My second Saturday night in Rangoon

My second Saturday night in Rangoon, Burma. Unlike the exhilaration of last week, this evening I felt quiet and drained, partly from an overdose of dust and garbage and bad smells from the three hour train ride on what Derek and I named the Poverty Express and partly exhaustion from a hungry body crazing substantial sustenance. Several violent bouts of diarrhea and vomiting earlier that week had left my stomach traumatized and sensitive and seeing rotting garbage strewn throughout stinking black water and fly-blown fish by the side of the train tracks had definitely put me off another Burmese dinner. So there’s only so much cheap beer one can stomach and only so much dust and bad smells a body can take before the abused senses retaliate in protest. Neither of us felt up to the effort it would take to blend in to the crowd wining and dining inside the glimmering Traders Hotel, nor did we want to subject ourselves to watching Rhianna's big screen debut in the air conditioned cinema. In the end, Derek went back to his guest house to drink more cheap beer and I did something I hope I’ll never be caught doing back home… stalking the isles of the only Western supermarket in town and buying bright packets of sealed sugary snacks, biscuits, an icy pole, yoghurt and a little bottle of milk to take home to eat in bed while I read my book. Food, oh single serving Western food, no flies, not deep fried, manufactured somewhere out of sight and out of mind where I can happily imagine smiling attendants with rubber gloves over their freshly washed hands.

Still, while I lie on my double bed, my stomach full, freshly showered and enjoying my air conditioning, I’m thinking of the millions of Burmese who haven’t benefited from the suspension of sanctions, who haven’t been granted import permits for the newest round of Japanese cars, who haven’t seen a penny of the money being spilled on the bars at the Traders Hotel by foreign investors and the tycoons who rule Burma’s small business world.

The men and women we saw today up to their waists in filthy black water patiently harvesting water spinach, the oiled-muscled coolies hoisting huge sacks, the children in filthy clothes and rubber sandals picking their way through the piles of rubbish, searching for anything worthwhile amongst the waste. Rangoon doesn’t even have a waste management system, yet three different and equally brightly coloured donut shops have sprung up on the block. Most of its citizens have never even owned a car, not with 160 per cent import tax plus thousands more in bribery and fees for import permits, yet somewhere on the outskirts of the city is a huge scrapyard piled high with the carcasses of old jalopies, freshly pulled from the streets of Rangoon and replaced with newer, shinier Japanese imports.

The old jalopy graveyard outside of Rangoon... The government launched a program to remove old, inefficient vehicles last  September and the streets are filling up with newer Japanese models.

 When I visited in January, the first thing I noticed was the piles of rubbish and filth gathered in the dimly lit streets. Rats the size of kittens sauntered across the street and skittered into stinking drains. Old jalopies gathered dust by the side of the road or belched and farted their way along, adding to the perpetual bluish fog which stings the eyes and cracks the lips. Today, the jalopies are gone, Rangoon’s main streets strangely tidy, cinemas have sprung up side by side showcasing crappy American films and the cheap, 300 kyat (30 cents) cola and lemonade varieties replaced by multinationals Coca Cola and Spite for more than three times the price. A mug of Myanmar draft beer is 600 kyat, yet a can of Sprite costs 1000. There’s a French patisserie, retail outlets selling labelled cotton t-shirts for $30 and Samsung opened a shiny new store today in a blast of music and blue and white balloons.

But what about life for those on the outskirts, far away from the glitz and glamour of the Traders Hotel? What’s really changed for those people, the working class, the poor who put their children to bed on bamboo mats, who can’t afford the luxury of a fan to keep the heat and mosquitoes at bay?

A man uses a handheld net to catch fish and shrimp. Rangoon has three donut shops, but no waste management system and the city's drains are the dumping ground for all household waste, which inevitably end up in the creeks and catchments where vegetables and fish are farmed.

A Burmese boy slumbers in his mother's lap as she reads a paper with democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi, affectionately known as the "Lady" on the cover.