The joys of blogging in faraway countries

I am sure you have noticed the lack of blogs whilst we have been touring Myanmar.

Now that we have safely arrived in Vietnam I can speak honestly about our suspicions about the non-functioning blog.

The arrival of 25 westerners will not have gone unnoticed by the 'authorities' in Myanmar. Our arrival in Dala when we crossed the river in Yangon was noticed within 5 minutes as a man in uniform kept pedalling past us, stopping to take our photos. It turned out that he was taking photos for the Ministry of Tourism so by the time we arrived in the small village there was a reporter from 'The New Light of Myanmar' ready to take our photo and interview Omnahr about our trip. A few days later we appeared in the paper which is a daily Burmese newspaper. Apparently Omnahr's mother spotted us.

Once we left Yangon the internet connectivity was admittedly erratic and incredibly slow, however even when it was working, and I could connect to other websites etc, the connection to the blog deteriorated to the point where over the last few days I couldn't post anything. I have spent hours trying to get it to work and eventually gave up in disgust.

Omnahr's explanation is that they don't have their own satellite and so they use the Chinese and Singaporean satellites. The Chinese are particularly strong about censoring anything that they consider dubious so it may be that the concept of women and power doesn't appeal. Omnahr suggested that the Myanmar internet is more like an intranet because of the influence and interference of China.

Kim's explanation for the deterioration of internet access was that when we reached Bagan she googled "Who owns the Aureum Palace Resort?" ( the huge expensive resort we stayed at). The answer was some of the Generals - the leaders of the military regime, who would not be impressed by her asking the question! She's sure that was the problem!!!

The broader context is that for many years  the military regime in Myanmar has deliberately isolated the country from outside influences: for example the cost of a simcard for a mobile phone was about $5-6,000 dollars in the past few years. However more recently, as a part of the changes taking place at a rapid rate, the cost has gone down to $2-300 dollars. This is still not a possibility for the average Myanmar resident though.

Anyway, I have really wasted a lot of time contending with the Internet and the blog: it's a pity I couldn't insert any photos as endless descriptions can be very boring I know - sorry about that, and the spelling and grammar mistakes! Often I was too exhausted to be too bothered!

I will insert lots of photos when I get home so it may be worth looking at then!

It's fascinating to see how we all remember different aspects of the same experiences. When I asked questions like: "And then where did we go..?" to my fellow travellers the facts, memories and descriptions were unpredictable, and occasionally caused arguments! They were along the lines of "No! We went to the Buddha with the smiling faces before went to the umbrella makers......!".

Not the most reliable informants my fellow travellers!  

Your happy-to-be-back-online correspondent

Dianne