Our route continues in the ancient capital of Myanmar: Yangon. After a quiet flight from Kuala Lumpur, we arrive at the airport, and we already realize that this is another world. In the first place we do not clarify with the time ... we look at the clock in the room while we wait for our turn to seal the passport and it does not correspond to the time we expected ... It turns out that regarding Malaysia, here is an hour and a half less and regarding Spain and Italy, four and a half hours more. First oddity ...
"Look, Lety, women and children have their faces painted" "It's true Roby, and men wear skirts to the ankles." The natural makeup is Tanhaka, and they wear it basically to protect themselves from the sun, which here beats and much. The skirt is the Longyi, and most men wear it in their daily lives. Second rarity ...
We left the airport and a Hungarian boy with a Romanian passport (all this according to him) makes us a successful observation ... seems to take a leap 40 or 50 years ago in Europe. At night and almost without lights we can only look at the cars that pass through the airport road, and on the bus that takes us to the Guest House, and indeed, they are almost collection relics. The strange thing is that they work. In addition, they drive on the right, like us, but most cars have the steering wheel on the changed side, that is, on the right. Third rarity ...And all this only in the first hour here!
The next day we threw ourselves into the street determined to change our precious and almost intact dollars, as we believed, it was best to do so with a street money changer. ATMs? Not even in dreams ... Official exchange offices? ... It is fine if you want to lose 99% of the value of your money ... So with the first one that offers us change we negotiate the rate and we were already surprised that it did not haggle too much, we also got a change very high for what we had seen on the internet as an unofficial change of the moment. Something was not right. "The 100-dollar bills will almost be delivered to you later" ... "Oke Oke" ... "Why do you count your Kyats in bundles of 10? Better take off the jelly beans and give them to me in my hand that I already tell them. ”
To all this, we wanted to change 400 dollars in 400,000 kyats, in 1000 bills, therefore to count 400 bills, there is a little while. When they are all counted and in our backpack we give them one by one our 100 dollar bills, almost shouting ONE, TWO, THREE, FOUR ... very clear. And suddenly, he only has 3 in his hand. We had already read this trick, so before we asked for one more we asked for the 4th ticket. It had been hidden by one of them ... that jeta! Finally, when they saw that the triquiñuelas were running out they began to observe the bills ... that if one has a rallita, that if the other has a little dot ...
Anyway, they were not interested so "NO CHANGE". When we finally managed to change the dollars in the Guest House, this if it is reliable, of the more than 15 bills of 100 dollars that we carried, which we considered impolutive, after an exhaustive analysis of the face of the presidents, we only accept 2! ! He told us that only those where the face is completely perfect, without a minimum wrinkle, or anything painted ... something crazy, really, were worth their value. He recognized that they were like goats. So now the question comes to us, did the street money changer not want to change our money because he had any damage to the ticket, or because he hadn't sneaked it in? After asking a few more money changers, and visiting an unofficial exchange house, we believe that it is the second. Fourth rarity ...
Most Burmese people are not that bastard. In fact, how kind they are are scary, and I explain myself ... They are chewing betel all day, a kind of tobacco wrapped in a little leaf, which they sell in street stalls anywhere in the city, and at any time of day and of the night. This leaves the teeth, to those who still have them, of a dark red. When they talk to you or smile at you, they seem to have just sucked the neighbor's blood, and this in turn to his mother-in-law ... The rite ends with a loud spit on the floor, no matter where they are. They do it so naturally that sometimes they don't even look where they spit, which sometimes involuntarily involves third parties. Lety's leg is proof of the crime. Fifth rarity.
Did you think there are no cabins more typical than those in London? It may be, but certainly not as original as those in Myanmar. They consist of makeshift stands in the middle of the sidewalk with a plastic table, 3 or 4 phones connected with half-rounded cables and a girl in charge of counting the time of the call and charging you for it (maybe they are government spies who listen to committed calls ). Sixth rarity
And here the sidewalks spread a lot. You can turn a corner and find "The Pin and Pon Cafe". Mini tables and stools of colored plastic where people sit down to have tea with some candy while they follow the soap opera of the moment, and start laughing ... Do not see how busy they are, especially at night! Seventh rarity.
The Burmese have a curious way of calling each other, they make SMACK SMACK kisses, instead of our EH, YOU, WE, EY, IH ... it's funny. Eighth rarity.
The national extreme sport and practiced by millions of Burmese every day is to (literally) grab the bus. Almost without stopping and while the assistant of the driver's assistant shouts the destiny (or so we suppose) the travelers gallop helped to climb this one. Maybe not shout the fate but encourage them to climb ... LET'S PICK THAT YOU CAN! Ninth rarity.
Driver's assistant? Assistant driver's assistant? The driver drives, the assistant charges and the assistant helps out the passengers. In many places where we have been, such as coffee shops, restaurants, hotels, supermarkets, we have noticed that a lot of people are employed, and most are young people: for example, in a Self Service coffee shop in Yangon, we meet 5 people for attend only to us at that time, in a relatively small place. Or in the supermarket, a girl accompanies you to inform you about the products and once you have looked through them, you put them back in the moment. Tenth rarity. At first glance it may seem that the unemployment rate is minimal, although poverty is noticeable: there are many beggars and bands of children who assail tourists with a smile, a Hello, Where are you from ?, a collection of postcards in one hand, and the other empty waiting for a handful of kyats.
It is only a few days that we have been in this hot land, but we have the impression that what this country holds will be different from the rest!
Do you know more curiosities and oddities of Myanmar?
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