Sweaty streets and Chinese imperialism in Mandalay, Myanmar

Monks catch rides on scooters & bikes, even to the palace.
The Tatmadaw is the Myanmar military

I was in a bad way when I got to Myanmar, two years ago. Mental, emotional, spiritual, I was a wreck at every level of the human totem pole. In Mandalay I walked because I didn't know what else to do, around the palace island where banners bragged that the military would never betray the people, up Mandalay Hill where the eyes of Buddha's shrines told me nothing I was able to hear, and through the city, blasted by 100 degree heat and viscous humidity, a debilitated bustle in the baking streets. I relaxed into an intangible flow, accepting the nudges of imperceptible perceptions to choose my path.

Typical Mandalay street moment

It was a surprise when an inattentive right turn carried me away from buzzing motorbikes, coughing Mahindra trucks, and the haphazard community of people living and eating in the street. Here there were no clusters of low tables or blankets spread with knock-off manufacturing, no whir of chaotic movement and chattering voices.

The writing is just a bit of a give-away

Instead, spotless apartments rose in cemeterial silence around an inner courtyard created when they built a solid city block into an inward-looking fortress with only one entrance, gated of course, but the guard must have wandered off. And the heap of golden spires and red arches in the center could only be a temple, while behind me a fat padlock sealed the door to a classroom, rows of desks watched over by posters of Confucius.

Some sort of Chinese enclave. Where was everyone? At work? Not yet here? Vampires waiting for sundown? But then I realized I wasn't actually alone. Two mothers were on duty in the quiet heat. The first woman followed an imperious little boy riding a small bicycle with training wheels, bubble wrap still sheathing the bars of the frame. The second trailed a motorized car moving at a speed so slow it couldn't scare the pigeons, who eventually moved aside with desultory head wags, ambivalently monitored by the two egglike children placed in the seat. The buzz of the small motor only accentuated the breathless stillness of the place, the honks and hum of vivacious Mandalay kept away by concrete.

It's blurry because it was shot from the hip, since when is it
comfortable to take photos of strangers' children?

They ignored me and I stared at them. Not symbiosis, but not parasitism either. They were visitors here, as was I, and we were all filling a languid afternoon as best we could. And here, in the inherent intimacy of living quarters, they’d given me a glimpse of their present, as well as Myanmar’s.

Myanmar falls deeply under the umbrella of Chinese investment, with its geographic position, resources, and vulnerability. The country was changing, fast, with Mandalay on the forefront, the largest, closest city to the border, and I had stumbled into the bones of it. My tiny life might be in chaos, but the world at large was a semi-coordinated process, movement and progression, and that was a nice reminder, a nice distraction, a nice contrast.

I put my bag back on my sweaty shoulder and went looking for whatever I’d find next.

It's always a good time for a French vineyard

“You are going to Beaune?” said the French sisters, their fine Parisian brows lifting in Gallic surprise.

“Yes. Why? Is it...not nice?” My slight trepidation.

“Non non non!” They reassured. “It is very nice! It is just zat no one goes to Beaune. We only went zere last year, and we go everywhere in France. Vive la France!”

(Okay, I added that last part.)

After the frantic pace of Must-See Paris, often seen through an aftertaste of jet lag, our tours spend a night in French countryside tranquility. And what’s more French countryside than Burgundy? (Quiet down, Provence.) So why Beaune? A quick walk through the streets answers that question. It’s like a Museum of Adorableness. But real-life, not replicated. An Adorability Expo? And for bonus, you can see what happens when the region's wealthiest man (in a time and place where three out of four people lived in feudal poverty) begins to worry about his soul. (Spoiler alert: it sometimes involves drilling holes in people's skulls.)

But we have another reason.

Did you know French wine is classified not by grape (pinot noir, merlot, etc) but by the region where the grapes are grown? And that there are French words involved that have no English equivalent? And that there are fancy French certifications of quality and origin? And that Burgundy is a top region for wine production in the world? And that the Rick Steves people have longtime personal friends over there?

Our bus parks on the side of the road that winds past innocuous hills that produce world-famous wine, and when there is a break in the sparse traffic of spiderlike harvesting tower-truck-things, we walk across the warm pavement and up the long driveway between vines to the manor house that looks like, well, like something from a wine label.

Downstairs we feel the precise temperature that fosters optimal fermentation, see the stacks of barrels made from French oak (of course!), and notice the fine gray mold on the ceiling that affords the vintage its penicillin protection.

Upstairs we sit around a long table loaded with ripe fruit, potent cheese, fresh bread, and savory meats. The jambon persille was my favorite, despite looking kind of suspect with its herb-flaked jelly. And when the friendly hostess pours a glass of white wine, it's liquid sunlight. And when she pours the red, it's the personality of the land you're holding.

I don't really buy souvenirs anymore. But when even the un-certified stuff, humble beside the grand cru, tastes like Burgundy dreaming, I bought half a case. Vive la France!

Love that street art

I reckon I’ve seen “F_ck the police” spelled with darn near every vowel in the English language, in one country or another. On the one hand, it’s nice to see something bringing us all together, but on the other, isn’t there something a tad more creative we could be doing with our walls?

Let's not hide from the issue. (Penang, Malaysia)

I’m glad you asked.

When I hear the word “graffiti” I think of all the useless little vandals writing their names on things in a desperate attempt to stave off mortality. And that dreadful woman in Yosemite.

Granada

When I hear the phrase “street art” my mind takes a stutter-step towards judging the pretension of it, but then takes the kinder path, and jumps to Granada, Spain.

Granada

Or Penang, Malaysia.

Or the innumerable alleys and train tunnels where dead functional structures have become space for something more, some place to add another form of beauty, after all the trees have been cut down.

Berchem is not seen as the most beautiful part of Antwerp
but I always enjoyed the train station.

Going three dimensional in extremely
artistic Florence, and scaring a bus tour

Havana, Cuba is in on the game

We will keep fighting, I love it, in Panama City

The owners of this parking lot in Panama City said a guy
just showed up one day, painted this, and left.

France is on board for sure, near Place de Clichy, Paris

Rome hasn't been left out of the art world in 2000 years,
they're not about to start now.

(I take it as a given that Nature is the primary source of beauty for the human mind and spirit, with a secondary face that’s a bit more controversial, but we can talk about that some other time. Today I have to get out of my building before they spray the hallway for bed bugs. Joy!)

If museum-art somehow became the property of the wealthy, assuming it was not before, then I am deeply glad to see any artist who takes their gifts back to the people, no ticket required, no exclusion possible.

And if all else fails….  Feck the police?

Savory memories from a Malaysian Ramadan

Another bustling day, doing this and that but leaving those these and the other them for tomorrow, and there’s another quick peanut butter & jelly sandwich on my proximal horizon. Wouldn’t it be nice to hop out for quick and delicious food that was interesting, healthy (or at least mostly natural), and cheap? Not fast food, cuz screw that garbage, but… And suddenly the these and those of my To-Do List will have to wait: I’m on mental vacation.

A bowl of spicy laksa soup in Penang, Malaysia

Back to Malaysia, the rampant epicureanism of Penang, with its sweet treats and savory curries, where I sat back with a satisfied sigh, then startled at an approaching obstacle: Ramadan. Eating while backpacking is haphazard at best, and even harder during Ramadan, when restaurants are either closed during the day or tacky to visit. But not in Malaysia, 60% Muslim and 100% food-lovers. Malaysian Ramadan comes with special food markets, for those who are not fasting, or are but want to be ready for iftar, the ceremonial fast-breaking evening meal, usually eaten communally.

In Georgetown I swam among bubbling pots of Mamak (Muslim Indian) food and Nyonya, which blends Malay and Chinese. I remember ayam percik, the marinated chicken grilling over coals in the humid air, chipped bowls of the spicy noodle soup laksa, and the ikan bakar heavily spiced fish I found down by one of the wharves.

In Tanah Rata I stumbled on a market bulging with spiced meat and baked treats, and gestured wordlessly at un-fried spring rolls, little pastry balls filled with sweet paste, and slabs of murtabak, a type of pancake normally stuffed with spiced meat, but I opted for a vegetarian version with potato, egg, and corn, if I remember correctly.

My vegetarian murtabak in Tanah Rata

Many hungry Muslims will buy this delicious food at the markets, but are not allowed to eat it until iftar, so it is pretty callous to dig in when they can’t. This wasn’t much of a problem in heavily touristed and multicultural Penang, and in the Cameron Highlands I could easily sneak off with my treats and find a place with a view of green growing things, but in workaday Kota Bharu I was tormented by the sights in my eyes, the hunger in my stomach, and the desire to not be a tourist a’hole in my brain.

I didn't get a photo of my Buddhist savior, but I did get his
neighbor's squid collection later that night.

Then I found the Buddhist. With smiling eyes over a laughing grin he beckoned me inside the spare restaurant behind his stall, pointed first at the Buddha statue, then at a chair, and finally showed me the little bowl of food that he’d been eating when I walked up. Decadent co-conspirators, we dug into our lunch of rendang daging, a spicy beef dish with ginger, garlic, chilies, and turmeric among the mystery curry mixture. He served it over rice, which he cooked in a woven lattice of palm leaves.

That’s the danger of education via travel: your adjusted perspective will sometimes remind you of how incredibly good you have it… And sometimes it will make a perfectly good PbJ look like a mouthful of blah. I’ll take that double edged sword, as often and as wholeheartedly as I can.

But I’ll meet you at the market.

Romanticism, revolution, and Riesling, in Bacharach, Germany

Looking up to Stahleck Castle, your new
favorite youth hostel, Bacharach Germany

The most interesting thing about the Hotel Kranenturm is not that a very active German railway line passes a few meters from your room, periodically shaking the building with the thunder of gargantuan freight trains, or whirring with the relatively quiet hurricane whir of the passenger Deutsche Bahn. Because turn and look the other way, across the Rhine village of Bacharach, and see a vision of romanticism made manifest.

Stahleck Castle crowns the ridge, just waiting for Lord Byron, or at least a Bronte. The 12th century fortification belonged to archbishops, kings, and Holy Roman Emperors, and at least one real-life Romeo and Juliet saga when Konrad van Staufen’s daughter, though intended for the King of France, secretly wed Henry the Elder of Brunswick, son of Konrad’s sworn enemy, Duke Henry the Lion. If you made this stuff up it would be overwrought, but in a place like Bacharach, it’s history.

And history has been marching through Bacharach for centuries, as Stahleck Castle switched hands, bloodlines, and nationalities over and over until finally the French, always the French, blew it up in 1689. It lay in gothic ruin until the 20th century, when it was rebuilt as a youth hostel. The Nazis got in there and did their Naziness for awhile, but after the war it was returned to a youth hostel, and still is. Have you ever bunked in a 12th century castle? Get in line, it’s booked out pretty far in advance.

Stahleck Castle on top, the Werner Chapel further down,
and the modern church in town below

But back on March 15, 1689, when the French blew it up, more was destroyed than just the castle. Hunk of debris cascaded down the vineyard mountainsides to smash through the Werner Chapel, the uncompleted facade of which still stands with its empty-windowed sinister architecture. This was not a happy chapel, derived as it was from the death of a 16 year old boy in the 13th century which was disgracefully blamed on local Jews, leading to a wave of murderous pogroms in the area. A plaque now stands alongside the ruins with a prayer from Pope John XXIII for forgiveness of the actions of our misguided ancestors.

So much history in the walls of Bacharach, a town made powerful and wealthy by its position on the Rhine River, just downstream of the quartzite reef (the Binger Loch) that required merchants to use smaller boats to that point, then transfer their goods to larger ships in Bacharach. This trade brought immense wealth and power to the town, aided by the sneaky tactic that all the wine unloaded was then labeled as Bacharacher, spreading the town’s fame even further on waves of Riesling renown.

The view from my window

The heavy casks and crates were loaded and unloaded with a large crane, mounted on a tower of the city’s fortification wall. This tower was therefore known as the Kranenturm, the Cranes Tower, and when Rhine transport moved to the thunderous rails, the tower eventually became a hotel, where I slept the sleep of the blissfully exhausted for two nights in a 12th century room overlooking the Rhine Valley, full to its geographic and historic brim. So no, the cacophonous railway running outside is not the most interesting thing about the Hotel Kranenturm.

On the right bus, in Florence

“The Tuscan Frying Pan” had been in fine frying form all week, but at 8:00 AM the air was the sort of warmthy and goldeny and pillowy that makes so many people write books about this place. And what a place. From our hilltop vantage point, Florence spread out before us in its honey mustard tones and terracotta tiles, just another morning in the city that birthed the Renaissance.

The outside of Florence's iconic Duomo, with its
elaborate angles and characteristic coloration.

The clear focal point of the skyline was Brunelleschi’s Dome, and the attached cathedral that gave it a reason. At the end of the 13th century, wealthy Florence had begun that massive cathedral, along the way deciding to cap it with the largest dome on Earth. The only problem was they had no idea how to do that. They could stand in the Roman Pantheon, breathless in wonder and clueless at how it was done. But they began anyway.

After a century or so of rain and snow falling straight onto where the high altar was supposed to go, a cranky goldsmith with no architectural training, having lost the competition to design the baptistry doors across the street, instead solved the problem of the roof. After a thousand years when fear, brutality, and dogmatic religion had choked off intelligence, creativity, and progress, mankind was emerging into the light again, and you can see it when you look at Brunelleschi’s dome, 80 million pounds of brick and mortar reaching 30 stories up into the virginal heavens, built by men equipped with ropes, oxen, and...I dunno...wine.

Looking down at the Duomo, I could trace the fashionable Via dei Calzaiuoli down to the cathedral’s secular rival, the tower of the Palazzo Vecchio, where the Medici family ruled, their arrogance and ability (and daughters) taking them from a local clan to a continental powerhouse. I knew that in the shade of the Palazzo was the Loggia dei Lanzi, the public square converted into a statue museum, where Michelangelo’s David originally stood. Glancing over a fraction I could judge where the Accademia sat, the current home of that seminal masterpiece.

And there was the Ponte Vecchio, with all its history and character, Medici Grand Dukes, Mussolini, and modern lovers all leaving their marks on a bridge so beautiful even the Nazi’s didn’t have the heart to blow it up.

And next to it, the Uffizi Gallery, where one of our excellent local guides had taken us through the centuries when mankind rediscovered beauty. With context, accessible erudition, and a passionate art-lover’s eye, he’d made me understand why The Birth of Venus is so famous, then did the same with a couple of Da Vinci’s precious few paintings and the only finished panel painting by Michelangelo.

I could see up past the Piazza della Repubblica to the neighborhood where we’d eaten a delicious Florentine meal, from the panzanella tomato and bread salad (made with the special Tuscan salt-less bread) to the savory pasta and luxurious meats that inspire so many raving chapters and satisfied belches. Then around the corner to the bar where we’d discovered that Bohemian Rhapsody goes well with chianti.

Just standing alone in front of the tomb of
arguably the greatest artist in the history of
the human species. Basilica di Santa Croce

My eye had barely made it to the Basilica di Santa Croce, where I’d stood alone and in awe before the tombs of genius, when a flurry of sharp elbows and shoving shoulders barged through. Other populous nations are joining the tourism circuit, and space is growing scarce. But my spirit was full of Florence’s beauty, so I ambled back to our bus, which sat beside the pushy people’s ride. That group? They were on a Paris-to-Rome tour too. But where I’d thought our pace was breakneck, they were doing it in half the time, just seven days.

“Seven days?!?” I asked my mentor, who had spoken with their guide. “How is that possible? What do they get to do?”

“Well, their experience of Florence? This is it. They drove here last night, stopped to take a photo, and now are driving to Rome.”

I could only shake my head and take one more glance at the city where we’d taken a fascinating Renaissance walk, toured one of the best museums in the world, eaten Tuscan food in a quintessentially Florentine restaurant, sampled wine from a hole-in-the-wall down a sidestreet, helped our nervous 18 year old get his Italian haircut, shopped for souvenir paintings in the shadow of the Duomo, then taken a break in a backstreet bakery with the best “Torta della nonna” (Tuscan pine nut cake) I’d ever tasted.

Much to my chagrin, I see now that I was so focused on tour guiding that I forgot to take
my own shot of the city. But this blogger did a better job than I would have anyway.

Turns out I like Germany after all, in Munich

Why don't more cities have these?

“Put your hand up, put your damn hands up!

Tonight is my life, because tonight I’m a sinner!

Keep your hands up, keep your damn hands up!

Tonight is my life, it’s an assault on my liver!”

As these remarkably honest rock & roll lyrics launched out into the perfect warm June air above the chattering tables of university students and studiers-abroad, I thought “Maybe I like Germany after all.”

My first big trip, solo backpacking across Europe, began in Frankfurt. I remember rushing currents of people with purpose, reminding me that I had none (amazing how challenging it is to be unemployed) and a jet-lagged nausea at not knowing what to do with myself. I stayed three days, which was two too many, then a fourth, because the guy who sold me my train ticket didn't tell me it left from the other friggin train station. “I'm American! I'm amazed you have ONE giant station. I was not prepared for redundancies!”

Then, months later, I arrived in Berlin with a dirty sweatshirt and two pairs of jeans to find a city locked in ice. That first night it was seventeen degrees below zero, Celsius. “I'm Californian! I was not prepared for Hoth!” Other than that, years later Germany was the place where Belgians went to buy their diapers. Not sure why, but they're WAY cheaper over there.

So when this tour guide job took me to Munich, I expected a good chance to focus on the work, less distracted by the place than I'd been in the beauty of Switzerland or at the tables of France. But Munchen had surprises in store for me.

Like the Marienplatz, with its jovial Germans and Neo-Gothic New Town Hall that convincingly looks like the sort of place some serious medieval shit went down, despite only being a mere century old. And the Viktualienmarkt where stalls were selling cheese, wine, and produce in true European splendor. And the Frauenkirche, consecrated in 1494, one of the few genuinely old buildings in Munich. Why so few old buildings in a city with such an ancient feel? As with most German cities, Munich was pretty much leveled by the end of World War II, but the American bombers had used the church’s spires to navigate their bombing runs, so left them pristine among the rubble. After the war, the broken cities faced the question: “Do we rebuild as it was? Or take this opportunity to modernize?”

Viktualienmarkt produce

Frankfurt chose to modernize, and is now another stack of right angles and capitalist fortresses, the town where I was bored and desperate. Munich went the other way, rebuilding instead of replacing, and preserving substantial portions of urban land for green spaces. This was the city where I marveled at spires and statues, fountains and pedestrian thoroughfares, but it was one of those green spaces that really made me love Munich. Appropriate, since from 2006 the city's motto has been “München mag dich” (“Munich loves you”).

Guten tag, Englischer Garten!

The English Gardens are 910 acres (larger than NY's Central Park) of urban parkland where on a sunny Thursday evening, hundred of Munichites were lounging on towels and grass, listening and making music, eating drinking and laughing with friends. It was gorgeous. And, being Bavaria, there are not one, not two, but three beer gardens in the park.

My mentor/friend and I bicycled through the park and took two of the 7,000 seats in the Chinese Tower beer garden. We didn't think our trays of giant beers, saucy bratwurst, potatoes, green salad, giant pretzel, and kaiserschmarrn (shredded sweet pancakes with powdered sugar and sweet apple sauce on the side) was that unusual, but the German couple next to us ogled it and asked in beautiful Bavarian accents “Really? You are going to eat all of zis?”

Because the only thing better than eating a banana
with a spoon is surfing in the middle of a city.

Yes, yes we did. Then rode back, pausing to watch the surfers. Because yes, there are surfers in the park in landlocked Bavaria. It's München, baby! Then we browsed the streets of the World's Most Livable City, according to Monocle in 2013, and when we heard music thumping out of another beer-gardeny spot on the university campus, why not?

Perfect temperature, belly full of good food, historical and contemporary vibrancy, and friendship everywhere, Munich was a pretty nice place to be. The assault on my liver was just bonus.

I'd seen Switzerland, but not like this

Staubbach Falls, the type of place
I find evidence of the divine.

Sure, technically I’ve been to most European countries, but not exactly in the same style. As a grungy backpacker I ate greasy kebabs and slept on the couch of a wonderfully lunatic girl I met in Prague. As a Rick Steves tour guide? Oh, we just stay in a little Alpine chalet of blond wood, homemade fondue, and a view out my window of the Staubbach Falls that starts as lace but ends as mist after falling 974 feet off the side of the preposterously scenic Lauterbrunnen Valley. No biggie.

And if that place is booked, we move to another chalet, more homemade fondue, more gorgeous views, but closer to the cable car that (Did I not mention this?) will take us up 1,568 feet from Stechelberg to Gimmelwald. Impressive? As we rise into the cloud cover and look down the Wagnerian Lauterbrunnen Valley, you bet your hintern it is!

Then from Gimmelwald, another cable car takes us up a further 768 feet to Murren, where children run, ride, and presumably ski through the early morning light to school among avalanche protection tripods and evergreen conifers that stand equanimitously tranquil in both snow and sun.

All done? Nope, the next one rises an impressively steep 3,445 feet to Birg, where the air is noticeably chillier when you step out onto the Birg Skyline Walk, where the terra firma ends long before a metal grating that lets you see the cliff dropping away below your feet, and only then do you reach the clear plexiglass that lets you look straight down, only hazily encumbered, into the vertiginous expanse of glacial geologic debauchery.

Looking out behind the Schilthorn, the direction generally considered less scenic

The exclamation mark proves they mean it.

Now to the actual destination. The last cable car rises another thousand feet or so to reach the Schilthorn. From there, at nearly 10,000 feet, you can look across the Bernese Alps to the storied peaks of the Mönch, Eiger, and Jungfrau, and walk along the ridge line, past where the marvelously redundant sign warns “You are now entering an area where hazards inherent to mountain regions may occur!” Just in case you hadn’t noticed.

Looking down at Birg from the Schilthorn, the least
spectacular of the four cable car rides to get there.

And if neither the view nor the revolving restaurant are quite enough to hold your interest? How about George Lazenby? You know, the Australian James Bond? The last one you remember on Trivia Night, and only remember when the cocky guy in the corner whispers it at top volume to his friends? Just watch On Her Majesty’s Secret Service before you come, then you’ll recognize all the scenes that were filmed here. That will make the Bond exhibit even more interesting, though even clueless, I still found the anecdotes of people losing limbs, pioneering film-making techniques, and drunkenly volunteering to ski into trees at 60 mph were pretty darn interesting. Oh, and the guy who had to hold up his own head by the hair after he broke his neck while filming. That story is excellent.

So yes, I’d been to Switzerland before. And yes, it’s totally different with a Rick Steves tour. And yes, you can come with us. And finally no, you won’t have to hold up your own broken neck on the way to the doctor. That’s what the guide is for.