City of My Heart: Part 2

So, a few months after we took our cousin to Tainan and Yanshui, I had the chance to return thanks to work. I was sent to Tainan for a seminar at an accounting firm, and fortunately it was on a Friday. As I have a fairly flexible schedule, I was able to arrange to stay for the weekend. I finished my seminar at 1pm, took a taxi to our hotel. It was a cute youth-ey hostel-y type place called Right Now B&B, a short walk from Chikan Towers but a bit north of the heart of the city - the actual hotel is nice in a 'young people vibe' sort of way, although the building it's in is a bit grotty. We booked this instead of Tung Ning, which I had liked, because the private rooms at Tung Ning seemed to already be booked out.

Something that never happens to me in Taipei: the manager, a young woman, was really beside herself as she had never met a non-Chinese person who could speak Chinese before. I was quite literally the first person who didn't look like her whom she had ever met who spoke her language.

I meet people who are surprised I can speak Chinese all the time in Taipei, but none who have truly never met another foreigner who could do so.

I set out from the hotel with lots of time to kill before Brendan arrived. I didn't want to do much as the weather was too damningly hot to be out and about. I wandered past the 2nd city god temple, the 縣城隍廟 (the famous one is on the other side of town and has a slightly different name - this one is north of Chikan Tower), where a friendly man showed me around and gave me his name card if I needed any help in Tainan. Interestingly, this temple boasts a pair of fortune blocks that are preserved where they last fell, as one of them had fallen on its side, rather than on its curved upper side or flat underside.

I wandered down past Chikan Towers - I didn't enter, as I'd been there just a few months prior - past a few other temples that I hadn't visited before. I popped into one and found this box of random temple paraphernalia on the floor by the tiger god idol:



As well as this dude who is a pretty bad-ass gangsta:



And the slightly creepy Tiger God himself:



This is terrifying:



But I love the photo opportunities at this Ximen Circle lantern-maker's shop.



I ended up, at the hottest part of the day, at the famous Taicheng Fruit Shop in the now super hip (in that distinctly Taiwanese hippie-organic way) West Central District. Taicheng serves handmade fruit ice cream - more like a sorbet really - served in half a cantaloupe.

HALF A CANTALOUPE YOU GUYS.

You get four choices of pre-selected combinations of ice creams. The most popular appears to be mango and grape, but other ones include dragonfruit, kiwi, lemon, banana and more. I am fairly sure I saw strawberry in one of the selections. I gather it changes seasonally to some degree based on what's fresh and available.

I got the well-loved mango grape:



AND LET ME TELL YOU IT WAS HARD NOT TO FACE PLANT INTO THAT THING AND JUST EAT IT LIKE A LABRADOR WOULD EAT A RASHER OF BACON (or to be honest, like I would eat a rasher of bacon).

Yummmmmmmmm

I ate it as my lunch, forgoing anything savory because it was just too hot to contemplate eating anything other than something ice cold. Be prepared though: there is usually a line. Best to go on a weekday if you can. This is not a quiet little place I discovered - it's firmly on the local foodie tourist's map and is one of the hottest food destinations in Tainan right now (so my seminar students told me).

Taicheng Fruit Store (泰成水果店)
#80 Zhengxing Road
West Central District, Tainan
台南市中西區正興路80號

I then wandered down to Shennong Street (神農街) which I discussed in the last post, only to find that, sadly, the place where I had had those delicious noodles - Vegane - seemed closed for good. Another well-known cafe, Funny Wenqing, was also closed permanently. As it goes...



I ended up at Taikoo (covered in the last post) where I could drink something cold and caffeinated and watch the young hipsters and tourists go by as I read up on learner autonomy for my article.



...before walking back to my hotel, via a shop that carves idols (presumably for temples). Faceless idols, I have to say? A bit creepy.



The next morning Brendan and I walked down the western end of Chikan Towers (Chiqian Street on some maps, Chikan Street on others?) looking for coffee, and found it here, at More Cafe:



Tainan is full of cafes and this one just happened to be the shortest walk from our hotel, but they do have a great selection and use good beans. They make a good cup, and are very close to one of Tainan's key tourist sites. Also, they have an adorable but standoffish shiba inu who only let me pet him on the 2nd day we came.

More Cafe 摩爾先生咖啡
Chikan Street #47, West Central District, Tainan
台南市中西區赤崁街47號

Almost next door is a place where downstairs they sell hand-designed jewelry (mostly silver) and upstairs they have a restaurant, coffeeshop and beer cafe, with 2 pet cats. Worth a look!

While we were hanging out at More on the first day, a processional passed by - this tiger god was going to visit the city god temple nearby (again, not the famous one). Brendan stuck around to enjoy his coffee and the air conditioning while I followed the temple parade.






Two spirit mediums were using this instrument to write "god characters" on a slate covered with sawdust, walking it over a fire just outside several times.



There was a Ji Gong (spirit medium who is said to be possessed by a monk who lived centuries ago - real person! - name Ji Gong, who was kicked out of his monastery for eating meat and drinking alcohol. He wandered the streets and dispensed spiritual advice, eventually becoming a god-like figure/immortal spirit himself).

This one was a friendly fellow who let me drink a fair amount of rice wine (the medicine gourds these guys carry when they become possessed are filled with real wine, and it is good luck to drink it).












A bit more wandering after I returned to the cafe to fetch Brendan brought us to this inert comedy dog:



Then we ended up at 開基天后宮 (Kaiji Matsu Temple), a small temple that, while not as famous as the major Matsu temple on the other side of Chikan Towers, is scenic, historic and quiet.


















We also passed a temple under restoration. If you were ever wondering how they put together those mosaic figures that top temple roofs, this is how:



South of the larger Matsu temple we found an old movie theater still in business, still using hand-painted posters, the Jinmei Theater (金美戲院)

Jinmei Theater (金美戲院)
#187 Sec. 2 Yongfu Road
West Central District, Tainan
台南市中西區永富路二段187號




Also this creepy-ass Line character head mannequin formal dress thing:



I took Brendan to Taicheng Fruit Store, because I just had to share how damn good it was. This time I got red dragonfruit, kiwi and lemon ice cream in HALF A CANTALOUPE YOU GUYS.



We walked around the market near Zhengxing Road, where a concentration of little shops and cafes has set up, before catching a cab to the Five Concubines temple （五妃廟）further south - the only temple in Taiwan with female door gods:



I don't think I need to google map link this one, it's one of the most famous temples in the city, erected to memorialize the five concubines of a late Ming dynasty official, Zhu Shugui, who hanged themselves in what is now the Matsu temple (the big one by Chikan Towers)  rather than be captured by Qing forces. Their grave is here, behind what is now the temple.

Notably, the shrine to the five concubines has some offerings that concubines would probably appreciate:



All of this going around in the heat tired us out, so we walked up to Narrow Door Cafe, （（窄門咖啡）close to the Confucius Temple. You walk in through an impossibly narrow alley, up some weird stairs and through the lobby to this place, which is wonderfully old-fashioned and seems to be a gathering place for people to talk civilly about politics (at least from the conversations I was overhearing from other tables).

Narrow Door
#67 Nanmen Road
West Central District, Tainan
台南市中西區南門路67號






The next morning we went back to the same cafe, noting the random urban rooster along the way:



We then hopped a cab to the north of the city to Kaiyuan monastery in the north of town, a little far to walk. It's a peaceful place with a few areas where you can sit and relax, and friendly monks and nuns. There is also an old well and a statue of the last Japanese governor (I'll go double check exactly who and then update here) in a side room.









We met a Scottish friend down by the Five Concubines temple again but this time walked a short distance to the Fahua Monastery, which is in a rather striking state of disrepair in parts.









Before walking north past the large Koxinga shrine, where I made my usual wish, now sprinkled across various temples in Taiwan:



But my wish was not as cool as Ivan's wish.



Rock on, Ivan. Rock on.

We had dinner (Zhou's Shrimp Rolls, originally from Anping, there's a franchise not far from the train station) with our friend before he went off to a baseball game with other friends.



We then walked to the Lin Department Store, because there is a cafe on the top floor where we could get dessert and beer, passing a few interesting things on the way, including this hideous church:



And a smaller Koxinga shrine which I think is prettier lit up at night:






The Land Bank's exterior is also creepy and cool at night, with BATS. Terrifying, squawky bats.



All in all, fun times. What I liked was the chance to just chill, not cart ourselves around to all sorts of different things and places unless we felt like it. That's the true magic of Tainan - it's a city, but it's relaxing. You can go there and chill. 

Two Ideas, One Humanity

I've been discussing two separate issues with various people in the past few days which, on the surface, seem unrelated. The first is the difference between judging a person as sexist vs. judging a place to have issues with sexism: "has marriage to a Chinese man changed your feminist views?" (short answer from the blogger: no), and the second: more Chinese tourists are visiting Taiwan as the popularity of Hong Kong fades (and the Taiwanese are not that happy about it). 

In the first, the main takeaway is that while there are issues with women's rights in China (and everywhere - the US is certainly not off the hook. Taiwan may have more issues with sexism than the USA but in Taiwan I don't think twice about walking anywhere, at any time, alone. In the USA I do), that the author's Chinese husband is himself a feminist and his family basically agrees with the idea of respect for both genders. My thoughts - it is, as ever, important to judge individuals based on who they are, not to measure them against a stereotype, even if (and this is important), there is truth to that stereotype. And there is truth - I doubt few rational people would argue that there are issues with sexism and women's rights in China, and those issues are more severe than many other countries. In China I heard such wonderful nuggets of anti-wisdom as "it's fine if a woman is clever but if she's more clever than her boyfriend or husband, he will lose face, so she should pretend to let him be smarter." (I feel like adding a Game of Thrones style "it is known" to the end of that line of bullshit), or "it's fine if a woman has a job, but if she earns more than her husband, that is bad for him and the marriage", or "a man never beats a good wife, so if a wife gets hit, it's her fault" (I REALLY heard that), or "it's the nature of men to play around, it's the job of women to forgive them".

It can really wear a person down. Goodness knows it's worn me down. At times it can feel like a barrage, a sexist tidal wave, an inescapable minefield in which, as you cross, you are also being shelled and mortared. And yet, despite that, it's important to judge people as individuals. It's difficult to keep in mind - and I will admit sometimes I've slipped - but everyone, from any culture, deserves the respect to their humanity of being judged independently of that.

And yet, I will make no concessions to "culture" or assume that those who have these sexist ideas - and there are many - think that way because of "culture". I feel, strongly, that gender equality vs. sexism is not a question of "culture", it's a universal issue, and any given culture is capable of not incorporating sexism while retaining its core. Western countries used to be a lot more sexist than they are now (and they still are, let's not forget), but some things did change, and yet we are still American or Canadian or Australian or whatever. Taiwan has made greater strides in gender equality than China (with some exceptions), and yet Taiwanese culture is still Taiwanese. You could even say that that difference is one of the distinguishing characteristics of Taiwanese culture. India also has deep issues with sexism, and yet an Indian feminist is no less in tune with Indian culture than some sexist douche lord who beats his wife because his "culture" says it's his "right as a husband" to do so. If sexism is tied to culture at all, it's a shallow tie, and something that can be excised without upending the entire culture.

So, I just reject that whole "it's a culture thing" line of reasoning. If anything, I feel that disrespects people's humanity. It's a fancy way of saying "poor things, they don't know any better". Nope, nope, nope. Grown-ass adult humans are capable of rationality, and gender equality is about rationality, not culture. I prefer to respect someone's humanity by believing they are capable of the rational thought that maybe it is bad to hit one's wife.

With the second issue, the debate centered around Chinese tourists coming to Taiwan in tour groups that litter, don't stop people from smoking indoors (seen it myself), create massive noise pollution, spit on the street, occasionally muss up bathrooms or 'do the needful' in public areas (I saw a tour group member pee against the outside wall of Eslite Dunhua a few months ago) and commandeer space (have you tried visiting Alishan, Sun Moon Lake, Taipei 101 or the National Palace Museum recently? Those places are basically ruined for locals or any other visitor who is not in a massive Chinese tour group).

One side of the debate initially made sense - it's not right to reduce Chinese to dirty, loud, littering walking wallets. They deserve more humanity than that. And that is very true. And it's also true that where they come from, it is fairly normal to, say, pee against a wall, litter with impunity, smoke indoors, spit anywhere you like and observe a very Darwinian model of public space (survival of the fittest - the largest group gets the space and puny individuals must always give way). I won't even deny that those are issues in China, because having spent a year in China, I know that they are. Some understanding of that can go a long way towards bridging resentment between the two sides, just as it would help a lot if Hong Kongers realized that the Chinese were buying all of their milk powder because they, like any other human being, want milk powder known to be safe for their babies. And of course one should be forgiving if a foreigner doesn't always know the local etiquette and makes a gaffe.

But that's where my agreement ends - after that it devolved into "where they come from it's normal to let your kids poop in the street, so they don't know that in Taiwan it's not done", or "if you lived through the outrage, oppression and poverty that they did, you might act the same way. If you hadn't been exposed to the outside world much you may not realize that in other places it's not okay to litter or spit."

Which, I'm sorry, but no. I won't get into how the tragedy that is 20th, and now 21st, century Chinese history has shaped local customs and etiquette in China, because it doesn't matter to me what they do - it's their country after all. But outrage, oppression and poverty are not reasons to ignore the etiquette of a country you are visiting. It is best if a host is generous and forgiving, but it's on the guest to be as polite as possible, to attempt to understand local norms and, accepting that they'll screw up sometimes, attempt to follow them. It's on them to educate themselves in how to act if they visit Taiwan, and on them to respect Taiwan's civil society (civil as in 'civics', not as in 'more civilized'). I can understand why the Taiwanese are upset - the change is observable. I no longer recommend the National Palace Museum to visiting friends because it's overrun with tour groups who force everyone else to wait 15 minutes or more to see one exhibit. Taipei 101 used to be a fine destination for light shopping and a coffee, now it's a nightmare. Sun Moon Lake is notably less pleasant than it could be, and forget a quiet sunrise on Alishan. There is more litter, there are more bathroom issues (standing on Western toilets, pooping all around the toilet etc), there is more spitting, and there is more smoking where it should not be happening, noise pollution and blocking of thoroughfares (although blocking thoroughfares is also a problem in Taiwan generally), and previously nice shopping areas are being overrun with stores catering to Chinese tour groups that no local wants to shop at. And as I see it, it's up to the Chinese visitors to know that these things are not okay. It's not the responsibility of the Taiwanese to smile and take it, as they're always expected to do.

Any visitor from any country, if they have the money and ambition to travel, has it on their shoulders to do their best in terms of local etiquette and not assume that things work the same way in this new country as they do in their own. Chinese tour groups are not exempt from this.

And that, to me, respects their humanity more than "well they don't know, in their country it's normal". Of course it is not right to deride individuals - they are not "dirty", "irrational", "walking wallets" etc. - rather than certain behaviors and larger group dynamics that are causing problems (I consider the noise pollution and the space blocking to be group dynamic rather than individual issues, and I daresay they need to be addressed no matter what nationality the group tour is from). But it's also not right to say "they don't know any better!" - come on. They're grown-ass men and women. They are quite capable of knowing very obvious things like "don't litter while abroad" and "if there is a 'no smoking' sign, don't smoke. Better yet, check and see if smoking is legal in certain areas and if it's not, don't smoke in those areas".

I also don't think 'kids pooping in the street' and 'spitting and littering' are 'cultural'. It's not disrespecting someone's culture to say that these things cause issues with public health. When - not if, but when - kids' street poop, spitting and littering stop being common in China, China will still be China and Chinese culture will still be Chinese culture.

Like with sexism, this is an issue for rationality, not culture. And if you really want to respect someone's humanity, respect that they are smart and rational enough to either know these things, or learn them quickly.

Nyaungshwe, Kakku and Inle Lake in Photos

This is one thing that really bugged me about Burma, and which bugs me about religion in general. There's this idea that men are closer to Nirvana than women in Burmese-style Buddhism (which I believe is of the Theravada school? But don't ask me) and so there are temples and shrines that men may enter but women may not, or that men may get closer to, and women have to stay back from.

I know, I should be openminded and whatever, but no. I call BS. I don't really care if someone's religion says that women are somehow less than men, it doesn't mean that belief is any less sexist. It just means that religion's creed includes teachings that are sexist. The veneer of religion doesn't make it any more acceptable, or any less bigoted/misogynist.

Plus, hey man. Pretty sure Buddha himself never said anything about women being lower on the rung of reincarnated beings than men, and plenty of Buddhist deities are either androgynous and sometimes depicted as women - like Guanyin - or, and I'm pretty sure I'm right about this - are all-out female.

Kind of like, in the USA, when people use "Christianity" to claim that women shouldn't do whatever thing, or they should act a certain way, or they should submit themselves to men, or that they can't be leaders, or that they can't have control of their own bodies and healthcare. Uh huh, no. First, just because you claim your religion says as much doesn't make it not sexist - it's just that your religion has sexist teachings and so your belief in those teachings is also sexist. And second, the Bible says all sorts of things, but Jesus himself never said any such thing, so I call bullshit on that idea anyway.

So I guess we can mark Burmese Buddhism as yet another religion I am not interested in participating in, because I won't participate in religions with sexist teachings or rules. That and the whole not believing there is a higher power thing, too.

Phew. Anyway.



At Inle Lake, the cost of accommodation on the lake is currently stratospheric - and being the high season, isn't negotiable. So we stayed in the pretty little tourist ghetto of Nyaungshwe. It wasn't bad - lots of amenities and tourist infrastructure, had its own interesting things to see, lots of food choices which was great given the state of my digestive system - but don't think for a second that Nyaungshwe is indicative of what Burma, generally, is like. Far from it. And after a couple of days I was sick of it and really couldn't wait to get out.



On our first day there, we arrived via the dreaded night bus. I got sick on the night bus - not motion sickness, although the winding mountain roads certainly didn't help. It was something else, that had me puking for half the night - yes, into bags, which I then had to deal with until the bus stopped and I could throw them away - and left me with a mild fever the next morning. Unfortunately, we had another 4am arrival which involved another overpriced taxi ride into town (I think they do this on purpose) but I was sick and not in a position to argue.

You pay your admission into the Inle Lake tourism zone here - $10 US dollars which goes straight to the military junta (YAY.) and they collect it from you in the most annoying way possible - kids with tickets accost you when you get off the bus at 4am insisting you hand them $10 or the equivalent in Burmese kyat, at 4am when you're disoriented, cold, also accosted by taxi drivers and have barely slept or just been shaken awake (take your pick). You might almost be convinced the whole thing is a scam and no such fee exists, because it's collected in the shadiest, least reputable way possible, but it is, in fact, a real thing.



Our hotel had no beds for that "night" - they seemed surprised that we didn't want to walk around a deserted, freezing, unfamiliar town at 4am while I had a mild fever (huh! ya think?) and that we'd rather find another hotel for a few hours or curl up in the lobby somewhere. The owner finally kindly pointed us to a nearby hotel that did have a quick room we could check into for a few hours. I slept off my fever, choked down the free breakfast - not that it was bad, I was just sick - and slept again until it was check out time, at which point we trudged back to the hotel we'd reserved. We met a friendly couple named Dick and Florence and arranged to share a boat with them for a lake tour the next day.

At about 3pm I finally felt like I was able to walk - slowly - around town, so we checked out a few temples, stupas, a local soccer game between kids' teams, walked past some souvenir shops and travel agencies, and then I managed to very slowly eat a plate of gnocchi in tomato sauce and a can of soda water.



That stayed down (yay!) so we walked some more until sunset, when I took photos of the temples and stupas in silhouette (above).

After another rest - lots of resting that day - we walked down to Green Chili, a touristy Thai restaurant which was breezy, with large open windows and verandahs, and beautifully decorated in marble, shell, rattan and teak. It was very Southeast Asian Contemporary Chic. I got a nice bland plate of pad thai and something fizzy to settle my stomach.

One thing that bugged me was that at places like this in other countries - Thailand, India, China, Guatemala even - you'd see upscale or even mid-range tourists (and Brendan and I are solidly mid-range now, our roving backpacker budget days are over) at such places, but you'd also see well-to-do locals there, or young modern couples on dates, too. Cafe Mondegar in Mumbai gets as many local visitors as it does foreign ones. The very nice traditional Malayali homestay we booked in Kerala had young, well-heeled local couples staying there too. Guatemala Antigua's best restaurants have local clients. Some of the nicer places I went to in Bangkok were just as full of well-to-to Thais. Nicer restaurants and shops in Shanghai had wealthy locals sampling their wares. In Burma that simply was not the case. Although there are some very wealthy Burmese (most of them have questionable relationships with higher-ups in the military), generally speaking the upscale touristy places only had foreign patrons, and never had any local ones.

And that says a lot about the local economy and standard of living.

On the other hand, while these nicer places exist solely for tourists - locals clearly just can't afford them - they do provide employment that would not otherwise be available if they did not exist. At Green Chili, for instance, while I am certain none of the staff could actually afford to eat at the place where they worked, they all looked put-together, well-fed and rested. They had incomes. They might not have that if Green Chili didn't exist.



The next day we boarded a boat for Inle Lake. Fishermen with "traditional" nets and boats hang out where the Nyaungshwe canal meets the lake, posing for you and soliciting tips in return. Hardly the rural, idyllic, traditional community you might expect (or that the photos imply) but on the other hand, locals do deserve to gain from the tourists visiting their lands.







We went to Nampan Market, which was great once we ran the gauntlet of souvenir shops - the back end of the market where locals shop was interesting. To get there we had to not only climb out of our boat but also clamor over other people's boats.



And at the souvenir stands, you can see all manner of fake crap. Or maybe this is real, and it doesn't matter that it says "Five Dollars" in Chinese but "One Dollar" in English! :)



Although some of the souvenir stall crap was actually very pretty, I was not in the mood to bargain for its true worth (because you know they'd insist it was real silver and therefore worth tens of dollars, when in fact it's plated nickel and worth maybe $2) and, honestly, can make most of that beaded stuff myself anyway.







We also got taken around to all the local "factories" that showcase traditional industries. I have to wonder how traditional these workshops are, or even how traditional the goods are - I'm sure they're locally traditional to somewhere, but I'm not convinced they're all local to Inle Lake. But the weaving "workshop" was nice enough, and I got a pretty peacock blue silk scarf for a good price (real silk as far as I can tell, but I'm pretty good at telling).







We also went to Inthein, where we saw more stupas (I was getting a little sick of stupas and Buddhas to be honest) and the Jumping Cat Monastery where the cats no longer jump - differing accounts say the monks got sick of the tourists encroaching on their eating and prayer time, or that the original cat trainer died. But it was pretty nonetheless.













Also - "Surprise!" brand men's boxers.

I wonder what the "surprise" is. it is a size large, after all.

...surprise!



We boated through the floating gardens as the sun set, which was lovely...





...and headed back into town.

The next day we hired a taxi to Kakku, an area with yet more stupas, with the idea that we'd go to the Taunggyi wet market and stop at a few Pa'O villages (Pa'O being a local ethnic minority) on the way.

And we did do that, and it was nice, but Kakku is basically more stupas, and the villages are basically more villages.





Honestly speaking, I was starting to tire of villages because, while they're nice to visit when people are welcoming or you have a reason to be there, after awhile I felt like we just didn't have a reason to be there. I felt like an intruder, an encroacher. Like I was wasting people's time. During the day they tend to be empty anyway, as most households are out tending their farmland. Although nobody was ever unfriendly - in fact, most were curious and thought it was a riot that we were there - I did, after awhile, feel like I was just some rando who was all "hey can I check out your living room?" or taking a photo of a guy with a plow and a bull, like "I'm gonna take a picture of you working!"

And I felt like, how would it be if a bunch of tourists from some other country got on a tour bus and stopped in the "village" of my hometown in upstate New York. And some of them hired a taxi to rove around the country roads, and decided my parents' house was picturesque, and knocked on the door and were all "hey we're just visiting, can we walk around your yard and take some photos! It's so lovely and traditional and picturesque!" and then wanted to take a picture of my mom on her computer in the living room doing her job. Maybe they could go to my dad's office and take a picture of him talking to his boss.



So even though we had a Pa'O guide, who was welcome in basically any Pa'O home, and it was totally not a big deal, I did start to feel like exploring local villages was getting a bit...silly. Although Grandma here seemed to enjoy having her photo taken. She posed very seriously.



And to go to Kakku, you have to have a Pa'O guide. You don't actually need one to get the point of the place - a bunch of ancient stupas in the countryside - but you won't be allowed to go without one, because the stupas are on Pa'O land. I don't mind that at all - if you've got a popular cultural relic on your land, your people deserve to benefit from that and from those who'd like to see it (only foreigners need the guide: it's free for Pa'O and non-Pa'O Burmese alike). And while I suppose you could choose not to eat lunch, if you do eat at Kakku your only choice really is a Pa'O restaurant (run by Pa'O - it's not Pa'O food. In fact most of it is "Chinese style" food) that, while good, is a bit overpriced. Otherwise there's nothing for miles around and only a string of teahouses that don't appear to serve food nearby.





But our Pa'O guide was a nice kid who had a locally-bound "copy" of Headway Upper Intermediate in his bag and was excited to practice his English, and we enjoyed hanging out with him.





Finally, we hired the driver who took us out there to take us to the two local vineyards - yes, Myanmar has at least two vineyards: Aythaya and Red Mountain.

All but one of the whites from these two vineyards were excellent (Red Mountain's blanc was far too sweet). I didn't really the red that Red Mountain served in their wine tasting, but Aythaya's red, though not earth-shattering, was good. We brought back a bottle of Aythaya red and Red Mountain white.





















In the end, Nyaungshwe was nice. Inle Lake was nice. Kakku was nice. I'm happy I went. But after a few days the touristiness was really starting to annoy me, and I wanted out. I needed out. Like a cat behind any closed door, I was desperate to get out.

Not because I think I'm "better" than other tourists. Not because I think my presence in a place is better than some other tourist's presence there, or that if I'm there it's "authentic" but if a tour group is there it's not.

More that lots of tourists in one place would be fine, if that place retained its own local culture. And some places do. New York manages to continue to be New York despite the tourists. Bangkok is the same way if you avoid Khao San Road (and I do!). Large cities can absorb large numbers of visitors, I guess.

But often, what you get instead is this international, homogenized, detached-from-local-reality "traveler's culture" that is basically the same in most of these spots. Nyaungshwe really wasn't any different from, say, Ayuthaya (Thailand), or Bukittinggi (Indonesia), or Yangshuo or Dali (China), or El Nido (the Philippines), or Hikkaduwa (Sri Lanka) or the various towns along the coast in Goa (India)...or how I imagine places like Manali, Rishikesh, Bali Island, Angkor Wat etc. are, although I haven't been to those places.

They're really not much different from each other, these places, although they once were quite unique indeed. Now it's all the same stuff - souvenir stands (sometimes selling the same souvenirs! I once saw a batik on the wall of a friend of a friend's house, which she bought in Thailand - exact same batik as the one I bought in Dali. As a joke I once bought Brendan a preposterously fierce-looking carved wooden mask at some shop near Lake Taal, and saw the same one for sale in Sri Lanka), "Italian" food (banana pancakes are passe, now it's all about Italian food for travelers in Asian countries), well-appointed Thai restaurants, travel agencies.

And if you've seen one traveler's ghetto, you've seen 'em all, so I was ready to move on. Not because I think I'm better than other travelers - my presence contributes to these places and their atmosphere after all - but because I didn't feel like I was getting anything new out of the experience at that point.

One major reason why I kind of hope tourism to Taiwan never fully takes off. Sure, I'd like to see something kickstart the economy, but I'm not sure it's worth the cost of homogenizing Taiwan. I'd hate to see this country dotted with these same-same-not-even-different traveler's ghettoes.





Then we booked bus tickets to Bago, where we'd stop for a rest before continuing on to Kinpun, the "base camp" for the Golden Rock up on Mt. Kyaiktiyo. We were happy that the bus would leave at 2pm and arrive around midnight - that's more like our regular sleeping schedule and it suited us just fine to get in late and then sleep through the night before heading on to Kinpun, three hours south.

And then, the guy booking the tickets called up the bus company, talked to them about the schedule, put down the phone and said "today is your lucky day!"

I thought - great! The bus is a day bus, it leaves earlier and we don't have to take another freakin' night bus! 

"The bus schedule has changed."

Woohoo!

"Now the bus leaves at 7pm and gets in at 5am, instead of leaving at 2pm. Isn't that great?"

DAMN IT.

The poor cherub looked embarrassed when he saw my crestfallen face. I tried to be polite - "actually I hate night buses. I can't sleep on them at all."

Sadly, it was the only bus available and we had to take it. I wasn't sick anymore, so at least I could count on my buddy Dramamine to get me through it. So I girded my guts and got on the bus, and once again got no sleep at all until we arrived.

But this time we were smart and pre-booked a hotel for the night we were going to be on the bus, so when we got in at 5am we could immediately collapse into bed and wake up whenever we darn well felt like it (before noon, anyway).