Check out our video of Mrauk U, the Arakan Kingdom in Rakhine State, Myanmar.

https://youtu.be/4WPMmVHBQCg

Here in Yangon, we happen to live very close to the grave of Bahadur Shah Zafar, India’s last emperor. He is not as famous as Puyi, the last emperor of China, there are no movies made about him, and the Indians don’t care about his almost anonymous grave, here in old Rangoon. Bahadur Shah Zafar was the last ruler of the famous Moghul Empire in India that once started with Babur in 1526. Babur was born as direct descendant from the famous Timurlane the Turq/Mongol ruler from Uzbekistan, who himself was a descendant of Genghis Khan.The Moghul Dynasty in India started losing power when the Britisch colonized India. In the dying days of the Moghul Empire, the inside of the red fort in Dehli, was the only part where Zafar still had power. He was known for being an excellent poet (in Urdu) and a follower of the more enlightened Sufi-Islam. It was also his conviction that Hinduism and Islam shared the same philosophy. Things went for the worse when Zafar got involved in the Indian Rebellion of 1857, an uprise against the British. Both his sons got killed and their heads were offered to him by the British as gift for Nowruz (Persian New Year). He got sentenced for his involvement in the rebellion, but not executed. Instead, Zafar and his wife were exiled to Rangoon where he lived in captivity and anonimity until he died in 1862. Until his last days, he kept writing poetry. On the walls of his room, a poem was found, written with a burnt stick, a few lines:

I asked for a long life – I received four days


Two passed in desire, two in waiting

The days of life are over, evening has fallen


I shall sleep, legs outstretched, in my tomb



How unfortunate is Zafar! For his burial


Not even two yards of land were to be had,

in the land of his beloved

The British buried him behind his house, leveled the ground and planted crops to cover up his grave. The Burmese recovered his remains in 1991 and build a small shrine. Check out our pictures below.

Finally..we ‘re getting hi-speed, state of the art internet thru glassfibre. Can’t get any more modern than this… Check out the pictures how the Myanmar Cable Guys go about this… (hint: it involves climbing a tree and tie-wraps)

Lunch in Chinatown

A shop in Chinatown

A place to eat, gamble, pray, booze…
An old colonial house…

Ok, we’re just here for about two weeks. So consider this a first impression of the Golden Land. It feels like we’ve been here much longer, probably due to the fact that we here last October as well. Furthermore, we’ve found a great (but small) house, that certainly adds to the feeling of being at home. After checking out around 15 houses we found this great spot already in our first week in Yangon. Although the pictures look charming and exotic, you have to realize that this just a small bungalow of around 60m2. It’s a small living room, large bedroom, tiny bathroom and an open kitchen. That’s it. The good news is the large veranda (which really is a carport) and the big garden. We live in a quiet, palm-lined street with only million-dollar houses surrounding us, but it seems we have the biggest garden of all. It feels like they have forgotten to build the bigger part of the house, leaving most of the land empty….

But who needs indoors space in this climate? Every night we sit on the veranda in our handmade teak easychairs, watching the short twilight dim the sky above Yangon. We light some charcoal to keep the mosquito’s away and enjoy the tropic (winter!) temperatures. Once in a while a car passes by, a ricksha, or a horse with tinkling bells. Strange Chinese-like music from a distant karaoke-bar, exotic bird sounds and barking street dogs add to the Asian flavor. We sip from our cold lemon-soda’s and watch our magenta Bougainville slowly wave with the evening breeze…..

Is it really all smooth sailing? No, of course not. In a house without tap water, gas, internet and with frequent power outages you need to improvise a bit. Yangon has grown so rapidly (over 5 million inhabitants) that many facilities that we take for granted in the west, haven’t been installed here. With a portable gas tank, water bottles, a voltage-stabilizer and a well-pump we can certainly manage. For now we enjoy the lovely weather, until the Monsoon hits us in May…..

Today I got time to take some pictures in the neighborhood of our hotel.