Tracking the Big Four in Myanmar

There, I just threw all my expectations out the window as they served quite useless upon entry in Myanmar.  Maybe I've in a permanent state of low expectation upon leaving Nepal, but I certainly was preparing myself for a country of dust and destitution.  Instead, thus far at least, I've been very impressed by a clean, friendly, and bustling country.  I haven't been in such a civil bus station for awhile, and without aggressive horn-honkers the roads seem so....quiet.  Just wait till Hillary Clinton gets here in a few weeks, she is going to love it.

Anyway, this is just a quick note from Mandalay, the exotic-sounding centre of the country, a town that came grinding to a complete halt last night when there was some European soccer match on television.  Don't know how this place equates with a massive upscale casino in Las Vegas, but then again I spied a few people gambling today.  Christmas signs all over, which is a little weird in a place with Buddhist statues basically every twenty feet.

It's been three days of "normal" backpacking travel and already I'm missing the bicycle, and I'm beginning to think I'll never be able to return to travelling by bus.  Today we rented a few cruisers and set off to visit a long teak bridge, providing a suitable destination for a journey to see some countryside.  Myanmar has a few attractions, but it is talking to people here that has been the most rewarding so far, and certainly the most interesting.  If you like monks and Buddhist stupas (and really, who doesn't?) then you'd love this place.

My only qualm thus far is that the limited number of permitted destinations makes you feel like you're on a packaged-tour holiday; it certainly isn't terribly inspiring to reach the top of Mandalay Hill for sunset only to find about two hundred European tourists snapping away (question: do Europeans do anything other than take holidays?).  My next destinations, a rural area called Inle Lake and an ancient ruin-filled city known as Bagan, are both universally recommended by other travellers I've spoken to, but also quite central on the tourist circuit (painfully known as Myanmar's "Big Four").  I'll do my best to dodge the crowds, and hopefully there will be a chance during my final week here to venture off to somewhere a bit less popular.  Happy Black Friday, good luck with all your big-screen television shopping.