Trekking, Temples, and Thanakha

-sighs- I'm so happy to see my blog again. So! Happy! For some reason, the Myanmar government zeroed in on blogging and YouTube as dangers to the welfare of the state, but left CNN and the pages of every Burmese Liberation group alone. Iron-fisted military dictatorships should really do their homework about the internet.

Anyway, I'm writing from Kuta in Bali, Indonesia, after 28 spectacular days of trekking, extreme temple-ing, and falling on top of nuns (and other buffoonery) in Burma. After Sri Lanka, I didn't think it was possible to love a country any more. I thought there was no such thing as better. I was proved wrong. There is a quote by somebody whose name I've forgotten about Burma being unlike any place you've ever seen before (I've also forgotten the exact wording of the quote itself- oops!). I hasten to agree and disagree at the same time. Burma's unlike anywhere I've ever been before,... and yet it's exactly like EVERYwhere I've been before. All jumbled together. The longyis of India, with the food of Laos, the chaos of Cairo, and the piousness of Latin America. It's like the spiffy mix of everything I like about everywhere, plucked out and jumbled together and available for $13 USD a day.

A whole month is difficult to squash into one post- so I'm going to forget about trying to update on individual cities and focus on the whole.

Food - While the food in Burma is nothing to be envied- it was plentiful, cheap, and usually offered freely without any mind for payment (particularly in the smaller communities). Unfortunately, it usually consists of cold noodles mixed by hand out of a tupperware. I, happily, (and a bit surprisingly) managed to avoid getting a case of the runs- though I sometimes wonder if the bacterium are merely strangled by what I'm sure are intestinal parasites from India. I've got a stomach pooch that appears to be wiggling of its own accord at times. Remind me to get checked when I arrive in Oz.

People - The loveliest in the world. Really, the LOVELIEST PEOPLE IN THE WORLD. With the exception of a handful of sketchy moneychangers in Yangon (as well as most of the populace of Bago), everyone we met was honest and friendly. I was actually chased down the street with change for my bottle of water. The amount was roughly equivalent to 5 US cents. The panting adolescent that handed it over was wide-eyed with panic about possibly allowing me to be short-changed. Super awesome. I also managed to crush a nun while I was there- but I won't bother to go into the story. It's too embarrassing.

Sights - While the actual "sights" in Burma are a little weak compared to the rest of the region, I was never short of experiences that left me positively dumbstruck. Mr. Food, a restaurant in Hsipaw, Upper Shan State, does beer take-a-way. You know how? IN A FUCKING BAG. BEER in a fucking BAG. That's right. As in, they fill up a pitcher, empty it into a grocery bag, tie up the ends, and send a man away on a moto with it for delivery. Now that's service!

It's already been 2 weeks, roughly, in Indo, so my memory's slipping a bit. All I can really say about Burma is that it's the best freaking country ever. Just as good as Sri Lanka. Maybe even better, and there's an English guy next to me at the internet cafe that won't shut up so I can't think any more to elaborate. I'll add pictures.