Free at Last, Free at Last, Thank G- - Both Sides of Paradise - CycleBlaze

October 28, 2014

Free at Last, Free at Last, Thank G-

Oh wait, hold that thought.

Dear little friends,

On our last night at home, the cat wouldn't sleep with us. She's no dummy, she knows something is up and she eyed the boxes and bags with suspicion and decided she would transfer her affections to her favorite window seat for the night. I was trying hard to sleep and get a lot of rest but pre-travel jitters and anxieties always creep into my head. The alarm was set for 4:30 am and my daughter and her rockin' boyfriend and his big car would be there to pick us up at 5:15. At the end of the short night I had a dream that I woke up and it was light out and I became psychotic, running around the house looking for a clock, but each clock I saw showed a different time. It was a relief to wake up in the dark to the crunching sound of the cat, who took a break from her deep resentment to visit the plate of Seafood Sensations on the bedroom floor. 4:22, time to get up!

Because it's Oregon, it was pouring rain. Years ago we were bringing two boxes home from Bangkok and at the brand new airport our boxes were left out in a rainstorm that turned them into mush. At the San Francisco airport we poured them and their contents (all in plastic bags, fortunately) into huge ski transport bags provided by an airline counter agent. So I worried about our bikes in cardboard boxes in the rain. And about TSA opening them, pawing through, and then slapdash taping them back together and that they would be overweight (they weren't). That our Priceline tickets that always seem kind of bogus when you see Captain Kirk grinning at you from the transaction page would actually be tickets.

This definitely seems like more stuff than usual.
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Shouts to the airport transport team!
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Shouts to the packing team, both bike boxes weighed under the 50 pound limit!
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Well, as usual my worries were just a manifestation of my excessive enthusiasm. This trip had taken a lot of preparation for a multitude of reasons and once we saw the boxes disappear into the chute and had our boarding passes in hand, I realized that once again, things on these trips usually take care of themselves and I was allowed to be a happy and carefree traveler again.

And a fond farewell to the carpet at the Portland Airport (so beloved that it has its own Facebook page) which will be replaced in February.
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Except.

When we got to our gate I opened my email and it had a message posted 3 minutes prior from my credit card company saying my card had been compromised and it was now frozen. I was supposed to call them, what! We are not bringing a phone. I know, how 2008 is that? There had been debate about phones right up until yesterday afternoon, you know, so we could get away from technology. You know how much technology we have with us? A lot.

I ended up Skyping the company in San Francisco and they said they would send a new card to my destination. To Burma? I had this vision of the envelope with my new credit card in it clipped to one of the "mail strings" that hang at sidewalk level from balconies all over Yangon. I don't think so. So it was decided that I would call them again after our month in Myanmar and back in Thailand.

Mind you, little friends, this is after me spending 45 minutes on the phone with my card company a couple of weeks ago just to set up my travel notices. Now I have to get a new card in a foreign country and then set up that new number with any of my recurring payments I use that card for. Which they will notice I'm trying to do from a small SE Asian nation and probably shut the thing down again!

So how did this happen? You know that little chip in your new credit card, the one that is supposed to improve security? Yeah, that one. Somebody in the airport used their stealth card chip reader and did a test charge of $1.35 at a hotel in Boston and the card company noticed that and shut 'er down. Incredible. The more I think about it the madder I get. Seriously. I had been in the airport less than twenty minutes!

I sat looking at the tarmac in my travel clothes with my travel buddy and thinking deep thoughts. I was leaving my home at great sacrifice and planning and scrimping to go to a place where people have very little. They never have to do things like this, tangle with this kind of paranoid "guard my treasure" thinking, right? My version of Myanmar has sweet people in bamboo hats and longyis, faces patterned with exotic thanaka paste, calling out hellos and driving oxcarts and so on. The first KFC is opening up in Myanmar soon and Coca-Cola will surely be shoving Lemon Sparkling and Orange Fantasy aside, should I warn them about the techno-angst ahead?

Ah, the luxury of first-world problems.

People in Myanmar are one superstitious parliament away from destitution. Do you know why foreigners have to bring crispy clean American dollars with them? Because in the not-that-distant past the astrologers told the government to change all currencies to multiples of nine and overnight all savings were lost. Currencies have returned to normal but Burmese remember that, and put their trust in God, Gold, and Greenbacks. They plant and grow and thresh their daily bowl of rice by hand, carry things on their heads, walk miles every day to school and work. They can't afford the most rudimentary health care. Corruption is endemic, journalists are still being jailed.

I haven't even started this journey yet and I've already put the card before the cart.

Meanwhile, this plane is winging its way to Seoul. I've watched a lot of movies that my students told me to, so Disney and "The Fault in Our Stars" it was. They ran out of Western Main Dish and I had Bipimbap for lunch and it was amazing, although what I thought were crispy shallots were actually tiny dried fish, which I ate whole and loved, eyeballs and all. Bruce is being a goofball on the plane as usual, putting his Asiana airlines slippers on his hands and asking if I thought they would provide anything for our feet. It's great. I love travel and I'll stop worrying and solve the problems I can when I can and if I can't would somebody out there step up and pay the water bill, please? Crisp new bills preferred.

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Ron SuchanekGreat line: "...worries were just a manifestation of my excessive enthusiasm"
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6 years ago
Jacquie GaudetJust reading this now. I had no idea "the astrologers told the government to change all currencies to multiples of nine". When I visited Burma (as it was then called) in 1986, I received a 27 kyat note in change at some point and saved it. What a weird denomination! I am still upset that it was stolen out of my bag later in my trip, more so than about the $50 US note that was also taken. At the time, the official exchange rate was about 7 kyat to the USD and the black market rate was around 18.
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4 years ago
Andrea BrownTo Jacquie GaudetThat 27 kyat note would have been an incredible souvenir, no wonder you were upset. We did see old banknotes for sale in antique shops now and then, though. Did you have to buy FEC's? Those were still around in the early 2000s, and really added to the currency fun. It was a real jolt on this trip to change money at an actual, (non-shady-black-market-gold-shop) bank/ATM.
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4 years ago
Jacquie GaudetIn 1986, the conventional behaviour was to purchase a bottle of Johnny Walker Red and a carton of 555s at the duty-free shop as you left Bangkok (I did this against my conscience since I am virulently anti- smoking) and trade them for black-market kyats on arrival in Rangoon. One fellow I ended up sharing a taxi with did this while waiting in the line to do his official exchange.

On arrival, you were required to purchase a certain amount of kyats at the official rate and this was recorded on a sheet. All accommodation and transportation purchases were also to be recorded on this sheet to ensure that you exchanged enough money officially to cover your expenses while in Burma and then this sheet was to be submitted as part of the exit process.

It was easy enough to use your black market kyats for food and souvenirs, though I have to say that food wasn't always easy to find for tourists. Burma at that time is the only country I've visited where I didn't enjoy the food. But then, you were only allowed to stay 1 week and your first and last nights were required to be in Rangoon.
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4 years ago
Andrea BrownBruce tells a very similar story from 1979, it was so difficult then that he almost decided to never go back. But we're glad that he did, 20 years later.

Food is still pretty touchy in Myanmar, as far as I'm concerned. We ate well at a fancy restaurant with our friends, everything was clean and delicious. But out on the road we were really careful and yet still ended up getting sick. I do like Burmese food, but not as much as Thai or Vietnamese.
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4 years ago