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Today is a public holiday in Myanmar, so I had the day off from work. The holiday, which is Buddhist, is called “Thadingyut” or Full Moon Day.

This may sound strange, but I was on a taxi ride out to North Dagon where I was staying, and I must have made an impression on the taxi driver and his wife (who were both in the car), as they asked me for my phone number saying that they wanted to be friends with me. I didn’t give out my number, but I did take theirs, and today I decided to give them a ring.

Keep in mind that my Burmese is probably better than their English (and my Burmese is very basic). Nonetheless we arranged to meet at Yankin Center and we ended up spending the day together. I was on high alert and ready to react in case anything fishy happened.

The taxi driver and I went on a ferris wheel in a park by Inya Lake.

It wasn’t until near the top that I realized how rusty it was, but at that point I let the thought pass through my mind (I also didn’t notice that the door was ajar):

In the distance you can see Shwedagon Pagoda. I still haven’t been yet, but I believe it is the largest pagoda in Yangon.

What you see here on the water is actually part of a driving range.

Here are a couple pictures from the park (the first is the taxi driver and his wife):

I was then invited to their house in North Dagon, which is where we went next.

This picture is with two of their three daughters and the taxi driver’s sister (I believe).

This one is with two of their daughters and the taxi driver’s wife:

Here are two of the daughters:

The house overall seemed ok, but it was clear that this wouldn’t be up to western standards. You can see one of the walls of their living room in the background here:

Overall, the day was very nice, and their kids are adorable. And talk about an incredible amount of Burmese language practice! But with that said, a couple comments where made by the wife that made me feel a bit uncomfortable (such as the repeated questions about whether I was married or had a girlfriend, as well as a question about whether or not I have a lot of money). It’s a shame because the family seems fantastic, but I think it’s probably best for me to keep some distance.

I went to church this morning and was asked to do one of the readings at the service, which was great. I really enjoyed it and got a nice compliment from the elderly woman sitting next to me.

I am meeting a friend from MIT who is coming to Yangon for work this week. We are meeting in the downtown area, so I took some time to do some exploring.

I spent some time in a park, which was nice. I saw many people on smartphones, as well as some groups of friends, and couples enjoying the weather.

I took this picture while I was on an overpass. While there I also took a picture of one of the buses. These vehicles still amaze me (some are so old).

This week I had the opportunity to go to the Delta (southern part of Myanmar). This was a great contrast to life in the north-central Dry Zone.

We had the opportunity to visit a village and speak with some of the residents. Here is a plot that this farmer has to water by hauling buckets of water down the rows (200 trips per day).

He used to have to go to the stream which was about 100 feet away, but now he uses this Proximity Designs treadle pump. He has expanded his plot and is now looking to buy the drip irrigation system (in the picture is Betel leaf, but he has expanded to also grow vegetables like eggplant. His income more than doubled after buying the pump.

This family is one of our customers who purchased a d.light (its the light above the man in the picture). The light also allows for mobile phone charging.

They used to use kerosine (on the left) and candles (on the right) to light their house. The smoke is terrible, let alone the risk of fire or of a toddler accidentally drinking the kerosine.

Here is their house:

Here is a girl who uses a smaller sized d.light to do her homework.

The people were so nice. They provided a spread of fruits, tea, and tea leaf salad.

We also had a chance to speak with the villagers. Their biggest problem (according to this group): access to credit. With labor rates increasing they need help to fund their businesses.

We visited a hardware store where our products are sold:

Here is the woman who runs the store (and one of the d.lights from Proximity Designs):

As for me, this past week I’ve been living in a pool house outside the city (in an area called North Dagon).

Looks nice, but the mosquitos are ferocious. I had to upgrade my mosquito net after I realized that the one I brought from the U.S. was way too small.

This is what happens when a piece of your skin touches the net:

The other downfall is that when the other Proximity person stayed there the commute was around 40 minutes. Now, the commute has been more than an hour. The traffic here is intense, and apparently the price of cars is dropping. Without traffic, the commute took 20 minutes. This week I will be moving to a hotel that is within ~3 minutes walking distance to the office.

Regarding city explorations, I was showed the closest thing to Whole Foods in Yangon. It’s called “Marketplace by City Mart”:

And I thought I wouldn’t be able to find familiar brands!

We ate a great Japanese place called Fuji that is at the grocery store:

This week I also attended a screening of a documentary at an art gallery (there is a big art culture here). The movie was about human trafficking of men onto Thai fishing boats. I could devote an entire post to this topic (and I might), but for now, here is a piece from the New York Times.

I also set up my Burmese bank account, which was great. It’s a USD account, but I am planning to set up a local Kyat account once their ATM card machine starts working again. Regardless, having the USD account let’s me receive a portion of my paycheck directly to my bank account here, and a portion of my paycheck directly to my Bank of America account in the US.

Finally, here is a little snack I tried the other day (one of the Burmese workers brought in a bag of these). The trick is to remove the wings (I was told to “remove the fly”). Basically just tasted like crunchy oil. I was pretty fine with the whole thing (I’ve previously eaten a worm and a scorpion) until after I ate it and the guy broke open one of the bodies and showed me all the eggs inside. I kept telling myself that it isn’t all that different from the eggs in a lobster, or fish eggs.

That’s all for today. I had my first Burmese tutor session today, which was great, and I’m hoping to learn more of the language so that I can speak more fluidly with the people here.

So internet for the last week has been limited to the office, during which time I’ve been busy so haven’t had time to post anything. However, given that today is Saturday, I have some time to catch up.

First things first, I had some content from Pakokku that I didn’t get to share. I am going to post that first and then I will move on to the newer stuff.

We spent a lot of time on motorbikes. Here is a picture:

And here is a video (the password is “Myanmar”). You can see the progression of how the road degrades/narrows the farther out you get.

[music credit: Zero 7 – When It Falls]

I’ve never seen such an unusual sight in the sky. I think the light was streaming through the water vapor creating sort of a rainbow pool in the sky:

Here is a bridge that we saw:

And here is pagoda by the bridge:

I have officially returned form my trip to the Dry Zone in central Myanmar. The region was called Pokokku. This was an absolutely incredible experience. I have never been so far off grid. One of the villages was over 2 hours (one way) via motorbike (I rode on the back).

Some members of our crew:

Countryside (a more green area of the Dry Zone):

Thar Bone Village (~1.5 hours NE of Pokokku via motorbike):

 

The goal of our trip was to speak with villagers about rural electricity and better understand their electricity needs/desires.

Here’s someone who was the leader of a village we visited:

 

There is actually surprisingly high penetration of cheap Chinese solar panels in rural areas:

 

Here is one of the d.light solar-powered lights that we sell (those sticks are incense that the family makes):

 

Here I am with a group of villagers in one of their houses. There was quite a group — all very nice. Some quite surprised to see me there. I was told that I was the first foreigner to ask questions to the villagers directly:

 

This was another person we spoke with, and an ad hoc townhall-style gathering that formed around our interview:

Some of the people here harvest palm sugar. These are probably the freshest palm sugar treats I will ever eat in my life:

I was blessed to have had the opportunity to travel to these villages and meet the people there. In the moment I was focused in on the task at hand, but reflecting back it is almost surreal that I had traveled to these areas and met the people there.

[FYI: See “Housing” page under “Info for Visitors” section for more images]

So it’s been a while since I’ve talked about housing. Some of you have probably wondered what my plan are on that front, and others have asked for help navigating the housing market. Having just gone through the process, I can share some thoughts (please keep in mind that this is just a few data points from my experience and should be used as just one reference point).

Units: Mostly two-bedrooms or larger. Be prepared to find limited supply of one-bedrooms or studio apartments. I only saw one (on Yaw Min Gyi), and it was a pretty beat-up sublet.

Timeframe and Payment: One year is standard. Six months is a stretch and limits your options. Full-term payments are required on day one (there aren’t credit checks). That means you need to have thousands of dollars in Kyat (Burmese currency) on you at the point of transaction.

Seeing bricks of cash in transactions is not uncommon in Yangon (note: this picture is not from an apartment transaction, and I’m not sure exactly how much money this is, but the bills are probably 1,000 kyat each, or about $1):

Pricing Trend: Skyrocketing. Demand is massive, particularly in Bahan/Yankin from what I’ve seen. I’ve heard prices are going up substantially.

Popular Areas & Prices: Expat central is a street called Yaw Min Gyi. It’s just above the downtown area. This is where chic cafes, restaurants, and shops have been popping up. It’s a pretty small street with a lot of traffic (apparently it’s dead at night though). There is a lot of construction happening here with new apartment buildings and offices going up.

Price Point: I only looked at one sublet that was going for $750/month short-term lease (monthly). Fifth floor of a walkup with Betel Nut stains (think chewing tobacco spit) and trash thrown in the corners of the stairwell. The apartment was about the size of a conventional studio apartment in the U.S., but a partition was put up to create a makeshift bedroom in the middle (walls didn’t go all the way to the ceiling). Almost no furniture, no tight seal around the door (I think tape was used at the bottom), and a bed-bug net around the mattress which was right on the ground. Street noise was clearly audible.

Nearby I saw a place for around $800/month (6 month, furnished, two bedroom, one bathroom) that was right in the heart of a very local neighborhood. Not terrible, but an older place with a train running near the back (I’ve been told the trains may run through the night here).

Bahan/Yankin is another popular area. This is more of a local experience. Inya Lake is close, which offers nice strolls along the water. There is also a lot of construction happening here, with a huge new commercial complex underway called New Yangon.

Price Point: Newly renovated 2 bedroom units in an apartment complex with a gate is around $1,000 for a year and $1,200 for 6 months (furnished). I believe the complex is called Shwe Ohn Pin. We’re not talking high-end complex here, but a nice, relatively clean building. (note: I’ve been told that Burmese don’t like stairs, so the higher the floor, the lower the cost)

There’s another area where apparently many of the employees of foreign multinationals stay (I forgot the name), but I didn’t look there. I’ve heard units in a serviced, gated, elevator building can go for $3,000-$5,000 per month.

Brokers/Resources: I used two brokers, which were both very helpful. Be prepared to pay one month’s rent for the broker fee.

1. David Ney with York Road Realty. Western guy with Burmese partners. It’s a family business (plus him).
2. Sabe, who is Burmese and speaks little English. Super nice but you’ll need someone to help translate. Feel free to reach out to me if you’d like more info.

The Google Group “Yangon Expat Connection” (YEC) has an active member community, many of whom post sublet availability and roommate requests.

Short-Term Options: Besides sublet’s that come up on YEC, I also looked into the hotel scene. Due to massive demand, the hotels I checked out near Inya Lake weren’t offering long-stay discounts, and the rooms still ranged from around $50-$75 per night. One appeared to have rooms in the $30/night range, but here’s the beginning of the first review I saw on TripAdvisor (reviewed last week): “Very old, very dirty and very disgusting. Just walking into this place made me feel like I had crawled through a dozen pig sty’s and then through a dozen sewage works.”

I found a new hotel called York Residence (via Airbnb) in Yaw Min Gyi for around $35 per night. New rooms, flat screen TV, western bathrooms, just opened a few weeks ago. How could it be at $35 when another place down the street was apparently at $70? Well, I come to find out it is a stone’s throw from a massive construction project (I’ve seen work continue at night here).

Summary: Unless you are prepared to pay more and move into something like one of the Shwe Ohn Pin cookie-cutter units, there doesn’t seem to be a standard situation for housing in Yangon. There’s usually some tradeoff between location, cleanliness, noise, size, and price.

As for me, I’ll be moving in with a friend/colleague who lives close to the office in Yankin. His current roommate doesn’t move out until mid November, so I’m staying in a short-term place before then. Turns out the short-term place is with one of Sabe’s relatives, and I’ll be staying at his pool house outside the city in North Dagon (I know, it’s quirky, but another one of the Proximity people stayed there in the past). More info on this to come, but it looks clean and quiet, is affordable, and provides access to a pool! (it’s just far from the city).

Well, I had a good run. I made it just over a week, but it was bound to happen. Stomach problems.

Let me first say that it isn’t that bad. A day of general nausea and a few extra trips to the bathroom, but after day 2 I wish I could say that I was back to 100%.

With no food safety regulation here (as I’ve been told), every time you eat out it’s a roll of the dice. Everyone seems to have a story.

• One person said that having stomach problems is a once every month or two occasion.
• Another person said she was bedridden on her second day in the country.
• Another person said that she had a bout of general queasiness that didn’t go away for about a month.
• Another person said he had a full-blown parasite, and it wasn’t something rare.
• One of the people currently hosting me was out of the office for a few days last week due to stomach problems.

With that said, I had been taking precautions.

1. Only eat at restaurants where others have already eaten and said is ok.
2. Only drink water that you have seen come from an unopened bottle.
3. Don’t drink anything that has ice in it.
4. Don’t eat raw vegetables.
5. Don’t eat street food.
6. Don’t eat anything that looks like it has sat out for a while.
7. Personal note: Try to avoid anything too spicy.

Now, to be fair, I have broken some of these rules since coming here, but I haven’t felt too bad about them in the past. But Monday night I blatantly broke two rules that both made me feel uneasy at that point in time.

I went to a Japanese restaurant that I hadn’t spoken to anyone else before who had tried (later finding out that someone else had stomach problems after eating there), and I drank water that I didn’t see come from a bottle. Keep in mind that this is a mid-range restaurant with a glass facade, nice decor, and a full restaurant (we had to wait for a table).

Just as everyone has a horror story, everyone has a remedy. These seem to fall into three categories.

1. Probiotics such as Bioflor to boost your stomach with good bacteria.
2. Medication such as Pepto-Bismol for symptom relief.
3. Anti-bacterials such as Azithromycin to wipe out everything, good and bad, in your stomach.

I’ve taken the Probiotics so far (the natural route), which will hopefully do the trick!

The trifecta:

I’m back to work, and it is fantastic. Part of the first day was actually at an Irrigation Product kick-off meeting, where all the Irrigation Product sales people from around the country came in to touch base.

How do you carry a wallet and a cellphone when you are wearing a longyi? This is how:

I’ve also spent time touching base with my work partner Su Mon, which has been fantastic. We’ve been working on mapping out the strategy for restructuring/launching the Energy business.

The office environment has been great. It feels like a start-up with everyone sitting together on the same floor and without cubicles or major obstructions to the flow.

This Thursday night I will be taking an overnight bus to Pokokku farther north in Myanmar (I think it’s about an 8 hour drive). I will be visiting towns and villagers there to better understand our customers / future customers (I plan to come back Saturday night / Sunday morning). I’m very excited.

Here’s a map:

That’s all for today. I’ll try to post another update soon, although it may not be until I am back in town after the trip.

After many failed attempts at trying to understand the telecommunications market here, I think I have finally figured it out. Here’s the rundown:

There are currently two operators:

• MPT (the government network): These cards weren’t available to foreigners but could be acquired secondhand for upwards of $2,000. They were at around $100 or $200 about four months ago. I bought mine for $25 (apparently my phone number indicates that the person who sold it to me waited in the official government distribution line and got it for $1.50). This card has fantastic voice service. Internet is not great, and the internet connection runs off of minutes, not data, so it turns out to be very expensive (you also need to maintain at least a 10,000 kyat balance or internet won’t work).

• Ooredoo (the first private telecomm provider): Instead of paying the late fee by delaying their launch, they went ahead and offered their SIM cards in August (I believe). Connection is terrible. However, internet runs on data, and when available is actually pretty good.

Because of this setup, I need to juggle two SIM cards, which is an interesting experience, and makes me appreciate connectivity in the U.S. Apparently another company, Telenor, is going to launch soon. People are are hoping that it solves the connection issues and means not having to juggle SIMs.

So after managing this, I went to a Catholic service at a nearby church called St. Augustine. The Mass was in English, which was great.

Apparently there is another church called St. Mary’s which is larger, so I will probably check that out next weekend. I didn’t see anything in the weekly bulletin about a young adults group, which I had been hoping for (although helping to start one could be an option).

After church I checked out the Yangon Sailing Club. The good news is that it exists. The bad news is that it seems more like an “old boys club” than a sporting facility. To sail on the weekends (and apparently certain week days) you need to be a club member, and to be a club member you need to have three people in the club sign for you. There are apparently free events on Friday evenings, which I guess is where you meet people to network your way in. To be honest, I’d like to skip the pomp and circumstance and just get out on the water.

After this I went to my favorite Burmese restaurant for lunch and then went to the nearby shopping mall called Yankin Centre.

I wouldn’t compare it to developed world standards, but it has a grocery stores, number shops, and what appears to be a department store. Not bad.

After resting in the afternoon I went out to dinner with a friend of a friend who showed me Junction Square. Now this blew me away. I was shocked to see such a level of development in Yangon. Apparently it opened about four years ago. This is a mall that I WOULD compare to the developed world.

It wasn’t just the infrastructure that surprised me but also the people. Most of the people I have seen so far have worn traditional garb such as the longyi wrap (pronounced “lawn-gee”) and traditional face protectant thanaka (pronounced “tah-nuh-kah”). Here people wore western clothes and make-up. It was quite a difference.

Tomorrow is my first day of work. I’m very excited. I am hoping to stay consistent with the blog posts, but bear with me if they get more infrequent.

Today after checking out a sublet option on the foreigner-populated street called Yaw Min Gyi, I went inside the Shangri-La Hotel (still referred to as locally by it’s old name: Traders). Wow, this place is like a foreigner oasis in the city.

After checking my back through a screening device and walking through a metal detector, I was faced by the foyer:

From there, I went straight to the bathrooms, labeled outside with a  sign saying “Public Bathrooms”. Nicest public bathrooms I have ever seen in my life:

After that I walked down a corridor to C B Bank to withdraw some money:

Traders is known for having the fastest internet in town, so I ordered I sandwich and posted up in the cafe (receiving my complimentary wi-fi code — although unfortunately internet gave out after about 20 minutes — we were told it was “the government,” but it was unclear what that meant):

After leaving Traders, I tried to stop by a cell phone store in order to get internet working on my phone. I needed to find out where the Yangon Heritage Trust was located for the walking tour I was going to go on with a colleague.

After purchasing the top-up card, the “Channel Manager” spent probably about 20 minutes trying to activate the card. Unfortunately the system was down, so I was out of luck.

After going inadvertently into the Port Authority, the Myanmar Agricultural Bank, and a library, I finally found the tour site, where I would be embarking on a walking tour of historic Yangon.

This is by the river:

We had a great tour guide.

A lot of interesting old architecture from the Colonial Era / British rule. Some of it has been renovated and some has not.

We were told that this is traditional Burmese architecture:

 

Many more examples of the new and old of the cities coming together. Here is one example:

I was blown away by the electrical in one of the old buildings we were brought into. The building contained an art gallery and a property surveying government office.

I’ve seen a number of these locations since I’ve been here. Apparently this is a very popular local doughnut company (apparently no connection to Dunkin’ Donuts).

I’ll finish off the post with a map to help orient you. Hopefully it helps.