Greetings all,
I trust that you are all well.
Just before I arrived in Burma I was sickened to hear that Steve Mclaren had been appointed England manager for after the world cup. Once again the FA has made the wrong decision. But hey why change the habit of a lifetime.
I can understand why people wanted an Englishman to have the job after Sven (although they are wrong also) but Mclaren?! My first choices were Hiddink or Scholari, but if we had to go with an Englishman it had to be Big Sam. Its just such a disappointment with the great group of young player we have.
Anyway, Burma, very interesting place with very nice people. Like people in Cambodia and Tibet they've got nothing, been through hell in fact, but they are still so warm. The difference is the Burmese tend to have a very good grasp of English. Probably because its a former British colony.
Sometimes a little too warm though?! In the north of Burma I was walking down the street when a family called me over and gave me a drink and something to eat. Which was nice. Now they couldn't speak much English and my Burmese leaves a lot ot be desired, but it became pretty clear that the dad wanted me to sleep with is eldest daughter. When she joined in I just had to get up and leave, thanking them on the way out.
Don't get me wrong I was flattered, but well, ermmm.
A lot of the people have a good grasp of English (as mentioned above) and as soon as they see a white face they run over and ask "Where you from?". When you reply England, they reel off a bunch of footballers names ........... Beckham, Rooney, Owen etc.
They also seem to think its necessary to say that you look like an English footballer. This is great at times, when they compare you to Becks or Owen, but not so much a confidence boost when they say you look like Rooney. And it did happen ............. more than once?!
I Don't know whether you guys know anything of the political situation over there, but the military runs the country. To throw diplomacy out of the window you could say "they are a bunch of b######s!"
Some people think that a travel boycott is the best thing. I however think that travel can benefit the local people if you are responsible. See my decisions, decisons story.
You can do this by avoiding government owned things. This resulted in me sneaking in to the big golden pagoda in Yangon ............. and getting caught! Whoops. I managed to get away unscathed though, by playing the stupid, ignorant tourist act.
Computers and therefore e-mail practically Don't exist in Burma, so therefore I've been pretty much unobtainable, much to Rebecca's distress?!
very bugger chews tobacco. The streets are stained in red (from people spitting it out) and everybody looks like Dracula. I tried the stuff, its pretty nice (gives you a bit of a lift), but I knocked it on the head as I didn't want to end up looking like Count Dracula.
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