lovelytravels

Considering the situation in Myanmar (formerly Burma), I feel lucky that we had an opportunity to visit back in 1986. At that time, the country went by Burma, and would issue seven-day only tourist visas. I had never really even heard of Burma until we got to Asia, fresh out of the Peace Corps, backpacks ready for six months of spontaneous, un-premeditated decisions. It sounded exotic and scary.

We made our way slowly across China, into Tibet, and down to Nepal, knowing exactly where we wanted to explore as we went along. Adventures were daily and the stories we had to tell racked up. When we got to Kathmandu, however, we felt unsure of what to do next. Our options were to go south to India, to head east, either to Burma or directly to Thailand or Vietnam, or to stay in Nepal trekking for a really long time. We did an elephant ride at the Indian border and crossed over for the day, overwhelmed by dust, heat, dirt and human bodies, making us think twice about India. We did a trek on the Anapurna circuit in Nepal while we chewed over our remaining options, and felt as if we were in a mule train of mostly Americans. That soured us on the trekking idea. No more mule trains, or at least one of a different kind.

We went for the covert operation, the black market mule train into Burma. Kathmandu offered a flight to Burma and it was a popular thing to do. Our friends who had been there told us two important things. First, they said, every backpacker and his brother trades currency on the black market because the rate was something huge: 14 to 1 or 20 to 1; I can’t remember, but it was the difference between our being able to afford to visit or not. We had done black market trading in China where we were got a modest seven to one and we knew it wasn’t that hard. Black market money changers made themselves known everywhere we went. The deal in Burma however was slightly different. There, you were to take in a bottle of whiskey and a carton of cigarettes, preferably Johnny Walker red and a carton of 555 cigarettes. There were other good options as well, but it was believed at that time that those products would fetch the most money.

The second thing was that, upon arrival in Burma, everyone was given a form on which your currency exchanges were marked at the bank, and all of your transportation and lodging costs were also recorded. Hence if you only changed $100 in currency, how could you spend $200 on train and hotel? For this, our friends told us that travelers had two tactics. One was to take a pen with every color of ink to forge the forms – i.e. 3’s turn to 8’s and 1’s turn to 7’s and so forth – and the other was to beg officials at various places, mainly lodging places to put down false amounts for what you paid, or leave the form blank. Travellers knew what these “forgiving” places were and quickly and secretly passed that information around.

The downside to all this was that you could get caught. We heard horror stories of officials making airplanes stop as they were on the runway ready to leave, and pulling off passengers who had cheated on their forms. We heard about people getting questioned and harassed and tricked. But mostly we heard about an unbelievably amazing country, a place where time had stopped for decades, where people were starved for outside goods and news, yet warm and appreciative although guarded, where miles of beautiful pagodas and British hill stations were still intact and where people lived simple lives and richness in life might come from things other than material goods, where travelers could go have a fancy lobster dinner on their last night with all of their remaining black market money.

So there we went carrying our cigarettes and whiskey just like every other traveller on the plane! The first person to offer us money for our goods was the customs official at the airport. We thought maybe it was a trick, so we passed. The second person was our taxi driver into town. There was no hotel available in Rangoon, a place that looked as if WWII had just ended, full of old cars and buildings in every state of disrepair. We got dropped at the YMCA along with scads of other backpackers and found a corner of the stage platform to roll out our sleeping bags. Some men there offered us money for our goods, which we finally accepted, as the price had continually gone up the farther away we got from the airport.

And so began our magical seven days, full of monks, golden pagodas, train rides through rice fields, British Hill stations, bike rides, hikes, avocado milkshakes, and the requisite final lobster dinner at the fancy Strand Hotel. We forged our forms and went on the last day to the window at the airport to get them checked off. My husband got through in two seconds, not even a glance. One of my numbers was messy, and the official stared at it for a long time. He went and showed it to another official, came back, looked at me, looked at the form and finally handed it back. I was free to go. I have never been so nervous in my life.

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