The day we returned to Yangon was Josh’s last day in Myanmar (hence, the cute, sad puppy dog face). We had a nice lunch with Myo, visited a couple of bookshops and the “high end” market (which is bascially 2,000 shops of stuff we didn’t want), and spent some time in my hotel room making sure Josh was going home and I was staying with the right stuff (he took the sat phone home; I kept all the Immodium and Pepto tablets). He left the hotel for the aiport at 10:30pm, beginning an arduous 24-hour journey home (one I get the pleasure of repating next week).

I faced two days of uncertainty as the TPW group wasn’t offically gathering until dinner on the 28th. As much as I missed Josh from the moment the car pulled away from the hotel, I was looking forward to a little bit of unstructured time; the first since we left Ngapali Beach. I spent the first morning catching up on blog posts and then decided to walk from the hotel to the National Museuem, maybe 40 minutes from here. Man, did I feel like a total loser when I: a) chose the heat of the day to venture out, b) got lost and added an additional 20 sweat-inducing minutes to my journey, and c) arrived at the museum only to then learn it’s closed on Mondays. Maybe some of this Buddhism is rubbing off on me, as really I had a little laugh at my own expense and quickly realized I was two blocks from the restaurant we’d been to just the day before and it was time for lunch. I happily retreated into the A/C of a familiar environment and ordered the exact same yummy chicken curry I’d eaten just 24 hours prior. Then I hailed a cab back to the hotel for some reading by the pool. 

That was really my only time alone as that afternoon and evening other TPW members began trickling in and finding each other. Caught up with old friends and met some new ones over dinner, then the next day enjoyed a (hot) walk around Royal Lake and lunch with different TPWers and before I knew it it was time for the kick-off dinner and away we went.

I haven’t decided how much of this phase I’m going to share on this blog. For one, TPW modules are packed and can be exhausting, so the fact that I’m in my hotel room blogging at 3:30pm after a site visit is rare and unlikely to reoccur. Secondly, I’m not sure who out there really cares as much about this kind of trip vs. straight-up tourism. This week isn’t about temples and trishaw adventures; I’ll be in restaurants, office buildings, and hotel conference rooms. And thirdly, and frankly most importantly, I have to be extremely careful about what I write, for as much as Myanmar is a more open society than it was just a year or two ago, people here who are on the front lines of challenging the ruling military regime can be put into serious risk if I share attributed critcism in writing (and the government happened to stumble onto my blog). For that I am taking extreme caution and employing a “better safe than sorry” approach.

What I will say is that I am so so so glad I had the opportunity to spend three weeks here in advance the TPW workshop. I feel like I saw and learned so much about Myanmar that will help inform the presentations I hear and visits I take as this week progresses. As a Westerner, it’s so easy to focus on what this nation lacks: reliable sources of electricity (or electricity at all for the rural populations), access to clean water and sanitation, a free education system that fosters critical thinking, a nation-wide and consistent mobile and internet infrastructure, a free press, a 21st (or even 20th) century tourism infrastructure, mechanized agriculture, a cohesive national identity, a network of civil society organizations, a history of free and fair elections with a population that knows how to vote, etc etc etc. 

This is a long and serious list, but Myanmar has assets, too: An enviable geographic position bordering China, Thailand, India, Laos, and Bangladesh, a long coastline, rich natural resources (jade, sapphire, natural gas just to name a few), and a popuation of 55 million who, if the stars align, could be infinitely more productive than current circumstances allow. “This place grows on you,” one expat said to me yesterday and I know what she means. You can’t spend even one day here and not desperately want the people of Myanmar to thrive — on their own terms. So I am looking foward to a few days focused on meeting people and groups who are working towards solutions to the complex challenges this country faces. I’ll end for now with a quote from George Soros I heard yesterday. About Burma, he said, “It’s good to fund a lost cause — for a long time.”