Nats, moustaches and generals in Myanmar

Tom Spender

• Last Updated: October 23. 2009 7:07PM UAE / October 23. 2009 3:07PM GMT

Our pick-up bowls through a patchwork countryside of green rice-paddy fields criss-crossed by small waterways. About 20 people are crammed into the back, sitting on narrow wooden benches. A further 10, myself included, are sitting cross-legged on the roof, cheerfully chewing betel nut and spitting jets of crimson saliva over the side.

We are on our way to a nat festival – a week-long party celebrating a folk religion that predates Buddhism in Myanmar and continues to exist alongside it today. Nat spirits are divided between the 37 Great Nats, the spirits of human beings who met a violent death, and the rest, the spirits of trees, water and other parts of nature.

We turn off the main route out of Mandalay and on to a road where the two lanes are separated by a small canal. Children are waiting by the roadside in a state of excitement; as soon as our pick-up comes near they begin to run alongside it, yelling as passengers toss out a few tiny-denomination notes of kyat, Myanmar’s currency. Very few of the kids catch any money and as we rattle past they give up and look for the next vehicle or jump into the canal. They know many more people will be passing this way.

We arrive at the festival village of Taungbyone, disembark and enter a sprawling market. Pretty girls sit on raised platforms with trays of Burmese sweets in their hands. Stalls sell CDs of Myanmar’s distinctive pop music, lightly syrupy songs with perky guitar riffs, as well as piles of smallish logs that are used for thanaka, the traditional makeup of golden cream made from bark that Burmese women smear on their cheeks. Crowds throng past, men stripped to the waist climb bamboo scaffolding to put the finishing touches on a big thatched hall. As the stalls segue into village streets, we see homes with raised and covered outdoor lounging areas containing twin effigies with faces made of gold-coloured plastic or metal, the residents snoozing on nearby cushions.

However, while it is obvious that some major cultural event must be happening here, we don’t know exactly what, or where, it is. “Where is the nat?” I ask, ready for the blank looks that sometimes follow a question that no local person would ever pose. But a man understands and takes us to a temple complex where girls are selling bunches of flowers and families are sprawled all over the floor. The enclosed space is full of Burmese carrying huge platters of bananas, coconuts and flowers and all attempting to gain entry to a small chamber to make their offerings to the nat said to reside there.

In the temple, the nats are represented by the figures of a man and a woman with golden faces that are much smaller than the carvings of Buddha that are on display in Myanmar’s Buddhist temples. As the Burmese squeeze in to pray, hands holding big plants clasped in front of their faces, specially employed men take the fruit from the platters and distribute them around the two nat figurines. There is no way this can carry on much longer before the figurines are buried in fruit, I think, but somehow the piles around them don’t seem to grow despite the deluge of offerings. Red-robed Buddhist monks and pink-clad nuns are among the worshippers, while outside children hurl flowers around amid peals of laughter.

As we leave at sundown, exploiting our status as foreign curiosities to attract attention and beg a lift in a lorry, a bright rainbow arcs over the rice paddies and Burmese from all over the country continue to arrive on bicycles, tractors and pick-ups for celebrations that will continue for days.

From Mandalay we travel by bus to Bagan, a vast collection of about 4,400 Buddhist temples scattered across 42 square kilometres on the banks of the Ayeyarwaddy River (formerly known as the Irrawaddy).

The bus proves much tougher than its appearance might suggest and it needs to be – most of the country is not linked by highways or even paved roads and our route takes us along bumpy dirt tracks. At one point we seem to be stuck in the middle of a small river, but when I look outside I see the driver’s assistant is simply taking the opportunity to throw water onto the diesel engine to cool it down. The driver guns the engine and we surge out of the river and push on.

While Cambodia’s Angkor Wat is undoubtedly more famous, Bagan is also among of the top Buddhist temple sites in South-east Asia and is around a thousand years old. You can simply wander from temple to temple, the larger ones containing huge gold-painted statues of the Buddha.

Before leaving Mandalay for Bagan, we visit the Moustache Brothers, a troupe of three dissident comedians. Their response to being banned from performing to their fellow Burmese or holding any kind of performance outside their modest home has been to stage a folk opera entirely in English each night in their house. We are among a gaggle of tourists taking seats in their front room, where the walls are adorned with puppets and photographs of Aung San Suu Kyi, the pro-democracy leader who has spent about 14 of the past 20 years under house arrest. The brothers never intended to be political, says Lu Maw, one of the brothers, but in the 1970s as the military regime proved unable to provide the people with basic services such as electricity, it became a natural target for jokes.

Myanmar achieved independence from the British Empire in 1948, when it was known as Burma, and was a democratic republic until 1962, when General Ne Win seized power in a coup d’etat and kicked off a period of military rule marked by economic stultification and human rights abuses that continues to this day. After another coup in 1988, the new military junta in 1990 held elections that were won convincingly by the National League for Democracy (NLD) party under the leadership of Aung San Suu Kyi, the daughter of General Aung San, who many years before negotiated the country’s independence from the British. Unwilling to cede power, the junta simply annulled the election results, put Suu Kyi under house arrest at her Yangon home, and carried on ruling.

The junta’s reign has also been marked by a long-running conflict between the junta’s 350,000-strong army, the Tatmadaw, and the guerilla forces of the various ethnic groups that live in Myanmar and harbour dreams of regional autonomy. As part of its ongoing campaign to crush opposition forces, the Tatmadaw has been accused by rights groups of press ganging children into its forces, carrying out summary executions, destroying villages and relocating their populations and using villagers as forced labour.

But western-led economic sanctions against Myanmar, intensified after Suu Kyi was sentenced to yet more time under house arrest in August this year, have proved ineffective in the face of the regional appetite for the country’s gas, timber and gemstones. In a major shift, the US in September said it would start talking to the Burmese regime. Suu Kyi, who had supported a boycott of the regime – including preventing the regime from receiving money from tourism through a travel boycott – has also said she is willing to see sanctions lifted if it helps movement towards political reconciliation.

Back in the Moustache Brothers’ Mandalay home, I ask Lu why he and his brothers continue to defy the authorities. It is, after all, a serious matter; his two brothers were sentenced to seven years’ hard labour in 1996 for telling political jokes. “We are dead meat already” is his response. The brothers hope that as long as they remain popular with tourists they will not be arrested.

Theirs is a slapstick show spliced with displays of old-style Burmese clothing and other traditions, but for me the highlight is the traditional dancing by Lu Maw’s wife, Ni Ni Lin, who is obviously a master of her art. In the dance she is transformed, and her forceful but nuanced movements speak of a cultural depth to Myanmar that I for one was unaware of until visiting, so little did I know about this closed country.

For many Burmese, the opposite is true. They know a world exists outside Myanmar but have little chance of getting permission to see it from the authorities. Many in the impoverished country would not be able to afford to travel anyway, but they long for the opportunity.

“We can’t do anything, so we just try to cultivate a positive mental attitude and hope things will get better,” said one man.

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Before you go

Myanmar does not have an embassy in the UAE so the best way to get a visa is at its embassy in Bangkok, which can issue a 28-day tourist visa in about three days for about US$75 (Dh275), although prices may vary depending on your nationality.

The embassy (0066 2 233 2237) is at 132 Sathorn Nua Road.

Travel agents in Bangkok can also arrange the visa on your behalf for an extra fee of about $15 (Dh55).

No airlines fly directly to Yangon from the UAE, so the best route into Myanmar is to fly to Bangkok and then buy a flight on the low-cost airlines Air Asia (www.airasia.com; ) or Bangkok Airways (www.bangkokair.com), which sells return tickets that cost from $134 (Dh494) including taxes.

Inside Myanmar, the most convenient way to get around is to take the reasonably priced internal flights on local airlines such as Air Bagan. Tickets can be easily arranged at your hotel or through travel agents. A return flight from Yangon to Mandalay costs about $160 (Dh588).

There are also sleeper train services. The cheapest option is to take the long-haul buses. Myanmar’s road network, however, is abysmal, meaning a journey of a few hundred kilometres can take most of a day.

Some of the more luxurious hotels in Myanmar, such as the Sedona Hotel in Yangon, are run by the junta and revenues from their operations go into the regime’s coffers. Many guidebooks refuse to list government-run hotels.

Generally, staying at smaller guesthouses, though more humble, ensures that you do not directly support the regime, although it will extract some of what you spend on almost anything in the country through heavy taxation.

Because there are no ATMs in Myanmar, visitors must bring all the money they need with them in US dollars. Travellers should budget at least $25 (Dh92) per day. Hotels can be paid in dollars. Some of the top-end hotels in Yangon may accept credit cards. Most transactions require using the local currency, the kyat.

International mobile networks such as Etisalat have no coverage inside Myanmar. International calls can be made from kiosks but are expensive. Internet cafes abound but connections are extremely slow.

The weather is best between November and February; spring is hot, while the rainy season from May to October brings torrential rain alternating with very hot sunshine.