The joys and perils of Myanmar

We arrived in Mandalay, Myanmar at Midday. By Midnight, the city was in lockdown, with a curfew from 7pm to 5am.

What had happened? The locals seemed friendly enough. Burmese men wore traditional long skirts, Longyi. The women smothered their faces in Thanakha, a sandalwood paste, giving them an innocent doll-like appearance.

It felt surreal and timeless. All seemed well. Until the air stiffened. Military police gathered on street corners. I turned to Alice and wryly smiled, “Oh, Myanmar is still under a pseudo-military rule, so this is probably normal, right?”

I looked down and saw what looked like large splotches of blood staining the street corner. A bloody mess? No, just the remnants of betel-leaf chewed and spat out nonchalantly.

A moment of lightness came outside a primary school. A Burmese boy bravely marched right up to Alice and raised his hand for a high-five. Alice obliged and we all chuckled affectionately at each other. I felt joyous engaging in such an unexpected moment of universal appeal.

Night fell quickly. Three 1960s era fire engines alongside three police vans hurtled past us. Amusingly a few were riding on the roof, holding glowing red lightsaber-like batons. We chuckled, impressed by their roof riding skills. The locals looked more concerned.

As it happened, the night before our arrival, a riot of 300 radical Buddhists broke out downtown. Two people were killed, one Muslim and one Buddhist. A Muslim man was accused of raping his female Burmese employee and violent clashes ensued.

We were still outside at 6.45pm, wandering the streets in search of food. It was pitch black. Barely a soul on the street. Tensions were high in our Muslim district of town.

We politely knocked on the door of a packed restaurant; its door was locked and barricaded. “No, I’m sorry, we are full, it’s past the curfew,” a middle-aged Burmese woman whispered, fear in her eyes. We turned our eyes down and showed the fear in our foreign faces. The mood was sombre amongst the mass of locals, a few photojournalists and unamused locals.

By 7pm, we were locked up in our hotel, along with the staff huddled in the lobby. Facebook was blocked. Police vans drove past slowly, warnings blaring through loudspeakers. Dogs howled all night. Loud bangs that sounded like gunshots.

We escaped Mandalay the next morning on the 6am bus to Hsipaw, a trekking village six hours north. But that wouldn’t be our last encounter with the perils of the Mandalay curfew.