My Trip to Mayanmar

Fr. David Kyaw, MS, whom I met in Myanmar

My visit to Myanmar in November of 2005 began long before I sent my passport to get a visa. It was the fulfillment of a dream. For over 50 years I had heard of places with exotic sounding names like Rangoon, Prome, Sandoway, Akyab, Thayetmyo and Mandalay. And then there was the swift-flowing Irrawaddy River that captured my imagination. I could now experience being in most of them. Part of my preparation was to get myself psycologically set for the trip. I developed a mantra that I kept repeating: Keep an open mind and delight in the ordinary! This was tested the very first day of the trip. With a morning flight out of JFK airport in New York, I check into a small hotel the evening before. It was raining hard and there was no eating facility in or near it, but a local restaurant advertised delivery service to the hotel. So I called and ordered a hamburger and a beer. When it came, the delivery person had forgotten the beer. He said I could either deduct the amount of the beer or pay for it and he would deliver it later. I chose the second option, ate the hamburger and waited for the beer. After an hour of waiting, I was sure I had been duped and would never get beer. So I drank water. O, ye of little faith! A few minutes after I downed a couple of glasses of water, the delivery person arrived with the beer. I repeated my mantra to myself, thanked him for the delivery and delightfully drank the beer. I considered this episode a good omen for the trip!

My journey in Myanmar started in Rangoon (today: Yangon). Fr. Bernie Taylor, MS, and Fr. David Kyaw, MS, met me at the airport and facilitated customs. The first thing I did when I got through customs was to shed my jacket and sweater. The hot steamy weather was a drastic change from the Fall weather I had just left in New England. Vegetation was green and lush. However, one thing that surprised me was that there were few flowers. Perhaps this was because on my way I had just passed through Thailand which is known for its flowers, especially orchids. In the Bangkok airport there are “Flowers and Food” kiosks every few yards. Purfumed red, purple, white, blue, yellow flowers were everywhere.

Myanmar has a law requiring all foreign visitors – and that includes priests and religious – to stay in hotels not in private houses or in community residences. So even though our La Salette Fathers were renting a house in Yangon, I had to check into a small local eight-room hotel which was only three houses away. Luckily it had air conditioning. As is the custom in private homes and many small hotels, I took off my shoes and left them at the front door.

After I freshened up, we went to the Bishop’s Center where I met Bishop Joseph Thaung Shwe who succeeded La Salette Bishop Thomas Newman as bishop of Prome. I sat next to him as I enjoyed a typical Myanmar lunch – steamed rice, curried meat, sliced cucumbers, herbal soup, bananas and coffee.

Going to the Bishop’s Center I learned about  transportation – local and long distance – which would be an important part of my next 10 days. There is not an overabundance of cars, and many of those on the road are quite old. Although driving is now done on the right-hand side of the road as here in the States, about half the cars and buses, and this includes new ones, still have the driver’s seated on the right. In Yangon it is absolutely forbidden to honk the horn. One very strictly imposed law concerns driving through a yellow light (loss of driver’s license for three months) or a red light (loss of license for a year). If there is an accident and someone is injured both drivers go to jail for one month, regardless of who was at fault. Other sanctions would follow for the guilty party. Referring to my mantra – trying to keep an open mind – I wondered how such a law would go over in the States.