Shopaholics Anonymous

The afternoon adventure for today was a trip to a huge market in downtown Yangon. Similar in style to markets in Europe or Mexico, the building covered about an entire city block crammed full of tiny shop stations selling jewelry (Burma is famous for high quality sapphires and rubies), fabrics/clothing, carved wood statues and the usual solicitations of artwork and postcards. I was not overly interested in the jewelry--not my thing and also far more expensive than I had money for--and we were told the artwork was not that great. I headed for the fabric section hoping to find a scarf or shirt. Upon browsing through the many stands I found a lovely dark red scarf with little silver spots on it, but decided to come back later after having seen what else was available. This was clearly a mistake as I never saw that shop again. I did however come across a handmade orange silk shirt for ~$3.80 that looks great. It almost has a Chinese appearance with buttons down the left side and a decorative neckline like a V with wings. Since I am roughly the size of most Burmese people, the shirt fits like a glove. I may have to return to the market at some point to purchase more in a variety of colors. Likely I will not find that same shop again, but there will be about 50 more to choose from.

The one downfall of the market tour was that we had all agreed to meet at the main door around 3:10pm. There are two main doors to the market. No one was at either one around the scheduled time and the market looks so repetitive it was hard to tell from which door we had entered. After about 10 minutes of searching and checking and repeated requests by people to purchase charcoal pictures or change money, I figured out which door we had come in from and headed back to the vans hoping the group had not left yet. I spotted the vans, much to my relief, halfway down the block in the parking lot, but no people. Just as I paused to imagine where everyone could be I heard my name. A young boy in front of me was pointing to the left. Turning I noticed the entire group having afternoon drinks. At least I found everyone.

A group of us decided to stay downtown to walk around for a while. We wandered past the Shwe Dagon Pagoda (the largest one in Yangon which can easily be seen from cities away and from an airplane), some of the governmental buildings with a decidedly colonial appeal to them, numerous small shops and street vendors and finally over to Chinatown. We were only there briefly. Most shops are owned by Chinese people and local people work in them. When it came time to eat, half the group had been having stomach problems, part of us opted to take a taxi from there to the cafe we had afternoon coffee/juice at after the market tour and I joined them. The cafe served a variety of foods from different countries (France, Italy, America, China, etc.) and was a nice change of pace from the local cuisine of rice, cooked vegetables, meat in sauce with bits of bone and trays of pickled relishes and fresh greens. Most greens are washed in local water so those are off limits. Meat is often cooked on the bone which can be found whole or in shards throughout your food depending on how the meat was cut up.

All in all the day was okay--tiring as usual. And now for a cultural note.

As a further note on the climate, the humidity is about 70% and the average temperature has been in the mid to upper 80sF. No idea what it is when the sun is out and baking us as my portable weather station is in the hotel room. Glad I brought that along! Burmese culture is primarily a moderately dressed one. Both men and women wear sleeved shirts (either short or long) and skirts of varying bold patterns that tie at the waist allowing a stride's worth of movement for the legs. Footwear is slip on thong sandals. When you arrive at a temple or pagoda shoes are removed. So far the skirts I brought have been okay. One has a hole in it (not sure if it was before or during the trip) and they are still quite warm--though I imagine a bit cooler for me than pants would be. The one shortcoming is that your legs rub together when sweaty which causes heat rash and pain.