My view of the situation in Burma post demonstrations

Yangon International Airport










Local Bus

Monks before Demonstrations now you only see a handful

The last time I was in Burma I left from the old terminal in Yangon airport. It was very basic and manic with lots of people milling around all trying to help you, but with the ulterior motive of trying to get a few Chats (The Local currency) out of you. This time when Sr Jenny and myself arrived we used the new terminal which was much more civilised and organised, yet strangely enough a lot more boring. Sr Bibiana with one of the pre-postulants met us. We were in and out of the airport in less than fifteen minutes which was a lot better than Heathrow which usually takes at least an hour just to get to the customs exit.
The airport road to the city ran very smoothly but one is struck by the lack of bicycles, rickshaws and motor bikes. I asked Sr Bibiana why there were no motor bikes etc. It turns out that the Army Generals had banned them all from the main roads that lead to the city. They had to use the side roads. One of the reasons for this was so that when the army generals came to town they would have a relative free run. All traffic is stopped when an army general is on the move. The generals as you will see are very controlling and live the lives of princes.
Another odd thing is that most of the cars are right hand drive but they drive on the left. The reason for this was that one of the previous head general's soothsayer said that all traffic should drive on the right hand of the road. The next day it was announced on the TV that all cars were to drive on the right hand in one weeks time. Many people were killed as you can imagine because in the remote areas of the country they did not hear of the change, especially the big logging trucks coming out of the forests.
When I was here a couple of years ago Yangon was a wash with young Buddhists monks, walking, shoping, begging or in the local cafes. Last year there were big demostrations against the unjust goverment of ruling army generals, which were led by the young Buddhist monks. The demonstrations were violently put down by the generals and many young monks were killed and the rest dispersed throughout the country. This is reflected by the lack of young monks in Yangon.
As I said before motor bikes and the likes are not allowed on the main road into Yangon and the roads are fairly good for Burma. However, once you get off the main road then you see the real situation that most Burmese have to live in. The side roads are full of potholes. The pavements are a death trap because of the many broken pavements, the open drains. Even though the roads are crowded with all sorts of people and traffic it is actually safer to walk on them than on the pavement.