Dear reader, when I travel overseas I like to stay at resorts. You’ll find only the nicest kind of people, and it’s very safe. In actual fact it’s just like staying at home really. Please bear with us as Cecil relates a tale of what can go very wrong on the other side of the Irriwaddy. And if there’s a moral in this, it’s stay at home. Where pollies with household names like Susan, George and Peter can diddle you and we pay them for it.
Cecil and his “wife”. Getting some local knowledge before setting off.
Cecil begns… “The Wife* and I are much chastened, not chaste, nor chased, but chastened.
We have been mercilessly conned by a superior being. A 16 year old Muslim from Yangon. (Where is Pauline Hansen when you really need her?) I’ll start at the beginning. Here we are in Burma/Myanmar, actually in the city of Rangoon/Yangon, (well, on the Irrawaddy/Ayeyarwady River near Bagan – I think only the names change, all else remains the same, as in Australian Prime Ministers Rudd/Gillard, Abbott/Turnbull).
Cecil and ‘Wife’ meet their guide.
It was Boxing Day, although the locals failed to notice. The Wife* and I, having perused our Lonely Planet guide, decide, subsequent to undertaking our self-guided walking tour of downtown Yangon, to take the ferry across the Yangon River to Dalah, then taxi to the delta village of Twante. This ferry trip is analogous to that from Manhattan to Staten Island. We slip across to the ferry terminal from The (Imperious) Strand Hotel (rooms from US$633), where we’d had mid morning coffee. The Terminal, though crowded, is most welcoming of foreigners, the return trip costing less than a dollar each, bottled water included. The fun started at boarding. Queues are unheard of in these parts, it is just a seething mass that squeezes like toothpaste from a tube into the ferry. I clutch my bag securely to my side. The Wife* can fend for herself. English is spoken, in her ear, in mine. Close your bag, Stay close to me, I will make sure nothing happens. I turn my head and see a tall (by local standards) young man.
From bad to worse. Cecil and ‘wife’ will be lucky to escape with their shirt.
Once on the boat he introduces himself, writing his name, at my urging, in my note book: Joon. He quickly tells us his father died in the tsunami 8 years ago and that he looks after his mother and family. He says he is only 16. We believe him. Where are you going he asks? Twante is the reply. I will take you, because no one at Dalah speaks English, and with me you will see good sights and I will take you to my home to meet my mother. How much? We ask. Oh, whatever you like he says, I just want to show you good things, maybe you pay nothing. Alarm bells started to ring in my ear when Joon seemed unable to secure a cab at all, let alone one with seat belts. Finally after thirty minutes he engaged one for 50% over the reputed going rate. It was rough, cramped, and seemed to rush through the interesting parts and slow to a crawl where things were more mundane. After forty minutes of bouncing and sweating we stopped at a lake with a temple in the middle. From the four cardinal points bridges lead to it. The small unimpressive temple was inhabited by two or three monks and myriad intertwined diamond backed pythons of all ages and sizes. Ok, we said, can we go now? So Joon then took us along an even rougher road to a local pottery where we observed the hand making of uniform mid sized garden pots. We tipped the potters as advised by Joon. He then started talking about how interesting the Australian currency was.
He asked us to show him some. A fiver, a tenner, – did we have a one hundred to show him? How did it compare to US currency? Could we show him some of that? (to be continued)
What will happen to Cecil? Will he show his guide the colour of his money? Will he rock the boat, and upset the applecart, (rickshaw)? Stay tuned for tomorrow’s enthralling episode.