Night market of Mandalay

bins of knock-off videos at the night market

Internet access in Myanmar is intermittent, so I wasn't able to send off more than one blog during our trip there.  Now that we're home, I'll be adding to the blog count as I have time--but a little out of order.

Our first day in Yangon, we had three excellent meetings with an American who has started an investment firm there, a senior official at the U.S. embassy, and the general manager of the brand new Ford dealership.  I'll be blogging about those visits and all we learned over the next week or so.

plentiful vegetables and fruits

Meanwhile, Mandalay has a very lively night market, open for the last several years.  It makes shopping easy for people who work past the closure times of most of the markets.  None of these are like anything we know here.  They are street stalls, people sitting on the ground, in the mud, on the sides of streets, on plastic stools or wooden platforms displaying their wares.

women selling rice rolls

mound of fried crickets

Last night we walked through the night market in Mandalay, crowded with women sitting on the muddy margins of the road, selling their voluminous produce.  There were palmellos, oranges, limes and lemons, beautiful wild mushrooms just plucked from the flood plain by the Ayerawaddy River, bananas, onions and garlic, asparagus and cauliflower, cabbage, palm shoots, and so much more.  The food supply seems to be ample  at least in this part of Myanmar.
 

quail eggs and dumplings ready to eat

We watched a vendor lugging a large cart through the market.  He was renting car batteries to the larger vendors to power their long florescent lights.  Down another street were women cooking all kinds of fried food from dumplings to quail eggs to mounds of crickets, dark red and prickling with legs and antenna which made them rather unappetizing to me, at least.  One food cart had long bamboo tubes stuffed with sticky rice.  Farmers like to take these to the fields because they can stick them in their pockets and peel back the bamboo during the day to get to the sweetened rice.  A Burmese farmer's lunch box.

There are no trash containers, so all debris gets tossed in the road or the mud beside the road.  The activity is vigorous, with lots of bargaining.  Vendors know what their sales will be for the night, so bring that amount of their fruits and vegetables with them.  Everything is obviously very fresh and ripe and looks beautiful.   Activity starts here about 4 p.m., when the merchants arrive to jostle for the best location along the road.  The market closes about 10 p.m.  For those who want cheap music and videos, knock-offs provide 16 movies for about $2.  I didn't see any I just had to have, but the business was brisk.

fruit is fresh and beautiful

Some faces of Burma

Head of the enormous Reclining Buddha, Yangon

Woman praying by Reclining Buddha

Muslim boy at Scott Market

Monk cleaning his food bowl

Small girl dancing

Yangon, Burma

Shwedagon Pagoda, Yangon, shimmering with gold leaf

We arrived in Yangon yesterday morning, with 14 people in our group and the remnants of a big typhoon that's churning in the Sea of Bengal, on the west coast of Burma.  That storm several drenched us and the city yesterday, leaving streets flooded for a while and pedestrians knee deep in water.  We were visiting the huge Shwedagon Pagoda (the most important pagoda in Myanmar) last night when the second deluge started, so we squeezed ourselves under a small tent with about a hundred Burmese until the rain tapered off.

When you visit a pagoda, you have to go barefoot, regardless of what might be underfoot (dirt being the best option and animal poop being the worst), so the water didn't bother us.  Also pretty warm, so our clothes dried fast.

We're all pretty tired, after a 30 hour trip to Bangkok and a very short night there.  But, today, we head out for several meetings designed to help everyone understand more about Burma, its politics, culture and economy.  These include a man who advises foreign companies on making investments in Burma, the political and economic counselor at the US embassy, and the manager of a brand new Ford dealership that's a joint venture with a Burmese company.

Under the new regime of the last 3 years, so much has changed.  Cars that cost $100,000 two years ago now cost $20,000, so more people can buy them and have done so.  Traffic is very clogged.  There are lots of dealerships now, all brand new, so we'll learn more about how they are doing today.

Last year when we were here, there were no ATM's.  Now, they're everywhere.  We haven't tried them out yet to see if they work, but will do so today.  Where we saw almost no international brands a year ago, except for Chinese, now we're seeing more, particularly from SE Asia--Korean and Taiwanese brands, some Thai, even a few from Europe and the US.  Our guide tells us that McDonald's is looking at Yangon for a store--always a sign that a country has arrived.

Tomorrow we fly to Bagan at 6:30 a.m.  Flights around Burma leave very early from Yangon so that they can complete a circuit to other major towns and cities and return to Yangon by evening.  So, our departures will get later as our trip progresses.

En route to Burma

We've been busy since our return from Kenya and Tanzania 3 weeks ago, so not much on the blog scene.  Now, we're in Tokyo on our way to Burma (Myanmar) via Bangkok where we'll spend 2 weeks with our group of 16 people seeing this lovely and rapidly changing country.

Myanmar emerged from 6 decades of global isolation 2 years ago when the ruling generals held elections for president and elected one of their own, Thein Sein.  President Sein, however, has not continued the military regime, but has opened the country slowly, but steadily.  The result was the freeing of Aung San Suu Kyi, the long-imprisoned leader of the country's opposition, and her election to Parliament.  Particularly important for Myanmar has been the partial lifting of economic sanctions in response to the political opening.  And, of course, the visit of President Obama a few months ago.

There will be more elections in 2015, when Suu Kyi's party is expected to win most of the seats in Parliament, making it very likely she will become the Prime Minister.  Unimaginable 3 or 4 years ago.

We visited Myanmar a year ago and loved it.  This is a heavily Buddhist country where monks in deep red robes walk through the streets, barefoot, in long lines with their alms bowls under their arms begging for food.  Every family will cook a little extra food to give to the monks on their twice daily movements through the villages and towns and cities.  See my blogs about Burma from a year ago for more on the importance of Buddhism in Myanmar.

I will try to blog and send photos, but the internet is sparse in Myanmar, hard to find or access and very slow.  If I can't send from there, I will post stories and photos of our trip when we get home, after November 6.

More Ngorongoro Crater photos

Cape Buffalo

Speckled Grouse

A snoozing hyena doesn't look ferocious

Crowned Crane, common in Ngorongoro

Tanzania's Ngorongoro Crater teems with wildlife

The Ngorongoro Crater is roughly 12 miles across by 13 miles long, surrounded by the mountains forming its perfect rim.  This is a small area so rich in ecosystems and wildlife that it is one of the premier game parks in the world.

The Crater's ecosystems include savannah, marshlands, shallow clear and salt water lakes and forests, providing a homeland to a large variety of animals.  Lions and cheetahs represent the cat family, though cheetahs are struggling to survive here.  The Crater's 120 hyenas have killed most of the cubs over the last few years.  When we were here 3 years ago, we saw 6 cheetahs and 31 lions.  Today, we saw only 2 cheetahs and 3 lions (though many more lions live in Ngorongoro).

Wildebeest and their companion zebra abound, as do Thompson's Gazelles (multiplying with fewer cheetahs to eat them),  Grant's Gazelles, Cape Buffalo, elephants, hippos, countless bird species (thousands and thousands of pink flamingos), monkeys, baboons, hyenas, jackals and 28 Black Rhinos who are rarely seen since they hide out in a roadless area.  Nonetheless, we were lucky enough to see 2 of the Black Rhinos, close enough to photograph and enjoy with our binoculars.

The jackals tend to follow the cats as they hunt, ready to eat the dregs after the cats have eaten all they want.  They compete with the many vultures for the scraps.  The Golden Jackal, a beautiful little dog, is common in the Crater.  Below are photos of some of the animals we saw today.  There will be other posts with more photos.

A male ostrich resting

Photos from Ngorongoro Crater

Hippo rolling over to stay cool

Vervet monkeys grooming each other

Undisturbed lion strolling among gawking touists

View across the Ngorongoro Crater

Cheetahs--my favorite of the big cats

Cheetahs are the fastest, and certainly one of the most beautiful, large cats on earth.  They can run up to 90 mph for a maximum of 100 yards, depending on their bursts of speed to catch their prey.  Beyond that, they tire quickly and lose their meal since the small antelope they hunt can outlast them if they can outrun them.

Yesterday, we watched a cheetah mother and cub.  She was quite skittish, which isn't typical for East African cheetahs, who are quite used to all the trucks rumbling through their terriroty.  She took off running for the trees while her cub went in the other direction, not sure what to do.  Eventually, she circled back towards her cub, but only after she felt safe.  As a result of their minimal mothering, 90% of cheetah cubs die before reaching maturity.  That is an awful toll, resulting from starvation to attacks by larger cats.  Cheetahs weigh only about 80 pounds at full maturity, so are no match for leopards and lions.

In Samburu, in northern Kenya, we watched 3 cheetahs running through the grass.  They slipped behind some bushes high above the Samburu River before emerging to cross right in front of our Land Cruiser, stopping to drink water from the puddles left after a heavy rain.  They were not hunting as they were fat from an earlier kill.

We have usually seen cheetahs in groups of 2 to 4, often all sitting on a termite mound to survey the surrounding area.  They prefer the Thompson's Gazelle as food because it is small and easier to catch than the larger antelope and gazelles.

Cheetahs sleek build is a wonder to see.  They are aerodynamic, with small heads merging into a lean, but muscular body.  In the photos below, you can see the distinctive black teardrops running down from their eyes and the beautiful spots that make them hard to see in the deep grass.

Beautiful ratty lions

Lions are the most abundant cats in most game reserves.  In the Serengeti, there used to be 7000 lions, but about 30 years ago, a disease ravaged the species and killed 4000 of the big cats.  Today, they are back to about 4000 lions in the Serengeti.

Lions will kill leopards and cheetahs in order to protect their territory from competitors.  Male lions will often kill cubs, including older cubs, that are not theirs in order to free the lioness to come into heat again so he can mate with her.  Often, cubs that have been forced out of the pride by a new male will stick together in order to protect themselves from the new king, who has an easy time killing one at a time, but more difficulty taking on 3 or 4 large cubs.

Today, we saw 2 old males (you can tell because they have full, very dark manes) walking alongside the main road through the Serengeti about 1/4 mile apart.  Our guides speculated that they had been kicked out of the pride by a younger male.  Their big cuts and ratty appearance made that seem likely.  Since male lions depend on the females to hunt for them, solitary males often starve to death.  If they team up, they have a better chance of killing smaller prey.  Antelope are usually too fast for the slower, old males.

The pride will usually consist of several lionesses (sometimes up to 7), a large male, and the older and new cubs of the lionesses.  Today, we watched 2 cubs about a month old start to nurse from one of the lionesses.  Soon, one wandered over to another lioness and started to nurse.  The pride's moms will nurse any of the cubs and will also take care of each other's cubs when some of the lionesses go off to hunt.  Older cubs can stay until the dominant male decides they are a threat.  Then, they're off on their own, with sisters and brothers often staying together for life after leaving their original pride.

A day with leopards

Yesterday we spent the entire day in the central part of the Serengeti, known for its large herds of antelope, wildebeest, zebra, elephants and giraffes.  Right along with them are the large cats, leopards, cheetahs and lions.  We have seen an abundance of all the cats, but they never fail to enchant us and to attract large numbers of trucks filled with excited tourists.

We saw leopards 3 times yesterday and spent several hours watching them.  Our first leopards were lying on branches high up in 2 different trees, quite near each other.  Since leopards are loners, this was quite unusual behavior.  Soon, across the river bottom, we saw a third leopard, also in a tree.  The third leopard was clearly the mother of the other 2, which were probably 2 years old and had just been sent off on their own.  So, being new to hunting, they will stick together for a while.

A mother leopard will teach her older cubs to hunt before kicking them out of her territory.  But, she will also spend several months supervising their hunting from afar to make sure they survive.  This mother was still overseeing her cubs launch into adulthood.

Soon 1 cub climbed down from its napsite and walked slowly over to the tree where its sibling was draped over a branch.  It climbed up next to its sibling (don't know the genders) and fell asleep, oblivious to the 15 or 20 Land Cruisers parked below.  After about 20 minutes, first one cub backed down the tree (they back down in order to be able to climb up again quickly if a predator--a lion--is nearby) and wandered off, soon followed by the other cub.  They wrestled for several minutes before each going back to their original tree perches to finish their naps.

Later, we saw a large male leopard high up in a tree, stuffed belly sagging below the branch and a mostly-eatern warthog on the ground below.  He was very contented and paid no attention to us as we avidly photographed him.

A lion outside our tent

Our last 2 nights have been at Kirawira, a tented camp in the Grumeti section of the Serengeti.  We saw lots of lions in the area, all flush and fat with the abundance of their recent "kills".

Both nights at Kirawira, we heard the low rumble of a lion just outside our tent (up stairs from the ground, fortunately), lasting several hours each night.  A male lion (and females as well) can roar in anger, but they also have a call somewhere between a grunt and a hoot--hurrrooom--repeated over and over in slow motion.  They use that sound to call their pride or seek help.

Another visitor was a Cape Buffalo, who left his poo, as our guides say, at the foot of our stairs.  Both the lion and the buffalo can be very dangerous for humans, but usually ignore us, particularly when we are in our Land Cruisers.  The guards and the camp, however, insisted we leave all outside lights on all night in order to let them keep watch on the many animals that visit the camp at night.

Yesterday afternoon, we saw a leopard, very rare in this part of the park, eating an impala it had just killed.  The leopard saw us and dashed about 100 yards for a tall tree, climbed to a large V high up in the tree and peered at us from its safe perch.  We watched it for almost an hour as it turned around, stared at us and then dozed off, waiting patiently for us to leave.

In another rare opportunity, we saw the small Serval Cat, who took one look at our 3 trucks and disappeared (but his photo is below).

Babies of Masai Mara

This is baby time in the East African game parks.  We have seen countless babies, all adorable, from lion cubs to tiny elephants less than 3 weeks old, to warthog piglets(?--that's what they look like), to a mound of a baby black rhino in the grass below its mother's snout.  See their photos below.

At Kichwa Tembo, one of our tent camps in Masai Mara, just outside the famous Mara Triangle swarming with animals, a large family of warthhogs inhabits the grassy spaces between the lodge and the savannah.  Yesterday, I saw 4 baby warthogs nursing at the rear of their mother, squealing happily as they slurped their evening meal.

Lion cubs abound.  The lionesses in the pride will babysit another lioness' cubs while she goes off to hunt with the rest of the pride.  We watched as 4 cubs wrestled with one another before following behind one lioness, mother of 2 cubs, to meet up with the returning mother of the other 2 cubs.  They walked right down the middle of the road as we sat in our Land Cruisers and watched them amble by, cubs romping all the while.

It is rare to see a black rhino.  They have not only been hunted to near extinction, but are also loners who tend to get lost in the tall bushes they like to eat.  Luckily, we saw one 2 nights ago, watching over her baby, just a dark lump in the high grass.  We have seen 2 elephant babies less than 3 or 4 weeks old.  The entire family protects them.  Often they walk under their enormous mothers or aunts who watch over them with tender care.

Amazing Gazelle Baby

What is it about babies of any species that melts the heart?  Beautiful or not, they all charm us.  Yesterday was a particularly enchanting encounter with a tiny Thompson Gazelle baby, born just minutes before we happened upon it, lying in the grass just below its mother.

Gazelle babies must be able to run within 30 minutes or so of birth or they, or their mothers, are likely to fall victim to predators.  We watched as this tiny newborn responded to its deep instincts, struggled to get onto its skinny little legs, and take off after its nervous mother with the single-minded goal of getting its first meal.

The photos below show the the baby "Tommy" in the grass, then its mother licking it all over to encourage it to struggle up, next the baby toppling over in its first efforts to rise (it toppled dozens of times before finally making it upright), and, finally, actually toddling, then running after its mom.
What a wonder!

Masai Mara

We've just finished a third wonderful day in Masai Mara, the beautiful Kenyan game reserve that borders Tanzania's huge Serengeti on the north.  I'll do a later blog about our time in Nairobi during the terrible mall attack and the Samburu conservancy in the north of Kenya.

The number of animals is staggering, as Kenya has had lots of rain, so the grass is quite lush and definitely feeding countless grazing animals and their large cat predators.  We have seen tens of thousands of wildebeest and many thousands of their symbiotic partners, zebra.  The wildebeest aren't terribly bright and are easy prey for lions.  The zebra seem to understand that and stay close to the wildebeest so that the lions will ignore the zebra in favor of the much more plentiful wildebeest.

Both species move back and forth, following the rains and grass, between Kenya and Tanzania.  They should be on their way back to Tanzania but have come back into Kenya because of the excellent grazing.  On the way, many cross the Mara and other rivers, with the zebra making it easily because they are good swimmers and the wildebeest drowning by the hundreds (see photo below) because they crash down cliffs to get to the river, sometimes breaking legs, and swim very poorly, if at all.

The lions in Masai Mara look plump and happy.  We have seen dozens of fat lions and their beautiful cubs, along with sleek cheetahs, but no cheetah cubs as yet.  One pair of lions was snoozing peacefully in a tree, which is quite rare (also below).  I'll write more about the habits of the animals in later blogs, but wanted to share a few photos of the magnificent wildlife that populates this park.