Having just returned to Japan, I found myself in the position of having a rather sparsely furnished apartment. When the Japanese rent you an apartment, you get exactly what it says on the label; an apartment, and that’s all.

Not only is furniture an optional extra, but so are all the other fixtures, like light fittings, towel rails, curtains, doors, windows, gravity etc. Essentially, my first week was spent in a rather grim apartment that had two tatami mat rooms, a sink (with no hot water tap), a stove, a shower (which had a hand held shower head with no means of affixing it to a wall), my suitcase and a whole lotta nothing else. As I lay on my futon watching the tublweeds drift past, I realised it was time to go shopping.

Now, in this situation, the uninitiated rentee would immediately make for the nearest home store to overload on expensive household items. I, however, am made of sterner (and stingier) stuff and was prepared to risk a trip into Don Quixote.

Don Quixote is a group of chain stores in Japan. Like an aging porn star, they are famous for being cheap, slightly shabby and full of improbable things.

The stores have pretty much everything you could ever need. However, they are laid out in a completely random way, to encourage people to look through the whole store rather than just go straight to the section they need.

I am at a loss to understand why you would anyway, when there is so much to see in the shop. It is one of the only shops in the world where you will see crotchless panties rub shoulders (metaphorically speaking) with children’s videos.

Don Quixote’s mascot is a ubiquitous blue penguin who appears scattered on various promotions throughout the store. His general demeanor seems to change a lot between the different products he is being forced to display.

Examples include… this (justifiably) terrified looking chap in Osaka…

this cute little love heart seducer…

this angry looking stuffed toy…

and this Picasso alien portrait.

Of course, here’s no point in having the best furnished apartment in the world if there is no one to share it with. This is where some inflatable companionship comes in handy.

The main problem with the store is that it’s so easy to get distracted. I mean, this is a store that offers a huge variety in even mudane things like tissues.

The choices ranged from some yuletide paper for poolside capers…

and 48 patterns of handerchief love!

Eventually the distractions gor the better of me and I returned home far from empty handed, but no better off in the furnishing stakes. Not only that, but now my Air idol keeps complaining about my lack of ammenities.

Stay Cynical.

Oh, and a quick update on last week’s story. I have just been informed that I need to go back to the immigration centre to pick up my new visa… on December 25th. Man, will I be decking the halls!

Two years ago, I wrote a story called “the Cynical Traveller goes to… the Dentist”. Rather naively, I thought this would be my most painful experience in Japan. Well, leave it to the immigration service to prove me wrong.

Now, ordinarily the stories I write are anywhere from a few weeks old, up to a year in some cases. However, this happened to me yesterday and I want to write the story while the ignominy is still fresh in my mind. Apologies if it comes across as a rant, but the odd rant can be cathartic.

So, immigration…

Japan is a country not overly famous for opening its doors and rolling out the red carpet to immigrants. Indeed, foreign residents are about as welcome as bubonic plague victim at a naked pool party. There deep spring of mistrust for foreigners is personified in the often vitriolic rants of Tokyo Mayor, Shintaro Ishihara.

Therefore, immigration, an unpleasant place at the best of times, just seems that bit more dour and soulless.

Returning to Japan, I had entered on a tourist Visa and now had to arrange a work visa. This meant having to first negotiate the labyrinthine halls of the Immigration departments website to find the right application form.

Immigration site

This is a link to the immigration department’s website, obviously designed by the same kind of people who make the instructions for flat pack furniture. I challenge any of my readers to try and work out which form I need. The forms themselves are full of instructions like, “If the teacher is in the part of A, insert scrotchet figgle and go to question 21, except in the case of humanity buggle, whereupon fill out question h(i)32(mpv).”

Ok, so that’s not a real line, but this is:
“Place have been dispatched (in case the answer to question 20-(2) is dispatch of personnel)”

Or perhaps I’m being a bit harsh. I mean this pamphlet from the ministry seems fairly strightforward…

Anyway, three weeks ago I filled these forms out and took them and all my documentation into the immigration department. Unfortunately, seeing as I was going to be an English teacher, I had foolishly filled in the form titled “teachers”, rather than the more obvious “researcher / engineer / specialist in humanities” form. This meant that I had to return to the centre with two different pages to complete my application.

Luckily, there is an immigration bureau in the next town from me, a mere 15 minutes by train. Unfortunately it’s for a completely different prefecture, meaning that I have to go to the one in Tachikawa, about 1 ½ hours away.

In a rather ominous start to the day, I took the one train a day designated limited express, which completely bypassed the station I needed to go to and didn’t stop until it was nearly in central Tokyo.

However, I eventually arrived and sat down to wait, watching a video explaining Japan’s new draconian entry procedures.
My number was 68 and I was very keen to be attended before 12 o’clock, when the counters would close for lunch. At 11.45 my number finally came up, just in time for three people numbered 66 to come rushing back in, after smoking cigarettes outside.

In a triumph of segregation the people on the counter summon the applicants by country and then name. For example, they will say Chogokku Lee San (Chinese Mr Lee).

I was supposed to meet Ms Watanabe, who we had spoken to on the phone and just hand her the two different pieces of paper. However, after a 45 minute wait, I made it to the counter and was informed that Ms Watanabe wasn’t working there today. Further questioning discovered that Ms Watanabe had never in fact worked there. Further questioning discovered that Ms Watanabe had never existed and that all knowledge of her activities would be denied.

I asked the man if I could give him the papers. He replied that I couldn’t unless I had my passport, which I hadn’t brought. I told him I didn’t bring it because I had already brought it, along with all my other documents, three weeks ago. He said he couldn’t take the paper unless I had my passport. I asked him if I could show my driver’s license. . He said he couldn’t take the paper unless I had my passport. I asked him if I could tell him my passport number which I have memorized. . He said he couldn’t take the paper unless I had my passport. I called my boss to speak to him in more fluent Japanese. He said he couldn’t take the paper unless I had my passport. I cracked the shits and went home.

And the great thing is, I’ve got to do it all again tomorrow! Ah, the joys of living overseas!

(Nothing but random pics this week [except the last pic]. Sorry.)

One of the things I’ve found with holidays is that no matter how much time I’m allotted, I always have 20% too much time. This happens whether I have 2 weeks or 2 years of holidays.

And so it was, with 3 days remaining of our holiday, that we were ready to return home, which of course meant returning to Yangon. After our adventure on the train, we decided to fly back, despite the rather appalling safety record of the Myanmar airlines.

The taxi ride to the airport was memorable. I noticed that the taxi we were in actually had a radio, one of the few that hadn’t been ripped out in the whole of Myanmar. I remarked upon this to the driver, who was so proud that he showed us how well it worked. Myanmar music is basically stolen tunes from western music and dubbed over with Myanmar singers. After 15 minutes of screechy “Time after time”, the driver obviously noticed our pained expressions and informed us that he had an English tape.

Unfortunately, this mysterious English tape turned out to be Aqua; a whole Aqua album. Obviously some tourist had bought it in a drunken stupor in 1997 and had been trying to offload it on some unsuspecting local ever since.

The airport arrived none too soon. The single proviso my sister, who hates flying, put upon this trip was that it had to be a direct flight. The woman who booked the flight for us assured us it was direct. However, upon arriving at the airport, we learned that the flight was being directed to Myanmar’s new capital, a government city built in the middle of nowhere, so Tang Shwe could avoid assassination attempts. We were being redirected to pick up some VIPs. My sister was so upset by this that I didn’t have the heart to show our airplane, which was a very small, dodgy looking propeller driven craft, or to point out the hulk of an obviously crashed plane at the end of the runway.

Still, we made it to Yangon okay, to find out that it had been raining for three days straight. And it continued to rain for tree days straight after we arrived. The problem with this is that the drainage system in Yangon doesn’t really work. The full extent of this problem became apparent on our last day.

We had been invited to a party at the American embassy. Taking a taxi in was a joy in the pouring rain, especially as the roof had peeled back above where I was sitting. However, at 3am, after a heavy night of beer and tequila, there were no taxis to be had and the only available transport was with Christine’s Burmese friend, Christina.

Soaked and inebriated we got into the jeep with Christina. This turned out to be rather a large mistake. Not only was Christina only marginally more sober than we were, she was only a marginally better driver than a one legged albatross. With chronic myopia.

Not that it mattered anyway. By this time, there was so much water on the road that Michael Schumacher would have struggled. A boat would have been more suitable than our jeep, which aquaplaned from curb to curb like an oversized, rusty pinball.

Eventually, we decided that driving with Christina was too terrifying, even for our alcohol sodden minds, and we jumped out the back to walk. Except it wasn’t really walking. At this stage, the water in the middle of the road was up over our knees and on the sides it was closer to hip height.

I forged on down the middle of the road, while my sister and Christine set of on the banks. Of course, the main problem with all the water was that you couldn’t see under foot and my sister managed to fall down a hole that should covered by a concrete slab which had long since split in two. Fortunately, I was just in time… to turn around and laugh my arse off as her head disappeared under the water line. Christine did the same and promptly leapt over the drain…. to immediately disappear down the next drain.

At this stage I was in danger of drowning, as I was doubled over with laughter, my head perilously close to the water. However, my laughter was short lived when my sister revealed that she had lost one of her flip flops down the drain, and both girls forced e to put my hand in and try to find it, not a pleasant activity in the dark.

Unfortunately, the only thing I was able to find was an acute case of cholera. After what must have been close to an hour struggling through the water, a jeep pulled up next to us. It was Christina again. It turned out that in close to an hour, we had managed to walk around 100 metres. This time, we were willing to stay in the car for the entire journey despite the perils, figuring that it was slightly less perilous than walking.

Arriving at Christine’s, I peeled of my clothes and collapsed into bed. In the morning the full extent of the damage we had wreaked became apparent. Despite losing a shoe, we ended up all square in the clothing department, as Christine had stolen a t-shirt from the embassy. More searches revealed drink cards and a key to the toilets, where we had been taking pictures, as it was supposed to be forbidden to have a camera on the embassy grounds. So much for security!

That afternoon, hung over and tired, we boarded our flight back to Australia. I had two days at home to get ready for my return to Japan….

Next week, back to the Japan stories!

The reason we had come to Kalaw in the first place was that I was quite keen to do some trekking, and apparently Kalaw was the place to be for non-challenging, non-dangerous treks that never require you to leave your comfort zone. Perfection.

My ideal trek was a three day schlep from Kalaw to Inle lake, our next destination. However, my sister was adamant that she wouldn’t do it, as she was unsure of the state of the toilets on the way. Bearing in mind that at one point on our trek, our shoes were covered in leeches, she is obviously made of wiser stuff than me.

Our guide for the trek was a local man named Ted. Ted wore a bamboo pith helmet and had an infectious smile, a maniacal laugh and a propensity to tell enormous lies at every available opportunity.

Of course, we had sensibly decided to visit Myanmar in the middle of the rainy season. For a while we thought we had lucked out, as the day was clear and the temperature was comfortable. Unfortunately, we then left the graded roads of Kalaw and it all went pear shaped.

One of the dangers of hiking in the hills in the wet season, is that a nice sunny day doesn’t necessarily mean a nice easy trek. Soon after we set off we were to discover that one sunny day can’t repair the damage caused by three weeks of solid rain.

To say the terrain was muddy would be an understatement. I’m pretty sure there are little earthworm houses, whose owners would ask a Kalaw trekker to wipe their feet before entering. By the time we had walked approximately 100 metres, we were carrying roughly a third of Myanmar on each boot (maths was never my strong point).

Even a minor incline became a treacherous slip and slide. This was made all the more frustrating by the apparent ease with which Ted traversed the terrain. He seemed to be suspended by helium, as he lightly danced down slopes which for us had about the same amount of grip as Action Man after a delicate hand operation. In contrast, the soles of our shoes seemed as smooth as liberally greased baby’s bottom (I really hope I don’t get any search engine hits for that phrase).

Not that mud was the major obstacle. The villagers rode into town on oxen carts, and where there’s oxen, there’s…

The trek took in a couple of hill tribe villages, which are always nice to see and photograph. And, as Myanmar is not quite as widely visited as Thailand or Vietnam, they thankfully still had a lot to learn about selling useless handicrafts to stupid tourists.

The trek also took in an observation point, which we arrived at just in time for the clouds to roll over. Still, we got some nice views on the way up. One of the most charming things about Myanmar though, is that as you are walking around, small children come up to you and give you flowers for no particular reason. It is difficult to maintain your cynicism in the face of these displays, so I tried to ignore them as much as possible. My sister, however, soon turned into a walking bouquet.

The next day, we caught the bus to Inle lake, which, true to Myanmar protocol, left at an obscenely early time, had small, uncomfortable seats and was filled with 70 more passengers than it was designed to hold. However, in a radical break from tradition, it was actually 15 minutes early. Presumably the driver was hauled away somewhere to explain his actions.

The guesthouse at Inle was lovely teakwood home, with an unscrupulously mercenary owner who talked at a million miles an hour so you couldn’t understand a word she was charging. Before we knew it, she had us booked on a boat a massage and a plane ride back to Yangon, all within the space of a single breath.

The boatride on Inle lake was quite disappointing though, consisting of various factory tours and numerous opportunities to lighten your luggage by relinquishing some kyat. “Highlights” included a Paluang longneck tribe, who sang a short song remeniscent of the sound my car makes when its fan belt becomes too wet, and a cigar factory where 10 year old girls rolled cheroots for 15 hours a day.

There was also a jumping cat monastery, however by the time we arrived the cats were drinking Gatorade and doing their warm down stretches after a hard day of leaping for tourist.

Inle did however have the best Pizza place we encountered in the whole of Myanmar, with a charming owner and décor from the post concrete minimalist school.

The gastronomic delights of pizza aside, it was time to go back to Yangon.

Bagan is Myanmar’s version of Ankor Wat; not quite as grand, not quite as famous, and not quite as popular. It’s kind of the travel equivalent of Christina Aguleira.

The boat to Bagan however, was probably the most civilized transportation we took on our entire journey through Myanmar, which is frustrating as the damn government owns the thing.

The first thing you notice about Bagan is the heat. Despite the fact that it was the rainy season, Bagan was 40 degrees and dry when we arrived. The second thing you notice is that there are tourists there. After five days in the rest of Myanmar, we had seen a sum total of around ten tourists but on our boat there were 40 or 50 all in one hit. It kind of bursts your little bubble of exclusivity. The next thing you notice is the enormous crowd of hawkers on the docks, mostly children, drawn to the tourists like polar bears to a penguin party. The next thing you’ll notice is that the bloody government charges you 10 dollars to get off the boat.

There are more than 100 temples in Bagan; a similar number to Ankor Wat, but they are far more spaced out. A bit like some of the travellers there really. We decided to see them by bicycle rather than the favoured method of horse and cart, and after about three temples I realized we had made the right decision. The heat and tired legs were a small price to pay to avoid the mobs of hawkers that appeared from nowhere whenever you heard the sound of a cart approaching.

For some reason, my sister had firmly decided that, after a week of noodles, the one food she really craved was pasta or pizza. The Lonely Planet guide to Bagan states that “There are two types of food in Nyuang U: Pizza and non-pizza”. While we found the latter in ample supply, the former was strangely lacking. Indeed, we visited two separate restaurants with large signs out front saying “Italian Food”, only to find that they didn’t have any when we entered. Finally, in desperation, we chose a quite swish looking place closer to old Bagan in the hopes of a tourist menu. Unfortunately, the restaurant appeared strangely deserted and 5 minutes later, the owner approached us to tell us that their chef had gone off to help in the village, which has apparently caught fire. So, noodles it was.

The next day, we took on a three hour taxi ride with some Germans to a temple called the Popa Pagoda. After paying a substantial amount for the taxi, and riding with Germans, the payoff was sadly a little pathetic. Pictures of the pagoda make it look like a majestic castle perched on top a ragged crag. The reality is that it’s not much more than a few run down buildings, a bunch of monkeys, shops selling tourist junk and magic cure-all stones and a bunch of fat sweaty Europeans from a coach tour.

I was so disappointed that I composed a little song, to be sung to the tune of Copacobana:

At the Popa
Popa pagoda
There’s nothing to see, just a load a
Disappointments
Magic ointments
Monkeys and hawkers
And fat Spanish gawkers
At the Popaaaaaaa

The bus for Kalaw left at 3.30 the next morning. There’s not much to say about the trip. It was ten hours long, but apparently only 180km. My seat had no padding, the seat in front of me was too close to fit my legs behind and the aisles were filled with plastic seats. The road itself was slightly less smooth than the face of a 14 year old chocoholic.

Arriving in Kalaw, we were greeted by a rather insane Australian man (apologies for the tautology) who rushed up to the bus as it stopped for fuel, 500 metres from its final destination. His name was Percy and he appeared to be his mid to late 70s. He had come to Myanmar on the advice of a Burmese friend he worked with and ended up marrying his sister (that is, the Burmese man’s sister, not his own sister [although I wouldn’t have put it past him]) and staying for 20 years in Kalaw. Starved of opportunities to speak to Westerners, Percy charged at the bus every day and accosted every tourist, hoping for conversation. He was delighted when it turned out that we were from Australia as well, and he invited us to his home for dinner.

We decided, with some trepidation, to take Percy up on his offer. We arrived at his $2500 house in time to see the start of an Australian football final. Fortunately, the weird sensation of watching an Australian sport in the middle of Myanmar wasn’t to last long, as ten minutes in, the power went out in the whole of Kalaw.

Dinner at Percy’s was a rather informal affair; at least judging from Percy’s attire anyway. In the style of over 70s everywhere, Percy had decided to dress in a pair of sky blue shorts that had been pulled up to somewhere just below his nipples. He was charmingly misogynistic, relying on his wife to do pretty much everything, from cooking and waiting, right through to changing the TV stations for him. He referred to her as “Luv” or “Darl”, using the kinds of expressions that haven’t been heard outside of the soap opera, Neighbours, for 45 years. Despite this, he was an interesting person to talk to and surprisingly knowledgeable about the workings of Myanmar society.

Percy was particularly keen for us to take a look through his photo albums, but once we discovered a photo of him and his wife in lingerie on their honeymoon, the rest of the photos were skipped through at great speed.

That night, we opted for a massage to knead away the stresses of the bus ride. Kalaw had one massage practitioner and his apprentice. He was around 70 years old and referred to himself in the third person as “Massage Master”.

He also told us about his rather turbulent life. Apparently he grew up on the border with Thailand, a particularly troublesome spot in Myanmar. He recounted a story of when soldiers came to his village. They had set fire to a large portion of the village and he was particularly worried about his sister and her son. Eventually someone found her son and rescued him from a building, but they were still unable to locate his sister. Days later they found her. She had been raped by a group of soldiers and had taken her own life.

There were tears in his eyes as he related this story and it was difficult to know how to respond. It was a poignant reminder that while we were enjoying the country, the hospitality and friendliness of the people there, it is impossible to know what they have suffered. I had never felt more like a tourist in my life.

After the stresses of Yangon and the 15 hour train trip, Mandalay seemed such a pleasant place to be. There’s not a lot to do there really, but at least you don’t kill yourself trying to do it.

Our leisurely itinerary of two days in Mandalay involved hiring a couple of rickshaw drivers to pedal us around on the first day. There’s certainly no shortage of these around, and we were able to hire a couple inside the palace compound to take us to a temple area on the local map for 1000 kyat each. Rather embarrassingly, it turned out that we slightly misunderstood the map scale and ended up paying them the equivalent of 80 cents to ride us about 10km.

Now, I’m not exactly svelt and the sight of some poor Burmese man struggling towards an acute coronary as he tried to pedal my ample frame up a hill, is literally the only thing guaranteed to guilt me into opening my legendarily tight purse strings. Therefore, when the guys offered to ride us around for the rest of the day, we readily agreed. We settled on a price of 5,000 kyat for 5 temples that were marked on our map.

One of the unwritten laws of haggling in Asia is if, when you name a price, the other person immediately says deal, you know you’ve made a mistake. If the say it with a slight smile, you’ve really made a big mistake. So, when our guys started to dance around and hug each other, letting off fireworks, my suspicions were slightly raised.

It turned out that all 5 temples were within about 30 metres of where they had just taken us and that we had effectively paid 5 times our original price for them to lounge around on their bikes. Still, you gotta give something back….

The temples were nice, without being anything too spectacular. Probably the highlight for me was two young girls who were incredibly keen to sell us some ink paintings (which we had seen at numerous other attractions). They followed us around the pagoda saying “You buy, we happy” with big, infectious grins and cheeky laughs. We decided that as we weren’t going to buy anything from them, we would give them a couple of crappy clip on Koalas that I had bought in Australia (admittedly for probably 5 times what the girls would have been willing to accept for their pictures). Then, as we were leaving, without a word of a lie, the cheeky little buggers tried to sell the koalas to us!

That night we went and watched a marionette show. The theatre was a charming little place, run by an old man who didn’t look strong enough to lift a puppet, let alone perform with one. In fact, if I’m being honest, the puppets actually looked stronger than he did. If he was working on Thunderbirds, the world would have been destroyed before the Traceys even made it out of the pool.

The next day, we had arranged with the driver of our torch lit bemo to take us to some of the sights outside of Mandalay (and preferably return before nightfall). The most impressive of these sights was a monastery where 300 monks line up simultaneously for lunch.

It was quite imposing and well worth seeing. Unfortunately, the whole mystic essence was ruined by a Spanish tourist who actually got in line with the monks and followed them with his video camera. And they say tourists don’t respect other cultures!

We also had lunch in a local, and I do mean local, restaurant. For approximately 6,000 kyat, we received approximately 80 dishes of approximately 7cm diametre, filled with, approximately, food.

The food was a heady mixture of the delicious and the suspicious. For every bowl of succulent chicken curry, there was another, containing beef lard soaked in toxic waste and baby vomit. Still, well worth the experience and the possible chronic bowel complaints later in life.

That night, we went for a swim in the hotel pool and got chatting to a couple of local fellows who invited us out for dinner. Our plan that night had been to go and see the moustache brothers, a political comedy troupe who are famous for standing up to the government (I have since heard that Par Par Lay has be arrested again). However, we agreed to have dinner with the family from the pool, thinking we could make it later. Halfway through our noodles, the boy casually announced that Than Shwe was his grandfather through marriage. This was basically akin to sitting down to dinner with a man who says, “Oh, and by the way, my uncle is Idi Amin”. After that gem, it seemed somewhat inadvisable to tell them we were off to an anti-government production. So, we succinctly bid them good evening and slipped out to try and find a taxi.

Unfortunately, due to the wonders of Myanmar technical expertise, Mandalay has no streetlights at night, and we were unable to find a taxi. So we missed the show, possibly the only thing my sister really wanted to do in Mandalay. We couldn’t stay though; we already had a boat booked for Bagan the next morning.

Next week - Bagan and Kalaw