Myanmar Black Hole

Looking westward coming out of Myanmar
 where the sun is setting over India 

Myanmar Blackout

Hey everybody, I know you are wondering where we have been. Not to worry, we just have not been able to communicate. We sailed into a ‘black hole’ here in Myanmar early in the pre-dawn hours of April 7^th, 2011 and our capacity to post a blog was shut down. Believe it or not, we have not been able to use any of all of the fancy technology that I have at my disposal to communicate with you. I am well equipped too. I have a brand new Mac computer with all the software including a remote desktop connection to the office. I also have the latest Blackberry Torch with all the bells and whistles. I am so well connected that I have successfully participated in a Skana Board meeting and I actually bought mineral rights in Alberta at the bi-weekly sale from the middle of the Andaman Sea. That was before we came into range of the land-based cellular network in Myanmar and entered the ‘black hole’. I was actually working late one night at the desk in my room, alternating between a Hotmail account on my Mac and the Skana account on my blackberry when the ‘the lights went out’. The Blackberry was on a Network called Cellular@Sea and when it hit the Myanmar wall in it just went dead. The Mac could access certain websites but nothing had been coming in and I had not been able to get anything out. 

We talked to the guide we used on our two tours in Myanmar and he said that cellular networks and the Internet are tightly controlled by some rich independent businessmen. He also told us that it is very expensive to get a cell phone in Myanmar because of the tight monopoly. It costs $600 U.S. for the phone number alone. Then you have to go out and get yourself a phone and make some kind of usage deal. In addition, only this year the country has become a democracy. It had been ruled by military dictatorship previously and that would also contribute to the tight fisted control of the Internet.

We sailed out of the Yangon a couple of hours ago and back into the Andaman Sea. Voila we are back online.

The Myanmar Essays

There is plenty to write about from our stop in Myanmar. It is the first port since Hong Kong that we stayed in for more than one night. We also booked two full days of touring and were able to see the cities of Bago and Yangon in detail. So there are many observations to describe and pictures to hopefully upload into this blog.  I could give you the blow-by-blow description of what we saw in chronological order but I think it would be better to break the discourse into major themes and then pound out some mini-blogs accompanied by a few pictures to back-up each theme. The major themes that I would like too talk about and show you from our extensive iPhoto collection of pictures are as follows:

1. The People of Myanmar
2. The Pagodas of Myanmar
3. Musings about the state of Myanmar; and,
4. British in Burma

Breaking it up like this will allow me to organize my thoughts on Myanmar in a sensible way and keep me busy while we make our way west to India over the next few days. Hopefully by doing it this way it will also make it more interesting for you.

I will start with one of the above topics later tonight or tomorrow.  In the meantime, we have commenced a long sea journey out of Yangon, which will take us across the Bay of Bengal and around the tip of the sub-continent of India to Cochin, India. We must travel over 1600 nautical miles and will be three days at sea.

Currently the sea is smooth and the sky is mostly clear. The temperature outside is 30 degrees C and the humidity is 70%. The barometer is steady. Let’s keep our fingers crossed for a smooth passage.