THE UNEXPLORED FAR NORTH OF BURMA

I went to Burma in September 1994. I was on my way from Thailand to Bangladesh to Nepal. The Biman Bangladesh Airways flight had a stop in Rangoon, so I decided to have a look. I was aware that the country was a dictatorship, and I normally avoid travel to such nations, so as not to support the regimes in any way. On the other hand, in 1994 Burma showed signs of opening up to the world and becoming less repressive, so it seemed worth a stop. I didn’t want to do the ordinary tourist circuit, though, so I devised a plan to get permission to visit areas of the country untraveled since World War II.

I ended up having meetings with some twenty-two officials in Rangoon. As it turned out, I required permission from the Ministry of Tourism, the Department of Travel and Tours, the Ministry of Defense, and Military Intelligence. My itinerary was for a trip to the far north of the country, to Kachin State, to the towns of Mytkina and Putao. After a week of meetings I had permission to visit Mytkina, but not Putao. Military Intelligence would not allow it. (I found out later that there is a prison for political prisoners in Putao, and also that the old dictator, Ne Win himself, has a house nearby.)

I was not to be denied, though, so I called their bluff. I made plans to fly to Bangladesh the next day. Then, that morning, a few hours before my flight, Military Intelligence came through. I could go to Putao.

For the trip I flew to Mandalay, then Mytkina, and then Putao. On the way back it was the flight to Mytkina (Only a dry-season jeep trail connects the two towns), followed by a train ride to the stop near the Irrawaddy River port of Katha, an overnight ferry down to Mandalay, and a train back to Rangoon. It was an extraordinary journey. I was told that I was only the second westerner to visit Putao since the war, the first a few months previously by a man who was the son of missionaries and who had lived there as a child.

Having said all this, and the following photos notwithstanding, at the current time it is completely inappropriate to visit the country as a tourist (even as a budget backpacker). The dictatorship has returned to its repressive ways, and has engaged in the worst forms of ethnic cleansing, genocide, and other crimes against humanity. You can look at it like this. When you fly into Rangoon you are required to change 200 U.S. dollars into what are known as Foreign Exchange Certificates. (It used to be $300.) A significant portion of this money goes to the army or into the dictators’ own pockets. It is a case of bullets or Swiss bank accounts. While you will spend some of the FEC’s (after you change them in the black market to the local currency, kyats) on small merchants, who will appreciate your trade, you cannot overlook this fact. Your contribution will strengthen the dictators, who are the worst sort of criminals, both financially and through helping arm the military, which arms will be used in the rape, torture, enslavement and murder of the local population. It’s not worth it. There is no justification for contributing to - actually funding - such acts.

Of course, with enough effort - effort which you, personally, can supply - the dictators of Burma will one day be overthrown. At that point, we will all be able to enjoy a visit to the country.

A vendor of fish paste and other spices in the Mytkina market.

Passing a fisherman on the upper Irrawaddy.A riverside village.

A riverside village.

And homestead. (A nice one at that!)

The rice fields of Putao.

A bridge across a stream leading to a nearby village.

A local school. (I was the first foreigner these children had ever seen. Classes were recessed when we walked by.)

Two local boys. (Notice the shirt of the one on the right, worn in one of the remote locations on earth!)

The faces of the future of Burma: water sellers at a train station on the way south from Mytkina to Katha.
(A glass of water was 1 kyat; at the time the black market exchange rate was about 150 kyat to the dollar.)