The politics of temple-hopping
by Cath Urquhart
The Times (16-02-02)
Burma is the focus of a tourist boycott - yet foreign visitors have forced the release of a political prisoner. There is a case for informed tourism
PAR PAR Lay was telling a joke. "A man caught a fish, and asked his wife to grill it. She said: ‘You silly man, how can I? The Government has put up the price of charcoal and cooking oil so much that I cannot afford them!’
"So the man returned the fish to the river, whereupon it leapt out of the water and shouted its thanks to the generals that had brought the country to such ruin."
Not side-splitting, perhaps, but telling such seemingly mild political jokes has in the past earned the Burmese comedian seven years’ imprisonment with hard labour. Nevertheless, Par Par Lay, and cousins Lu Maw and Lu Zaw, still perform every evening as the Moustache Brothers troupe to small groups of tourists who crowd into the front room of their modest home in south Mandalay.
joined a dozen foreigners - Americans, Irish, Australians and Dutch - to watch the show that is banned by Burma’s ruling military junta. We sat on plastic chairs in the small room whose walls were covered with Burmese marionettes and photographs of the brothers, one showing Par Par Lay with Aung San Suu Kyi, who was elected leader of the country in 1990 but, despite being released from house arrest in 1995, is still prevented by the generals from assuming power.
Lu Maw translated the show into English, explaining the beautiful dances performed by his wife and sisters, and the political jokes told by Par Par Lay, and adding a large dollop of entertaining commentary and ribald humour, often at the expense of his long-suffering wife.
When the show ended at 10pm we clustered around, sipping green tea, as Lu Maw told us how glad he was to see tourists. He explained that Par Par Lay had been released from prison 18 months early, in July 2001, due to international pressure that started with foreign visitors attending the shows and publicising the imprisoned comedian’s plight. "We want tourists to come and spread the word," said Lu Maw. "Take our photograph and put it on the Internet! Foreigners are our protection."
I had many concerns about visiting Burma, which has been largely isolated since General Ne Win seized power in 1962. In 1988 some 3,000 pro-democracy protestors were massacred by the army and since then, despite Suu Kyi’s election, the military regime continues to run the country. Suu Kyi had asked tourists not to visit. As no one wants to support this regime, it seemed wrong to go.
But I was interested to note a growing feeling among Burma-watchers that visits by informed tourists were no bad thing. James Mawdsley, for example, the pro-democracy campaigner who has been imprisoned in Burma several times, encourages visitors to come with open eyes: "Those who would learn more, those who are sensitive to the suffering, they should definitely come," he writes. "If they spend their money wisely the junta need not see any of it; it can go directly to the people."
He had pinpointed one of my concerns: that I would have to stay in Government-run guesthouses and thus hand money to the hated regime. So my first, pleasant, surprise was to discover that there are now so many private hotels it’s pretty hard to find a Government-run one.
The Three Seasons in Rangoon (now known as Yangon) set a high standard. My US$15 room was simple and clean and the price included a terrific Burmese breakfast of mohinga - white rice noodles with coriander and egg in a thick fish soup. As I ate by the balcony window, I watched two dozen maroon-robed monks process in single file down the street. Whenever the first one stopped to receive alms from a passer-by, the whole line bumped to a halt like a Slinky toy.
I spent several days walking the city’s streets, taking in the peeling colonial architecture, the surprisingly bad traffic jams, the street stalls serving squid kebabs or sour Burmese curries, and the central market where you could buy everything from lacquerware to a cappuccino. The city’s highlight is undoubtedly the Shwedagon Pagoda, the enormous Buddhist temple whose gilded, 300ft stupa is said to contain 53 tonnes of gold.I visited several times, to sit and watch as families picnicked in the surrounding small temples, or young children in sequinned costumes and garish make-up paraded around as part of the Buddhist baptism ceremony. A group of young monks enjoyed a crafty cigarette in one corner, while uniformed cleaners swept up every scrap of litter.
I moved on to Mandalay, a vast grid of largely uninspiring concrete buildings that has grown up around the simply enormous Mandalay Fort. When I asked my guesthouse owner if I should visit the fort, she disapprovingly showed me a guidebook that explained that the fort had been rebuilt with forced labour. "There’s not much to see," she said.
Instead, I took a hot climb up Mandalay Hill for the view over the town, and toured some of the nearby pagodas. Later I chatted with fellow guests and the proprietor over a cold Myanmar beer. She commented on how unusual it was to meet a British traveller, so I explained about Suu Kyi’s comment that tourists should not visit. She looked troubled. She had not heard of the tourist boycott, she said.
"We support Aung San Suu Kyi all the way," she said. "We felt so sorry for her when her husband died and she could not visit him. But we have mixed feelings [about the boycott]. After all, we have to live. If you stay at private guesthouses, and use private trishaws to get around, your money does not go to the Government."
At 5am the next day I took a taxi through the dark streets to a dock on the Irrawaddy river, where I boarded a ferry for Pagan (now known as Bagan), ten hours downriver. The views weren’t spectacular - we were too far from the banks to see much - but the behaviour of a German tour group caught my eye. When we stopped to pick up passengers, they threw the remnants of their packed lunches to children on the bank. The children were cross to discover they were being thrown mouldy bananas or half-eaten sandwiches, and soon the polystyrene lunchboxes littered the banks.
I wondered how Burma’s tourist authorities could nip such crass behaviour in the bud before the problems of litter or begging grew out of control. My conscience was pricked, for I had been reluctant to remonstrate with the unpleasant, rowdy group. I’m afraid I was pleased, when I bumped into them the next day, to see that most of them had appalling sunburn.Pagan is delightful. Spread across several dozen square miles of dry plain, a bend in the Irrawaddy throwing a protective arm around them, are some 4,000 Buddhist pahtos (temples), stupas (shrines) and smaller monuments dating from the mid-11th to the 13th centuries AD. Although the sunburnt Germans were being bussed noisily around, most tourists were hiring pony carts or sturdy bicycles to potter along the dusty tracks connecting the temples.
Ananda Pahto is one of the most striking: a large whitewashed edifice topped with a gilded spire, and set in a wide courtyard full of bougainvillea and acacia trees. The cries of the trinket sellers by the entrance gave it a festive air as we padded, barefoot, around the four giant Buddhas inside the cavernous temple. Later I cycled to the Mingalazedi stupa, which you’re allowed to climb for a terrific view as the setting sun turns the plain of temples pink.
That night I met Sally Trainor and Hugh Farmer, a British couple from Hong Kong, over beers at our hotel, the Bagan Thande. As we sat by the wide, slow Irrawaddy, candles twinkling and huge acacias swaying overhead, Sally told me she used to live in Bangkok and was a member of a Burmese pro-democracy group, often joining illegal incursions over the Thai border into Burma. I asked her how she squared that with her current status as a tourist.
"I feel there’s been some change," she said. "You can now put a good proportion of your money into the local economy you don’t have to take Government tours, stay in Government hotels, or change so much money."
We agreed that much in Burma was not as we had expected. For example, although I would hold back from initiating conversations, local people, students, monks, housewives would come up to chat without apparent fear. Not one had heard of the tourist boycott so widely called for in Britain, for there are many other tourists in Burma, from Europe, America, Asia.
Everyone I spoke to acknowledged that their country was imperfectly run but wanted to welcome more visitors. Lu Maw and his fellow Moustache Brothers were not the only ones keen to meet us. If you go to Burma, catch their show, and if your rickshaw driver warns, as many do, that you’ll get into trouble don’t believe him. You won’t and maybe, if enough of us go, nor will the Moustache Brothers.
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