By Gomin Dayasri
Yangon International Airport before the Year of Tourism (1996) did not have a waiting bus to ferry the passengers to the terminal — a replica of the Ratmalana airport in the old days. Frequent fliers to Burma sprinted to reach the immigration desk, around which a scrum formed with much shoving and elbowing, early. The aggressive were cleared within 20 minutes while the passive took double the time. In Myanmar no queues form — it’s always a melee. Another long wait to change the regulation $200. Yet the luggage has not arrived on the hand operated baggage belt. Indeed, tolerance was being tested in this Theravada country.

Vintage cars beckon you for the ride to the capital along the tree-lined roads. A 1940 Buick suited me fine. Every taxi carried a co-driver for an inevitable push start and a possible breakdown. In the absence of a cassette player in this 1940 model, the man at the wheel hummed a song while whizzing past policemen on stands directing traffic that did not exist. The road surface was superior to the bumpy airport runway, which sees more traffic than the roads with the Air force fighting the Karen rebels.

Yangon before 1996 was Colombo Fort in the days of rickshaws and bullock carts but much grander as it was once upon a time part of British India. The streets of the city were deserted at dusk, except for the many roadside noodles stands where the Burmese sit on low stools and talk shop. It’s their club house cum bar where Chinese tea is the regular beverage.

To a foreigner there were two hotels to choose from the Strand, once the pride of the British or the Russian built monstrosity called Inya Lake. My purse could afford the YMCA. I entered Yangon wearing trousers and left wearing a sarong. It is the only capital where every man still wears only sarong in an era where the Chinese have discarded the Mao tunic for western garb.

The Year of Tourism did not bring the tourists but changed the face of Yangon altogether; but fortunately not of rural Burma, which I visited many times since I can spend my holiday, in serenity in a sarong and be considered well dressed. Now, unlike in the old days, we are driven from the plane to the terminal, which resembles an inflated pagoda decked in gaudy gold and cleared swiftly and courteously unlike at Katunayake. However, efficiency begins and ends at the terminal.

Tourist guides stand carrying boards with mis-spelt English. Taxi stands are crowded with twice reconditioned Japanese cars. Traffic lights have come to cause traffic jams. Majestic old buildings have been indiscriminately pulled down to build hotels with many remaining unfinished as the anticipated tourist boom did not materialize. One such monstrosity is called the Trader’s Hotel.

ASEAN meant a welcome open economy but controlled to make money for the ruling Junta. More foreign junk to choose from than at some of our local joints; More chic designer clothes than the rejects at Colombo’s fashion boutiques. The pavements are encroached and those talk shops moved to by-roads to make way for cafes. Yet it takes two hours to change a traveller’s cheque at a downtown bank that still relies on scroll clerks and not computers.

Parks are overgrown with weeds and the whole of Burma is badly in need of a coat of paint. Houses that were once beautiful look dilapidated and the gardens are traditionally ill kept in a country where flowers bloom only in the wild and end up at the altar. Hygiene stops with the paper handkerchief which is everywhere as though it was the national symbol.

Yet Burma has the most sincere, warm, gentle, honest people — a welcome relief after living in Sri Lanka.

Strictly scenically it’s not a beautiful country, no Sri Lanka that is paradise to travellers. The brochures say that a drive to Pindiya features scenery reminiscent of Switzerland. The Swiss would be horrified. It looks more like the British Midlands with haystacks and the lot. Give me a corner of our hill country any day.

It’s the people that make the difference — smiling and happy; simple and content. But this is being gradually destroyed by a new menace called Karoke that has gone deeper into Burma — even more than Coke — and the Burmese are destroying their culture to the sound of junk music.

Taxi drivers are learned men who speak freely and openly in the safe havens of their moving vehicles. Most are academics that drive taxis part time to supplement their incomes in the absence of NGOs and political parties to bum for trips and funding. Wage earners are badly in need of a supplementary income.

My driver in Upper Burma was a doctor looking for additional income to buy a satellite dish to watch CNN and Star Sports. Most professionals drive tourists to polish their English . Boy monks hang out at the spectacular Shwedagon pagoda to speak to tourists under the direction of their monastic teachers in the hope of improving their study of foreign languages.

In Taungyyi the driver was a veterinary surgeon compelled to put up shutters as owners of domesticated cats and dogs were too poor to bring them to medicine. With their strong belief in reincarnation, they allowed them to die hoping they would be reborn a man or an elephant. The farmers had native cures for their livestock.

I had to consult a doctor in the bush for an infected wound while on a trek. He gave me an antibiotic cream made in the Philippines that gave me comfort at a fraction of what it would have cost back home and then offered to sell me brown country eggs. In his dispensary he was also selling stationery, soap and petrol. He needed extra money to see his kids through college. However, they all spoke without any inhibitions. Free speech is in better shape in Burma than here in the Premadasa days.

A lawyer returned from Yangon boasted at the Colombo Law Library that he felt followed wherever he went in Myanmar. Poppycock. Probably he was looking for importance denied him in his mother country. Having trekked in permitted and not-so-permitted areas, I know the Burmese are too inept or too lazy to shadow anybody. If they tried, they would lose their way or fall asleep.

Official buildings greet you with the picture of Buddha and the Junta chief touched-up for photogenic reasons like our politicians on posters. They hang in the same style like that harmonious duo, Chandrika and Ranil, on the walls behind the desks of high officials. The Burmese are more fortunate than us as they can always venerate the Enlightened One who will remain a permanent fixture on the wall, while here in Sri Lanka only a little time is needed for both Punch and Judy to have a great fall from the office wall.

Listening to BBC’s Sandesaya programme while on a trek, I did for once applaud Chandrika for having dropped from her national list a man appropriately named Batty and denied Samurdhi to a face that shows no signs of it.

Media freedom does not exist in Myanmar. The official fare in English is provided by the 8-page ‘New Light of Myanmar’ — more sufferable than the Daily News. Lack of information has a few pluses. As a result, Sri Lanka is known as the land of the Buddha and not of the Bandaranaikes.

In the simple minds of the Burmese, Sri Lankans are closer to nirvana than any other race. (Is Sri Lanka the only nation claiming to be Aryan where Buddhism is the virtual State religion? Are all others of Mongoloid origins?)

Myanmar is probably the only country that will open doors to a Sri Lankan passport when all others rush to bolt theirs. So many spoke affectionately of ‘Gamini’. Hearing Gamini being frequently spoken of with great esteem, I was compelled to comment that Mr. Dissanayake or Mr. Jayasuriya were ordinary mortals, one being more honourable than the other. Their Gamini, I found, was Dutugamunu who had sent rice to Burma during a great famine and helped save the nation.

Being from the blessed land, in Shan State street vendors gave me, free meals, probably in search of merit. The colonel allowed me the use of an army golf course free, gratis and for nothing with balls and clubs provided so that I could exhibit my carpet drives and cricketing strokes. Trekking to tribal villages where opium is grown under the guise of tea was possible though not encouraged.

Out of Yangong, small inn-keepers gave me the best rooms at reduced prices. However, I was marched in the evening on a compulsory sight seeing tour to a local temple as I came from the Land of the Buddha.

The perennial question fired at me was whether democracy works in Sri Lanka. I could say ‘yes’ in a country where the Junta is firmly in power but shows less military presence than the streets of Colombo, I searched for material to substantiate my response and came up with a bright answer.

Did not our ruling party move a resolution to disenfranchise a parliamentarian who was found guilty by a Commission on corruption and then make him a honourable minister when he crossed from the opposition to the government? Did not the same opposition grant him their ticket when he crossed back all over again. Voila! Democracy does working our free, sovereign, socialist republic because the people booted him out at the election!

Has not every parliamentarian with the name ‘Moonesinghe’ (Jim, Anil, Mangala, Susil, Ananda and soldier Sarath) cross parties in Parliament in search of blue or green grass? Democracy does work as the people cleansed Parliament of all Moonesinghes. Actually they are a charming lot are the Moonesinghes, in fact too charming.

The ruling military Junta and our democratic government have much in common. They are both inept and corrupt and will continue their forms of government for years as Myanmar is without effective political leadership and Sri Lanka is without a effective military commander.

Aung San Suki is loved and adored. Her father General Aung San was truly a patriot and a nationalist in the mould of Gandhi or Jinnah and is a national hero. Suki is the love child of the western world and would live her days as a lady in recluse. She is like our leaders, in search of Norwegian types to solve problems.

Last year I took my 82-year old mother for meditation to Burma. It was all arranged high tech on Internet and e-mail. The meditation centre, seventy miles south of Yangon, was truly a global village where splendid meditation huts have been built by devotees from Israel to Argentina, Australia to Iceland (Sri Lanka and India were notable absentees). The centre was managed by the Burmese and was supervised by a Swiss nun. The comforts of a hut are comparable to a pension in Europe. It was Burma at its best. Yet, our globe girdling venerables prefer to be westward or Japan bound.

I was invited by a young English speaking supervising monk to a meal sitting on mats round a low table. It was like a buffet at a 5-star hotel with twelve dishes and four desserts. I had an impression that you meditate on a near-empty stomach. In this country of plentiful food and sparse medicine, people give generously to the temples, inviting monks to overeat — most are diabetic and die due to lack of insulin. My mother returned rejuvenated physically more than spiritually.

As an insignificant Sri Lankan lawyer I had easy access to court rooms. The judges complained of poor pay but seemed satisfied with their residential facilities. A township judge’s (magistrate) quarters were worse than that of our railway linesmen. If that happened in Sri Lanka, the police would have been permanently in the dock.

Judges were amiable and not pompous, but illiterate in the law. The pleaders (lawyers) expressed their views candidly and boldly and appeared to be more penniless than briefless. They wore black jerkins over their white sarongs to court. In the morning, seeing the lawyers come to court was like watching a procession of Lankan motorcyclists on their way to work.

The taxi drivers say that some judges take bribes and pronounce judgments partially while the others take bribes from both sides and act impartially. It’s time for the Asia Foundation to organize a judicial conference in Yangon; they would get their money’s worth in safeguarding American interests in legal forums in our part of the world.

The Union Jack has been comprehensively wiped out of the scene. It serves them right for not introducing cricket to Burma as to the sub-continent where the MCC is better known than the Commonwealth Secretariat. Cricket might have caused a problem score-keeping because most Burmese cannot count beyond three hundred. it’s a society where the standard of education is still shrinking. The legacy left behind was soccer for the masses and golf for the armed forces.

The soccer fields are full of weeds and reptiles while the green on the golf courses are emerald in colour with twin decked driving galleries. This is a society where the Army comes first. Climbers in search of social elevation and contacts, as in Sri Lanka, play golf with men with bulging pockets in the army, police and customs and of course the contractors. The caddies are girls and the Ladies Wing is sweeter and less quarrelsome and know how to play golf unlike their Lankan counterparts.

Rowing is popular with the cox screaming in/out in the vernacular and lawn tennis is played on cement or tar. The most popular sport among the young appears to be to hold hands and walk and it costs nothing.

Yangon goes to sleep early and rises late. Christmas Eve was celebrated in an out of Yangon hotel for tourists with a visit by a local carol group from the Sunday school who sang of Rudolph the red nosed reindeer in the local dialect and then jived to pop music until the manager asked them to leave. The evening ended by 10 O’clock and I was assured I could go to bed still earlier on New Year’s eve. People slept soundly on millennium night as they live by the Burmese calendar.

In the night clubs, a bulging Burmese waddles up excitedly to the podium with a paper garland bought from a waiter in hand to the applause of his peers drunk on Dangon beer. He’s there to honour the singing girl in lungi. They get no closer than to drape the garland but that is sufficient to tittilate them. Dagon beer is as good as Lion but cheaper.

Kalaw (4650 feet up in the hills) is my favourite watering hole. It’s got a Tudor-style hotel which was a former hunting lodge, looking less grand than it’s venerable counterpart in Nuwara Eliya. But the climate is cooler and cleaner. Nearby is the Seven Sisters restaurant which offers the best cuisine at the most affordable prices.

I never failed to visit the genial Italian Catholic priest, Padre Angelo de Meiro of Kalaw, immensely knowledgable on trekking and hill tribes. He had died last year, ninety three years of age, greatly in debt to the Catholic church as private medicine in Yangon costs a fortune. Always take a health insurance policy to fly back in case of sickness. It’s cheaper and safer than Yangon medicine.

The padre’s successor, Father Paul, is an action packed priest much concerned of the newly emerging evangelical groups. World Vision is visible and eyeing Burma. Father Paul, an Anglo Burmese, seemed displeased with Mrs. Bandaranaike for taking over the schools and expelling the expatriate nursing nuns. Burma’s military Junta gleefully followed suit. Father Paul was sad having lost his school and still sadder losing his sisters. I made him happy by saying our prime minister is the nephew of a Bishop.

The amiable Sri Lankan Ambassador is a skilful meditator and a champion golfer in the diplomatic enclave — the prime qualifications for the posting.

Myanmar provides a relaxed and tranquil atmosphere notwithstanding military rule. To the tourist it is indeed a friendly administration in jungle fatigues. It’s an unwritten law here that even bandits do not mug tourists. Western media has been unfair to Burma. Don’t believe the official version either.

Their staid military spokesmen are as close to speaking the truth as our somersaulting cabinet spokesman. However, after a Katunayake-style fiasco, their Airforce Commander would have resigned in shame. Otherwise he might have died in a mysterious air crash. Some Sri Lankans are born ready equipped with a survival kit.

Myanmar is fast losing its graceful laidback image. The leg-rowers of Inle Lake is giving way to mechanized motor boats, The train to Mandalay as described in Paul Therouxs, The Great Railway Bazzar, still runs but the spirit of the orient I enjoyed travelling Lower class on my first visit is no more. (As a tourist I had to buy an Upper class ticket.) Go before wagons from the Wells Fargo days disappear in Myanmar or spend a night at Candercraig, the timber-built bachelors’ chummery of the Burma Teak Co before it burns down.

No evening will change the atmosphere around the golden Shwedagon Pagoda or the glorious sunset around the ruins and temples of Pagan. Anuradhapura or Polonnaruwa lacks the cultural refinement or the skills of ancient craftsmen.

To most Sri Lankans including myself, a day/night international at Khettarama may be equally enchanting. Where else can we raise the Lion flag and cheer today. Tomorrow it maybe Sri Lanka vs Ellam with Solheim as the third umpire under the distinguished patronage of Punch and Judy. At least the boys will scream hora umpire. We have a sense of humour. The Burmese are dull. Burma is in a state of permanent meditation but improving more rapidly.

Sri Lankans working in hotels and garment factories in Myanmar prefer not to return home soon. That tells the story.