exam they fail LoL...

 

I took a yellow tuk-tuk to the local Ocean shopping centre (neither tuk-tuks nor shopping centre existed 8 years ago when I was last a teacher in Mandalay).

 

Outside the shopping centre were 20 very large advertising billboards.  3 of them had adverts for clothes and food shops.  The other 17 had adverts for pre-schools, schools, colleges and universities.....

 

At the weekend, I walked once around Mandalay fort, (about 8km all the way round), and then up the hundreds of steps to the top of Mandalay Hill (see my photo).  When I used to do this walk 8 years ago, both sides of the steps were crowded with locals selling trinkets etc for the many foreign tourists.  Today, not a single seller and the only foreigner I saw during my walk around the fort and up/down the steps was myself....

 

 

 

 

[soi3eddie]

Sad for the Burmese people. I was in Yangon last year and saw no tourists. The Burmese people are struggling financially and for freedom. Of course, in conflict areas it's even worse. Now I see a number of travel YouTubers going to Myanmar and making clickbait headings such as "travelling Myanmar in 2024 is tough", "Journey into Myanmar's conflict zone" and "Entering Asia's most dangerous country". Not sure what to make of it having travelled the country extensively in the past. 

[chiang mai]

I look forward to reading more about this, thanks Simon.

[simon43]

Although Mandalay is close to the 'front line', the city is reasonably quiet and safe.  Yes, there are armed police and soldiers, and the road passing the Chinese consulate is blocked off and guarded, after someone chucked a bomb at the building! 

 

Electricity power cuts happen several times a day, but that was also the case many years ago.  For me, one noticeable difference from my first visits many years ago are the large number of solar panel arrays mounted to completely cover the roofs of many buildings. Buildings always had diesel generators, but now solar power is much in evidence.  That's annoying for me, because the solar controller units generate harmonic radio signals that interfere with my reception of UHF/VHF satellite signals 🙂.  Of course, my ham radio transmitter is safely locked up in Thailand.... I will ask the military to renew my Burmese ham radio licence, but the chance of that happening is... er .... fecking unlikely!

 

I'm watched the various YouTube vloggers, and some of those videos are quite interesting and others are fear-mongering.  I note that the UK Foreign Office gives advice to the effect of "don't go there, and if you are there, then get out whilst you still have the chance..."

Edited yesterday at 10:27 AM by simon43

[Ben Zioner]

6 minutes ago, simon43 said:

Although Mandalay is close to the 'front line', the city is reasonably quiet and safe.  Yes, there are armed police and soldiers, and the road passing the Chinese consulate is blocked off and guarded, after someone chucked a bomb at the building! 

 

Electricity power cuts happen several times a day, but that was also the case many years ago.  For me, one noticeable difference from my first visits many years ago are the large number of solar panel arrays mounted to completely cover the roofs of many buildings. Buildings always had diesel generators, but now solar power is much in evidence.  That's annoying for me, because the solar controller units generate harmonic radio signals that interfere with my reception of UHF/VHF satellite signals 🙂.  Of course, my ham radio transmitter is safely locked up in Thailand.... I will ask the military to renew my Burmese ham radio licence, but the chance of that happening is... er .... fecking unlikely!

 

I'm watched the various YouTube vloggers, and some of those videos are quite interesting and others are fear-mongering.  I note that the UK Foreign Office gives advice to the effect of "don't go there, and if you are there, then get out whilst you still have the chance..."

Any tourists left in this marvellous city? Stayed there in 1986.... 

[Keeps]

Please excuse my ignorance but what is the latest situation regarding Aung San Suu Kyi? How is she now regarded by the general masses? Is she under house arrest? Is she still 'active'?

 

I can only assume with your background, you are probably best placed to comment.

[simon43]

1 hour ago, Ben Zioner said:

Any tourists left in this marvellous city? Stayed there in 1986.... 

The only foreigners that I've seen are a few teachers... no tourists

 

@Keeps - she is still in prison, and has been since February 2021.  She is still highly regarded and respected by the Burman majority ethnic group, less so by other ethnic groups who historically have been seeking autonomy for their regions for many decades.  Being in prison and incommunicado, no word or comments are ever heard from her.

Edited yesterday at 12:22 PM by simon43

[jori123]

Burma is OK, but damned boring, beer is ok though

[simon43]

6 hours ago, jori123 said:

Burma is OK, but damned boring, beer is ok though

Well, any country is what you make it 🙂  Looking for loose women, ladyboys?  You're probably in the wrong country.  Looking for culture, unspoilt nature, Buddhist temples etc?  Come on over!

 

As for the beer, if you're referring to 'Myanmar Beer', it's good but absolutely not flavour of the month (or year), since its company profits go to the military.  Most bars no longer sell it....

[chiang mai]

What is your personal risk level or that of any foreigner in say Mandalay these days?

[spidermike007]

I'm quite fond of the Burmese people during my trips to Burma I found them to be quite lovely and what they're having to do indoor at this point in time is horrific. 

 

When the Burmese army says they are uninterested in politics, that is total BS. They are power hungry thugs. Utter pigs and despots. The nasty billionaire generals are thieves, robbing the people of their gems, their timber, their minerals and selling heroin for the sake of amassing wealth. And supported by extremist Buddhist monks against the minorities. Broken men. With their recent overthrow, they have self revoked the right to consume oxygen. May the #myanmaryouth prevail! May the dinosaurs be pushed out. They are a terrorist army.

 

Hooray to the Burmese people, may they bring utter misery to the junta, and the thieves that are controlling Burma, stealing their treasure, and inflicting misery on their people.

 

These corrupt, thieving, Burmese Army generals, are mafia goons who are finally getting what they deserve. They are terrorists, slaughtering their own people. 

[Hummin]

How is the food and prices? How do you transfer money in the Burma? Any Atm there? 

 

If visiting a beach destination, where whould you go? Of course budget friendly for decent standard and service. 

 

thank you for creating something else than the lately trend on this forum. Utterly boring and sad development and standard

[simon43]

Thanks for the kind comments everyone.  I'll add my replies at the bottom of this post 🙂

 

Today (Friday), I only had 2 science lessons in the morning to teach. (My school employs me on an hourly basis, so I don't have to stay on the premises if I have no lessons to teach).

 

Therefore, after completing my teaching obligations, I jumped into a yellow taxi to visit a colour print shop.  8 years ago when I last taught in Mandalay, these little taxis didn't exist.  I think they have been imported from India.  Now there are hundred of them all over the city.

 

 

At the colour print shop I needed to initiate some printing for my educational charity >> large A2 size vocabularly posters and sets of A-Z flash cards.  A flashcard set (A6 size) will cost me about $10 USD and each poster will cost about $7 USD.  The actual exchange rate is highly variable - anything between 2,000 - 5,000 kyat to $1 USD. I don't have to pay in USD, so the converted rate is just for my own information.  But the price is certainly more expensive than my previous visits.  Posters and cards are printed on heavy vinyl paper, and that's where the cost comes in.  To provide alphabet sets and poster sets for each school will cost me about $50 per school, and there are many schools.... I might invest in an A2 printer if it works out cheaper!  Here's one of the vocab posters that I designed.  The code number against each fruit can be entered into the free Android app that I wrote some years ago, and the student can then listen to my dulcit tones pronouncing the word correctly.

 

Next I walked up the dusty streets to check out a hotel as a possible long-term location to stay.  The monthly rate for a room, as quoted on the internet was about $600, (my school will pay 50% of that fee).  However, the hotel reception quoted me the ludicrous price of $1,100 USD for a small room per month.  I declined their offer!

 

Outside the hotel was a rather nice mobile petrol station 🙂

 

 

Feeling hot, I took another taxi to CityMart, where I ordered Shan Noodles.  This tasty dish is very easy to remember to say in Burmese.  It's "Shan Kao Sway", which sounds just like the Thai words for white rice!

Once around the busy Citymart to buy my food and home again in a tuk-tuk taxi.  Throughout my 3 hour trip, not a single foreigner was seen....

 

No chance of this happening anytime soon 😞

 

 

@Hummin - you can only transfer money in using Western Union (it's always been like this for yonks). My local currency was running low, so with some trepidation I put my Payoneer debit card into a local bank ATM (hoping that it wouldn't 'eat' it).  Lucky for me, it all worked fine and spat out 3 million kyat, about $100 USD.

 

The decent beach on the west coast is currently the scene of heavy fighting!  Here it is in more peaceful days.  But many of the hotels are owned by the military.  It took me about 4 days riding my off-road motorbike to reach this beach from Naypyitaw a few years ago (the road wasn't very good!).  So I'd give it a miss in the future...

 

 

Food prices have definitely increased since my last visit.  Hardly surprising, considering the inflation rate and difficulty to source goods...

 

@ChiangMai, the personal risk level is very low.  Of course, anger that the local people feel is not directed towards foreigners.  The risk is simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time.  I make wide detours around police checkpoints/boxes, in case someone decides to start shooting!

 

Edited 5 hours ago by simon43